Joan of Arc was a prisoner. The joy of the English was overwhelming—the despair of the French correspondingly great; and that despair gave place to anger when it was learned that William de Flavy, the man whom she had tried to defend, had betrayed her into the hands of the English because he was jealous of her. This man's wife slew him when she learned of his base act, and was pardoned for the crime when she told its cause. In all the cities which Joan had delivered from English control, public prayers and processions were ordered; people walked barefooted and bareheaded, chanting the Miserere, in the streets of Tours. She was imprisoned first at Beaurevoir, then in the prison of Arras, and from there she was taken to Le Crotoy.

It was customary in those days to exchange prisoners taken in arms, or to ransom them; but the English had suffered such loss and defeat through Joan that they determined she should die.

Their only way to do this without publicly dishonoring themselves, was to accuse her of being a witch, and to compel the "religious" tribunal of her own land to become her murderer.

During the first six months of her captivity Joan was treated humanely; but the defeat of the English at Compiègne awoke anew the superstitions of the English, who believed that, though a prisoner, she exercised her spell upon the army; and she was taken to Le Crotoy, and cast into an iron cage with chains upon her wrists and ankles. After being starved, insulted, and treated with the most hellish brutality in prison for nearly ten months, the saviour of France was brought before a tribunal of men, all of them her enemies. There were three days of this shameful pretence of a trial, and the holy maid, deserted by those whom she had crowned with glory and benefits, was trapped into signing a paper which she supposed only a form of abjuration, but which proved to be a confession of all the crimes with which she was charged; and after she was returned to her dungeon this was exhibited to the people to convince them of her guilt and turn the tide of public sympathy. The Bishop of Beauvais then sentenced her to prison for the rest of her life, on condition that she resume woman's apparel; yet one morning she woke to find no dress in her prison but the clothes she had worn in battle. No sooner had she donned these than the bishop appeared, and accused her of disobedience to the orders of the Church, and he fixed her execution for the next day.

When the horrible fact was made known to her that she was to be burned at the stake in the market-place of Rouen, before a multitude of people, she burst into piercing cries of agony. Her physical strength, courage, and brain-power were all impaired by the months of abuse she had endured, and her very soul was torn by the neglect and indifference which the base king manifested toward her. Up to the very last hour she had believed deliverance would come, but it came only through death. Never since that spectacle of the bleeding Nazarene upon the Cross of Calvary, has the world beheld so terrible a picture of crucified innocence and purity as that of Joan of Arc, the saviour of France, burning in the market-place of Rouen. With her dying breath she cried out that the Voices were real, and that she had obeyed God in listening to their counsels.

Her last word was the name of—Jesus.[Back to Contents]

HANS GUTENBERG
By Alphonse de Lamartine
(1400-1468)

Hans Gensfleisch Gutenberg von Sorgeloch was a young patrician—born at Mainz, a free and wealthy city on the banks of the Rhine, in the year 1400. His father, Friel Gensfleisch, married Else von Gutenberg, who gave her name to her second son John.