The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

Joan Darc is not alone in her cell. Canon Loyseleur is seated on a stool near the kind of coffin filled with straw on which she lies. Believing herself in danger of death, she has just confessed to Loyseleur, a solemnity at which she opened her soul to him and narrated her whole life. So far from remotely suspecting the infamous treason of the prelate, she drew vague hopes and religious consolation from the tokens of kindness which he seemed to bestow upon her. The canon had frequently visited the prisoner since their first interview. He obtained, said he, with much difficulty permission to leave his cell in order to offer her spiritual consolation. She reported to him what happened at her first and subsequent interrogatories. The canon congratulated her upon having asserted the reality of her apparitions and revelations, and warned her against another snare, a more dangerous one that he claimed to perceive. One of the judges having asked her which of the then two Popes should be obeyed, he advised her that, if further pressed for an answer thereon, and asked whether she would accept absolutely and blindly the opinion of her judges, she should refuse and appeal from them to God alone. A stranger to theological subtleties, Joan Darc placed confidence in Loyseleur's words. The snare thereby spread by the Bishop and his accomplice was extremely adroit.

On this day the canon had gone to Joan's cell under the pretext of fortifying her in her good resolutions, and after having taken Joan's general confession, and bestowed paternal and consoling words upon her, he went to the wicket to call John to let him out. The jailer quickly appeared, grumbled a few words in affected anger, opened the door, hurled the canon out with a great display of force and locked the door after him. Joan was left alone.

In making her general confession to the canon, in narrating to him her whole, life, Joan had yielded not merely to a religious habit, but also to the desire of once more evoking the memories of her whole past existence, and of scrupulously interrogating herself upon all her actions. The threatening present induced the desire. She wished to ascertain with inexorable severity towards herself whether any of her actions were blameworthy. The mere thought of the threatened punishment, to be burned alive, prostrated her mind. The reasons for her terror were various. First of all she shrank before the shame of being publicly dragged to death like a criminal; the atrocious torment of feeling the flames devouring her flesh threw her into further agonies; finally the chaste girl was distracted by the fear of being taken half naked to the pyre. She had questioned the canon several times upon that head, and had learned from him that "heretics, male and female, are taken to death without any other clothing than a shirt, and on their heads a large pasteboard mitre inscribed with the heretic's special crimes." At the thought of appearing in public in an almost nude condition the maid's dignity and modesty revolted. The despair that such thoughts threw her into made her ready to submit to any declaration that her judges might demand of her, if it only could save her from such ignominy. In vain did her voices whisper to her: "Submit bravely to your martyrdom, not the shadow of a wrongful act stains the luster of your life. Yield not to vain shame, the shamefulness of it must fall upon your murderers. Face without a blush the looks of men – glory covers you with a celestial aureola – be strong of heart!"

In these moments of despair, the heroine became again the timid young girl whose intense modesty had caused her even to renounce the sacred joys of wifehood, and who had taken the vow of virginity to her saints. Thus, despite the encouragement of her voices, her strength failed her, especially at the thought of being led to the pyre in a mere shirt. After her recent spell of sickness that, snapping the springs of her energetic and tender nature, slowly undermined her will power, Joan fell with increasing frequency under the dominion of weakness. At intervals her wonted courage and resoluteness resumed the ascendancy. Her voices said to her: "Do not yield to those false priests, who pretend to judge you and are but your butchers. Uphold truth bravely! Pride yourself in having saved France with the aid of heaven. Defy death! They may burn your body, but your fame will live imperishable as your immortal soul, that will radiantly rejoin its Creator! Noble victim of priests' hypocrisy and of the wickedness of man, quit this sad world and enter paradise!"

Such were, after her last interrogatory and the suffering produced by her illness, the spells of resoluteness and faint-heartedness that wrestled with each other and alternately exalted and again cast the heroine down. On this day, however, Joan Darc feels herself so exhausted that she feels certain she will speedily expire in her cell and escape the ordeal of the pyre. Suddenly the noise of approaching steps is heard outside and she recognizes the voice of the Bishop saying to the jailers:

"Open to us the door of Joan's prison; open it to the justice of God!"

