The executioner, in my presence, gave his testimony that she had been unjustly put to death.
Maître Guillaume Érard, at the sermon which he pronounced at the Cemetery of Saint-Ouen, exclaimed: “Oh, House of France! thou hast never till now nourished a monster in thy bosom; but now thou art disgraced by thy adhesion to this witch, this heretic! this superstitious one!”
Fourth Examination, December 19th, 1455, and May 13th, 1456. [Additional statements:]
I have heard it said that the Bishop, and others concerned in the Process, wished to have letters of guarantee from the King of England, and received them; and these are the letters now shewn, signed with the sign manual of Maître Laurence Calot, whose signature I know well. Maître Jean Lemaitre, Sub-Inquisitor, who was concerned in the Trial and who often went with me, was compelled to attend. Brother Ysambard de la Pierre, who was a friend of the Inquisitor, desired on one occasion to direct Jeanne, but was told to hold his tongue, and that, if he did not henceforward abstain from such interference, he would be thrown into the Seine.
On the day of her death I was with her until her last breath. One present said he wished his soul might be where he believed Jeanne’s soul was. After the reading of the sentence, she came down from the platform on which the preaching had been, and was led by the executioner, without any sentence from the secular Judges, to the place where the pile was prepared for her burning. The pile was on a scaffold, and the executioner lighted it from below. When Jeanne perceived the fire, she told me to descend and to hold up the Cross of the Lord on high before her that she might see it.
When I was with her, and exhorting her on her salvation, the Bishop of Beauvais and some of the Canons of Rouen came over to see her; and, when Jeanne perceived the Bishop, she told him that he was the cause of her death; that he had promised to place her in the hands of the Church, and had relinquished her to her mortal enemies.
Up to the end of her life she maintained and asserted that her Voices came from God, and that what she had done had been by God’s command. She did not believe that her Voices had deceived her: [but that] the revelations which she had received had come from God.
Messire Nicolas Taquel, Priest, Rector of Basqueville, in the Diocese of Rouen: First Examination, May 8th, 1452.
About half-way through the Process I was called by the two notaries to assist them. I saw Jeanne in a prison in the Castle of Rouen, in a certain tower near the fields. I never perceived any kind of fear, nor did I know of prohibitions or coercion by the English. I do not remember that she asked to have Counsel, or that they were offered to her; I was not at the opening of the Case. I knew well that Jeanne was in prison. I saw her there, in irons, notwithstanding her weakness. There was an Englishman who had charge of her in the room, without whose leave no one, not even the Judges, might have access to her.
Jeanne was about twenty years of age; though she was as simple as any girl of her age, she could speak well on occasion, sometimes varying her answers, and sometimes not replying to the questions. I certainly heard in the town, that at night, the English, in the absence of the Judges, disturbed her much, saying sometimes that she would die, sometimes that they would kill her; but I do not know if it was true. I was present when some of the Judges put very difficult questions to her, to which she answered that it did not concern her to reply to them. Some of the Doctors present sometimes said to her, “You say well, Jeanne.” Sometimes Jeanne, wearied with so many questions, begged for delay till the morrow; and it was granted. Many heard the statement referred to, made by Jeanne, that she would say and do nothing against the Faith. I believe this is written in the Process. I do not remember to have seen any English at the Examinations of Jeanne, with the exception of the guards; nor do I remember any restrictions upon what was done in the Process, although the Judges said it was forbidden to write anything which was not contained in the Process. I do not know that the words of the Seventy Articles were inserted in the Process, nor do I remember that Jeanne, during the whole Trial, said she would not submit to the Ecclesiastical authority, although I occasionally saw her somewhat disturbed; then the Doctors who were present advised her, and sometimes postponed the matter till the morrow.