She was told that the Pope was too far away, and that the Ordinaries were judges each in his own diocese, and that it was necessary that she should confess that the clergy and officers of the Church had a right to determine in her case. Then the Bishop began to read her sentence. He had prepared two: one in case she recanted; the other, the death by fire. It was this latter that he now began to pronounce. And all around the maiden there broke forth a tumult of voices urging her to submit. Some among the crowd dared to call to her entreatingly:
“Submit, Jeanne, submit. Save yourself.”
Almost distracted, the girl folded her hands, and raised her eyes. “St. Michael, help,” she called pleadingly. Her Voices were speaking, but in the confusion she could not hear, but about her sounded those others: “Submit! Submit! Why will you burn?”
There is a limit to human endurance. Through months the girl had preserved a clear mind that had guided her through the tortuous intricacies of the snares that treacherous legality and perverted ingenuity could devise for her; she had been loyal, in despite of all perils, to her belief in her mission, to 372 her faith in her Voices, to her duty to her King: but now––the indomitable spirit broke under the strain. She could bear no more.
“I submit,” she cried in anguish. “I am willing to hold all that the Church ordains, all that you judges shall say and pronounce. I will obey your orders in everything. Since the men of the Church decide that my apparitions and revelations are neither sustainable nor credible, I do not wish to believe or to sustain them. I yield in everything to you, and to our Holy Mother Church.”
“Then sign,” cried a churchman, thrusting forward a paper. “Sign, and so abjure.”
The girl looked at him, bewildered and confused by the commotion about her.
“Abjure?” she said. “What is abjure?”
Massieu, who had been among those who conducted her thither, now began to explain. “Sign,” he said, “Sign.”
“Sign,” cried Erad, the preacher. “Sign, and you will be put in charge of the Church.”