The door is opened, and the prelate appears, accompanied by seven of the ecclesiastical judges – William Boucher, Jacob of Tours, Maurice of Quesnay, Nicolas Midi, William Adelin, Gerard Feuillet, and Haiton – and the inquisitor John Lemaitre.

The members of the holy tribunal are accompanied by two registrars. One of these carries a large lighted wax taper, the other a book of parchments and other writing material. The Bishop is clad in his sacerdotal robes, his accomplices wear their priestly or their monastic gowns. They silently range themselves in a semi-circle near the straw couch on which the chained prisoner is lying. The Bishop steps towards her; one of the registrars sits down at the table he has carried in, on which he lays his parchments; the other remains standing near his companion lighting the desk with his candle, whose reddish glamor falls upon the faces of the ecclesiastics, motionless as specters, and, rather than illuminating, imparts a somber aspect to the scene. Surprised at the unexpected visit, the object of which she is ignorant of, Joan Darc rises painfully and casts a frightened and wondering look around her.

Bishop Cauchon (in accents of hypocritic compassion) – "These reverend priests, doctors of theology, and myself, have come to visit you in your prison, out of which you are at present unable to move. We come to bring you words of consolation. You have been questioned by the most learned clerks of canonical law. Your answers, I must tell you paternally, have so far borne the stamp of most damnable error, and if you persist in these errors, errors so prejudicial to the salvation of your soul and the safety of your body, we shall see ourselves compelled to give you over to the secular arm."

Joan Darc (in a feeble voice) – "I feel so ill and so weak, that it seems to me I am about to die. If it must be so by the will of God I request communion before death, and sacred soil for my body after death."

A Judge – "Submit yourself to the Church. The more you stand in fear of death, all the more should you mend your ways."

Joan Darc – "If my body dies in prison, I request of you a sacred sepulchre for it. If you refuse that to me, I shall appeal to God. May His will be done."

Bishop Cauchon – "These are grave words. You appeal to God. But between you and God stands His Church."

Joan Darc – "Is it not all one – God and His Church?"

Bishop Cauchon – "Learn, my dear daughter, that there is a Church triumphant where God is with His saints, His angels and the saved souls; there is, besides, the Church militant composed of our Holy Father the Pope, vicar of God on earth, the cardinals, the prelates, the priests and all good Catholics, the which Church is infallible, in other words, can never err, can never be mistaken, guided as it is by the divine light. That, Joan, is the Church militant. Will you submit to its judgment? Will you, yes or no, acknowledge us as your judges, us, members of the Church militant?"

Joan Darc (recalls the advice of the canon; there can be no doubt, she thinks, that a snare is being laid for her; her mistrust being in accord with her naïve faith, she answers with all the firmness that her weakness allows) – "I went to the King for the sake of the salvation of France, sent to him by God and His saints. To that Church (making a sublime gesture), to that Church on high, do I submit in all my acts and words!"

Bishop Cauchon (with difficulty restraining his joy) – "You will not, then, accept the judgment of the Church militant upon your acts and words?"

Joan Darc – "I shall submit to this Church if it does not demand the impossible from me."

The Inquisitor – "What do you understand by that?"

Joan Darc – "To deny or repudiate the visions that I have had from God. For nothing in the world shall I deny or repudiate them. I shall not consent to save my life by a falsehood."

Bishop Cauchon (in a blandishing voice) – "If the Church militant were to declare those visions and apparitions illusory and diabolical, would you still refuse to submit to its judgment?"

Joan Darc – "I submit only to God, who has ever inspired me. I neither accept nor shall I accept the judgment of any man, all men being liable to error."

Bishop Cauchon (addressing the registrar) – "Write down that answer, registrar; write it down without any omission."

The Registrar – "Yes, monseigneur."

The Inquisitor – "You do not, then, hold yourself subject to the Church militant, that is to say to our Pope, our seigneurs the cardinals, archbishops, bishops and other holy ministers of God?"

Joan Darc (interrupting him) – "I recognize myself their subject – God being first served."

The admirable answer disconcerts the prelates. The ingenuous and pure soul that they expected to entangle in the perfidious net of their theological subtleties, slipped from them with one stroke of its wings.

