The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

"Joan, down on your knees; bow your head!"

Joan Darc kneels down without removing her eyes from the beautiful blue of the sky, from the radiant light of the sun from which she seeks to draw the strength necessary to persevere in her resolution of abjuring. A profound silence falls upon the crowd, the front ranks of which can hear the words uttered on the scaffold, and Bishop Cauchon, crossing himself, proceeds:

"My very dear brothers, the Lord said it to his apostle St. John, the palm tree cannot of itself produce fruit if it does not live. Thus, my very dear brothers, you must persevere in the true life of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, which our Lord Jesus Christ built with his right hand. But, alack! there are perverse souls, abominable and idolatrous (he points at Joan Darc) filled with heretical crimes, who rise with an audacity that is truly infernal against the unity of our holy Church, to the great scandal and to the painful horror of all good believers. (To Joan Darc with a menacing voice:) There you are now upon a scaffold, in the face of heaven and of men. Is the light to enter at last your haughty and diabolical soul? Will you at last submit in all humbleness your words and acts to the Church militant, the enormities of your acts! your monstrous words! according to the infallible judgment of the priests of the Lord? Reflect and answer! If not, the Church will abandon you to the secular arm and your body will go up in the flames of the pyre."

These words produce a deep commotion among the crowd. The majority of those present are hostile to Joan Darc. A small number feel sincere pity for her. These various sentiments find expression in cries, imprecations and charitable utterances:

"She has not yet been condemned, the witch! Death to the abominable idolater!"

"A door of safety is being held open to her. Death to the heretic!"

"By St. George! Upon the word of an English archer, I shall set the Bishop's house on fire if the strumpet is not brought to the pyre at once!"

"Mercy will be extended to her! And yet with her sorceries she has exterminated our invincible army!"

"Her partisans want to save her!"

"I hope they may succeed! Poor girl! She has suffered so much! Mercy for her!"

"How pale and thin she is! She looks like a ghost! Take pity upon the poor creature!"

"She fought for France. And after all, we are French!"

"Speak not so loud, my friend, the English soldiers may overhear you!"

"Jesus! My God! To burn her! Her who was so brave and so pious! It would be an act of barbarism!"

"Is it her fault that God inspired her?"

"If saints appeared before her, and spoke to her, all the greater the honor!"

"How can a bishop of the good God dare to pronounce her a sorceress!"

"Death! Death to the witch!"

"Death! Death to the she-devil!"

"To the pyre with the strumpet of the Armagnacs!"

At these ferocious cries and infamous insults Joan Darc's terror redoubles. The ignominy that awaits her if she does not abjure rises before her. To abjure means to escape mortal shame; to abjure means to regain freedom! Joan Darc resigns herself. Still her loyalty and conscience revolt at that supreme moment, and instead of completely renouncing her errors, she mutters on her knees: "I have sincerely stated all my actions to my judges; I believed I acted under the command of God. I do not wish to accuse either my God or anybody. If I have sinned I alone am guilty. I rely upon God. I implore His mercy."

"Subterfuges!" cried Bishop Cauchon. "Subterfuges! Yes, or no; do you consider true what the priests, your only judges in matters of faith, declare concerning your actions and words – words and acts that have been pronounced fallacious, homicidal, sacrilegious, idolatrous, heretical and diabolical? Answer! (Joan is silent) I call upon you a second time to answer! (Joan is still silent) I ask you a third time to answer! You are silent? You are an abominable criminal!"

Yes, the heroine remains silent, racked by a supreme internal struggle. "Abjure!" whispered to her the instinct of self-preservation. "Do not abjure! Do not lie! Courage! Courage!" cries her conscience; "maintain the truth unto shame and death!" The wretched girl wrings her hands, and remains silent, a prey to distracting agonies.

"Alack!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon, addressing the people. "My very dear brothers! You see the stiff-neckedness of this unhappy woman! She spurns her tender mother the Church, that extends her arms to her with love and pardon! Alack! Alack! The evil spirit has taken a firm hold of her who might now have been Joan. Her, whose body shall have to be delivered to the burning flames of the pyre! Her, whose ashes will be cast to the winds! Her, who, deprived of the holy Eucharist at the moment of death, and loaded down with the decree of excommunication, is about to be cast into the bottom of hell for all eternity! Alack! Alack! Joan, you willed it so. We believed in your repentance, we consented not to deliver you to the secular arm. But you persist in your heresy. Then listen to your sentence!"

