The Executioner's Knife Part 42

The monk pa.s.ses the cross to Joan Darc, who, seizing it with transport and taking it to her lips, says: "Thank you, Father!"

"I have sent to the Church of St. Ouen for a large crucifix bearing the image of our Savior. It will be held at a distance before your eyes as long as possible. Address your prayers to Jesus Christ," the monk answered in a low voice.

"Tell them to hold it high so that I may see the image of the Savior to the very end."

Again cries break out from the ranks of the English soldiers:

"Will there ever be an end of this?"

"What is the tonsured fellow whispering to the witch?"

"Let him travel to the devil in her company!"

"To the f.a.gots with the witch, and quickly, too!"

"To the flames, both the monk and the Maid!"

Led to the foot of the pyre, Joan Darc measures its height with her eyes and is unable to suppress a shudder; the executioners wave their torches in the air in order to enliven their flames; two of them precede the victim to the masonry platform within the pile of f.a.gots; they cover it up with straw and twigs, the top layer of the heaped-up combustibles; they then hold up the iron clamps that are fastened to the stake.

"Climb up this way," says one of the executioners to Joan Darc, pointing to the stairs, "you will not come down again, witch!"

"I shall accompany you, my dear daughter, to the top of the pyre," says the monk.

Joan Darc slowly ascends the steps, greatly embarra.s.sed in her movements by the folds of her gown, and reaches the top of the pyre. A tremendous shout breaks forth from the mob. When the noise subsides, Joan cries out aloud: "G.o.d alone inspired my actions!"

Hisses and furious imprecations drown her voice. The Cardinal of Winchester, the Bishops, judges, and captains rise simultaneously so as to obtain a better view of the execution. After placing Joan standing with her back against the stake, one of the executioners fastens her to it by the waist and neck with iron carcans; a chain holds her feet; only her hands remain free, and with them she clasps the rough wooden cross that one of the English executioners has just fas.h.i.+oned for her, and that she holds close to her lips. A priest in a surplice, carrying one of those large silver crucifixes usually borne at the head of processions, arrives in a hurry; he places himself at a distance opposite the pyre and holds up the crucifix as high as his arms allow him. It is the crucifix that the monk Isambard has sent for. He points it out to Joan Darc. She turns her head towards it and keeps her eyes fastened upon the image of Christ.

"Come, reverend Father," says one of the executioners to the monk Isambard, "do not stay here. The flames are about to shoot up."

"In a moment," answers the monk; "I shall follow you. I only wish to finish the prayer that I began."

"I shall make you come down faster than you would like, my reverend mumbler of prayers," observes the executioner in a low voice.

The two executioners descend from the platform of the pyre; the monk administers to Joan Darc the supreme consolations.

Suddenly a dry and lively crackling is heard from the base of the pyre, followed by puffs of smoke and thin tongues of flame.

"Father!" cries Joan Darc anxiously, "descend! Descend quickly! The pyre is on fire!"

Such is the sublime adieu of the victim to one of her judges!

The monk descends precipitately, casting an angry look at the executioners. These light the pyre at several places. Volumes of black smoke rise upward, and envelop Joan Darc from the public gaze. The fire glistens; it runs and twines itself through the lower layers of the f.a.gots; presently the pile is all on fire; the flames rise; they are fanned by the breeze that blows away the cloud of smoke, and Joan Darc is again exposed to view. The fire reaches the straw and twigs on top of the platform on which her feet rest. Her gown begins to smoke. Firmly held by the triple iron bands that clasp her neck, waist and feet, she writhes and utters a piercing cry:

"WATER! WATER!"

A second later, as if regretting the vain appeal for mercy that pain drew from her, she exclaims:

"IT IS G.o.d WHO INSPIRED ME!"

At that moment Joan Darc's gown takes fire and the flames that flare up from it join the hundred other lambent tongues that shoot upward. From the midst of the tall furnace a voice in a weird accent is heard to exclaim:

"JESUS!"

The virgin of Gaul has expiated her immortal glory.

The flames subside, and finally go out. A smoldering brasier surrounds the base of the masonry pile that served as the center for the pyre. At its top, and held fast by the iron clamps fastened to the charred and smoking stake, is seen a blackened, shapeless, nameless something--all that is left of the Maid.

The two executioners place a ladder on the side of the stone pile; they climb up, strike down with their axes the members of her who was Joan Darc, and with the help of long iron forks hurl them all down into the brasier. Other executioners lay fresh f.a.gots on the heap. Tall flames re-rise. When the second fire is wholly extinguished nothing remains but reddish ashes interspersed with charred human bones, a skull among them.

The ashes and bones are gathered by the executioners and thrown into a wooden box, which they lay on a hand-barrow, and, followed by a large and howling mob, the executioners proceed to the banks of the Seine, into which they throw the remains of the redeeming angel of France.

Finally, the Cardinal, the Bishops, the captains and the ecclesiastical judges leave the market place of Rouen in procession, in the same order that they had entered. They have gloated over the death of Joan Darc.

