The rest of the story of La Pucelle is, alas! soon told. What she said to Charles, Duke of Lorraine, at the outset of her mission might well be said of her now that she was hors de combat: “La lutte sera vive, mais j’ai le plan précis pour triompher!” (The struggle will be fierce, but I have a plan of certain victory!). It was said that Jeanne was captured by some archers from Picardy, who crept unseen between the legs of her escort. By them handed over to John, Duke of Luxembourg, she was sold to the English. The Tour de la Pucelle still marks the spot. Not a hand in France was raised to rescue the holy maiden. Charles himself, who owed all to her, seems to have forgotten her very soon after his return to Loches and to the arms of his “belle des belles,” Agnes Sorel. René was fighting for his own in Lorraine and Bar, and could do nothing for his heroine. La Pucelle was taken from fortress to fortress, each prison being more fearsome than the last. She was subjected to insult and injury, treachery and outrage, and, deserted by everyone, she remained reliant only upon God. Her trial as an enemy and a sorceress was a mockery; even her own people turned against her; her straightforward answers and her superhuman fortitude baffled her judges. At last she was condemned and shut up in a cage of iron, her feet fettered with irons, and her body stripped almost to nakedness. Alas that God, whose devoted servant she was, should have destined her to this last stage of despair! Through all her bitter trials and sufferings she maintained an undaunted demeanour. Were her “Voices” hushed now that she prayed for death? When some English bigots approached to taunt her, she answered meekly: “Je sais bien que les Anglois me feront mourir” (I know perfectly well that the English will put me to death).
A year’s captivity and cruelty, harsh and revolting, found the spotless, unselfish, and pious “Maid of Orléans” in her twentieth year—alas! so young to die—a human wreck; but, mercifully, an end was put to her sufferings at Rouen on May 30, 1431. Burnt to death in the market-place,—calling upon Jesus, Mary, Michael, Catherine, and Margaret,—her fiendish murderers hardly allowed the fire to cool before they raked up her poor grey ashes, and then cast them with maledictions into the swirling Seine. So perished Jeanne d’Arc, the child of God, the deliverer of her country. Now her place is among the saints: she is St. Jeanne d’Arc.
It was said that her heart was found intact after the fire had burnt itself out, and that as one stooped to pick it up a white dove fluttered before his face!
Ill news travels apace. René de Bar et Lorraine heard of the tragedy at Rouen, and was broken-hearted. He dismissed his captains, his courtiers, and his minstrels, and shut himself up in his castle at Clermont, where he chided his soul with tears and fastings. His was the bitter cry: “Ma Royne blanche, Jeanne, est mort—helas! ma Royne est mort!”
The heart, too, of Charles, the King, reproached him before he died; he could never really have forgotten La Pucelle. A little girl was born to him and Queen Marie six months after Jeanne’s martyrdom; her name was “Jeanne,” as he said, “en reconnaissance et pour mes péchés.”
In the Register of Taxes the space against Domremy was left vacant until the great revolution, except for the entry: “Néant, à cause de la Pucelle.” Her parents’ cottage is still preserved, although the Bois Chènus is no more. The memory of Jeanne d’Arc will never die.