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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 19
JOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other
terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in
Cauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His work
was finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What would his
Archbishopric be worth if the people should get the idea into their heads
that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the English lash,
had wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France? That
would be to make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit would rise from
her body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep the English
domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No, the victory was
not complete yet. Joan's guilt must be established by evidence which
would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be found? There was
only one person in the world who could furnish it--Joan of Arc herself.
She must condemn herself, and in public--at least she must seem to do it.
But how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying to
get her to surrender--time wholly wasted; what was to persuade her now?
Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened; what was left?
Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence of the
fire! That was left.
Now that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under
illness and exhaustion, subject to a girl's weaknesses.
Yes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under the
bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a false confession
from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was remembered.
She had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the
pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was also
remembered.
She had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear
out her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second, while the
fright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.
But she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture to
refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that during the
reading her courage should return?--she would refuse to sign then. Very
well, even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short
paper of no importance, then slip a long and deadly one into its place
and trick her into signing that.
Yet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to
abjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could keep her
in a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.
That would not answer; for only her death would content the English.
Alive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had escaped from
two prisons already.
But even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises to
her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He would
violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would not be
able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and the
stake would be ready.
These were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them,
each in its order, and the game was won. One might almost name the day
that the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the
noblest, would go to her pitiful death.
The world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched it to you,
but the world did not know it at that time. There are sufficient
indications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the
highest one--the Cardinal of Winchester--were not let into the secret,
also, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the French side, knew the
scheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the
whole of it at first. However, if any did, it was these two.
It is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace,
but this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the rumors of
the time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character
of priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England, he
spent some hours in beseeching her to do "the only right an righteous
thing"--submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then
she would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and
be transferred to the Church's prison, where she would be honorably used
and have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He knew
how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English
guards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised something which she
interpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the chance to
burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work
which she had been commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that
other thing: if her failing body could be further weakened by loss of
rest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the
morrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions, threats,
and the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares
which it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate.
I do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor
for Noel. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall, with a
hope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan's Voices which
seemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news
had flown swiftly far and wide that at last Joan of Arc was condemned,
and would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of
people were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused
admission by the soldiery; these being people who brought doubtful passes
or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but thee was nothing
about them to indicate that they were our old war-comrades in disguise,
and certainly there were no familiar faces among them. And so, when the
gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more disappointed
than we cared to admit, either in speech or thought.
The streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to make
one's way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to the
neighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was
bustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people; and
through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers were carrying
planks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the
churchyard. We asked what was going forward; the answer was:
"Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is to be
burned in the morning?"
Then we went away. We had no heart for that place.
At dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our
wearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a large probability. We
had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumieges with all his monks was
coming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination,
turned those nine hundred monks into Joan's old campaigners, and their
Abbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D'Alencon; and we watched them file
in, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering
while they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes swimming
with tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch
glimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal
to any recognized face that we were Joan's men and ready and eager to
kill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were!
But we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things, believeth all
things.
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