Bishop Cauchon (is the first to recover, he addresses Joan with severity) – "You answer us like an idolater. You are exposing your body and your soul to a grave peril."

Joan Darc – "I could not answer otherwise, monseigneur."

A Judge (harshly) – "You will then have to die an apostate."

Joan Darc (with touching pride) – "I received baptism; I am a good Christian; I shall die a Christian."

Bishop Cauchon – "Do you desire to receive the body of the Savior?"

Joan Darc – "Oh, I wish it with all my soul!"

Bishop Cauchon – "You will then have to submit to the Church militant."

Joan Darc – "I serve God to the best of my ability – from Him I expect everything – nothing from the bishops, nothing from the priests, nothing from anybody."

The Inquisitor – "If you refuse submission to the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church you will be given up for a heretic, and condemned to be burned."

Joan Darc (in a high degree of exaltation springing from her convictions and the disgust that the ecclesiastics inspire her) – "Even if the pyre stood ready I would answer no otherwise!"

Bishop Cauchon – "Joan, my dear daughter, your stiff-neckedness is execrable. Do you mean to say that if you stood before a council composed of our Holy Father, the cardinals and bishops, and they called upon you to submit to their decision – "

Joan Darc (interrupting him with pained impatience) – "Neither Pope, nor cardinals, nor bishops will draw from me other statements than those that I have made. Pray have mercy upon a poor creature! I am dying!" (She drops back upon the straw in a swoon.)

Bishop Cauchon – "Will you submit to the successor of St. Peter, our Holy Father? Answer categorically."

Joan Darc (after a long pause and recovering) – "Have me taken to him, I shall ask him for his blessing."

Bishop Cauchon – "What you say is insensate. Do you persist in keeping your male attire, a most blameworthy conduct?"

Joan Darc – "I would put on female clothes to go to church, if I could, in order to receive the body of my Savior. But back in my prison, I shall resume my male attire out of fear of being outraged by your people, as they have tried before now."

The Inquisitor – "Once more and for the last time, and be careful: if you persist in your damnable error our holy mother the Church will be forced, despite her infinite mercy, to deliver you over to the secular arm, and it will then be all over with your body and soul."

Joan Darc – "It would then be all over with your own souls – with the souls of yourselves who will have condemned me unjustly. Reflect upon that."

Bishop Cauchon – "Joan, I must charitably declare to you that if you stubbornly persist in your ways, there are torturers near who will put you to the rack.(He points to the door, Joan shivers.) There are torturers near – they are waiting – they will put you to cruel torments, for the sole purpose of drawing less damnable answers from you."

Joan Darc (yields at first to the terror of the thought of being tortured; the momentary weakness is, however, speedily overcome; she draws superhuman strength from the conviction of her innocence; sits up; casts a withering look upon the prelates and cries in an accent of indomitable resolution) – "Have my limbs torn one from the other! Have my soul leap out of my body! You shall be no further! And if the pain of the torture should draw from my distracted body aught that is contrary to what I have so far said, I take God for my witness, it will be pain alone that will have made me speak contrary to the truth!"115

Bishop Cauchon – "Joan, your transport singularly aggravates your position."

Joan Darc – "Listen, Oh, ye priests of Christ; listen, Oh, ye seigneurs of the Church; you are bent upon my death. If in order to make me die, if in order to execute me my clothes are to be taken off, I ask of you but a woman's shirt to march in to the pyre."

Bishop Cauchon (affecting astonishment) – "You pretend that you wear a man's shirt and clothes by the command of God; why should you want a woman's shirt to go to death in? This is a singular inconsistency."

Joan Darc – "Because it is longer."

The infamous ecclesiastics are determined to inflict upon the wretched young woman of hardly nineteen years all the tortures, from the rack to the pyre. A tremor, nevertheless, runs through them at the sublime modesty of the virgin, who requests of her butchers as a supreme act of mercy that she be allowed a woman's shirt to go to death in because such a shirt was longer, because it could better conceal her figure from the public gaze. Bishop Cauchon alone remains unaffected.

