Loyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done “such a good day’s work.”
But she was still dreamy, she hardly heard.
Then Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the excommunication and restored her to her beloved Church, with all the dear privileges of worship. Ah, she heard that! You could see it in the deep gratitude that rose in her face and transfigured it with joy.
But how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a tremor of pity in his voice, added these crushing words:
“And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more, she is sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of affliction and the water of anguish!”
Perpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that—such a thing had never been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other. Loyseleur had distinctly said and promised that “all would be well with her.” And the very last words spoken to her by Erard, on that very platform, when he was urging her to abjure, was a straight, unqualified promised—that if she would do it she should go free from captivity.
She stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she remembered, with such solacement as the thought could furnish, that by another clear promise made by Cauchon himself—she would at least be the Church’s captive, and have women about her in place of a brutal foreign soldiery. So she turned to the body of priests and said, with a sad resignation:
“Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave me no longer in the hands of the English”; and she gathered up her chains and prepared to move.
But alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon—and with them a mocking laugh:
“Take her to the prison whence she came!”