 Section 19 of Jean Dark, Her Life and Death. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kay Hand. Jean Dark, Her Life and Death by Margaret O. Oliphant. Re-examination, March through May, 1431. Upon all these contentions followed the calm of Palm Sunday, a great and touching festival, the first break upon the gloom of Lent, and a forerunner of the blessedness of Easter. We have already told how, a semblance of charity with which the reader might easily be deceived, the bishop and four of his assessors had gone to the prison to offer to the maid permission to receive the sacrament if she would do so in a woman's dress, and how after pleading that she might be allowed that privilege as she was in her male costume, and with a pathetic statement that she would have yielded if she could, but that it was impossible, she finally refused, and was so left in her prison to pass that sacred day unsuckered and alone. The historian Michelet in the wonderful sketch in which he rises superior to himself, and which admits all after writings remains the most beautiful and touching memorial of Jean Dark, has made this day a central point in his tale. Using with the skill of genius the service of the church appropriate to the day, in heart-rending contrast with those doors of the prison which did not open, and the help of God which did not come to the young and solitary captive. Le Beaujeu Fleury passed over her in darkness and desertion. Her agony and passion lay before her like those of the divine sufferer to whom every day of the succeeding week is specially consecrated. There is almost indeed a painful following of the Savior's steps in these dark days, the circumstances lending themselves in a wonderful way to the comparison which French writers love to make, but which many of us must always feel, however spotless the sufferer to have a certain irreverence in them. But if ever martyr were worthy of being called a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, it was surely this girl, free if ever human creature was from self-seeking or thought of reward or ambitious hope in whose heart there had never been any motive but the service of God and the deliverance of her country who had neither looked before nor after nor put her own interests into consideration in any way. Silently the feast passed with no holy privileges of religion, no blessed token of the spring, no remembrance of the waving palms and scattered blossoms over which her Lord rode into Jerusalem to die. She had not that sweet, fallacious triumph, but the darker ordeal remained for her to follow. On Tuesday, the 27th of March, her troubles began again. Before Palm Sunday, the report of the trial had been read to her. She had now to hear the formal reading of the articles founded upon it to give a final response if she had any to give or explanation or addition if she thought proper. The sitting was held in the great hall of the castle of Rouen before a band of more than 40 all assembled for this final test. The bishop made a perfectory speech to the prisoner pointing out to her how benign and merciful were the judges now assembled that they had no wish to punish but rather to instruct and lead her in the right way and requesting her at this late period in the proceedings to choose one or more from among them to help her. To which Jean replied, in the first place, considering my good and our faith, I thank you and all the company. As for the counselor, you offer me, I thank you also, but I have no need to depart from our Lord as my counselor. The articles in which the former questions put to her and answered by her were now repeated in the form of accusations were then read to her one by one, her sorcery, sacrilege, et cetera, being taken as facts. To a few, she repeated with various forcible and fine turns of phrase, her previous answers, with here and there a new explanation, but to the great majority, she referred simply to her former replies or denied the charge as follows. The second article concerning Sortelege, superstitious acts and divination she denied and in respect to adoration, i.e., allowing herself to be adored, said, if any kissed her hands or her garments, it was not by her will and that she kept herself from it as much as she could. And the rest of the article she denies. There is a specimen of the matter in which she responded with a clear-headed and undisturbed intelligence, point after point, Ipsa Johanna Negat, is the usual refrain or else she referred with dignity to previous replies as her sole answer. But sometimes the girl was moved to indignation, sometimes added a word in her own defense. As for fairies, she knew not what they were and as for her education, she had been well and duly instructed what to believe as a good child should. This was her answer to the article in which all the folk lore of Dom Remy, all the fairy tales have been collected into a solemn statement of heresy. The matter of dress was once more treated in endless detail, with many interjected questions and reports of what she had already said. And at the end, answering the statement that women's dress was most fit for women's work, Jean added the quick moat, as for the usual work of women, there are enough other women to do it. On another occasion, when the report ran that she claimed to have done all things by the counsel of God, she interrupted and said, that it ought to be all that I have done well. To her former answer that she had yielded to the desire of the French knights in attacking Paris, she added the fine words. It seemed to me that it was their duty to attack their adversaries. In respect to her visions, she added to her former answer that she had not asked advice of Bishop Curay or any other before believing her revelations, but had many times prayed to God to reveal them to others of her party. About calling her saints when she required their aid, she added, that she asked God and our lady to send her counsel and comfort and immediately her heavenly visitors came and that this was the prayer she made. Gentle God, in honor of your passion, I pray you, if you love me, that you would reveal to me how I ought to answer these people of the church. I know well by what command it was that I took this dress, but I know not in what manner I ought to give it up. For this may it please you to teach me. In respect to the reproach that she had been a general in the war, Chef de Guerre, she explained that if she were, it was to drive out the English, repelling the accusation that she had assumed this title in pride, and to that which accused her of preferring to live among men, she explained that when she was in a lodging, she generally had a woman with her, but that when engaged in war, she lived in her clothes wherever there was not a woman present. In respect to her hope of escaping from prison, she was asked if her counsel had thrown any light on that question and replied, I have yet to tell you. Machon, the clerk, makes a note upon his margin at these words, proudly answered. Sir Parbet, respond. This re-examination lasted for two long days, the 27th and 28th of March. On several points, Jean requested that she might be allowed to give an answer on Saturday, and accordingly on Saturday, the last day of March, Easter Eve, she was visited in prison by the bishop and seven or eight assessors. She was then asked if she would submit to the judgment of the church on earth, all that she had done and said, especially in things that concerned her trial. She answered that she would submit to the judgment of the church militant, provided that it did not enforce anything that was impossible. She explained that what she called impossible was to acknowledge that the visions and revelations came otherwise than from God, or that what she had done was not on the part of God. These she would never deny or revoke for any power on earth, and that which our Lord had commanded or should command, she would not give up for any living man, and this would be impossible to her. And in case the church should command her to do anything contrary to the command given her by God, she would not do it for any reason whatsoever. Asked whether she would submit to the church if the church militant pronounced that her revelations were delusions or from the devil or superstitious or evil things, she answered that she would refer everything to our Lord whose command she always obeyed, and that she knew well that everything had come to her by the commandment of God, and that what she had affirmed during this trial to have been done by the commandment of God, it would be impossible for her to deny. And in case the church militant commanded her to go against God, she would submit herself to no man in this world, but to our Lord whose good commandment she had always obeyed. She was asked if she did not believe that she was subject to the church on earth, that is to our Holy Father, the Pope, the Cardinals, Bishops, and other prelates of the church. She answered, yes, our Lord being served first. Asked if she had directions from her voices not to submit to the church militant which is on earth nor to its judgment, she replied that she does not answer according to what comes into her head, but that when she replies it is by commandment, and that she has never been told not to obey the church, our Lord being served first. Nostra Sire, Primer, Servi. Other less formal particulars come to us long after from various witnesses at the procé de réhabilitation in which a lively picture is given of this scene. Frère Isambard had apparently managed, as was his want, to get close to the prisoner and to whisper to her to appeal to the Council of Bale. What is this Council of Bale? She asked in the same tone. Isambard replied that it was the congregation of the whole church, Catholic and universal, and that there would be as many there on her side as on that of the English. Ah, she cried, since there will be some of our party in that place I will willingly yield and submit to the Council of Bale to our Holy Father the Pope and to the Sacred Council. And immediately continues the deposition. The Bishop of Beauvais cried out, silence in the devil's name and told the notary to take no notice of what she said that she would submit herself to the Council of Bale, whereupon a second cry burst from the bosom of Jean. You write what is against me, but you will not write what is for me. Because of these things, the English and their officers threatened terribly the said Frère Isambard, warning him that if he did not hold his peace, he would be thrown in the same. No notice whatever is taken of any such interruption in the formal record. It must have been before this time that Jean de la Fontaine disappeared. He left Rouen secretly and never returned, nor does he ever appear again. Frère Isambard is said to have taken temporary refuge in his convent. They scattered, depart le diable, according to the Christian adoration of Monsieur de Beauvais, though l'avenue would seem to have held his ground and served as confessor to Jean in her agony at which Frère Isambard was also present. We are told that the deputy inquisitor, Lamatra, he who had been got to lend the aid of his presence with such difficulty, fiercely warned the authorities that he would have no harm done to those two friars, from which we may infer that he too had leanings toward the maid. And these honest and loyal men, well deserving of their country and of mankind should not lose their record when the tragic story of so much human treachery and baseness has to be told. After this there came a long pause full of much business to the judges, counselors and clerks who had to reduce the 70 articles to 12 in order to forward a summary of the case to the University of Paris for their judgment. Jean in the meantime had been left but not neglected in her prison. The great feast of Easter had passed without any sacred consolation of the church, but Monsieur de Beauvais, in his kindness, sent her a carp to keep the feast with all, if not any spiritual food. It was quite congenial to the spirit of the time to imagine that the carp had been poisoned and such a thought seems to have crossed the mind of Jean who was very ill after eating of it and like to die. But it was not thus poisoned in prison that would have suited any of her persecutors to let her die. As a matter of fact, as soon as it was known that she was ill, the best doctors procurable were sent to the prison with preemptory orders to prolong her life and cure her at any cost. Before a little time, we lose sight of the sick bed on which the unfortunate maid lay fully dressed, never relinquishing the guard, which was her protection, with her feet chained to her uneasy couch. Even at the moment when her life hung in the balance, we read of no indulgence granted in this respect, no unlocking of the infamous chain nor substitution of a gentler nurse for the attendant, House Pilais, who were her guards night and day. When the Bishop and his court has completed their business and sent off to Paris the important document on which so much depended, they found themselves at leisure to return to Jean, to inquire after her health and to make her a charitable admonition. It was on the 