Rouen, 30 May 1431. A great stone hall in the castle, arranged for a trial-at-law, but not a trial-by-jury, the court being the Bishop's court with the Inquisition participating: hence there are two raised chairs side by side for the Bishop and the Inquisitor as judges. Rows of chairs radiating from them at an obtuse angle are for the canons, the doctors of law and theology, and the Dominican monks, who act as assessors. In the angle is a table for the scribes, with stools. There is also a heavy rough wooden stool for the prisoner. All these are at the inner end of the hall. The further end is open to the courtyard through a row of arches. The court is shielded from the weather by screens and curtains.
Looking down the great hall from the middle of the inner end, the judicial chairs and scribes' table are to the right. The prisoner's stool is to the left. There are arched doors right and left. It is a fine sunshiny May morning.
Warwick comes in through the arched doorway on the judges' side, followed by his page.
THE PAGE [pertly] I suppose your lordship is aware that we have no business here. This is an ecclesiastical court; and we are only the secular arm.
WARWICK. I am aware of that fact. Will it please your impudence to find the Bishop of Beauvais for me, and give him a hint that he can have a word with me here before the trial, if he wishes?
THE PAGE [going] Yes, my lord.
WARWICK. And mind you behave yourself. Do not address him as Pious Peter.
THE PAGE. No, my lord. I shall be kind to him, because, when The Maid is brought in, Pious Peter will have to pick a peck of pickled pepper.
Cauchon enters through the same door with a Dominican monk and a canon, the latter carrying a brief.
THE PAGE. The Right Reverend his lordship the Bishop of Beauvais. And two other reverend gentlemen.
WARWICK. Get out; and see that we are not interrupted.
THE PAGE. Right, my lord [he vanishes airily].
CAUCHON. I wish your lordship good-morrow.
WARWICK. Good-morrow to your lordship. Have I had the pleasure of meeting your friends before? I think not.
CAUCHON [introducing the monk, who is on his right] This, my lord, is Brother John Lemaître, of the order of St Dominic. He is acting as deputy for the Chief Inquisitor into the evil of heresy in France. Brother John: the Earl of Warwick.
WARWICK. Your Reverence is most welcome. We have no Inquisitor in England, unfortunately; though we miss him greatly, especially on occasions like the present.
The Inquisitor smiles patiently, and bows. He is a mild elderly gentleman, but has evident reserves of authority and firmness.
CAUCHON [introducing the Canon, who is on his left] This gentleman is Canon John D'Estivet, of the Chapter of Bayeaux. He is acting as Promoter.
WARWICK. Promoter?
CAUCHON. Prosecutor, you would call him in civil law.
WARWICK. Ah! prosecutor. Quite, quite. I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Canon D'Estivet.
D'Estivet bows. [He is on the young side of middle age, well mannered, but vulpine beneath his veneer].
WARWICK. May I ask what stage the proceedings have reached? It is now more than nine months since The Maid was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundians. It is fully four months since I bought her from the Burgundians for a very handsome sum, solely that she might be brought to justice. It is very nearly three months since I delivered her up to you, my Lord Bishop, as a person suspected of heresy. May I suggest that you are taking a rather unconscionable time to make up your minds about a very plain case? Is this trial never going to end?
THE INQUISITOR [smiling] It has not yet begun, my lord.
WARWICK. Not yet begun! Why, you have been at it eleven weeks!
CAUCHON. We have not been idle, my lord. We have held fifteen examinations of The Maid: six public and nine private.
THE INQUISITOR [always patiently smiling] You see, my lord, I have been present at only two of these examinations. They were proceedings of the Bishop's court solely, and not of the Holy Office. I have only just decided to associate myself--that is, to associate the Holy Inquisition--with the Bishop's court. I did not at first think that this was a case of heresy at all. I regarded it as a political case, and The Maid as a prisoner of war. But having now been present at two of the examinations, I must admit that this seems to be one of the gravest cases of heresy within my experience. Therefore everything is now in order, and we proceed to trial this morning. [He moves towards the judicial chairs].
CAUCHON. This moment, if your lordship's convenience allows.
WARWICK [graciously] Well, that is good news, gentlemen. I will not attempt to conceal from you that our patience was becoming strained.
CAUCHON. So I gathered from the threats of your soldiers to drown those of our people who favor The Maid.
WARWICK. Dear me! At all events their intentions were friendly to you, my lord.