Bishop Cauchon (harshly addressing his accomplices) – "My very dear brothers, we shall assemble in a room of the tower in order to deliberate upon the torture that should be inflicted upon Joan."

The Bishop and his fellows depart from the cell, followed by the registrars.

CHAPTER V

THE SENTENCE

The full ecclesiastical tribunal is assembled in a low, somber and vaulted apartment. The registrar reads to the ecclesiastical judges the last interrogatory, at which they had not all been present. They are to consider whether the accused shall be put to the torture.

Bishop Cauchon – "My very dear brothers, you are again assembled in the name of our holy Church."

All the Judges – "Amen."

Bishop Cauchon – "My very dear brothers, we Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by divine grace do, in view of the stubbornness of the said Joan, and in view of the pestilent heresy that her answers are poisoned with, consult with you, our very dear brothers, whether it is deemed expedient and urgent to submit the said Joan to the torture, to the end of obtaining from her answers and avowals that may save her poor soul from the eternal and her body from the temporal flames. Please give your opinion in the order of precedence."

Nicolas of Venderesse – "It does not seem to me, at present, opportune to put the said Joan to the torture."

Andre Marguerie – "I consider the torture superfluous. The answers of the accused are sufficient to condemn her upon. I am against the torture."

William Erard – "It is, indeed, unnecessary to obtain new avowals from the said Joan. Those that she has made call for the chastisement of the temporal arm. Let us not go beyond that."

Robert Barbier – "I share the views of my very dear brother."

Denis Gastinel – "I am of the opinion that we should forego the torture. It is useless in the case at bar."

Aubert Morel – "I am of the opinion that the torture should be forthwith applied to the said Joan in order to ascertain whether the errors that she persists in are sincere or fraudulent."

Thomas of Courcelles – "I hold that it would be well to put the said Joan to the torture."

Nicolas of Coupequesne – "I do not think it expedient to submit Joan to bodily torture. But she should be admonished once more, in order to compel her to submit to the Church militant."

John Ledoux – "I think so, too. No torture."

Isambard of la Pierre – "That is my opinion."

Nicolas Loyseleur – "I think it is necessary as a medicine to the soul of the said Joan that she be put to the torture.116 For the rest I shall adhere to the opinion of my very dear brothers. The question must be decided."

William Haiton – "I consider the torture useless. I pronounce against its application."

The result of the deliberation is that a majority of the ecclesiastics is against applying the torture to Joan Darc, not so much through a sentiment of humanity as because the admissions made by the accused sufficiently justify her condemnation, as Canon Andre Marguerie naïvely put it. Nevertheless, Bishop Cauchon, who panted for the torture like a wolf at the smell of blood, seems greatly displeased with the evangelical mildness of his very dear brothers in Jesus Christ, who seem so charitably disposed as to think that the burning of Joan Darc would be glory enough to the Church of Rome, without previously lacerating her flesh or cracking her bones. Moreover, these more clement ecclesiastics consider that, weak and ailing as Joan is, the girl may expire under the torture. They aim at a striking death for their victim.

Bishop Cauchon (ill disguising his displeasure) – "The majority of our very dear brothers have pronounced against submitting the said Joan to the torture. That means of obtaining her sincere avowals being discarded, I demand that before we now adjourn she be brought hither to the end that she may hear the verdict that is pronounced against her by our very dear brother Maurice, canon of the very reverend chapter of the Cathedral of Rouen."

The ecclesiastical judges bow approval. Nicolas Loyseleur goes out to issue the orders for the carrying in of Joan before the tribunal. He, however, does not resume his seat at the session, fearing to be recognized by the prisoner. The traitor trembles before his victim.

Too feeble to walk, Joan Darc is brought in upon a chair by two jailers with her feet chained. They deposit the chair a few paces before the ecclesiastical judges. Resolved to uphold the truth until death, Joan asks herself what crimes she could have committed. She has maintained the reality of the visions that she had; she has conscientiously submitted all the acts of her life to the judgment of her sovereign master – God. Convinced though she is of the bias and perfidy of the ecclesiastical tribunal, she is still unable to believe her condemnation possible, or rather she racks her mind to fathom its motive. A feverish hue has slightly colored her pale face. She partially rises from her seat, supporting herself on its arms. Her large black eyes are anxiously fixed upon her judges. She waits in the midst of the profound silence that falls upon the assembly at her entrance.

