For months this unbelievable torment went on, until finally, lost in the maze they had prepared for her, worn by confinement and incessant mental and physical strain, she broke under the threat of burning,—a child's horror of a fate she had persuaded herself God would not permit. Her Voices had deceived her. She signed the deed of abjuration they had prepared for her: only to find it did not mean what she thought.
Back in her prison, her courage and her confidence reasserted themselves and she recanted, "All that I said I uttered through fear of fire, and I recanted nothing that was not contrary to the truth. I had liefer do my penance once and for all, to wit by dying, than endure further anguish in prison. Whatsoever abjuration I have been forced to make, I never did anything against God and religion. I did not understand what was in the deed of abjuration, wherefore I did not mean to abjure anything unless it were Our Lord's will."
It was this that caught her, such is the dexterity of the human intellect bent on proving that which is good to be evil. Joan had been pronounced a heretic, she had confessed to being one, so they declared: now she recanted. The Holy Church could have nothing to do with so monstrous a creature. At last the learned doctors had unimpeachable authority for turning her over to the English, who now had the undeniable right of burning her alive.
They lost no time. It was on a Tuesday (May 29) that she was declared a relapsed heretic. It was on the morning of the following day that she died by fire. A rough wooden cross, fashioned, at her request, by a pitying English soldier, was on her breast, the words "Jesus, Jesus" on her lips. On her head was a great fool's cap on which was written Hérétique, relapse, apostate, idolâtre.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
| JEANNE D'ARC—HER LIFE AND DEATH
By Mrs. M. O. Oliphant THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC By D. W. Bartlett JOAN OF ARC (Illustrations in color) By L. M. Boutet de Monvel THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC FOR BOYS AND GIRLS By K. E. Carpenter JOAN OF ARC By Thomas De Quincey MAID OF FRANCE By Andrew Lang THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC By Andrew Lang |
JOAN OF ARC
(Heroines that Every Child Should Know series)
Edited by H. W. Mabie JEANNE D'ARC By M. R. Bangs JOAN OF ARC By F. C. Lowell JOAN OF ARC Translated from the French of Jules Michelet JEANNE D'ARC By M. M. Maxwell-Scott PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC By S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain) |
⁂ Information concerning the above books and articles may be had on application to the Editor of The Mentor.