384

CHAPTER XXVIII

At Domremy

“To our Holy Father, the Pope, to whom, and to God
first, I appeal.”
Jeanne’s own words in the Square of St. Ouen.

There were many signs and wonders told of the execution after Jeanne’s death. It was said that a dove was seen to fly upward toward Heaven at the moment that her spirit took its flight; that the executioner later in the day went weeping to Friar Isambard, confessing that he was lost, for he had burnt a saint; that an English soldier who had sworn to light a faggot on the pyre had fallen in a swoon as he threw the burning brand; that her heart, that great heart that beat only for France, was not consumed by the flame: these and many other things were told. The truth of the matter was that even her enemies were not easy in their minds about her death. There was more than a suspicion that what she had said might be true: that she was sent from God.

The news of her death swept over France, bringing grief and consternation to those who loved her, and satisfaction to those that feared.

385

In the afternoon of a gracious day in June, some two weeks after the tragedy at Rouen, two young women might have been seen coming through the forest down the hill path beyond Greux from the Chapel of Our Lady of Bermont. It was Saturday, the Holy Virgin’s day, and the two had been to make their orisons at the shrine. But though the Valley of Colours had never seemed so lovely, so flowery, so fragrant as it did on this golden afternoon, a young matron and her maiden companion, the two, walked in silence and with lagging steps through the tangle of vines and grasses that grew along the pathway.

“It is more than two years since Jeanne went away,” spoke the younger one suddenly, voicing the name that was in both their hearts. “Oh, Mengette, it grieves me to think of her shut up in a gloomy dungeon when she loved the fields so.”

“Yes, Hauviette. And how strange it is that Jeanne D’Arc, who was always so good and pious, is up before the Church charged with heresy. Jeanne a heretic? Pouf! The very idea of such a thing!” Mengette laughed scornfully, then caught her breath with a sob. “To think of it, when she loves the Church so. It’s my belief that those who try her are the heretics.”