While the Bishop is recalling the formula of the sentence several English soldiers brandish their lances and cry: "Let an end be made of this!"

"Throw the witch quickly into the fire!"

"Death to the magician!"

At the same time other voices from the crowd cry:

"Poor, brave girl! Mercy for her!"

"Lord God! How can she deny her visions! Mercy! Mercy!"

"It would be a lie and cowardice on her part! Courage! Courage!"

Bishop Cauchon rises, terrible, and with his hands extended to heaven makes ready to utter the final curse upon the accused. "Joan!" he cries, "listen to your sentence. In the name of the Church, we, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the mercy of God, declare you – "

Joan Darc interrupts the approaching imprecation with a shriek of terror, clasps her hands, and collapses upon the scaffold, crying: "Mercy! Mercy!"

"Do you submit yourself to the judgment of the Church?" again asks Bishop Cauchon.

Livid and her teeth chattering with terror, Joan Darc answers: "Yes, I submit myself!"

"Do you renounce your apparitions and visions as false, sacrilegious, and diabolical?" the Bishop asks.

Wholly broken down, and in a gasping voice, Joan makes answer: "Yes – yes – I renounce them – seeing the priests consider them wicked things. I submit to their opinion – I shall submit to everything that the Church may order – Mercy! Have pity upon me!" and cowering upon herself, she hides her face in her hands amidst convulsive sobs.

"Oh, my very dear brothers!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon with an affectation of charity. "What a beautiful day! What a holy day! What a glorious day! that on which the Church in her maternal joy opens her arms to one of her children, repentful after having long wandered from the fold! Joan, your submission saves your body and your soul! Repeat after me the formula of abjuration." The Bishop beckons to one of the registrars, who brings to him a parchment containing the formula of abjuration.

Violent outcries break out from the crowd. The English soldiers and the people of the Burgundian party feel irritated at the prospect of the Maid's escaping death, and break out into imprecations against the judges. They charge the Bishop and the Cardinal with treason and threaten to burn down their houses. The English captains share the indignation of their men. One of the former, the Earl of Warwick, steps out of the group in which he stands, rushes up the stairs of the scaffold, and approaching the prelate says to him angrily, in a low voice: "Bishop, Bishop, is that what you promised us?" "Be patient!" answers the prelate, also in a low voice; "I shall keep my promise; but calm your men; they are quite capable of massacring us!"

Sufficiently acquainted with Peter Cauchon to know he can trust him, the Earl of Warwick again descends from the platform, joins his companions in arms, and communicates the Bishop's answer to them. The latter hasten to distribute themselves among the ranks of the soldiers, whose anger they appease with assurances that the witch will be burned despite her abjuration. But while one part of the mob is enraged at the Maid's abjuration and the Bishop's pardon, another, consisting of the people who pity Joan, is thrown into consternation. This feeling soon makes way for indignation. She denies her visions; then they were false pretences; she lied when she claimed to be sent by God. And if her visions were true, she is now disgracing herself by a shameful act of cowardice. Coward or liar – such is the judgment they now pass upon Joan Darc. The infernal ecclesiastical plot is skilfully hatched; through it the sympathy once felt for the heroine is extinguished in the hearts of her partisans themselves. On her knees upon the scaffold, cowering down, and her face covered by her hands, Joan Darc seems a stranger to what passes around her. Overcome by so many conflicting emotions, her mind again begins to wander, she seems to have but one fixed idea – to escape the disgrace of the stake.

