The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

by Eugène Sue

Canon Loyseleur—"It is the right of the Church, our holy mother."

Bishop Cauchon—"And she will exercise the right. Then, as soon as the Maid shall be delivered to the executioner as a witch, the terror of the English soldiers will vanish, they will pick up courage, and the power of the English rule in Gaul, now tottering to its fall, will be reaffirmed. The Sire of La Tremouille continues to serve us in the hope of obtaining Poitou for his domain; the English army will reconquer all that it has recently lost, and will invade the remaining provinces; completely dispossessed and although consecrated at Rheims, Charles VII will go to live in London, like the good King John II, his great grandfather did; he will forget all about his kingdom of France; we will have nothing more to fear; and the archepiscopal see of Rouen will be mine. The question being thus clearly understood, the point now is, to have Joan roasted, in other words to have her convicted of heresy."

Canon Loyseleur—"It all depends upon that, monseigneur. We shall conduct the matter according to your wishes."

Bishop Cauchon—"Yes, all, absolutely everything, depends upon that. Now, let us look into the chances of the process that we are to institute against her. The first obstacle is this: A direct appeal of Charles VII to the Pope. That prince may possibly request the Holy Father to use his omnipotent influence against the Inquisition's pursuing its trial of the Maid for heresy. It is to her that Charles owes his crown. Before the consecration at Rheims he was quasi uncrowned. The most common gratitude, the least human regard would dictate the measure to him, even if he were certain of failing. But we know what the gratitude of kings amounts to."

Canon Loyseleur—"I received a formal assurance at my interview with the emissary of the Sire of La Tremouille and the Bishop of Chartres that such an application on the part of Charles VII will not be made. The process of heresy will be allowed to take its course peacefully. Besides, the Bishop of Chartres is commissioned to notify the notables of Rheims of the capture of the Maid, and to foreshadow the fate that awaits her. He expressed himself in the following terms which his emissary transmitted to me and which I wrote down. They are these: (he reads) 'The Bishop of Chartres hereby notifies the people of Rheims that the Maid has been captured before Compiegne, as a result of her disinclination to listen to any counsel, and wishing to act only at her own pleasure.' The Bishop adds: 'As to the rumor that is rife that the English will put the Maid to death, God has so willed it because she set herself up in pride, wore male attire, and did not obey the orders of God.'[111] So you see, monseigneur, after such a letter, written by a bishop, a member of the royal council, we may rest assured that Charles VII will neither directly nor indirectly attempt anything with the Holy Father in the matter of the process. She is dropped and renounced by the King."

Bishop Cauchon—"Furthermore, we have the certainty that Charles VII and his council are secretly as desirous as ourselves of having Joan burned. Accordingly, they will not intervene with the secular, seeing that they will not do so with the clerical, power. For the last six months the Maid has been dragged from prison to prison, and have Charles VII or his council made a shadow of a move with the King of England in favor of the prisoner? Could he not demand her either under bail or in exchange for English prisoners? Idle attempts, perhaps; but they would at least have been a sign of that self-respect that ingrates always feel it necessary to display."

Canon Loyseleur—"Nevertheless, monseigneur, allow me to put you a question. Joan was taken on May 24 of last year, 1430. Since then she has been a prisoner. Why this delay in starting the process? Why not taken, sentenced and executed?"

Bishop Cauchon—"I shall answer your question, and you will see that I was not to blame. The news of Joan's capture reached us on the morning of May 25. The very next day, the registrar of Paris, acting under my orders, addressed in the name and under the seal of the Inquisitor of France a summons to Monseigneur the Duke of Burgundy, who is the suzerain of John of Luxembourg, one of whose equerries was the captor of the Maid. The summons was to the effect that the said Joan be surrendered to the jurisdiction of the said Inquisitor, to the end that she may answer, in the words of the good formula 'to the good council, favor and aid of the good doctors and masters of the University of Paris.'"

Canon Loyseleur—"But, monseigneur, four or five months passed before the summons of the Inquisitor received an answer. The preliminaries of the process might have been shortened, and the Maid delivered to the executioner before this."

Bishop Cauchon—"Do you not know that the decisions of the University of Paris—an ecclesiastical body, that, however, has a hand in politics—have a powerful influence not only upon the majority of the higher clergy which upholds the English rule, but also upon the bishops who have remained faithful to the royalist party? Now, then, did not the latter, yielding to popular clamor, declare through the medium of the clerics gathered at Poitiers two years ago for the purpose of interrogating Joan, that 'she is neither a heretic nor a witch, and Charles VII may without endangering his salvation, avail himself of the aid that she brought him'? Very well, then. That opinion found partisans, even in the bosom of the University of Paris, which is an enlightened body and little inclined to believe in witches. The University was at first recalcitrant to my project of itself undertaking the process of heresy against Joan. It took me a long time, many negotiations and not a little money, to convince the objectors that from a political point of view it was of the highest importance to seem to believe in the witchery of Joan, and thus to deliver her to the flames, without which her influence would continue to assert itself, despite her captivity, and that such an influence, disastrous to the English, beneficent to the French, might, as it came very near doing, make Charles VII master of Paris. What would then happen? The University would be shorn of its power, its members would be proscribed and stripped of their privileges. In order to escape such a danger, it was imperative to break the instrument that threatened it, in other words, have Joan burned as a witch. (Laughing) It is a fact, we must always go back to the fagot. The pyre is our supreme argument."