18th of April, after the silence of more than a fortnight, that their visit was made with this benevolent purpose. Seven of her judges attended the bishop into the sick chamber. They had come, he assured her, charitably and familiarly, to visit her and her sickness and to carry her comfort and consolation. Most of these men were indeed familiar enough. She had seen their faces already through many a dreadful day. Though there were one or two which were new and strange, come to stare at her in the depths of her distress. Kaushal reminded her how much and how carefully she had been questioned by the most wise and learned men and that those that they are present were ready to do anything for the salvation of her soul and body in every possible way by instructing or advising her. He added, however, that if she still refused to accept advice and to act according to the counsel of the church, she was in the greatest danger, to which she replied, It seems to me, being so ill as I am, that I am in great danger of death. And if it is thus that God pleases to decide for me, I ask of you to be allowed to confess and receive my savior and to be laid in holy ground. If you desire to have rights and sacraments of the church, said Kaushal, you must do as good Catholics ought to do, submit to holy church. She answered, I can say no other things to you. She was then told that if she was in fear of death through sickness, she ought all the more to amend her life, but that she could not have the privileges of church as a Catholic if she did not submit to the church. She answered, if my body dies in prison, I hope that you will bury me in consecrated ground. Yet if not, I still hope in our Lord. She was then reminded that she had said in her trial, if anything had been said or done by her against our Christian faith ordained by our Lord, that she would not stand by it. She answered, I refer to the answer I made and to our Lord. It was then asked of her, since she believed herself to have had many revelations from God by St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret, whether if there should appear some good creature, sick, who professed to have had a revelation from God in respect to her, would she believe that? She answered that there was no Christian in the world who could come to her professing to have had a revelation of whom she should not know, whether he spoke the truth or not. She would know it through St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Asked if she could not imagine that God might reveal something to a good creature who might be unknown to her, she answered, yes, but I would not believe either man or woman without a sign. Asked if she believed that the Holy scripture was revealed by God, she answered, you know that I do and it is good to know. The last answer she made in respect to submission to Holy church was this, whatever may happen to me, I will neither do nor say anything else for I have answered before during the trial. She was then exhorted powerfully by the venerable doctors present, four are mentioned by name, to submit to our mother, the church with many authorities and examples drawn from the Holy scriptures. And finally, Magister Nicholas Meadie made her an exhaustion from Matthew chapter 18. If your brother trespass against you in what follows, if he will not hear the church, let him be to you as a heathen man and a publican. This was expounded to Jean in the French tongue. And finally she was told that if she would not obey and submit to the church, she must be given up as if she was a Saracen. To which Jean replied that she was a good Christian and well baptized and that she desired to die as a Christian. She was then asked whether, since she begged leave of the church to receive her savior, she would submit to the church if it were promised to her that she would receive. She answered that she would say no more than she had said, that she loved God, served him and was a good Christian and would aid and uphold the holy church with all her power. Asked if she wished that a beautiful procession should be made for her to restore her to her health, she answered that she would be glad if the church and the Catholics would pray for her. For another fortnight, Jean was sent back into the silence and to her own thoughts, which must have grown heavier and heavier as the weary days went on. And no sound of approaching deliverance came, no rumor of help at hand. All was quiet and safe at Rouen, amid the babble of the courtyard, which she might hear fitfully when her guardians were quieter than usual. There was not one word which brought the hope of a French army at hand or of any movement to rescue her. All was silent in the world around, not a breath of hope, not the whisper of a friend. It was not till the second of May that the dreadful blank was again broken and she was called to the great hall of the castle for another interview with her tormentors. When she was led into the hall, it was full as in the first sitting, 63 judges in all being present. The interest had flagged or the pity had grown as the trial dragged at slow length along. But now, when every day the verdict was expected from Paris, the interest had risen again. On her way from prison to the hall, it was necessary to pass the door of the castle chapel and here once or twice, Monsieur, the officer of the court had permitted her to pause and kneel down as she passed. This was all the celebration of the pascal feast that was permitted to Jean. The compassion official, however, was discovered in this small service of charity and sternly reprimanded and threatened. Henceforth, she had to pass without even a longing look through the door at the altar on which was the holy sacrament. She came in on the renewed sitting of the second of May to find the assembled priests settling themselves after the address which had been made to them to hear another address, which John de Chastillon, Archdeacon, had prepared for herself in which she said much that was good both for body and soul to which she consented. He had a list of 12 articles in his hands and explained and expounded them to her as they were the occasion of the sitting. He then admonished her in charity, explaining that those who were faithful to Christ hold firmly and closely to the Christian creed and adjuring her to consent and to amend her ways. To this, Jean answered, read your book, meaning the schedule held by Monseigneur, the Archdeacon, and then I will answer you. I refer myself to God, my master in all things, and I love him with all my heart. To read this book, however, was precisely what Monseigneur, the Archdeacon, had no intention of doing. She was never allowed to hear the 12 articles upon which the verdict against her was founded, but the speaker gave her a long discourse by way of explanation, following more or less the schedule which he held. This Monition General, however, elicited no detailed reply from Jean, who answered briefly with some impatience. I refer myself to my judge, who is the King of Heaven and Earth. The Lord Archdeacon then proceeded to Monition's particulars. It was then once more explained to her that this reference to God alone was a refusal to submit to the church militant, and she was instructed in the authority of the church, which it was the duty of every Christian to believe, unum, sanctum, ecclesium, always guided by the Holy Spirit and which could not air to the judgment of which every question should be referred. She answered, I believe in the church here below, but my doings and sayings as I have already said, I refer and submit to God. I believe that the church militant cannot air or fail, but as for my deeds and words, I put them all before God, who has made me do that which I have done. She also said that she submitted herself to God, her Creator, who made her do everything and referred everything to him and to him alone. She was then asked if she would have no judge on earth, and if our Holy Father, the Pope, were not her judge. She answered, I will tell you nothing more. I have a good master that is our Lord, on whom I depend for everything and not in any other. She was then told that if she would not believe the church and the article ecclesium sanctum catholicum, that she might be reckoned as a heretic and punished by burning to which she answered, I can say nothing else to you. And if I saw the fire before me, I should say only that which I say and could do nothing else. Once more at this point, the clerk writes in his margin, a proud reply, superba responcil. But whether in admiration or in blame, it would be hard to say. Asked if the council general or the Holy Father, Cardinals, et cetera, were there, whether she would submit to them, you shall have no other answer from me, she said. Asked if she would submit to our Holy Father, the Pope, she answered, take me to him and I will answer him, but would say no more. Questioned in respect to her dress, she answered that she would willingly accept a long dress and a woman's hood to go to church to receive her savior. Provided that as she had already said, she were allowed to wear it on that occasion only and then to take back that which she at present wore. Further, when it was set before her that she wore that dress without any need being in prison, she answered, when I have done that for which I was sent by God, I will then take back a woman's dress. Asked if she thought she did well in being dressed like a man, she answered, I refer everything to our Lord. Again, after the exhortation made to her, namely, that in saying that she did well and did not sin in wearing that dress and in the circumstances which concerned her, assuming and wearing it, and in saying that God and the saints may in her do so, she blasphemed and as is contained in this schedule aired and did evil, she answered that she never blasphemed God or the saints. She was then admonished to give up that dress and no longer to think it was right and to return to the garb of a woman, but answered that she would make no change in this respect. Concerning her revelations, she replied in regard to them, that she referred everything to her judge, that is God, and that her revelations were from God without any other medium. Asked concerning the sign given to the king if she would refer to the Archbishop of Reims, the sire de Boisart, Charles de Bourbon, La Traumole, La Hire, to them or to any one of them who, according to what she formerly said, had seen the crown and were present when the angel brought it and gave it to the Archbishop, or if she would refer to any others of her party who might write under their seals that it was so, she answered, send a messenger and I will write to them about the whole trial, but otherwise she was not disposed to refer to them. In respect to her presumption in divining the future, et cetera, she answered, I refer everything to my judge who is God and to what I have already answered, which is written in the book. Asked if two or three or four nights of her party were to be brought here under a safe conduct, whether she would refer to them, her aberrations and other things contained in this trial, answered, let them come and then I will answer, but otherwise she was not willing to refer to anyone. Asked whether at the church of Quartier, where she was examined, she had submitted to the church, she answered, do you hope to catch me in this way and by that draw advantage to yourselves? In conclusion, afresh and abundantly, she was admonished to submit herself to the church on pain of being abandoned by the church, for if the church left her, she would be in great danger of body and of soul and she might well put herself in peril of eternal fire for the soul, as well as of temporal fire for the body by the sentence of other judges. You will not do this what you say against me without doing injury to your own body's and souls, she said. Asked whether she could give a reason why she would not submit to the church, but to this she would make no additional reply. Again a week passed in busy talk and consultation without in silence and desertion within. On the 9th of May, the prisoner was again led this time to the Great Tower, apparently the torture chamber of the castle, where she found nine of her judges awaiting her and was once more adjured to speak the truth with the threat of torture she continued to refuse. Never was her attitude more calm, more dignified and lofty in its simplicity than add to this grim moment. Truly, she replied, if you tear the limbs from my body and my soul out of it, I can say nothing other than what I have said. Or if I said anything different, I should afterwards say that you had compelled me to do it by force. She added that on the day of the Holy Cross, the 3rd of May passed, she had been comforted by St. Gabriel. She believed that it was St. Gabriel and she knew by her voices that it was St. Gabriel. She had asked counsel of her voices whether she should submit to the church because the priests pressed her so strongly to submit, but it had been said to her that if she desired our Lord to help her, she must depend upon him for everything. She added that she knew well that our Lord had always been the master of all she did and