Silence being finally restored, Peter Cauchon rises with the parchment in his hands and says: "Joan, you shall now repeat with your heart and your lips, the following formula of abjuration, in the measure that I pronounce it. Listen!" and he proceeds to read in a voice that is heard by the remotest ranks of the pressing crowd: "'Any person who has erred in the Catholic faith, and who thereafter by the grace of God has returned to the light of truth and to the bosom of our holy mother the Church, must be careful not to allow himself to be provoked by the evil spirit into a relapse. For this reason, I, Joan, commonly named the Maid, a miserable sinner, recognizing that I was fettered by the chains of error, and wishing to return to the bosom of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, I, Joan, to the end of proving that I have returned to my tender mother, not in false appearance, but with my heart, do hereby confess, first, that I gravely sinned by falsely causing others to believe that I had apparitions and revelations of God in the forms of St. Marguerite and St. Catherine and of St. Michael the archangel.'" Turning to Joan, the Bishop asks: "Do you confess having wickedly sinned in that, and of having been impious and sacrilegious?"

"I confess it!" comes from Joan Darc in a broken voice.

An outburst of cries from the indignant mob greets the confession of the penitent. Those now most furious are the ones who were before moved with tender pity for her.

"So, then, you lied!"

"You imposed upon the poor people, miserable hypocrite!"

"And I, who felt pity for her!"

"The Church is too indulgent!"

"Think of accepting the penitence of so infamous a cheat!"

"Upon my word, comrades, she is quite capable of being possessed of the devil as the English claimed! The strumpet and liar!"

"And yet her victories were none the less brilliant for all that!"

"Aye! through witchcraft! Are you going to show pity for the liar?"

"Fear of the fagot makes one admit many a thing!"

"Then she is a coward! She has not the courage to uphold the truth in the face of death! What faint-heartedness!"

Silence is restored only by degrees. Joan Darc hears the frightful accusations hurled at her. To return to her first declarations would be an admission of fear. Her mind wanders again.

Continuing to read from the formula of abjuration, Bishop Cauchon says: "'Secondly, I, Joan, confess to have grievously sinned by seducing people with superstitious divinations, by blaspheming the angels and the saints, and by despising the divine law of Holy Writ and the canonical laws.'" Addressing Joan the Bishop asks: "Do you confess it?'

"I confess it!" murmurs Joan.

Bishop Cauchon proceeds to read: "'Thirdly, I, Joan confess having grievously sinned by wearing a dissolute garb, deformed and dishonest, in violation of decency and nature; and by wearing my hair cut round, after the fashion of men, and contrary to modesty' – Do you confess that sin?"

"I confess it!"

"'Fourthly, I, Joan, confess having grievously sinned by boastfully carrying armor of war, and by cruelly desiring the shedding of human blood.' – Do you confess it?"

Joan Darc wrings her hands and exclaims: "My God! Can I affirm such things?"

"What! You hesitate!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon, and he adds, addressing her in a low voice: "Be careful, the fagots await you!"

"I confess it, Father," stammers Joan.

"Joan, do you confess having cruelly desired the effusion of human blood?" asks Bishop Cauchon in a thundering voice.

"I confess it!"

Loud cries of horror go up from the mob, while the English soldiers brandish their weapons at Joan. Some men pick up stones to stone the heroine to death. The imprecations against her redouble threateningly.

"The harpy waged war out of pure cruelty!"

"She merely wished to soak herself in blood!"

"And the Church pardons her!"

"At one time I felt great pity for the wretch. Now I say with the English, Death to the tigress who lived on blood!"

"You fools! Do you believe these priests? Do you think Joan went after battle to drink the blood of the slain?"

"You defend her?"

"Yes! Oh, why am I alone?"

"You are a traitor!"

"He is an Armagnac!"

"Death to the Armagnac!"

The mob beats Joan's defender to death. As to herself, her condition is now such that she no longer is aware of aught she hears or says. She has practically lost consciousness. She barely has enough strength to respond mechanically, "I confess it," each time she hears Bishop Cauchon ask her, "Do you confess it?" In the midst, however, of her weakness and the wandering of her mind, one thought she is fully conscious of, the thought that her agony cannot last long; within a short time she would be dead or free! Poor martyr!

Bishop Cauchon continues to read: "'Fifthly, I, Joan, confess that I grievously sinned in claiming that all my acts and all my words were inspired to me by God, His saints and His angels, while in truth I despised God and His sacraments and I constantly invoked evil spirits.' – Do you confess it?"

"I confess it!"

"She confesses that she is a witch!" cries a voice from the mob.

"By St. George, she has exterminated thousands of my countrymen by her sorceries! And shall she escape the fagots!"

"She will be burned later! Our captains have promised us!"

