The noblest hearts, the firmest minds of the middle ages appeared to lose all generosity and all justice when they found themselves confronted with an unhappy wretch, accused of sorcery. The brave Warwick concealed himself to hear what the prisoner said to the treacherous confessor who had been brought. She was conducted before the Council of Inquisition, presided over by the Bishop of Beauvais. Neither violence nor ill-will succeeded in agitating her: nothing disconcerted this poor country girl, who knew nothing but her prayers. "Are you in the grace of God?" she was asked suddenly. "It is a great thing," she replied, "to answer such a question." "Yes," said one of the inquisitors, "and the accused is not obliged to answer." "You would do better to hold your tongue," exclaimed the Bishop angrily. "If I am not," replied Joan, "may God receive me into it; and if I am, may God preserve me in it." "What virtue do you attribute to your banner?" asked the bishop. "None at all; I said, 'Enter boldly among the English,' and I entered myself." "Why, then, did you hold it beside the altar at Rheims?" "It had had all the trouble," said Joan, smiling, "it was quite right that it should witness the honour."
In vain was she interrogated upon her visions; she always replied that St. Catherine and St. Margaret visited her and encouraged her in her prison; it was by their advice that she refused to discard man's attire, which had been made a crime against her. She was urged to submit herself to the Church, but she did not understand what was asked of her, and seeing before her priests hostile to her cause and to her king, she implored that there might be among the judges some men of her party.
The sentence was pronounced: the Church rejected Joan as an impure member, and delivered her up to secular justice. The justice was the vengeance of the English. The unhappy prisoner was conducted to the public square, where two scaffolds were erected; Joan was placed upon one of these, the preacher who was to expound the sentence to the people was upon the other, the multitude were crowded together below.
As long as the Doctor of the Sorbonne dwelt upon her misdeeds and the deceptions by which she had deluded the poor people of France, Joan listened in silence; but when he exclaimed, "Charles, who proclaimest thyself her king and governor, thou hast adhered like a heretic as thou art to the words and acts of a woman defamed and without honour," the loyal heart of Joan was unable to contain its emotion. "Speak of me," she exclaimed, "but not of the king; he is a good Christian, and I dare say and swear under pain of death that he is the noblest among the Christians who love their faith and their Church." "Silence her," cried the Bishop of Beauvais.
They wished to make her sign her abjuration. "What is abjuration?" she said. "It is that your judges have judged well." She refused. "What I have done, I have done well to do," she repeated. At length she yielded. "I submit to the Universal Church," she said, "and since the clergy say that my visions are not credible I will no longer maintain them." "Sign or you will perish by the fire," said the preacher. She made a cross at the foot of the paper which was presented to her, and was taken back into her prison. Her submission pledged her to resume woman's clothing.
The English murmured, not understanding anything of the manœuvres of the bishop. "All goes ill, because Joan escapes," said the Earl of Warwick. The priests smiled. Two days after her abjuration, Joan, on awaking, found only in her chamber a man's dress: she resisted for a long time. "You know that I have promised not to wear it," she said; she was obliged to rise however. The jailors went and informed the Bishop. "She is taken!" said the Earl of Warwick. "You have fallen back into your illusions," said Cauchon to the prisoner; "you have heard your voices." "Yes," said Joan resolutely, "and they have told me that it was a great pity to have signed your abjuration in order to save my life. I only signed through fear of the fire. Give me a comfortable prison, and I will do what the Church may wish."
The stake awaited her. "Farewell," cried Cauchon to the Earl of Warwick, on going out of the prison. The poor child tore out her hair when she learnt the sentence passed upon her. "I had seven times rather that they should behead me," she repeated. She was being conducted to execution, when she perceived the Bishop of Beauvais. "Bishop, I die through you," she said. Eight hundred Englishmen accompanied the cart. She prayed aloud with so much fervour that the French wept on hearing her; several of the judges who had taken part in the prosecution, had not the strength to follow her to execution. The public square had been reached. "Ah! Rouen! Rouen!" she said, "is it here that I am to die?" The preacher had reproached her with her relapse; she listened to him with calmness, redoubling her prayers. The Bishop of Noyon descended from the scaffold, being unable to bear this spectacle; the Bishop of Winchester was weeping; she was embracing the parish cross which had been brought to her. The executioner seized her. Above the stake were written the words: "Heretic, relapser, apostate, idolater." Joan's new confessor, a good monk who did not betray her, had mounted upon the stake with her; he was still there when the fire was lighted. "Descend quickly," said Joan, "but stay near enough for me to see the cross. Ah! Rouen! Rouen! I greatly fear that you may suffer for my death." The flame enveloped her: she was still heard praying; at length a last cry, "Jesus!" and all was ended, The English themselves were touched. "It is a fine end," said the soldiers; "we are very happy to have seen her, for she was a good woman." "She has died a martyr, and for her true Lord," said the French. The executioner went and confessed on the same evening, fearing never to obtain the forgiveness of God. Cardinal Beaufort caused the ashes of the stake to be cast into the Seine fearing that they might be made into relics; and the King of England addressed to all the princes of Christendom, a letter recounting the proceedings, and how the victim herself had acknowledged that evil and lying spirits had deluded her. The process of rehabilitation, afterwards made at the court of Rome, at the request of Charles VII., the only token of remembrance which he gave of the unhappy Joan, established in its real light the historical truth; but justice had already been done by public opinion, "She was a marvellous girl, valiant in war," it was said in Flanders as well as in Burgundy and in France; "the English have wickedly caused her death, and through revenge." Peter Cauchon was never Archbishop of Rouen; he became Bishop of Lisieux, where he was interred in the wall of St. James's church, as though he did not feel himself worthy to repose in the sacred place.