that the enemy had nothing to do with her deeds. Also she had asked her voices if she should be burned and the said voices had replied to her that she was to wait for the Lord and he would help her. Afterwards, in respect to the crown which had been handed by the angel to the Archbishop of Reims, she was asked if she would refer to him. She answered, bring him here that I may hear what he says and then I shall answer you. He will not dare to say the contrary of that which I have said to you. The Archbishop of Reims had been her constant enemy. All the hindrances that had occurred in her active life and the constant attempts made to bulk her even in her brief moment of triumph came from him and his associate, La Tremolet. He was the last person in the world to whom Jean naturally would have appealed. Perhaps that was the admirable reason why he was suggested in this dreadful crisis of her fate. A few days later, it was discussed among those dark inquisitors whether the torture should be applied or not. Finally, among 13, there were about two. Let not the voice of sacred vengeance be silent on their shame, though after four centuries and more. Thomas de Corselles, first of the theologians, cleverest of the ecclesiastical lawyers, mildest of men, and Nicholas La Oyseleur, the spy and traitor who voted for the torture. One man most reasonably asked why she should be put to torture when they had ample material for judgments without it. One cannot but feel that the proceedings on this occasion were either intended to beguile the impatience of the English authorities, eager to be done with the whole business, or to add a quite gratuitous pang to the sufferings of the heroic girl. As the men were not devils, though probably possessed by this time, the more cruel among them by the horrible curiosity innate alas in human nature of seeing how far a suffering soul could go, it is probable that the first motive was the true one. The English war rick especially, whose every movement was restrained by this long pending affair were exceedingly impatient and tempted at times to take the matter into their own hands and spoil the perfectness of this well-constructed work of art, conducted according to all the rules, the beautiful trial which was dear to the bishop's heart, and destined to be, though perhaps in a sense somewhat different to that which he hoped, his chief title to fame. 10 days after the decision of the University of Paris arrived in a great assembly of counselors, 51 in all, besides the permanent presidents, collected together in the chapel of the Archbishop's house to hear that document read, along with many other documents, the individual opinions of a host of doctors and eminent authorities. After an explanation of the solemn care given by the University to the consideration of every one of the 12 articles of the indictment, that learned tribunal pronounced its verdict upon each. The length of the proceedings makes it impossible to reproduce these. First, as did the early revelations given to Jean, described in the first and second articles, they are denounced as murderous, seductive and pernicious fictions. The apparitions of those malignant spirits and devils, Belial, Satan and Behemoth. The third article, which concerned her recognition of the saints was described more mildly as containing errors in faith. The fourth as to her knowledge of future events was characterized as superstitious and presumptuous divination. The fifth concerning her dress, declared her to be blasphemous and contemptuous of God in his sacraments. The sixth by which she was accused of loving bloodshed because she made war against those who did not obey the summons in her letters, bearing the name Jesus Maria, was declared to prove that she was cruel, seeking the shedding of blood, seditious and a blasphemer of God. The tenor is the same to the end. Blasphemy, superstition, pernicious doctrine, impiety, cruelty, presumption, lying. A schismatic, a heretic, an apostate, an idolater and a voker of demons. These are the conclusions drawn by the most solemn and weighty tribunal on matters of faith in France. The precautions taken to procure a full and trustworthy judgment, the appeal to each section in turn, the faculty of theology, the faculty of law, the nations, all separately and then all together passing every item in review are set forth at full length. Every formality had been fulfilled. Every rule followed. Every detail was in the fullest order, signed and sealed and attested by solemn notaries, bristling with well-known names. A beautiful judgment equal to the trial, which was beautiful too. Not a rule omitted except those of justice, fairness and truth. The doctor sat and listened with every fine professional sense satisfied. If the before said woman, charitably exhorted and admonished by competent judges does not return spontaneously to the Catholic faith, publicly abjure her errors and give full satisfaction to her judges. She is hereby given up to the secular judge to receive the reward of her deeds. The attendant judges each in his place now added to their adhesion. Most of them simply stated their agreement with the judgment of the university or with that of Bishop of Fécalme, which was a similar tenor. If you wish that Jean should be again charitably admonished, many desired that on this self-same day, the final sentence should be pronounced. Among them, a certain Raoul Sauvage, Rodolphus Sylvesterus, suggested that she should be brought before the people in a public place. A suggestion afterwards carried out. Frère Isambard desired that she should be charitably admonished again and have another chance and that her final fate should still be in the hands of us, her judges. The conclusion was that one more charitable admonition should be given to Jean and that the law should then take its course. The suggestion that she should make a public appearance had only one supporter. This dark scene in the chapel is very notable. Each man rising to pronounce what was in reality a sentence of death. 50 of them, almost unanimous, filled no doubt with a hundred different motives to please this man or that, to in favor, to get into the way of promotion, but all with a distinct consciousness of the great yet horrible spectacle, the stake, the burning. Though perhaps here and there was one with the hope that perpetual imprisonment, bread of sorrow and water of anguish might be substituted for that terrible death. Finally, it was decided that, always on the side of mercy as every act proved, the tribunal should once more charitably admonish the prisoner for the salvation of her soul and body and that after all this, good deliberation and wholesome counsel, the case should be concluded. Again, there follows a pause of four days. No doubt the bishop and his assessors had other things to do. Their ecclesiastical functions, their private business, which could not always be put aside because one forsaken soul was held in suspense day after day. Finally, on the 24th of May, Jean again received in her prison a dignified company, some quite new and strange to her. Indeed, the idea may cross the reader's mind that it was perhaps to show off the interesting prisoner to two new and powerful bishops. First, Louis of Luxembourg, a relative of her first captor, that this last examination was held. Nine men in all crowding her chamber, ex-pognateur Johann defectif Sui, says the record, to expound to Jean her faults. It was Magister Peter Maurice to whom this office was confided. Once more, the schedule was gone over and an address delivered laden with all the bad words of the university. Jean, dearest friend, said the orator at last, it is now time at the end of the trial to think well what words these are. She would seem to have spoken during this address at least once to say that she held to everything she had said during the trial. When Maurice had finished, she was once more questioned personally. She was asked if she still thought and believed that it was not her duty to submit her deeds and words to the church militant or to any other except God, upon which she replied, what I have always said and held to during the trial I maintain to this moment and added that if she were in judgment and saw the fire lighted, the faggots burning and the executioner ready to rake the fire and she herself within the fire, she could say nothing else, but would sustain what she had said in her trial to death. Once more, the scribe has written in his margin the words responsio johane superba, the proud answer of Jean. Her raised head, her expanded breast, something of a splendor of indignation about her must have moved the man, thus for the third time to send down to us his distinctly human impression of the worn out prisoner before her judges. In immediately, the promoter and she refusing to say more, the cause was concluded, says the record, so formal, sustained within such purely abstract limits, yet here and there with a sort of throb and reverberation of the mortal encounter. From the lips of the inquisitor too, all words seem to have been taken. It is as when I'm in the excited crowd in the temple of the officers of the Pharisees approaching to lay hands on a greater thejean, fell back not knowing why and could not do their office. This man was silenced also. Two bishops were present and one a great man full of patronage, but not for the richest living in Normandy, could Peter Maurice find any more to say. These are in one sense the words of Jean, the last we have from her in her prison, the last of her consistent and unbroken life. After there was a deeper horror to go through, a moment when all her forces failed. Here on the verge of eternity, she stands heroic and unyielding, brave, calm and steadfast as at the outset of her career, the maid of France. Where the fires lighted and the faggots burning and she herself within the fire, she had no other word to say. End of section 19. Section 20 of Jean Dark, her life and death. This is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Jean Dark, her life and death by Margaret O. Oliphant. The abduration, May 24th, 1431. On the 23rd of May, Jean was taken back to her prison, attended by the officer of the court, Monsieur. Her frame still thrilling, her heart still high, with that great note of constancy yet defiance. She had been no doubt strongly excited, the commotion within her growing with every repetition of these scenes, each one of which promised to be the last. And the fire and the stake and the executioner had come very near to her, no doubt a whole murmuring world of rumour, of strange information about herself, never long inaudible, never heard outside of the castle of Rouen. Rose half-comprehended from the echoing courtyard outside and the bubble of her guards within. She would hear even as she was conveyed along the echoing stone passages, something here and there of the popular expectation, a burning, the wonderful unheard of sight, which by hook or by crook everyone must see. And no doubt among the English talk she might now be able to make out something concerning this long business which had retarded all warlike proceedings, but which would soon be over now and the witch burned. There must have been some, even among those rude companions who would be sorry, who would feel that she was no witch, yet to be helpless to do anything for her any more than Monsieur could, of Frère Isambard, and if it was all for the sake of certain words to be said, was the wench mad? Would it not be better to say anything, to give up anything rather than be burned at the stake? Jean, notwithstanding the wonderful courage of her last speech, must have returned to herself with small illusion possible to her intelligent spirit. The stake had indeed come very near. The flames already dazzled her eyes. She must have felt her slender form shrink together at the thought. All that long night, through the early daylight of the May morning, did she lie and ponder, as for far less reasons so many of us have pondered as we lay waitful through those morning watches. God's promises are great, but where is the fulfilment? We ask for bread, and he gives us, if not a stone, yet something which we cannot realise to be bred till after many days. Jean's voices had never paused in their pledge to her of succour. Speak boldly, God will help you, fear nothing. There would be aid for her before three months and great victory. They went on saying so, though the stake was already being raised. What did they mean? What did they mean? Could she still trust them, or was it possible? Her heart was like to break. At their word, she would have faced the fire. She meant to do so now, notwithstanding the terrible, the heart-rending ache of hope that was still in her. But they did not give her that heroic command. Still, and always, they said, God will help you. Our Lord will stand by you. What did that mean? It must mean deliverance, deliverance. What else could it mean? If she held her head high, as she returned to the horrible monotony of that prison so often left with hope, so often re-entered with sadness, it must soon have dropped upon her tired bosom. Slowly the clouds had settled round her. Over and over again she had