"They deceive us! We shall burn her ourselves, now!"

Bishop Cauchon reads: "'Sixthly, I, Joan, confess that I grievously sinned by being a schismatic.' – Do you confess it?"

"I confess it!"

Bishop Cauchon continues reading: "'All of which crimes and errors, I, Joan, having returned to the truth, by the grace of our Lord, and also by the grace of our holy and infallible doctrine, my good and reverend Fathers, I now renounce and abjure.' – Do you renounce, do you abjure these crimes and errors?"

"I renounce! I abjure!"

Bishop Cauchon reads on: "'In the faith and the belief of all of which, I declare that I shall submit to the punishment that the Church may inflict upon me, and I promise and swear to St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and to our Holy Father the Pope of Rome, his vicar, and to his successors, and to you, my seigneurs, and to you, my reverend father in God, Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais, and to you religious person, Brother John Lemaitre, vicar of the Inquisition of the faith, I, Joan, swear to you, to all of you my judges, never again to relapse into the criminal errors that it has pleased the Lord to deliver me from! I swear ever to remain in the union of our holy mother the Church, and in obedience to our Holy Father the Pope!' – Do you swear?"

"I swear – and I am dying!"

Bishop Cauchon beckons to one of the registrars. The latter takes a pen out of his portfolio, dips it in ink, hands it to the prelate, and holds up his square cap for a desk. The prelate places the parchment on the cap, and continues to read from it in a loud voice:

"'I, Joan, affirm and confirm all that is said above; I swear to it and affirm it in the name of the living and all-powerful God and of the sacred gospels, in proof whereof, and not knowing how to write, I have signed this document with my mark,'" saying which he presents the pen to the kneeling Joan and pointing to the parchment on the registrar's cap, adds: "Now place your cross here, below, seeing you do not know how to write."

In an almost expiring condition Joan Darc endeavors to trace a cross at the bottom of the parchment. Her strength fails her. The registrar kneels down beside the Maid, and guiding her inert and icy hand, aids her to make her mark at the bottom of the document. This being done, he calls the two penitents dressed in long grey gowns who have remained at the foot of the scaffold, and delivers to them the almost insensible Joan Darc. They place themselves on either side of her and take her under the arms. Her head drops upon her shoulder; from between her half-closed eyelids her eyes appear fixed and glassy. The only sign that life has not yet fled is a slight tremor that from time to time runs over her frame.

Stepping forward, Bishop Cauchon addresses the crowd in a tremendous voice: "All pastors charged with the duty of lovingly guarding the flock of Christ must endeavor to keep far from their dear flock all causes of pestilence, infection and corruption, and must seek to lead back the sheep that has wandered off among the brambles. Wherefore, we, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of God, assisted by John Lemaitre, Inquisitor of the faith, and other learned and reverend priests, all competent judges, having heard and considered your assertions and your admissions, do now declare to you, Joan the Maid: We pronounce you guilty of having falsely maintained that you have had divine visions and revelations; guilty of having seduced weak people and having stiff-neckedly held to your opinions; guilty of having despised the sacraments and the holy canons; guilty of having favored sedition against our sovereign and serene master the King of England and France; guilty of having cruelly shed human blood; guilty of having apostatized, schismatized, blasphemed, idolatrized and invoked the evil spirit. But seeing that by the grace of the All-Powerful you have at last returned to the pale of our holy and sweet mother the Church, and that, filled with sincere contrition and genuine faith, you have publicly and in a loud voice made abjuration of your criminal and heretical errors, we now suspend the punishment of excommunication and its consequences, upon the express condition that you sincerely return to our holy and merciful Church. And charitably wishing to aid you in accomplishing your salvation, we condemn you, Joan the Maid, to perpetual imprisonment where your food shall be the bread of pain, your drink the water of agony, to the end that, weeping throughout the rest of your life over your monstrous sins, you may never again incur them. This is your final and definite condemnation. You now see how the Church of our Lord shows herself a tender mother towards you. Do then forevermore abandon and deplore your culpable error! Renounce your male attire forever, a shame to your sex! And should you relapse into that or any other mortal and idolatrous sin, then will the Church with profound and maternal pain be forced to cut you off forever from her body, she will then deliver you to the secular arm, and you will be cast into the flames like a gangrened member, seized with incurable rottenness. Glory to God on high, Amen."

