Part 118 (2/2)

When she saw a light put to the stake, she cried loudly, ”Jesus!” This name she repeated six times.[2575] She was also heard asking for holy water.[2576]

[Footnote 2575: _Ibid._, p. 186.]

[Footnote 2576: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 8; vol. iii, pp. 169, 194.]

It was usual for the executioner, in order to cut short the sufferings of the victim, to stifle him in dense smoke before the flames had had time to ascend; but the Rouen executioner was too terrified of the prodigies worked by the Maid to do thus; and besides he would have found it difficult to reach her, because the Bailie had had the plaster scaffold made unusually high. Wherefore the executioner himself, hardened man that he was, judged her death to have been a terribly cruel one.[2577]

[Footnote 2577: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 7.]

Once again Jeanne uttered the name of Jesus; then she bowed her head and gave up her spirit.[2578]

[Footnote 2578: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 186.]

As soon as she was dead the Bailie commanded the executioner to scatter the flames in order to see that the prophetess of the Armagnacs had not escaped with the aid of the devil or in some other manner.[2579] Then, after the poor blackened body had been shown to the people, the executioner, in order to reduce it to ashes, threw on to the fire coal, oil and sulphur.

[Footnote 2579: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 191. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 269, 270.]

In such an execution the combustion of the corpse was rarely complete.[2580] Among the ashes, when the fire was extinguished, the heart and entrails were found intact. For fear lest Jeanne's remains should be taken and used for witchcraft or other evil practices,[2581]

the Bailie had them thrown into the Seine.[2582]

[Footnote 2580: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p.

478.]

[Footnote 2581: _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol. 507 verso. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 2582: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 159, 160, 185; vol. iv, p. 518.

Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 83.

Th. Cochard, _Existe-t-il des reliques de Jeanne d'Arc?_ Orleans, 1891, in 8vo.]

CHAPTER XV

AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID--THE END OF THE SHEPHERD--LA DAME DES ARMOISES

In the evening, after the burning, the executioner, as was his wont, went whining and begging to the monastery of the preaching friars. The creature complained that he had found it very difficult to make an end of Jeanne. According to a legend invented afterwards, he told the monks that he feared d.a.m.nation for having burned a saint.[2583] Had he actually spoken thus in the house of the Vice-Inquisitor he would have been straightway cast into the lowest dungeon, there to await a trial for heresy, which would have probably resulted in his being sentenced to suffer the death he had inflicted on her whom he had called a saint. And what could have led him to suppose that the woman condemned by good Father Lemaistre and my Lord of Beauvais was not a bad woman?

The truth is that in the presence of these friars he arrogated to himself merit for having executed a witch and taken pains therein, wherefore he came to ask for his pot of wine. One of the monks, who happened to be a friar preacher, Brother Pierre Bosquier, forgot himself so far as to say that it was wrong to have condemned the Maid. These words, albeit they were heard by only a few persons, were carried to the Inquisitor General. When he was summoned to answer for them, Brother Pierre Bosquier declared very humbly that his words were altogether wrong and tainted with heresy, and that indeed he had only uttered them when he was full of wine. On his knees and with clasped hands he entreated Holy Mother Church, his judges and the most redoubtable lords to pardon him. Having regard to his repentance and in consideration of his cloth and of his having spoken in a state of intoxication, my Lord of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor showed indulgence to Brother Pierre Bosquier. By a sentence p.r.o.nounced on the 8th of August, 1431, they condemned him to be imprisoned in the house of the friars preachers and fed on bread and water until Easter.[2584]

[Footnote 2583: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 7, 352, 366.]

[Footnote 2584: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 493, 495.]

On the 12th of June the judges and counsellors, who had sat in judgment on Jeanne, received letters of indemnity from the Great Council. What was the object of these letters? Was it in case the holders of them should be proceeded against by the French? But in that event the letters would have done them more harm than good.[2585]

[Footnote 2585: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Cartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, vol. iv, p. 527.]

<script>