affirmed them to be true. These voices that had guided her steps and led her to victory. And they had promised her the aid of God if she went forward boldly, and spoke, and did not fear. But now every way of salvation was closing. All around her were fierce soldiers thirsting for her blood, smooth priests who admonished her in charity, threatening her with eternal fire for the soul, temporal fire for the body. She felt that fire already blowing towards her as if on the breath of the evening wind. And her girlish flesh shrank. Was that what the voices had called deliverance? Was that the grand victory, the aid of the Lord? It may well be imagined that Jan slept back little that night. She had reached the lowest depths. Her soul had begun to lose itself in bitterness in the horror of a doubt. The atmosphere of her prison became intolerable and the noise of her guards keeping up their rough jests half through the night, their stamping and clamour and the clang of their arms when relieved. Early next morning a party of her usual visitors came in upon her to give her fresh instruction and advice. Something new was about to happen today. She was to be led forth to breathe the air of heaven, to confront the people, the raging sea of men's faces, all the unknown world about her. The crowd had never been unfriendly to Jan. It had closed about her almost wherever she was visible with sweet applause and outcries of joy. Perhaps a little hope stirred in her heart in the thought of being surrounded once more by the common folk, though probably it did not occur to her to think of these Norman strangers as her own people. And a great day was before her, a day in which something might still be done, in which deliverance might yet come. Razelleux, who was one of her visitors, addued her now to change her conduct, to accept whatever means of salvation might be offered to her. There was no longer any mention of pope or council, but only of the church to which she ought to yield. How it was that he preserved his influence over her, having been proved to be a member of the tribunal that judged her, and not a fellow prisoner, nor a fellow countryman, nor any of the things he had professed to be, no one can tell us. But evidently he had managed to do so. Jan would seem to have received him without signs of repulsion or displeasure. Indeed she seems to have been ready to hear anyone, to believe in those who professed to wish her well, even when she did not follow their council. It would require, however, no great persuasion on Razelleux's part, to convince her that this was a more than usually important day, and that something decisive must be done, now or never. Why should she be so determined to resist her only chance of safety? If she were but delivered from the hands of the English, safe in the gentler keeping of the church, there would be time to think of everything, even to make her peace with the voices who would surely understand if, for the saving of her life and out of terror for the dreadful fire, she abandoned them for a moment. She had disobeyed them as a bourgeois, and they had forgiven, one faltering word now, a mark of her hand upon a paper, and she would be safe, even if still all they said was true. And if indeed, and in fact, after buoying her up from day to day, such a dreadful thing might be, as that they were not true. The traitor was at her ear, whispering, the cold chill of disappointment, of disillusion, of sickening doubt was in her heart. Then there came to the prison a better man than Razelleux, Jean-Baudpère, her questioner in the public trial, the representative of all these notabilities. What he said was spoken with authority, and he came in all seriousness. May we not believe in some kindness too, to warn her. He came with permission of the bishop, no stealthy visitor. Jean-Baudpère entered alone into the prison, of the said Jean, by permission, and advertised her, that she would straightway be taken to the scaffold to be addressed. Pour y être prêché, and that if she was a good Christian, she would on that scaffold place all her acts and words, under the jurisdiction of our Holy Mother, the Church, and especially of the ecclesiastical judges. Accept the woman's dress, and do all that you are told, her other advisor had said. When the car that was to convey her came to the prison doors, Razelleux accompanied her, no doubt with a show of supporting her to the end. What a change from the confined and gloomy prison, to the dazzling clearness of the May daylight, the air, the murmuring streets, the throng that gazed and shouted and followed. Life that had run so low in the prisoner's vein must have bounded up within her, in response to that sunshine and open sky, and movement and sound of existence. Summer weather too, and everything softened in the medium of that soft breathing air, sound and sensation and hope. She had been three months in her prison, as the charrette rumbled along the roughly paved streets drawing all the crowds after it, a strange object appeared to Jean's eyes in the midst of the marketplace, her lofty scaffold with a stake upon it, rising over the heads of the crowd, the logs all arranged ready for the fire, a car waiting below with four horses to bring hither the victim. The place of sacrifice was ready, everything arranged, for whom? For her? They drove her noisily past that she might see the preparations, which was all ready, and where then was the great victory, the deliverance in which she had believed? In front of the beautiful gates of Saint-Tois, there was a different scene. That stately church was surrounded then by a church yard, a great open space, which afforded room for a very large assembly. In this were erected two platforms, one facing the other. On the first sat the court of judges in number about forty, Cardinal Winchester having a place by the side of Monsignor de Beauvais, the President, with several other bishops and dignified ecclesiastics. Opposite, on the other platform, were a pulpit, and a place for the accused, to which Jean was conducted by Monsieur, who never left her, and Loise Lyre, who kept as near as he could, the rest of the platform being immediately covered by lawyers, doctors, all the camp followers, so to speak, of the Black Army, who could find footing there. Jean was in her usual male dress, the doublet and hose, with her short clipped hair, no doubt looking like a slim boy among all this dark crowd of men. The people swayed like a sea all about and around, the throng which had gathered in her progress through the streets, pushing out the crowd already assembled, with a movement like the waves of the sea. Every step of the trial, all through, had been attended by preaching, by discourses and reasoning and admonishments, charitable and otherwise. Now she was to be preached for the last time. It was Dr. Guillaume Ra, who ascended the pulpit, a great preacher, one whom the copious multitude ran after and were eager to hear. He himself had not been disposed to accept this office, but no doubt set up there on that height before the eyes of all the people, he thought of his own reputation and of the great audience, and Winchester, the more than king, the great English prince, the wealthiest and most influential of men, the preacher took his text from a verse in St John's Gospel. A branch cannot bear fruit except it's remain in the vine. The centre circle containing the two platforms was surrounded by a close ring of English soldiers, understanding none of it, and anxious only that the witch should be condemned. It was in this strange and crowded scene that the sermon which was long and eloquent began, when it was half over, in one of his fine periods admired by all the people, the preacher, after heaping every reproach upon the head of Jean, suddenly turned to apostrophise the house of France, and the head of that house. Charles, who calls himself king, he has, cried the preacher, stimulated no doubt by the eye of Winchester upon him, adhered like a schismatic and heretical person as he is, to the words and acts of a useless woman, disgraced and full of dishonour, and not he only but the clergy who are under his sway, and the nobility. This guilt is thine, Jean, and to thee I say that thy king is a schismatic and a heretic. In the full blood of his oratory the preacher was arrested here, by that clear voice that had so often made itself heard through the tumult of battle. Jean could bear much, but not this. She was used to abuse in her own person, but all her spirit came back at the assault on her king. An interruption to a sermon has always a dramatic and startling effect, but when that voice arose now, when the startled speaker stopped, and every dulled attention revived, it is easy to imagine what a stir wonderful, sudden sensation must have arisen in the midst of the crowd. By my faith, sir, cried Jean, saving your respect, I swear upon my life that my king is the most noble Christian of all Christians, that he is not what you say. The sermon, however, was resumed after this interruption, and finally the preacher turned to Jean who had subsided from that start of animation, and was again the subdued and silent prisoner, her heart overwhelmed with many heavy thoughts. Here, said Erra, are my lords the judges who have so often summoned and required of you to submit your acts and words to our holy mother the church, because in these acts and words there are many things which it seemed to the clergy were not good either to say or to sustain. To which she replied, we quote again from the formal records, I will answer you, and as to her submission to the church she said, I have told them on that point that all the works which I have done and said may be sent to Rome, to our holy father the Pope, to whom but to God first I refer in all. And as for my acts and words I have done all on the part of God. She also said that no one was to blame for her acts and words, neither her king, nor any other, and if there were faults in them the blame was hers and no others. Asked if she would renounce all that she had done wrong, answered I refer everything to God and to our holy father the Pope. It was then told her that this was not enough, and that our holy father was too far off, also that the ordinaries were judges each in his diocese, and it was necessary that she should submit to our mother the holy church, and that she should confess that the clergy and officers of the church had a right to determine in her case, and of this she was admonished three times. After this the bishop began to read the definitive sentence, when a great part of it was read Jan began to speak, and said that she would hold to all that the judges and the church said, and obey in everything their ordinance and will, and there in the presence of the above named, and of the great multitude assembled, she made her abduration in the manner that follows, and she said several times that since the church said her apparitions and revelations could not be sustained or believed, she would not sustain them, but in everything submit to the judges and to our mother the holy church. In this strange, brief, subdued manner is the formal record made. Montréal writes on his margin, at the end of the sentence Jan, fearing the fire, said she would obey the church. Even into the bare legal document there comes a hush as of all, the one voice responding in the silence of the crowd with a quiver in it. The very animation of the previous outcry enhancing the effect of this low and faltering submission. Timmens ignium in fear of the fire. The more familiar record and the recollections long after of those eyewitnesses give us another version of the scene. Erra from his pulpit read the form of abduration prepared, but Jan answered that she did not know what abduration meant, and the preacher called upon Macier to explain it to her, and he, we quote from his own deposition, after excusing himself said that it meant this, that if she opposed the said articles she would be burnt, but he advised her to refer it to the church universal whether she should abdure or not. Which thing she did, saying to Erra, I refer to the church universal whether I should abdure or not. To which Erra answered, you shall abdure at once or you will be burnt. Macier gives further particulars in another part of the rehabilitation process. Erra, he says, asks what he was saying to the prisoner, and he answered that she would sign if the schedule was read to her, but Jan said that she could not write and then added that she wished it to be decided by the church and ought not to sign unless that was done, and also required that she should be placed in the custody of the church and freed from the hands of the English. The same Erra answered that there had been ample delay and that if she did not sign at once she should be burned, and forbade Macier to say any more. Meanwhile many cries and entreaties came, as far as they dared, from the crowd. Someone, in the excitement of the moment, would seem to have promised that she should be transferred to the custody of the church. Jan, why will you die? Jan, will you not save yourself? was called to her by many a bystander. The girl stood fast, but her heart failed her in this