The justice of the courtiers, of the warriors and of the infallible clergy is satisfied.

EPILOGUE.

I, Jocelyn the Champion, now a centennarian as was my ancestor Amael who fought under Charles Martel and who later knew Charlemagne, wrote the above narrative, a part of which, the tragedy of Joan Darc's execution, I witnessed with my own eyes.

On the eve of her execution I arrived in Rouen from Vaucouleurs.

Communication was difficult in those days between distantly located provinces. It thus happened that the tidings of Joan's captivity at Rouen and her trial did not for some time reach her family. Finally apprized thereof by public rumor, her family was anxious to learn of her fate, but, despite their desolation, they neither were able nor did they dare to undertake the long journey. I called upon Denis Laxart, the worthy relative of Joan whom I had long known intimately, and offered him to go to Rouen myself. My fervent admiration for the plebeian heroine inspired me with the resolution. Despite my advanced age, I was not frightened by the perils of the journey. But I was poor. This difficulty was overcome by Denis Laxart and several good people of Vaucouleurs. The necessary funds were sc.r.a.ped together, a horse was bought, and I started with my grandson at the crupper.

Arrived at Rouen on May 29, 1431, after encountering no end of difficulties, I learned of the solemn abjuration of Joan Darc and saw how her enemies p.r.o.nounced her a fraud and her former friends, a coward.

I was not then aware of the black plot that had brought about the apostasy; nevertheless, my own instinct and reasoning, the recollection of my frequent conversations with Denis Laxart, who had often recounted to me the details of Joan's childhood, and finally the reports of her glorious deeds that penetrated as far as Lorraine--everything combined to point out to me that an abjuration that so utterly belied the courage and loyalty of the martial maid concealed some sinister mystery.

The following day I appeared early at the market place, taking my grandson with me. We managed to stand in the front ranks of the ma.s.s that witnessed the execution and that crowded us forward. We were pushed so far forward that we stood near the benign executioner who volunteered to fas.h.i.+on a cross for the unhappy victim, and who in his haste dropped his knife. It fell at my grandson's feet. I took it up and shall preserve it as the emblem that is to accompany this narrative.

Immediately after the execution of Joan Darc I was the witness of a strange incident. Near myself and my grandson was a priest wrapped up in his gown and cowl. He mumbled to himself. He had watched with seeming indifference the preparations for Joan Darc's execution, until when, writhing with pain, she cried out: "Water! Water!" At these words the priest trembled. He raised his hands to heaven and murmured: "Mercy! Oh, mercy!" Finally, when with her last breath Joan Darc made the supreme invocation--"Jesus!" the priest cried out in a suffocated voice:

"I am d.a.m.ned!"

He immediately dropped to the ground, a prey to violent convulsions. He still lay there in a tremor when the mob left the market place to follow the executioners who were to throw the remains of Joan Darc into the Seine. Moved with pity for the man whom all others took no notice of, or considered possessed of an evil spirit, my grandson and myself raised him and took him to our inn that faced the market place. We carried him to our room and tended him. By degrees he came to himself and looked upon us with distracted eyes that seemed to reveal deep repentance and also terror, as he cried: "I am d.a.m.ned! I am the accomplice and instrument of the Bishop of Beauvais in the killing of Joan! G.o.d will punish me!"

That priest was the Canon Loyseleur.[117] The gowned monster did taste repentance--strange, incredible revulsion, that I never would have believed had I not myself witnessed its unquestionable evidence. The wretch was devoured with remorse; he admitted his guilt to us, and when he noticed the horror that his admissions filled us with he cried: "A curse upon the help I rendered to you, Bishop of Beauvais, a.s.sa.s.sin!"

With quavering voice he asked me whether I pitied Joan. My tears answered him. He then wished to know who I was, and learning of my pa.s.sionate admiration for the virgin of Gaul and my desire for the sake of her desolate family, to be informed upon what had happened, Canon Loyseleur seemed struck by a sudden thought, and asked me to wait for him at the inn that very evening. "Never," said he, "shall I be able to make amends for or expiate my crime; but I wish to place in your hands the means to smite the butchers of the victim."

That same evening Canon Loyseleur brought to me a bundle of parchments.

It contained:

1.--The general confession of Joan Darc transcribed by himself on the very day when he received it, and when that great soul unveiled itself to him in all its heroic simplicity.

2.--Notes which he had taken and preserved after his interviews with the emissary of George of La Tremouille, and which revealed the plot that was concocted against Joan by the people of the Court, the captains and the ecclesiastics, before the first meeting of the heroine and Charles VII.

3.--A copy of a contemporaneous chronicle ent.i.tled "Journal of the Siege of Orleans," and another memoir written by Percival of Cagny, equerry to the Duke of Alencon, who did not leave Joan's side from the time of the raising of the siege of Orleans down to the siege of Paris. These two ma.n.u.scripts were a part of the doc.u.ments that Bishop Peter Cauchon had gathered to draw up the indictment.