“Do you believe that your Voices are St. Margaret and St. Catherine?”
“Yes, I do believe it,” she cried gladly. “And I believe that they come from God. I would rather do penance once for all; that is to say, in dying, than endure any longer the misery of a prison. I have done nothing against God and the faith, in spite of all they have made me revoke. What was in the schedule of abjuration I did not understand. I did not intend to revoke anything except according to our Lord’s pleasure. If the judges will have me do so, I will resume woman’s dress; for the rest, I can do no more.”
It was enough. She had relapsed, and the will of her enemies could now be accomplished. The next day Cauchon assembled his assessors in the chapel of his house, the palace of the Archbishop of Rouen. They all agreed that Jeanne must be handed over to the secular arm of the Church, praying that it “might deal gently with her.” If she showed signs of sincere penitence, she was to be allowed to receive the sacrament of confession so long denied to her. Then the Maid was cited to appear the next morning at eight o’clock in the Old Market Place, “in order that she may be declared relapsed, excommunicate, and heretic, and that it may be done to her as is customary in such cases.”
Very early on Wednesday morning, May the thirtieth, Brother Martin Ladvenu went to the cell to tell the Maid of her approaching death, and “to lead her to true contrition and repentance, and also to hear her confession.”
Terrified and trembling, Jeanne received the announcement with bitter weeping; her heart failing before the imminence 378 of the stake. She was but a girl, and it was a terrible ordeal that lay before her. What wonder that she wept?
“Alas!” she cried, “will they treat me so horribly and cruelly, and must my body, which has never been corrupted, be burned to ashes to-day! Ah! I would far rather be beheaded seven times than burned. Had I been in the prison of the Church, to which I submitted, and been guarded by church-folk, and not by my enemies and adversaries, this would never have befallen me. Oh, I appeal before God, the great Judge, against these wrongs that they do me.”
In the midst of the girl’s outburst, Cauchon entered the cell. She turned upon him quickly.
“Bishop, I die through you.”
“Ah, Jeanne, be patient. You die because you have not kept your promise, but have returned to errors.”
“If you had put me in the Church’s prison, and given me women for keepers, this would not have happened. For this I summon you before God.”