terrible climax of her suffering. Once she called out over their heads, all that I did was done for good, and it was well to do it. Her last cry. Then she would seem to have recovered in some measure her composure. Probably her agitated brain was unable to understand the formula of recantation which was read to her amid all the increasing noises of the crowd. But she had a vague faith in the condition she had herself stated, that the paper should be submitted to the church, and that she should have once be transferred to an ecclesiastical prison. Other suggestions are made, namely, that it was a very short document upon which she hastily in her despair made a cross, and that it was a long one consisting of several pages which were shown afterwards with Jehan scribbled underneath. In fact, says Messier, she abdured and made a cross with the pen which the witness handed to her. He, if any one, must have known exactly what happened. No doubt all this would be imperfectly heard on another platform, but the agitation must have been visible enough, the spectators closing round the young figure in the midst, the pleadings, the appeals seconded by many a cry from the crowd. Such a small matter to risk her young life for. Sign, sign, why should you die? Cauchon had gone on reading the sentence half through the struggle. He had two sentences already, two courses of procedure, cut and stride. Either to absolve her, which meant condemning her to perpetual imprisonment on bread and water, or to carry her off at once to the stake. The English were impatient for the last, it is a horrible thing to acknowledge, but it is evidently true. They had never wished to play with her as a cat with a mouse, as her learned countrymen had done those three months past. They had desired at once to get her out of the way, but the idea of her perpetual imprisonment did not please them at all. The risk of such a prisoner was more than they chose to encounter. Nevertheless there are some things a churchmen cannot do. When it was seen that Jean had yielded that she had put her mark to something on a paper flourished forth in somebody's hand in the sunshine, the bishop turned to the cardinal on his right hand and asked what he was to do. There was but one answer possible to Winchester had he been English and Jean's natural enemy ten times over. To admit her to penitence was the only practical way. Here arises a great question already referred to as to what it was that Jean signed. She could not write, she could only put her cross on the document hurriedly read to her amid the confusion and the murmurs of the crowd. The sedule to which she put her sign contained eight lines. What she is reported to have signed is three pages long and full of detail. Monsieur declares certainly that this, the abduration published, was not the one of which mention is made in the trial, for the one read by the deponent and signed by the sedgeant was quite different. This would seem to prove the fact that a much enlarged version of an act of abduration in its original form, strictly confined to the necessary points and expressed in few words, was afterwards published as that bearing the sign of the penitent. Her own admissions, as will be seen, are of the scantiest, scarcely enough to tell as an abduration at all. When the shouts of the people proved that this great step had been taken and Winchester had signified his conviction that the penitence must be accepted, Colchon replaced one sentence by another and pronounced the prisoner's fate. Seeing that thou hast returned to the bosom of the church by the grace of God, and hast revoked undenied all thy errors, we, the bishop aforesaid, commit thee to perpetual prison, with the bread of sorrow and water of anguish, to purge thy soul by solitary penitence. Whether the words reached her over all those crowding heads, or whether they were reported to her, or what Jean expected to follow standing there upon her platform, more shamed and downcast than through all her trial, no one can tell. There seems even to have been a moment of uncertainty among the officials. Some of them congratulated Jean, résulure for one pressing forward to say, You have done a good day's work, you have saved your soul. She herself, excited and anxious, desired eagerly to know where she was to go. She was seeing for the moment to have accepted the fact of her perpetual imprisonment with complete faith and content. It meant to her instant relief from her hideous prison-house, and she could not contain her impatience and eagerness. People of the church, Jean de L'Église, lead me to your prison. Let me be no longer in the hands of the English, she cried with feverish anxiety. To gain this point, to escape the irons and the dreadful endurance which she had suffered so long, was all her thought. The men about her could not answer this appeal. Some of them no doubt knew very well what the answer must be, and some must have seen the angry looks and stern exclamation which Warwick addressed to Colchon, deceived like Jean by this unsatisfactory conclusion, and the stir among the soldiers at sight of his displeasure. But perhaps flurried by all that had happened, perhaps hoping to strengthen the victim in her moment of hope, some of them hurried across to the bishop to ask where they were to take her. One of these was Pierre-Miget, friar of Longoville. Where will she be taken? In Winchester's hearing, perhaps in Warwick's, what a question to put, an English bishop, says this witness, turned to him angrily and said to Colchon that this was a fauteur de la dite, Jean. This fellow was also one of them. Michel excused himself in alarm, as Saint Peter did before him, and Colchon turning upon him commanded grimly that she should be taken back when she came. Thus ended the last hope of the maid. Her abjuration, which by no just title could be called an abjuration, had been in vain. Jean was taken back, dismayed and miserable, to the prison which she had perilled her soul to escape. It was very little she had done in reality, and at that moment she could scarcely yet have realised what she had done, except that it had failed. At the end of a long and bitter struggle she had thrown down her arms. But for what? To escape those horrible jailers, and at a cursed room with his ear of Dionysius, its Judas-hole in the wall. The bitterness of going back was beyond words. We hear of no word that she said when she realised the hideous fact that nothing was changed for her. The bitter waters closed over her head. Again the chains to be locked and double-locked that bound her to her dreadful bed. Again the presence of those men who must have been all the more odious to her from the momentary hope that she had got free from them for ever. The same afternoon the vicar inquisitor who had never been hard upon her, accompanied by Nicole Midy, by the young Seraphic doctor Corsel and Lois-sulure, along with various other ecclesiastical persons, visited her prison. The inquisitor congratulated and almost blessed her, sermonising as usual, but briefly and not un-gently, though with a word of warning that should she change her mind and return to her evil ways there will be no further place for repentance. As a result for the mercy and clemency of the church he required her immediately to put on the female dress which his attendants had brought. There is something almost ludicrous could we forget the tragedy to follow in the bundle of humble clothing brought by such exalted personages with the solemnity which became a thing upon which hung the issues of life or death. Jean replied with the humility of a broken spirit. I take them willingly, she said, and in everything I will obey the church. Then silence closed upon her, the horrible silence of the prison, full of hidden listeners and of watching eyes. Meantime there was a great discontent and strife of tongues outside. It was said that many even of the doctors who condemned her would feign have seen Jean removed to some less dangerous prison, but Monsignor de Beauvais had to hold head against the great English authorities who were out of all patience, fearing that the witch might still slip through their fingers and by her spells and incantations make the heart of the troops melt once more within them. If the mind of the church had been as charitable as it professed to be, I doubt if all the power of Rome could have got the maid now out of the English grip. They were exasperated and felt that they too, as well as the prisoner, had been played with, but the bishop had good hope in his mind still to be able to content his patrons. Jean had abdured it was true, but the more he inquired into that act, the less secure he must have felt about it. And she might relapse, and if she relapsed, there would be no longer any place for repentance, and it is evident that his confidence in the power of the clothes was boundless. In any case a few days more would make all clear. They did not have many days to wait. There are two to all appearance, well authenticated stories of the cause of Jean's relapse. One account is given by Frère Isambar, whom she told in the presence of several others that she had been assaulted in her cell by Milaure Anglais and barbarously used, and in self-defense had resumed again the man's dress which had been left in her cell. The story of Monsieur is different. To him Jean explained that when she asked to be released from her bed on the morning of Trinity Sunday, her guards took away her female dress which she was wearing, and emptied the sack containing the other upon her bed. She appealed to them reminding them that these were forbidden to her, but got no answer except a brutal order to get up. It is very probable that both stories are true. Frère Isambar found her weeping and agitated and nothing is more probable than this was the occasion on which Warwick heard her cries and interfered to save her. Monsieur's version of which he is certain was communicated to him a day or two after when they happened to be alone together. It was on the Thursday before Trinity Sunday that she put on the female dress, but it would seem that rumours on the subject of a relapse had begun to spread even before the Sunday on which that event happened, and both Père and Midy were sent by the bishop to investigate, but they were very ill-received in the castle, sworn at by the guards and forced to go back without seeing Jean, there being as yet it appeared nothing to see. On the morning of the Monday however the rumours arose with greater force, and no doubt secret messages must have informed the bishop that the hoped for relapse had taken place. He set out himself accordingly, accompanied by the vicar inquisitor, and attended by eight of the familiar names so often quoted, triumphant, important, no doubt with much show and pompous solemnity, to find out for himself. The castle was all in excitement, report and gossip already busy with the new events so trifling, so all-important. There was no idea now of turning back the visitors. The prison doors were eagerly thrown open, and there indeed once more in her tunic and hose was Jean, whom they had left four days before, painfully contemplating the garments they had given her, and humbly promising obedience. The men burst in upon her with an outcry of astonishment. What, she had changed her dress again? Yes, she replied, she had resumed the costume of a man. There was no triumph in what she said but rather a subdued tone of sadness, as of one who in the most desperate straight had taken her resolution and must abide by it, whether she likes it or not. She was asked why she had resumed that dress and who had made her do so. There was no question of anything else at first. The tunic and gripple were at once enough to decide her fate. She answered that she had done it by her own will, no one influencing her to do so, and that she preferred the dress of a man to that of a woman. She was reminded that she had promised and sworn not to resume the dress of a man. She answered that she was not aware she had ever sworn or had made such an oath. She was asked why she had done it. She answered that it was more lawful to wear a man's dress among men than the dress of a woman, and also that she had taken it back because the promise made to her had not been kept that she should hear the mass and receive her saviour and be delivered from her irons. She was asked if she had not abdued that dress and sworn not to resume it. She answered that she would rather die than be left in irons, but if they would allow her to go to mass and take her out of her irons and put her in a gracious prison and a woman with her, she would be good and do whatever the church pleased. She was then asked suddenly, as if there had been no condemnation of her voices as lying fables, whether since Thursday she had heard them again. To this she answered, recovering a little courage, yes. She was asked what they had said to her. She answered that they had said, God had made known to her by St Catherine and St Margaret the great pity there was of the treason to which she had consented by making abduration and revocation in order to save her life, and that she had earned damnation for herself to save her life. Also that before