Dressed in his canonical robes, Canon Maurice holds in his hands a parchment on which the sentence that he is about to read is written.

The virgin warrior, defending her country's soil, had proved herself the peer of the most illustrious captains.

The Christian maid had usually kept her sword in its scabbard, and even in the heat of the most stubbornly contested battles never used it against men. She contented herself with guiding her soldiers with it and with her standard. Every day, when at all possible, she knelt in the temple and held communion with the angels. In the letters that she addressed to the foreign captains and the chiefs of the civil factions, she conjured the English in the name of the God of charity, of concord and of justice to abandon a country that they held contrary to right and that they ruled with violence, and she promised to them mercy and peace if they renounced the iniquitous conquest that rapine and massacre had rendered still more odious. When she addressed herself to the Frenchmen in arms against the French she ever reminded them that they were of France, and conjured them to join against the common enemy.

As a woman, Joan Darc ever gave the example of the most generous and most angelic virtues. Her chastity inspired her with sublime words that will remain the admiration of the centuries.

How could the ecclesiastical judges formulate against the warrior, the Christian and the virgin a single accusation that does not cause common judgment to revolt? an accusation that is not a heinous outrage, a despicable insult, a sacrilegious challenge cast at all that ever has been and ever will be the object of man's admiration?

These infamous ecclesiastics, these bishops sold to the English, ransacked the canons of the Church and the decretals of the Inquisition, and with the aid of these found twelve capital charges against the warrior, the Christian and the virgin.

Twelve capital charges! And what is still more abominable, in the eyes of the orthodox judges, the charges are well founded and legitimate. They are the "complete, absolute, irrevocable and infallible" expression of the Roman Church. They flow in point of right, from the legal application of the jurisdiction of a church that is infallible, eternal and divine – one as God; infallible as God; divine as God; eternal as God! – according to the claims of the ecclesiastics!

The sentence of Joan is supposed to be the summary of the life of the Maid, now present before her judges, and though broken and feverish, yet with a soul full of faith and of energy.

The session is re-opened.

Bishop Cauchon (addressing the accused in a grave voice) – "Joan, our very dear brother Maurice will read to you the sentence that has been pronounced upon you." (The Bishop devoutly crosses himself.)

All the Judges (crossing themselves) – "Amen."

Canon Maurice (reading in a sepulchral and threatening voice) – "'First: You said, Joan, that at thirteen years you had revelations and apparitions of angels and saints to whom you give the name of St. Michael, of St. Marguerite and of St. Catherine. You said you frequently saw them with the eyes of your body. You said that you frequently conversed with them.

"'Upon this point, and considering the aim and final object of these revelations and apparitions, the nature of the matters revealed, and the quality of your person, the Church pronounces your revelations and visions to be fraudulent, seductive, pernicious, and proceeding from the evil spirit of the devil.'"

Canon Maurice stops for a moment in order that the gravity of the first charge be properly weighed and appreciated by Joan Darc. But the words that she has just heard carry her back to the days of her childhood, days of peace that flowed in the midst of the sweet enjoyments of her family. She forgets the present and becomes absorbed in the recollection of her infancy, a recollection at once sweet and bitter to her.

Canon Maurice (proceeds to read) – "'Secondly: Joan, you said that your King, having recognized you by your signs as truly sent by God, gave you men of arms to do battle with. You said that St. Marguerite and St. Catherine accompanied you to Chinon and other places, where they guided you with their advice.

"'The Church pronounces this declaration mendacious and derogatory to the dignity of the saints and the angels.

"'Thirdly: Joan, you said that you recognized the angels and the saints by the advice that they gave you. You said that you believed the apparitions to be good, and that you believe that as firmly as you do in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is an outrage to the Divinity.

"'The Church declares that those are not determining signs to recognize the saints by; that your belief is temerarious, your claim braggard, and that you err in the faith. You are outside of the pale of the communion of the faithful.'"