The two beadles approach Joan. Each takes her by an arm; they lead her out of the chapel and deliver her to a platoon of English soldiers, who conduct her back to her dungeon.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TEMPTATION.
Livid, haggard, broken with exhaustion after her final interrogatory, Joan Darc reclines upon the straw of her cell; her male attire is still more dilapidated than when she first appeared before her judges. She is chained by the waist and feet as before. She has wound some rags around the heavy iron rings at her ankles. Their pressure made her flesh sore, and in spots broke it to the quick, creating painful wounds. Besides, one of the wounds received in battle opened anew and added to her physical suffering. But the look of profound distress upon the martial maid's face proceeds from other than these causes. One of the jailers, noticing that the prisoner barely touched the gross food furnished to her, had said that in order to restore her appetite Bishop Cauchon was to send her a dish prepared in his own palace. The following day she partook of a fish that the prelate sent her. Almost immediately after she was seized with convulsive retchings and had fallen into a swoon. The jailers thought she was upon the point of death and ran for a physician. The latter immediately discovered the symptoms of poison and succeeded in recalling her to life, but not to health. Since then the prisoner remained in a languishing state, downcast and weak.
Joan Darc is not alone in her cell. Canon Loyseleur is seated on a stool near the kind of coffin filled with straw on which she lies. Believing herself in danger of death, she has just confessed to Loyseleur, a solemnity at which she opened her soul to him and narrated her whole life. So far from remotely suspecting the infamous treason of the prelate, she drew vague hopes and religious consolation from the tokens of kindness which he seemed to bestow upon her. The canon had frequently visited the prisoner since their first interview. He obtained, said he, with much difficulty permission to leave his cell in order to offer her spiritual consolation. She reported to him what happened at her first and subsequent interrogatories. The canon congratulated her upon having asserted the reality of her apparitions and revelations, and warned her against another snare, a more dangerous one that he claimed to perceive. One of the judges having asked her which of the then two Popes should be obeyed, he advised her that, if further pressed for an answer thereon, and asked whether she would accept absolutely and blindly the opinion of her judges, she should refuse and appeal from them to God alone. A stranger to theological subtleties, Joan Darc placed confidence in Loyseleur's words. The snare thereby spread by the Bishop and his accomplice was extremely adroit.
On this day the canon had gone to Joan's cell under the pretext of fortifying her in her good resolutions, and after having taken Joan's general confession, and bestowed paternal and consoling words upon her, he went to the wicket to call John to let him out. The jailer quickly appeared, grumbled a few words in affected anger, opened the door, hurled the canon out with a great display of force and locked the door after him. Joan was left alone.
In making her general confession to the canon, in narrating to him her whole, life, Joan had yielded not merely to a religious habit, but also to the desire of once more evoking the memories of her whole past existence, and of scrupulously interrogating herself upon all her actions. The threatening present induced the desire. She wished to ascertain with inexorable severity towards herself whether any of her actions were blameworthy. The mere thought of the threatened punishment, to be burned alive, prostrated her mind. The reasons for her terror were various. First of all she shrank before the shame of being publicly dragged to death like a criminal; the atrocious torment of feeling the flames devouring her flesh threw her into further agonies; finally the chaste girl was distracted by the fear of being taken half naked to the pyre. She had questioned the canon several times upon that head, and had learned from him that "heretics, male and female, are taken to death without any other clothing than a shirt, and on their heads a large pasteboard mitre inscribed with the heretic's special crimes." At the thought of appearing in public in an almost nude condition the maid's dignity and modesty revolted. The despair that such thoughts threw her into made her ready to submit to any declaration that her judges might demand of her, if it only could save her from such ignominy. In vain did her voices whisper to her: "Submit bravely to your martyrdom, not the shadow of a wrongful act stains the luster of your life. Yield not to vain shame, the shamefulness of it must fall upon your murderers. Face without a blush the looks of men—glory covers you with a celestial aureola—be strong of heart!"
In these moments of despair, the heroine became again the timid young girl whose intense modesty had caused her even to renounce the sacred joys of wifehood, and who had taken the vow of virginity to her saints. Thus, despite the encouragement of her voices, her strength failed her, especially at the thought of being led to the pyre in a mere shirt. After her recent spell of sickness that, snapping the springs of her energetic and tender nature, slowly undermined her will power, Joan fell with increasing frequency under the dominion of weakness. At intervals her wonted courage and resoluteness resumed the ascendancy. Her voices said to her: "Do not yield to those false priests, who pretend to judge you and are but your butchers. Uphold truth bravely! Pride yourself in having saved France with the aid of heaven. Defy death! They may burn your body, but your fame will live imperishable as your immortal soul, that will radiantly rejoin its Creator! Noble victim of priests' hypocrisy and of the wickedness of man, quit this sad world and enter paradise!"
Such were, after her last interrogatory and the suffering produced by her illness, the spells of resoluteness and faint-heartedness that wrestled with each other and alternately exalted and again cast the heroine down. On this day, however, Joan Darc feels herself so exhausted that she feels certain she will speedily expire in her cell and escape the ordeal of the pyre. Suddenly the noise of approaching steps is heard outside and she recognizes the voice of the Bishop saying to the jailers:
"Open to us the door of Joan's prison; open it to the justice of God!"
The door is opened, and the prelate appears, accompanied by seven of the ecclesiastical judges—William Boucher, Jacob of Tours, Maurice of Quesnay, Nicolas Midi, William Adelin, Gerard Feuillet, and Haiton—and the inquisitor John Lemaitre.