Thursday her voices had told her that she should do what she did that day, that on the scaffold they had told her to answer the preachers boldly, and that this preacher whom she called a false preacher had accused her of many things she never did. She also added that if she said God had not sent her, she would damn herself, for true it was that God had sent her. Also that the voices had told her since that she had done a great sin in confessing that she had sinned, but that for fear of the fire she had said that which she had said. She was asked all over again if she believed that these voices was those of St Catherine and St Margaret. She answered, yes, they were so, and from God, and as for what had been said to her on the scaffold that she had spoken lies and boasted concerning St Catherine and St Margaret, she had not intended any such thing. Also she said that she had never intended to deny her apparitions, or to say that they were not St Catherine and St Margaret. All that she had done was in fear of the fire, and she had denied nothing but what was contrary to truth, and she said that she would like better to make her penitence all at one time. That it's a say in dying than to endure a long penitence in prison. Also that she had never done anything against God or the faith whatever they might have made her say, and that for what was in the schedule of the abjuration she did not know what it was. Also she said that she never intended to revoke anything so long as it pleased the Lord. At the end she said that if her judges would have her do so, she might put on again her female dress, but for the rest she would do no more. What need we any further witness, for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth. Jan's protracted, broken yet continuous apology and defence overrode her judges. She did not seem to have interrupted it with questions. It was enough, and more than enough. She had relapsed. The end of all things had come. The will of her enemies could now be accomplished. No one could say she had not had full justice done her. Every formality had been fulfilled. Every lingering formula carried out. Now there was but one thing before her, whose sad young voice with many pauses, thus sighed forth its last utterance. And for her judges one last spectacle to prepare, and the work to complete which it had taken them three long months to do. End of section 20. Section 21 of Jan Dark, Her Life and Death. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Jan Dark, Her Life and Death by Margaret O. Oliphant. The Sacrifice. May 31, 1431 It is not necessary to be a good man in order to divine what in certain circumstances a good and pure spirit will do. The Bishop of Beauvais had entertained no doubt as to what would happen. He knew exactly, with a perspicuity creditable to his perceptions at least, that notwithstanding the effect which his theatrical mise-en-scène had produced upon the imagination of Jan, no power in heaven or earth would induce that young soul to contend itself with a lie. He knew it, though lies were his daily bread. The children of this world are wiser in their generation and the children of light. He had bitten his English patrons to wait a little, and now his predictions were triumphantly fulfilled. It is hard to believe of any man that on such a certainty he could have calculated and laid his devilish plans. But there would have seemed to have existed, in the medieval churchmen, a certain horrible thirst for the blood of a relapsed heretic, which was peculiar to their age and profession, and which no better principle in their own minds could subdue. It was their appetite, their delight of sensation, in distinction from the other appetites perhaps scarcely less cruel, which other men indulged with no such horrified denunciation from the rest of the world. Others, it is evident, shared with Cauchon that sharp sensation of dreadful pleasure in finding her out. Young course sells so modest and unassuming, and so learned, among the rest, not Lois-leur it appears by the sequel, that Judas, like the greater traitor, was struck to the heart, but the less bad man who had only persecuted not betrayed, stood high in superior virtue, and only rejoiced that at last the victim was ready to drop into the flames, which had been so carefully prepared. The next morning, Tuesday after Trinity Sunday, the witnesses hurried with their news to the quickly summoned assembly in the chapel of the Archbishop's house. Thirty-three of the judges, having been hastily called together, were there to hear. Jan had relapsed, the sinner escaped had been recalled, and what was now to be done. One by one each man rose again and gave his verdict. Once more, Egidius, arbiter of Fécon, led the tide of opinion. There was but one thing to be done, to give her up to the secular justice, praying that she might be gently dealt with. Man after man added his voice to that of Abbott of Fécon, aforesaid, that she might be gently dealt with. Not one of them could be under any doubt what gentle meaning would be in the execution, but apparently the words were of some strange use in solving their consciences. The degree was pronounced as one without further formalities. In point of view of the law they should have followed another trial, more evidence, pleadings and admonitions. We may be thankful to Monseigneur de Beauvais that he now defied law and no longer prolonged the useless ceremonials of that mockery of justice. It is said that in coming out of the prison, through the courtyard full of Englishmen, where Rorric was in waiting to hear what news, the bishop greeted him with all the satisfaction of success, laughing and bidding them make good cheer, the thing is done. In the same spirit of satisfaction was the rapid action of the further proceedings. On Tuesday she was condemned, summoned on Wednesday morning, at eight o'clock to the old market of Rouen to hear her sentence, and there without even a formality the penalty was at once carried out. No time certainly was lost in this last stage. All her interest of the heart-rending tragedy now turns to the prison where Jean woke in the early morning, without as yet any knowledge of her fate. It must be remembered that the details of this wonderful scene, which we have in abundance, are taken from reports made twenty years after by eyewitnesses indeed, but men to whom by that time it had become the only policy to represent Jean in the brightest colours, and themselves as her sympathetic friends. There is no doubt that so remarkable an occurrence as her martyrdom must have made a deep impression on the minds of all those who were in any way actors or spectators of that wonderful scene. And every word of all these different reports is on oath, but notwithstanding a touch of unconscious colour, a more favourable sentiment influenced by the feeling of later days may well have crept in. With this warning we may yet accept these depositions as trustworthy, or the moral for the atmosphere of truth perfectly realistic, and in no way idealised, which is in every description of the great catastrophe, in which Jean figures as no supernatural heroine, but as a terrified, tormented, and often trembling girl. On the fatal morning very early, brother Martin Ladvonnou appeared in the cell of the maid. He had a mingled tale to tell, first to announce to her her approaching death, and to lead her to true contrition and penitence, and also to hear her confession which the said Ladvonnou did very carefully and charitably. Jean on her part received the news with no conventional resignation or calm. Was it possible that she had been deceived and really hoped for mercy? She began to weep and to cry at the sudden stroke of fate, notwithstanding the solemnity of her last declaration, that she would rather bear her punishment all at once, than to endure the long punishment of her prison. Her heart failed before the imminent stake, the immediate martyrdom. She cried out to heaven and earth, my body which has never been corrupted, must it be burned to ashes today? No one but Jean knew at what cost she had kept her perfect purity. Was it good for nothing but to be burned that young body not nineteen years old? Ah, she said, I would rather be beheaded seven times than burned. I appealed to God against all these great wrongs they do me. But after a while the passion wore itself out, the child's outburst was stilled, calming herself she knelt down and made her confession to the compassionate friar, then asked for the sacrament to receive her saviour as she's had so often prayed and entreated before. It would appear that this had not been within friar Martin's commission. He sent to ask the bishop's leave, and it was granted anything she asked for, as they give whatever he may wish to eat to a condemned convict. But the host was brought into the prison without ceremony, without accompanying candles or vestments for the priest. There are always some things which are insupportable to a man. Brother Martin could bear the sight of the girl's anguish, but not to administer to her a diminished right. He sent again to demand what was needful, out of respect for the holy sacrament, and the present victim. And his request had come, it would seem, to some canon or person in authority, whose heart had been touched by the wonderful maid in her long martyrdom. This nameless sympathiser did all that a man could do. He sent the host with a train of priests chanting litanies, as they went through the streets with torches burning in the pure early daylight. Some of these exhorted the people who knelt as they passed to pray for her. She must have heard in her prison the sound of the bell, the chant of the sympathetic to Jean before, the chant of the clergy, the pause of all, and then the rising irregular murmur of the voices, that sound of prayer never to be mistaken. Pray for her. At last the city was touched to its heart. There is no sign that it had been sympathetic to Jean before. It was half English or more. But she was about to die. She had stood bravely against the world and answered like a true maid, and they had now seen her led through their streets, a girl just nineteen. The popular imagination at least was subjugated for the time. Thus Jean for the first time, after all the feasts were over, received at last her saviour, as she said, the consecration of that right which he himself had instituted before he died. But she was not permitted to receive it in simplicity and silence as becomes the sacred commemoration. All the time she was still pre-chay and admonished by the men about her. A few days after her death the bishop and his followers assembled and sat down in evidence their different parts in the scene. How far it is to be relied upon it is difficult to say. The speakers did not testify under oath. There is no formal warrant for their truth, and an anxious attempt to prove her change of mind is evident throughout. Still there's seen elements of truth in it, and a certain glimpse is afforded of Jean in the depths when hope and strength were gone. The general burden of their testimony is that she sadly allowed herself to have been deceived as to the liberation for which all along she had hoped. Peter Maurice often already mentioned, in potuning her on the subject of the spirits, endeavouring to get from her an admission that she had not seen them at all, and was herself a deceiver, or if not that, at least that they were evil spirits, not good, drew from her the impatient exclamation, be they good spirits or be they evil, they appeared to me. Even in the act of giving her her last communion, Brother Martin paused with the consecrated host in his hands. Do you believe, he said, that this is the body of Christ? Jean answered, Yes, and he alone can free me. I pray you to administer. Then this brother said to Jean, Do you believe as fully in your voices? Jean answered, I believe in God alone and not in the voices which have deceived me. Levenu himself, however, does not give this deposition, but another of the persons present, Le Camus, who did not live to revise his testimony at the rehabilitation. The right being over, the bishop himself bustled in with an air of satisfaction, rubbing his hands, one may suppose from his tone. So, Jean, he said, You have always told us that your voices said, You were to be delivered, and you see now they have deceived you. Tell us the truth at last. Then Jean answered, Truly I see that they have deceived me. The report is cochons, and therefore little to be trusted, but the sad reply is at least not unlike the sentiment that, even in records more trustworthy, seems to have breathed forth in her. The other spectators all report another portion of this conversation. Bishop, it is by you I die, other words which the maid is said to have met him. Oh, Jean, have patience, he replied. It is because you do not keep your promise. If you had kept yours and sent me to the prison of the church, and put me in gentle hands, it would not have happened, she replied. I appeal from you to God. Several of the attendants, also according to the bishop's account, heard from her the same sad words. They have deceived me, and there seems no reason why we should not believe