CAUCHON [sternly] I hope not. I am determined that the woman shall have a fair hearing. The justice of the Church is not a mockery, my lord.
THE INQUISITOR [returning] Never has there been a fairer examination within my experience, my lord. The Maid needs no lawyers to take her part: she will be tried by her most faithful friends, all ardently desirous to save her soul from perdition.
D'ESTIVET. Sir: I am the Promotor; and it has been my painful duty to present the case against the girl; but believe me, I would throw up my case today and hasten to her defence if I did not know that men far my superiors in learning and piety, in eloquence and persuasiveness, have been sent to reason with her, to explain to her the danger she is running, and the ease with which she may avoid it. [Suddenly bursting into forensic eloquence, to the disgust of Cauchon and the Inquisitor, who have listened to him so far with patronizing approval] Men have dared to say that we are acting from hate; but God is our witness that they lie. Have we tortured her? No. Have we ceased to exhort her; to implore her to have pity on herself; to come to the bosom of her Church as an erring but beloved child? Have we--
CAUCHON [interrupting drily] Take care, Canon. All that you say is true; but if you make his lordship believe it I will not answer for your life, and hardly for my own.
WARWICK [deprecating, but by no means denying] Oh, my lord, you are very hard on us poor English. But we certainly do not share your pious desire to save The Maid: in fact I tell you now plainly that her death is a political necessity which I regret but cannot help. If the Church lets her go--
CAUCHON [with fierce and menacing pride] If the Church lets her go, woe to the man, were he the Emperor himself, who dares lay a finger on her! The Church is not subject to political necessity, my lord.
THE INQUISITOR [interposing smoothly] You need have no anxiety about the result, my lord. You have an invincible ally in the matter: one who is far more determined than you that she shall burn.
WARWICK. And who is this very convenient partisan, may I ask?
THE INQUISITOR. The Maid herself. Unless you put a gag in her mouth you cannot prevent her from convicting herself ten times over every time she opens it.
D'ESTIVET. That is perfectly true, my lord. My hair bristles on my head when I hear so young a creature utter such blasphemies.
WARWICK. Well, by all means do your best for her if you are quite sure it will be of no avail. [Looking hard at Cauchon] I should be sorry to have to act without the blessing of the Church.
CAUCHON [with a mixture of cynical admiration and contempt] And yet they say Englishmen are hypocrites! You play for your side, my lord, even at the peril of your soul. I cannot but admire such devotion; but I dare not go so far myself. I fear damnation.
WARWICK. If we feared anything we could never govern England, my lord. Shall I send your people in to you?
CAUCHON. Yes: it will be very good of your lordship to withdraw and allow the court to assemble.
Warwick turns on his heel, and goes out through the courtyard. Cauchon takes one of the judicial seats; and D'Estivet sits at the scribes' table, studying his brief.
CAUCHON [casually, as he makes himself comfortable] What scoundrels these English nobles are!
THE INQUISITOR [taking the other judicial chair on Cauchon's left] All secular power makes men scoundrels. They are not trained for the work; and they have not the Apostolic Succession. Our own nobles are just as bad.
The Bishop's assessors hurry into the hall, headed by Chaplain de Stogumber and Canon de Courcelles, a young priest of 30. The scribes sit at the table, leaving a chair vacant opposite D'Estivet. Some of the assessors take their seats: others stand chatting, waiting for the proceedings to begin formally. De Stogumber, aggrieved and obstinate, will not take his seat: neither will the Canon, who stands on his right.
CAUCHON. Good morning, Master de Stogumber. [To the Inquisitor] Chaplain to the Cardinal of England.
THE CHAPLAIN [correcting him] Of Winchester, my lord. I have to make a protest, my lord.
CAUCHON. You make a great many.
THE CHAPLAIN. I am not without support, my lord. Here is Master de Courcelles, Canon of Paris, who associates himself with me in my protest.
CAUCHON. Well, what is the matter?
THE CHAPLAIN [sulkily] Speak you, Master de Courcelles, since I do not seem to enjoy his lordship's confidence. [He sits down in dudgeon next to Cauchon, on his right].
COURCELLES. My lord; we have been at great pains to draw up an indictment of The Maid on sixty-four counts. We are not told that they have been reduced, without consulting us.
