The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

Canon Loyseleur – "And you saw your saints? You saw them with your own eyes?"

Joan Darc – "As I see you."

Canon Loyseleur (delighted) – "Oh, dear daughter! Hold that language before the ecclesiastical tribunal, and you are saved! You will then escape the snare that they will spread before you."

Joan Darc – "Please explain what you mean, dear Father and protector."

Canon Loyseleur – "However perverse, however iniquitous these tribunals of blood may be, they are nevertheless composed of men who are clothed with a sacred character. These priests must save appearances towards one another and the public. Your judges will tell you with a confidential and benign air: 'Joan, you claim to have seen St. Marguerite, St. Catherine and St. Michael, the archangel; you claim to have heard their voices. Can it not have been an illusion of your senses? If so, the senses, due to their grossness, are liable to error. The Church will be slow to impute to you as a crime what may be only a carnal error.' Now, then, my poor child (the canon's features are screwed into an expression of anxious concern) if, misled by such insidious language, and thinking to see in it a means of escape, you were to answer: 'Indeed, I do not affirm that I saw the saints and the archangel, I do not affirm that I heard their voices, but I believe to have seen, I believe to have heard,' if you should say that, dear and holy child, you will be lost! (Joan makes a motion of terror) This is why: To recoil before the affirmation that you have actually seen and heard, to present the fact in the form of a doubt, would be to draw upon your head the charge of falsehood, blasphemy, and heresy in the highest degree. You would be charged (in an increasingly threatening voice) with having made sport of the most sacred things! You would be charged with having, thanks to such diabolical jugglery, deceived the people by holding yourself out as inspired by God, whom you would be outraging in a most infamous, abominable, impious manner! (In a frightful hollow voice) They would then pronounce upon you a terrible excommunication cutting you off from the Church as a gangrened, rotten, infected limb! You would thereupon be delivered to the secular arm, you would be taken to the pyre and burned alive for a heretic, an apostate, an idolater! The ashes of your body will be cast to the winds!"

Joan Darc, pale with fear, utters a piercing cry. She is terrified.

Canon Loyseleur (aside) – "The pyre frightens her. She is ours! (He joins his hands imploringly and points to the wicket where the face of John reappears.) Silence! Joan, my dear daughter, you will ruin us both!"

John (roughly, through the wicket) – "You are still making a noise and screaming! Must I come in and make you behave?"

Canon Loyseleur (brusquely) – "The irons of my poor mate have wounded her. Pain drew from her an involuntary cry."

John – "She has not yet reached the end! She will scream much louder on the pyre that awaits her, the miserable witch!"

Canon Loyseleur (seeming hardly able to contain his indignation) – "Jailer, have at least the charity of not insulting our distress. Have pity for the poor girl!"

John withdraws grumbling. Joan Darc, overwhelmed with terror, has fallen back upon the straw and represses her sobs. After the jailer's withdrawal she slightly regains courage, rises partly and the dialogue proceeds:

Joan Darc – "Pardon my weakness, Father. Oh, the mere thought of such a horrible death – the thought of mounting a pyre!" (She does not finish the sentence, and sobs violently.)

Canon Loyseleur – "By placing before you the frightful fate reserved to you, in case you are snared, I wished to put you upon your guard against your enemies."

Joan Darc (wiping her tears, and in an accent of profound gratitude) – "God will reward you, good Father, for the great pity you show me, a stranger to you."

Canon Loyseleur – "You are no stranger to me, Joan. I know you are one of the glories of France! The elect of the Lord! Now listen to the rest of what I have to say to you. I am in a hurry to complete my advice before I am dragged away from here. If, deceived by their perfidious suggestions, you should answer your judges that you believe you saw your saints appear before you, that you believe you heard their voices, instead of resolutely affirming that you saw them with your eyes and heard them with your ears, St. Catherine, St. Marguerite and the archangel St. Michael, sent to you by the Lord – "

Joan Darc – "It is the truth, Father. I shall tell what I saw and heard. I have never lied."

Canon Loyseleur – "The truth must be boldly confessed, in the face of the judges. You must answer them: 'Yes, I have seen these supernatural beings with my eyes; yes, I have heard their marvelous voices with my ears.' Then, dear child, despite all its ill will, the tribunal, unable to catch the slightest hesitation in your words, will be forced to recognize that you are a sacred virgin, the elect, the inspired of heaven. And however perverse, however devoted to the English your judges may be, they will find themselves forced to absolve you and set you free."

Joan Darc (yielding to hope) – "If all that is needed to be saved is to tell the truth, then my deliverance is certain. Thanks to God and to you, good Father. Thanks for your friendly advice!"

Canon Loyseleur – "If circumstantial details are asked for upon the form and shape of your apparitions, refuse to answer. They might be able to draw from your words some improper meaning. Limit yourself to the pure and simple affirmation of the reality of your visions and revelations."

Outside of the cell the noise of numerous steps is heard, together with the rattle of arms and the words: "To your posts! To your posts! Here is the captain of the tower!"

Canon Loyseleur (listens and says to Joan in great hurry) – "It is the captain. Perhaps the jailer will carry out his threat, and take me away from you, dear daughter. There is but one means for us to meet again. Demand of the captain permission to have me as your confessor. He will not dare to decline. I shall then be able to hold to your lips the sacred wafer, the bread of the angels."