it. Her mind was weighed down under this dreadful, unaccountable fact. She was forsaken, as a greater sufferer was, and a horror of darkness had closed around her. Ah, sir Pierre, she said to Maurice, where shall I be tonight? The man had condemned her as a relapsed heretic, a daughter of perdition. He had just suggested to her that her angels must have been devils. Nevertheless, perhaps his face was not unkindly. He had not meant all the harm he did. He ought to have answered, in hell with the spirits you have trusted. That would have been the only logical response. What he did say was very different. Have you not good faith in the Lord? said the judge who had doomed her. Amazing and notable speech, they had sentenced her to be burned for blasphemy as an envoy of the devil. They believed in fact that she was the child of God and going straight in that flame to the skies. Jean, with the sound clear head and the sane mind, to which all of them testified, did she perceive even at the dreadful moment the inconceivable contradiction? Ah, she said, yes, God helping me, I shall be in paradise. There is one point in the equivocal report which commends itself to the mind, which several of these men unite in, but which was carefully not repeated at the rehabilitation. And this was, that Jean allowed, as if it had been a thing of small importance, that her story of the angel bearing the crown at Chino was a romance which she neither expected, nor intended to be delivered. For this we have to thank Lois-Eleur and the rest of the reverent ghouls assembled on that dreadful morning in the prison. Jean was then dressed, for her last appearance in this world, in the long white garment of penitence, the robe of sacrifice, and the mitre was placed on her head, which was worn by the victims of the Holy Office. She was led for the last time down the echoing stair to the crowded courtyard where her chariot awaited her. It was her confessor's part to remain at her side, and Frère Isambar and Monsieur, the officer, both her friends, were also with her. It is said that Lois-Eleur rushed forward at this moment, either to accompany her also, or, as many say, to fling himself at her feet and implore her pardon. He was hathled aside by the crowd, and would have been killed by the English, it is said, but for Warwick. The bystanders would seem to have been seized with a sudden disgust for all the priests about, thinking them Jean's friends, the historians insinuate, more likely in scorn and horror of their treachery, and then the melancholy procession set forth. The streets were overflowing, as was natural, crowded in every part, eight hundred English soldiers surrounded and followed the courtage, as the car rumbled along over the rough stones. Not yet had the maid attained the calm of consent. She looked wildly about her, at all the high houses and windows crowded with gazes, and at the throngs that gaped and gazed upon her on every side. In the midst of the consolations of the confessor who poured pious words in her ears, other words, the plinths of a wandering despair fell from her lips. Ruon, ruon, she said, am I to die here? It seemed incredible to her, impossible. She looked about still for some sign of disturbance, some writhing among the crowd, some cry of France, France, or glitter of mail. Nothing, but the crowds ever gazing, murmuring at her. The soldiers roughly clearing the way, the rude chariot rumbling on. Ruon, ruon, I fear that you shall yet suffer because of this, she murmured in her distraction amid her moanings and tears. At last the procession came to the old market, an open space encumbered with three erections, one reaching up so high that the shadow of it seemed to touch the sky. The horrid stake with wood piled up in an enormous mass, made so high it is said in order that the executioner himself might not reach it to give a merciful blow, to secure unconsciousness before the flames could touch the trembling form. Two platforms were raised opposite, one furnished with chairs and benches for Winchester and his court, another for the judges, with the civil officers of Ruon who ought to have pronounced sentence in their turn. Without this form the execution was illegal. What does it matter? No sentence at all was read to her, not even the ecclesiastical one, which was illegal also. She was probably placed first on the same platform with her judges, where there was a pulpit from which she was to be Préché for the last time. Of all Jan's sufferings this could scarcely be the least, that she was always Préché, lectured, addressed, sermonised, through every painful step of her career. The moan was still unsilenced on her lips and her distracted soul scarcely yet freed from the sick thought of a possible deliverance, when the everlasting strain of admonishment and re-enumeration of her errors again penetrated the hum of the crowd. The preacher was Nicholas Meady, one of the eloquent members of that dark fraternity, and his text was in St Paul's words. If any of the members suffer, all the other members suffer with it. Jan was a rotten branch which had to be cut off from the church for the good of her own soul, and that the church might not suffer by her sin. A heretic, a blasphemer, an imposter giving false fables at one time and making false penitence the next. It is very unlikely that she heard anything of that flood of invective. At the end of the sermon the preacher baited her, go in peace. Even then, however, the fountain of abuse did not cease. The bishop himself rose, and once more by way of exhorting her to a final repentance, heaped ill names upon her helpless head. The narrative shows that the prisoner, now arrived at the last point in her career, paid no attention to the tirade levelled at her from the president's place. She knelt down on the platform showing great signs and appearance of contrition, so that all those who looked upon her wept. She called on her knees upon the blessed trinity, the blessed glorious Virgin Mary, and all the blessed saints of Paradise. She called specially, was it with still a return towards the hoped-for miracle? Was it with the instinctive cry towards an old and faithful friend? St. Michael, St. Michael, St. Michael, help! There would seem to have been a moment in which the hush and silence of a great crowd surrounded this wonderful stage. Where was that white figure on her knees? Praying, speaking, sometimes to God, sometimes to the saintly unseen companions of her life, sometimes in broken phrases to those about her. She asked the priests, thronging all around, those who had churches to say a mass for her soul. She asked all whom she might have offended to forgive her, through her tears and prayers. Broke again and aggrained a sorrowful cry of, Ruon, Ruon, is it here truly that I must die? No reason is given for the special pang that seems to echo in this cry. Jean had once planned a campaign in Normandy with Alençon. Had there been perhaps some special hope which made this conclusion all the more bitter, of setting up in the Norman capital her standard and that of her king? There have been matters more exalted above the circumstances of their fate than Jean. She was no abstract heroine. She felt every pang to the depth of her natural, spontaneous being, and the humiliation and the deep distress of having been abandoned in the sight of men, perhaps the profoundest pang of which nature is capable. He trusted in God that he would deliver him, let him deliver him, if he will have him. That which her lord had borne, the little sister had now to bear. She called upon the saints, but they did not answer. She was shamed in the sight of men, but as she knelt there weeping, the bishop's evil voice scarcely silenced. The soldiers waiting impatient, the entire crowd touched to its heart with one impulse, broke into a burst of weeping and lamentation as shewed alarm, according to the graphic French expression. They wept hot tears as in the keen personal pang of sorrow and fellow feeling and impotence to help. Winchester withdrawn high on his platform ostentatiously separated from any share in it, a spectator merely wept, and the judges wept. The bishop of Boulogne was overwhelmed with emotion, iron tears flowed down the accursed cochon's cheeks. The very world stood still to see that white form of purity and valor and faith, the maid, not shouting triumphant on the height of victory, but kneeling, weeping on the verge of torture. Human nature could not bear this long. A horse cry burst forth, will you keep us here all day, must we dine here? A voice perhaps of unendurable pain that simulated cruelty. And then the executioner stepped in and seized the victim. It has been said that her stake was set so high that there might be no chance of a merciful blow or of strangulation to spare the victim the atrocities of the fire. Perhaps, as us hope, it was rather that the ascending smoke might suffocate her before the flame could reach her. The fifteenth century would naturally accept the most cruel explanation. There was a writing set over the little platform which gave footing to the attendants below the stake, upon which were written the following words. Jean called the maid, liar, abuser of the people, soothsayer, blasphemer of God, pernicious, superstitious, idolatrous, cruel, dissolute, invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic, heretic. This was how her countrymen in the name of law and justice and religion branded the maid of France, one half of her countrymen, the other half silent, speaking no word, looking on. Before she began to ascend the stake, Jean, rising from her knees, asked for a cross. No place so fit for that emblem ever was, but no cross was to be found. One of the English soldiers who kept the way seized a stick from someone by, broke it across his knee in unequal parts, and bound them hurriedly together. So, in the legend and in all the pictures, when Mary of Nazareth was led to her espousals, one of her disappointed suitors broke his wand. The cross was rough with its broken edges, which Jean accepted from her enemy, and carried pressing it against her bosom. One would rather have that rude cross to preserve as a sacred thing than the highest effort of art in gold and silver. This was her ornament and consolation as she trod the few remaining steps, and mounted the pile of the faggots to her place high over all that sea of heads. When she was bound securely to her stake, she asked again for her cross, a cross blessed and sacred from a church, to be held before her as long as her eyes could see. Frère Isambal and Massieux, following her closely still, sent to the nearest church and procured probably some cross which was used for processional purposes, on a long staff which could be held up before her. The friars stood upon the good brother always at the foot of the pile, painfully holding up with uplifted arms the cross that she might still see it, the soldiers crowding, lit up with the red glow of the fire, the horrified trembling crowd like an agitated sea around. The wild flames rose and fell in sinister gleams and flashes, the smoke blew upwards by times enveloping that white maid standing out alone, against the sky still blue and sweet with May, pandemonium underneath but heaven above. Then suddenly there came a great cry from among the black fumes that began to reach the clouds. My voices were of God, they have not deceived me. She had seen and recognised it at last, here it was, the miracle, the great victory that had been promised, though not with the clan of swords and triumph of rescuing knights and Sandernife of France, but by the sole hand of God, a victory and triumph for all time, for her country a crown of glory and ineffable shame. Thus died the maid of France, with Jesus, Jesus on her lips, till the merciful smoke breathing upwards choked that voice in her throat, and one who was like unto the Son of God, who was with her in the fire, wiped all memory of the bitter cross, wavering uplifted through the air in the good monk's trembling hands, from eyes which opened bright upon the light and piece of that paradise of which she had so long thought and dreamed. After, the natural burst of remorse which follows such an event, is well known in history and is as certainly to be expected as the details of the great catastrophe itself. We feel almost as if, had there not been fact and evidence for such a revulsion of feeling, it must have been recorded all the same, being inevitable. The executioner, perhaps the most innocent of all, salt out frais and bar, and confess to him in an anguish of remorse, fearing never to be pardoned for what he had done. An Englishman who had sworn to add a faggot to the flames in which the witch should be burned, when he rushed forward to keep his word, was seized with sudden compunction, believed that he saw a white dove flutter forth from amid the smoke over her head, and almost fainting at the sight, had to be led by his comrades to the nearest haven for refreshment, a lifelike touch in which we recognise our countrymen. But he too found his way, that afternoon, to frais and bar, like the other. A horrible story is told by the bourgeois de Paris, whose contemporary journal is one of the authorities