The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

by Eugène Sue

Canon Loyseleur—"Simpliciter et de plano, absque advocatorum ac judiciorum strepitu et figura—The text is formal."

Bishop Cauchon—"Whence it follows that myself and the inquisitor John Lemaitre will constitute a sufficient authority to apply to Joan the law against heretics. But in order to do that she must give us proofs of her heresy. There is where we run up against a grave difficulty, which it will be for you to remove."

Canon Loyseleur—"How, monseigneur? What must I do?"

Bishop Cauchon—"However devoted to me the judges of the tribunal may be, they will require some proofs in order to condemn Joan and protect the dignity of the Church. Now, then, the she-devil has a reputation for craftiness. I have read her answers to the interrogatories at Poitiers. She more than once astounded and embarrassed the judges by her quick wit or by the loftiness of her answers. It must not go at Rouen as it did at Poitiers. This is the summary course that I would stamp upon the process, to the end that Joan may not escape. To obtain from herself condemnatory admissions, and pronounce her guilty upon them. And then after her sentence to find means of causing her to make a public recantation and to admit her to penitence."

Canon Loyseleur (stupefied)—"But if she renounces her errors, then she is not condemned, monseigneur! If she is admitted to penitence, then she can not be burned!"

Bishop Cauchon—"Patience, listen. If Joan abjures her errors, she is admitted to penitence. We shall have given a proof of our gentleness and indulgence. At any rate the fools will think so."

Canon Loyseleur—"If Joan escapes the fagot your end is not reached."

Bishop Cauchon—"For one day. Immediately after she must be led by some skilful method to relapse into her previous heretical conduct. We may even get her to maintain that her abjuration was the result of a snare, a surprise. We can thus lead her to persevere in her damnable errors. The criminal relapse then gives us the right to condemn the penitent as 'relapsed.' We abandon her to the secular arm, and by it she is delivered to the executioner. Thus, the appearances of ecclesiastical charity being saved, the full burden will fall upon Joan herself."

Canon Loyseleur—"The proposal is excellent. But how to carry it out?"

Bishop Cauchon—"I shall come to that presently. Let us first consider what flagrant proofs of heresy we must find in Joan's answers. One example will explain my thoughts to you. The girl pretends to have seen saints and angels and to have heard supernatural voices. Now, then, in the eye of the Church and its holy canons Joan has not the sufficient and recognized, quality to converse and hold commerce with the blessed beings of paradise. In the eye of the canon law, the visions and apparitions of the said Joan, so far from proceeding from God, and emanating from celestial beings—"