The door opens with a great noise. A captain enters, followed by John and other keepers.

The Captain (pointing to the canon) – "Take that tonsured old scamp to another cell, and keep him on a fast."

Canon Loyseleur – "Sir captain, I pray you, allow me to remain near Joan, my daughter in God."

The Captain – "If the witch is your daughter, then you must be Satan in person."

Canon Loyseleur – "For pity's sake, do not separate us!"

The Captain (to John) – "Take away this priest of Beelzebub!"

John (brutally to the canon) – "Come, get up! Be quick about it!"

Canon Loyseleur rises painfully from his couch of straw, clanking his chains all he can and uttering lamentable sighs. Joan advances toward the captain as far as her chain will allow her, and says in a sweet and imploring voice:

Joan Darc – "Sir, grant me a favor that never is denied to a prisoner. Allow me to take this holy man for my confessor."

The Captain – "Your confessor shall be the executioner, strumpet!"

Canon Loyseleur (carrying his chained hands to his eyes) – "Oh, sir captain, you are merciless."

John (rudely pushing the canon) – "March! March! You will have time enough to cry in your cell."

Joan Darc – "Sir captain, do not spurn my prayer – allow the good priest to visit me occasionally as my confessor."

The Captain (feigns to be mollified) – "I shall consult the Duke of Warwick upon that. For the present (to John), take the priest of Satan away and thrust him into some other cell."

Canon Loyseleur (following the jailer) – "Courage, noble Joan! Courage, my daughter! Remember what I told you! May the holy name of God be ever glorified." (He goes out.)

Joan Darc (with tears in her eyes) – "May God guard me from forgetting your advice. May the Lord preserve you, good Father!" (She drops exhausted upon the straw.)

The Captain (to John) – "Remove the irons from the prisoner. She is to be taken upstairs. The tribunal is in session."

Joan Darc (rises and shivers involuntarily) – "So soon!"

The Captain (with a savage laugh) – "At last I see you tremble, witch! Your bravery came from the devil!"

Joan Darc smiles disdainfully. John and another jailer approach her to remove the irons that hold her by the feet and by the waist. She trembles with disgust and becomes purple with shame at the touch of these men's hands while they remove the irons from her limbs and body. Wounded not in her vanity but in her dignity at the thought of appearing before her judges in torn garments she says to the captain:

Joan Darc – "Sir, I have in that little trunk some linen and other clothes. Please order your men out for a few minutes in order that I may dress myself."

The Captain (bursting out laughing) – "By the devil, your patron! If you want to change your clothes, change them before us, and instead of a few minutes, I shall let you have all the time that you may want for your toilet. I would even help you, if you wish it, my pretty witch!"

Joan Darc (blushing with confusion, and with a firm voice) – "Let us be gone to the tribunal. May God help me. You are truly severe in refusing so slight a favor to a prisoner."

CHAPTER III

THE INQUISITION

The ecclesiastical tribunal before which Joan Darc is to appear is assembled in the ancient chapel of the old Castle of Rouen. The vaults overhead, the walls, the pillars, are blackened with age. It is eight in the morning. The pale light of this winter morn, chilly and foggy, penetrates to the vast nave through a single ogive window, cut into the thick wall behind the platform where the clerical judges are seated under the presidency of Bishop Peter Cauchon. To the left of the tribunal is a table at which the registrars are placed. Their duty is to keep the minutes of the questions and answers. Facing this table is the seat of Peter of Estivet, the institutor of the process. Nothing could be more sinister than the aspect of these men. In order to keep out the cold, they are clad in long furred robes with hoods down and almost completely covering their faces. Their backs are turned to the solitary window from which the only light, and that a weak one, enters the place. Thus they are wholly in the shade. A slight reflection of greyish light fringes the top of their black hoods and glides over their shoulders.

The judges have numerous substitutes to take their places when needed. The priests of the University of Paris are partly reserved for the other sessions. Here are the names of the infamous priests present at this first session. Their names should be inscribed in letters of blood and consigned to eternal execration:

Peter of Longueville, Abbot of the Holy Trinity of Fecamp; John Hulot of Chatillon, Archdeacon of Evreux; James Guesdon of the Order of Minor Friars; John Lefevre, Augustinian monk; Maurice of Quesnay, priest and professor of theology; William Leboucher, priest and doctor of canon law; William of Conti, Abbot of the Trinity of Mount St. Catherine; Bonnel, Abbot of Cormeilles; John Garin, Archdeacon of French Vexin; Richard of Gronchet, canon of the collegiate of Saussaye; Peter Minier, priest and bachelor of theology; Raoul Sauvage, of the Order of St. Dominic; Robert Barbier, canon of Rouen; Denis Gastinel, canon of Notre Dame-la-Ronde; John Ledoux, canon of Rouen; John Basset, canon of Rouen; John Brouillot, chanter of the Cathedral of Rouen; Aubert Morel, canon of Rouen; John Colombelle, canon of Rouen; Laurent Dubust, priest and licentiate of canon law; Raoul Auguy, canon of Rouen; Andre Marguerie, Archdeacon of Petit-Coux; John Alespee, canon of Rouen; Geoffroy of Crotoy, canon of Rouen; Gilles of Les Champs, canon of Rouen; John Lemaitre, vicar and Inquisitor of the faith; finally, Nicolas Loyseleur, canon of Rouen, who completely hides his face under his hood.