And now must be recorded the black and shameful fact that Charles made no effort to ransom Jeanne or do anything to relieve her misfortune, as might well have been possible, for the French held important English prisoners. And not content with leaving her to die, he proceeded to slight the name of the girl that had won him his throne. For in official accounts of how he had been crowned he made no reference to Jeanne at all. Orleans was won "by the grace of God." His enemies were routed "by the will of Providence." Of Jeanne and her efforts in his behalf he said not one single word.
Jeanne was sent from castle to castle and confined in one prison after another. On one occasion she was jailed in a high tower and she tried to escape by leaping from a window more than sixty feet above the ground, only to be picked up insensible and bleeding as she lay at the foot of the castle wall.
Then her worst enemy appeared before her. This was Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais. He persuaded the English to buy her from her captors so that they might try her and punish her, and the sum of six thousand francs was paid by them as blood money.
Jeanne was then taken to the town of Rouen and imprisoned in a grim and ancient castle, which was already centuries old. Not content with lodging her in a damp cell, the English placed fetters on her leg and chained her to a great log so that she must needs drag the chain about whenever she moved. And instead of allowing her women to be her attendants, her only jailers were rough men at arms, who were constantly with her.
To try this simple girl came the greatest dignitaries of the realm—men aged in experience and the law, grave doctors and wise bishops, all with the single purpose of accomplishing her death. With every advantage on their side they did not even allow a counsel for their prisoner, and when they saw that in spite of this she might be able skilfully to defend herself, they had her answers set aside as being of no importance and having no bearing on the trial. And they were right, for nothing that Jeanne said could possibly affect an issue where the stake and the executioner were already decided upon. And when some of the spectators showed signs of pity for her youth and innocence they had the trial continued secretly in her cell.
They played with her as a cat plays with a mouse and tortured her in mind as well as in body. And under the guise of compassion they pretended to spare her life, only in the end to tell her that the stake had been made ready and that she must come at once to the market place to be burned.
On the thirtieth of May, 1431, Jeanne was taken from her cell by two priests and escorted by men at arms to the market place of Rouen, where three scaffolds had been prepared. On one sat the priests who had been her judges, on another Jeanne must stand and hear a sermon before she died, and on the third was a grim stake with fagots piled high for her burning, and at the top of the stake was nailed a placard that bore these words:
"Jeanne, who hath caused herself to be called the maid, a liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, a blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant, boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic and heretic."
Then, with the learned doctors and churchmen drinking in the words, a sermon was read for the benefit of her soul. After it was ended the Bishop of Beauvais read the sentence which concluded by abandoning her to the arm of the law, for the Church itself could not pronounce sentence of death, but must leave that to the civil magistrates. Neither could the clergymen behold the infliction of the sentence, and they all came down from their seats and left the market place. What followed was supposed to be too dreadful for them to see.
So Jeanne was burned, and even in her death there took place something approaching a miracle, for when the fire was extinguished her brave heart was found intact among the embers, and the frightened English threw it into the river.