Hearing these words, the people around her, even the English soldiers, wept for pity. It is recorded that as the tumbril jolted its way over the stones, a man in priest's dress was seen pressing through the crowd, trying desperately to force a way to the cart. It was Loiseleur, the spy, come in an agony of repentance, to fling himself before the saint he had helped to condemn and implore her pardon. The soldiers repulsed him brutally; would have slain him but for Warwick's intervention. The crowd closed over him.
There were three scaffolds in Rouen Old Market that morning of May. On one of them the Maid was set to hear her last sermon preached by Nicholas Midi, of Rouen and Paris; on another sat judges and spectators, a goodly company; Cardinal Beaufort, Warwick, the "Father of Courtesy," Cauchon and all his priestly bloodhounds, who yet could not see blood shed.
The third scaffold was a heap of plaster, piled high with fagots, from which rose the stake. It bore the legend: "Jeanne, self-styled the Maid, liar, mischief-maker, abuser of the people, diviner, superstitious, blasphemer of God, presumptuous, false to the faith of Christ, boaster, idolater, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic, heretic."
Nicholas Midi was long in speaking, and the English waxed impatient. Dinner time was near.
"How now, priest? Are you going to make us dine here?" some of them cried.
Cauchon read the sentence.
"Then she invoked the blessed Trinity, the glorious Virgin Mary, and all the blessed saints of Paradise. She begged right humbly also the forgiveness of all sorts and conditions of men, both of her own party and of her enemies; asking for their prayers, forgiving them the evil that they had done her."[71]
The Bailiff of Rouen waved his hand, saying "Away with her."
Quietly, patiently, the Maid climbed the third scaffold. She was well used to climbing; witness the walls of Les Tourelles, of Jargeau and Compiègne. Beside her climbed her confessor, Martin Ladvenu, and some say another Dominican, Isambart de la Pierre, who had been kind to her throughout. She begged for a cross; an English soldier hastily bound two sticks together cross-fashion and handed her the emblem. She kissed it devoutly, and thrust it in her bosom. Then, at her urgent prayer, they brought a crucifix from a church hard by; this she long embraced, holding it while they chained her to the stake.
When the flames began to mount, she bade the friar leave her, but begged him to hold aloft the crucifix, that her eyes might rest on it to the last. This man testified that from the heart of the fire, she called steadfastly on her Saints, Catherine, Margaret, Michael, as if they were once more about her as in the garden of Domrémy.