for this period, that the fire was drawn aside in order that Jean's form, with all its clothing burned away, should be visible by one last act of shameless insult to the crowd. The fifteenth century believed, as we have said, everything that is cruel and horrible, as indeed the vulgar mind does at all ages, but such brutal imaginings have seldom any truth to support them, and there is no such suggestion in the actual record. Isenbar and Massieux heard from one of the officials that when every other part of her body was destroyed the heart was found intact, but was, by the order of Winchester, flung into the sen along with the ashes of that sacrifice. It was wise no doubt that no relics should be kept. Other details were murmured abroad amid the excited talk that followed this dreadful scene. When she was enveloped by the smoke she cried out for water, holy water, and called to St. Michael, then hung her head upon her breast and breathing forth the name of Jesus, gently died. Being in the flame her voice never ceased repeating in a loud voice the holy name of Jesus, and invoking without cease the saints of paradise, she gave up her spirit, bowing her head and saying the name of Jesus in sign of the fervour of her faith. One of the cannons of Ruel, standing sobbing in the crowd, said to another, Would that my soul were in the same place where the soul of that woman is at this moment, which indeed is not very different from the authorised saying of Pierre Maurice in the prison. Guillaume Monchon, the reporter, he who wrote Superbeau-Responsieux on his margin, and had written down every word of her long examination, his occupation for three months, says that he never wept so much for anything that happened to himself, and that for a whole month he could not recover his calm. This man adds a very characteristic touch to it that, with part of the pay which he had for the trial, he bought a missile that he might have reason for praying for her. Jean Troisain, secretary to the king of England, whatever that office may have been, went home from the execution crying out, We are all lost, for we have burned a saint. A priest afterwards, Bishop Jean Thabry, did not believe that there was any man who could restrain his tears. The modern historians speak of the mockeries of the English, but none are visible in the record. Indeed, the part of the English in it is extraordinarily diminished on investigation. They are for supposed inspirers of the whole of his seedings. They are believed to be continually pushing on the inquisitors. Still more, they are supposed to have brought all that large tribunal, the sixty or seventy judges among whom were the most learned and esteemed doctors in France. But if none of this there is any proof given, that they were anxious to procure Jean's condemnation and death is very certain. Not one among them believed in her sacred mission, almost all considered her a sorceress, the most dangerous of evil influences, a witch who had brought shame and lost to England by her incantations and evil spells. On that point there could be no doubt whatever. She alone had stopped the progress of the invaders and broken the charm of their invariable success. But all that she had done had been in favour of Charles, who made no attempt to serve or help her, and who had thwarted her plans and hindered her work so long as it was possible to do so, even when she was performing miracles for his sake. And Alonso, Du Noir, La Irre, where were they, and all their knights? Two of them at least were at Louvain within a day's march, but never made a step to rescue her. We need not ask where were the statesmen and clergy on the French side, for they were unfainedly glad to have the burden of condemning her taken from their hands. Not one in her own country said a word or struck a blow for Jean. As for the sub-warning of the University of Paris en masse, and all its best members in particular, that is a general business in which it is impossible to believe. There is no appearance even of any particular pressure put upon the judges. Jean de la Fontaine disappeared, we are told, and no one ever knew what became of him. But it was from Cauchon he fled, and nothing seems to have happened to the monks who attended the maid to the scaffold, nor to the others who sobbed about the pile. On the other side, the doctors who condemned her were in no way persecuted or troubled by the French authorities when the king came to his own. There was at the time a universal tacit consent in France to all that was done at Rouen on 31 May 1431. One reason for this was not far to seek. We have perhaps sufficiently dwelt upon it. It was that France was not France at that Dolores moment. It was no unanimous nation repulsing an invader. It was two at least, if not more countries, one of them frankly and sympathetically attaching itself to the invader, almost as nearly allied to him in blood, and more nearly by other bonds than any tie existing between France and Burgundy. This does not account for the hostile indifference to southern France and to the French monarch to Jean, who had delivered them. But it accounts for the hostility of Paris and the adjacent provinces and Normandy. She was much against them as against the English, and the national sentiment to which she, a patriot before her age, appealed, bidding not only the English go home or fight and be vanquished, which was their only alternative, but the Burgundians to be converted and to live in peace with their brothers did not exist. Neither to Burgundians, Pickards or Normans was the daughter of Far Champagne, a fellow countrywoman. There was neither sympathy nor kindness in their hearts on that score. Some were humane and full of pity for a simple woman in such terrible straits, but no more in Paris than in Rome was the maid of Oléon, a native champion persecuted by the English. She was to both an enemy, a sorceress, putting their soldiers and themselves to shame. I have no desire to lessen our guilt whatever cruelty may have been practiced by English hands against the heavenly maid, and much was practiced, the iron cage, the chains, the brutal guards, the final stake for which may God and also the world forgive a crime fully and often confessed, but it was by French wits and French ingenuity that she was tortured for three months and betrayed to her death. A prisoner of war yet taken and tried as a criminal, the first stepping head downfall was a disgrace to two chivalrous nations, but the shame is greater upon those who sold than upon those who bought, and greatest of all upon those who did not move heaven and earth, nay, did not move a finger to rescue. And indeed, we have been the most penitent of all concerned, we have shrived ourselves by open confession in tears, we have quarrelled with our Shakespeare on account of the maid, and do not know how we could have forgiven him, but for the notable and delightful discovery that it was not he after all, but another and a lesser hand, that endeavoured to be foul her shining garments. France has never quarrelled with her voltaire, for a much fouler and more intentional blasphemy. The most significant and the most curious after-seen, appendant to the remorse and pity of so many of the humbler spectators, was the assembly held on the Thursday after Jean's death. How and when we are not told, it consisted of no judice antidicti, but neither is the place of meeting named, nor the person who presided. Its sole testimonial is that the manuscript is in the same hand, which has written the previous records. But whereas each page in that record was signed at the bottom by responsible notaries, Montchon and his colleagues, no name whatever satisfies this. Seven men, doctors and persons of high importance, or judges on the trial, or concerned in that last scene in the prison, stand up and give their support of what happened there, part of which we have quoted. Their object being to establish that Jean, in the last, acknowledged herself to be deceived. According to their own showing it was exactly such an acknowledgement as our Lord might have been supposed to make in the moment of his agony, when the words of the psalm, my God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me, burst from his lips. There seems no reason that we can see why this evidence should not be received as substantially true. The inference that any real recantation on Jean's part was then made is untrue, and not even asserted. She was deceived in respect to her deliverance and felt it to the bottom of her heart. It was to her the bitterness of death, but the flames of her burning showed her the truth, and with her last breath she proclaimed her renewed conviction. The scene at the stake would lose something of its greatness without that momentary cloud which weighed down her troubled soul. Twenty years after the martyrdom of Jean, long after he had, according to her prophecy, regained Paris, and all that had been lost, it became a danger to the King of France that it should be possible to imagine that his kingdom had been recovered for him by means of sorcery, and accordingly a great new trial was appointed to revise the decisions of the old. In the same palace of the Archbishop at Ruel, which had witnessed so many scenes of the previous tragedy, the depositions of witnesses collected with the minutest care, and which it had taken a long time to gather from all quarters, were submitted for judgment, and a full and complete reversal of the condemnation was given. The process was a civil one, instituted nominally by the mother and brothers of Jean, one of the latter being now a knight, Pierre de Lys, a gentleman of co-trauma, against the heirs and representatives of Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, and Le Maître, the Deputy Inquisitor, with other persons chiefly concerned in the judgment. Some of these men were dead, some wisely not to be found. The result was such a massive testimony as put every incident of the life of a maid in the fullest light, from her childhood to her death, and in consequence secured a triumph and full acquittal of herself and her name from every reproach. This remarkable and indeed unique occurrence does not seem, however, to have roused any enthusiasm. Perhaps France felt herself too guilty. Perhaps the extraordinary calm of contemporary opinion, which was still too near the catastrophe to see it fully. Perhaps that difficulty in the diffusion of news which hindered the common knowledge of a trial, a thing too heavy to be blown upon the winds, while it promulgated the legend, a thing so much more light to carry, may be the cause of this. But it is an extraordinary fact that Jean's name remained in abeyance for many ages, and that only in this century has it come to any sort of glory, in the country of which Jean is the first and greatest of Patriots and Champions, a country too to which national glory is more dear than daily bread. In the new and wonderful spring of life that succeeded the Revolution of 1830, the martyr of the 15th century came to light as by a revelation. The episode of the Pucelle in Michelet's History of France touched the heart of the world, and remains one of the finest efforts of history and the most popular picture of the Saint. And perhaps, though so much less important in point of art, the maiden work of another maid of Oléon, the little statue of Jean, so pure, so simple, so spiritual, made by the Princess Marie of that house, the daughter of the race which the maid held in visionary love, and which thus only has ever attempted any return of that devotion, had its part in reawakening her name and memory. It fell again, however, after the great work of Chichirah had finally given to the country the means of fully forming its opinion on the subject which Barbara's translation, though unfortunately not literal and adorned with modern decorations, was calculated to render popular. A great crop of statues and some pictures not of any great artistic merit have since been dedicated to the memory of the maid, but yet the public enthusiasm has never risen above the tide mark of literary applause. There has been, however, a great movement of enthusiasm lately to gain for Jean the honor of canonization, but it seems to have failed, or at least to have sunk again for the moment, into science. Perhaps these honors are out of date in our time. One of the most recent writers on the subject, M. Oléblas de Burée, suggests that one reason which retards this final consecration is, England certainly not a negligible quantity to a pope of our time, let no such illusion move any mind, French or ecclesiastical. Canonization means to us, I presume, and even to a great number of Catholics, simply the highest honor that can be paid to a holy and spotless name. In that sense there is no distinction of nation, and the English as warmly as the French, both being guilty towards her, and before God on her account, would welcome all honor that could be paid to one who, more truly than any princess of the blood, is Jean of France, the maid, alone in her lofty humility and valor, and in everlasting fragrance of modesty and youth. End of section 22. End of Jean Dark, Her Life and Death by Margaret O. Olyphant.