The mob, especially the English soldiers, receive the "merciful" sentence with a threatening clamor. The people make a move to force the gate of the cemetery, which is guarded by a platoon of archers. The latter, being no less exasperated, seem ready to join the discontented and attack the platform. The Earl of Warwick quickly ascends the scaffold and again angrily addresses the Bishop: "Bishop! Has not this comedy lasted long enough? We can no longer answer for our soldiers in their present state of exasperation if, despite her abjuration, the witch is not burned!"

Bishop Cauchon suppresses with difficulty a gesture of impatience. He whispers into the English captain's ear. The latter, seeming to be convinced by what he hears, answers with a gesture of approval. The prelate adds: "Rest assured of what I promise you. At present see to it that the gate of the cemetery is well guarded, and that the mob is not allowed to break in. We shall make our exit by the garden of the abbey, and the Maid will be taken the same way. She would otherwise be massacred by the good people. And that must not be. She has only fainted. She will be seen to in her prison."

The Earl of Warwick again descends from the platform. The Bishop issues his orders to the penitents who are supporting the wholly unconscious Joan in their arms. They raise her – one under the arms, the other by the feet, descend the stairs of the platform, and, bearing their burden, walk rapidly across the cemetery to the garden of the abbey, while the English soldiers, obedient to the orders of their captains, who promise to them the speedy execution of Joan, close their ranks before the gate of the cemetery and keep back the mob, that shouts for the death of the witch.

CHAPTER VII

REMORSE

After her formal abjuration Joan Darc is taken in an almost dying condition, not to her cell but to a room in the Castle of Rouen. By orders of the Bishop, two old women are appointed to nurse her. She is laid in a soft bed; her jaws, locked in convulsions, are forced open, and a calming beverage poured down her throat. Every day and night the physician visits her. On the second day after the abjuration, the patient is out of danger. When Joan Darc recovers consciousness, she finds herself in a spacious and neatly furnished room. The warm rays of the sun play upon the glass of the barred casement. The two old women, who have her in charge, are seated at the head of the patient's bed seeming to contemplate her with tender interest. Joan Darc first thinks that she dreams, but her next belief is that, agreeable to the promise made to her by the institutor in the name of the Bishop, she has secretly been set free. She believes that some charitable people have obtained from the Bishop permission to transport her to their own house. The first impression felt by Joan at these surmises is one of joy at being free, and no remorse assails her at having denied the truth. The bliss of having escaped the dreaded shame of exposure, the hope of soon recovering her health, the prospect of returning to Domremy and seeing her parents – all these pleasurable sentiments smother the reproaches of her voices. She asks the two old women where she is. They smile in answer, and mysteriously place their fingers on their lips. From these tokens Joan conjectures that they are not free to answer, but that she is in a safe and hospitable asylum. Preserving on this head the silence that seems to be recommended to her, Joan gives herself over without reserve to the joy of living, of looking through the window panels at the blue sky, at feeling her limbs, so long sore and even wounded by the weight of her chains, finally free from their cruel grip; above all she congratulates herself on being delivered from the presence of her jailers, whose revolting utterances and licentious looks have been a cause of unremitting torture to her. She accepts nourishment and even some generous wine mixed with water. Her strength returns. On the third day she is able to rise. Her nurses offer her a long woman's dress and a hat. No longer assailed by the chaste apprehension that her jailers inspired her with in her cell, Joan resumes without hesitation the garb of her sex. The door of the room that she occupies opens upon a terrace on which her nurses induce her to promenade. A board fence high enough to shut off the view surrounds the terrace.

Joan remains a long time upon the terrace, inhaling the spring air with delight. When night approaches, feeling herself slightly fatigued by her walk, she undresses, lies down upon her bed, and sleeps profoundly.

Subject to human weakness, and transported by the joy of being free after such a long, painful and rigid confinement, the poor martyr is not assailed by remorse until towards evening. Vague sentiments, the forerunners of the approaching awakening of her conscience having cast a shadow over her spirit, she seeks in sleep both further rest and oblivion. Her expectations prove false.