THE INQUISITOR. Master de Courcelles: I am the culprit. I am overwhelmed with admiration for the zeal displayed in your sixty-four counts; but in accusing a heretic, as in other things, enough is enough. Also you must remember that all the members of the court are not so subtle and profound as you, and that some of your very great learning might appear to them to be very great nonsense. Therefore I have thought it well to have your sixty-four articles cut down to twelve--
COURCELLES [thunderstruck] Twelve!!!
THE INQUISITOR. Twelve will, believe me, be quite enough for your purpose.
THE CHAPLAIN. But some of the most important points have been reduced almost to nothing. For instance, The Maid has actually declared that the blessed saints Margaret and Catherine, and the holy Archangel Michael, spoke to her in French. That is a vital point.
THE INQUISITOR. You think, doubtless, that they should have spoken in Latin?
CAUCHON. No: he thinks they should have spoken in English.
THE CHAPLAIN. Naturally, my lord.
THE INQUISITOR. Well, as we are all here agreed, I think, that these voices of The Maid are the voices of evil spirits tempting her to her damnation, it would not be very courteous to you, Master de Stogumber, or to the King of England, to assume that English is the devil's native language. So let it pass. The matter is not wholly omitted from the twelve articles. Pray take your places, gentlemen; and let us proceed to business.
All who have not taken their seats, do so.
THE CHAPLAIN. Well, I protest. That is all.
COURCELLES. I think it hard that all our work should go for nothing. It is only another example of the diabolical influence which this woman exercises over the court. [He takes his chair, which is on the Chaplain's right].
CAUCHON. Do you suggest that I am under diabolical influence?
COURCELLES. I suggest nothing, my lord. But it seems to me that there is a conspiracy here to hush up the fact that The Maid stole the Bishop of Senlis's horse.
CAUCHON [keeping his temper with difficulty] This is not a police court. Are we to waste our time on such rubbish?
COURCELLES [rising, shocked] My lord: do you call the Bishop's horse rubbish?
THE INQUISITOR [blandly] Master de Courcelles: The Maid alleges that she paid handsomely for the Bishop's horse, and that if he did not get the money the fault was not hers. As that may be true, the point is one on which The Maid may well be acquitted.
COURCELLES. Yes, if it were an ordinary horse. But the Bishop's horse! how can she be acquitted for that? [He sits down again, bewildered and discouraged].
THE INQUISITOR. I submit to you, with great respect, that if we persist in trying The Maid on trumpery issues on which we may have to declare her innocent, she may escape us on the great main issue of heresy, on which she seems so far to insist on her own guilt. I will ask you, therefore, to say nothing, when The Maid is brought before us, of these stealings of horses, and dancings round fairy trees with the village children, and prayings at haunted wells, and a dozen other things which you were diligently inquiring into until my arrival. There is not a village girl in France against whom you could not prove such things: they all dance round haunted trees, and pray at magic wells. Some of them would steal the Pope's horse if they got the chance. Heresy, gentlemen, heresy is the charge we have to try. The detection and suppression of heresy is my peculiar business: I am here as an inquisitor, not as an ordinary magistrate. Stick to the heresy, gentlemen; and leave the other matters alone.
CAUCHON. I may say that we have sent to the girl's village to make inquiries about her, and there is practically nothing serious against her.
THE CHAPLAIN } [rising and clamoring together] [together] {No, my lord.
JOAN [continuing] They are determined that I shall be burnt as a witch; and they sent their doctor to cure me; but he was forbidden to bleed me because the silly people believe that a witch's witchery leaves her if she is bled; so he only called me filthy names. Why do you leave me in the hands of the English? I should be in the hands of the Church. And why must I be chained by the feet to a log of wood? Are you afraid I will fly away?
D'ESTIVET [harshly] Woman: it is not for you to question the court: it is for us to question you.
COURCELLES. When you were left unchained, did you not try to escape by jumping from a tower sixty feet high? If you cannot fly like a witch, how is it that you are still alive?
JOAN. I suppose because the tower was not so high then. It has grown higher every day since you began asking me questions about it.
D'ESTIVET. Why did you jump from the tower?
JOAN. How do you know that I jumped?
D'ESTIVET. You were found lying in the moat. Why did you leave the tower?
JOAN. Why would anybody leave a prison if they could get out?
D'ESTIVET. You tried to escape?
JOAN. Of course I did; and not for the first time either. If you leave the door of the cage open the bird will fly out.
D'ESTIVET [rising] That is a confession of heresy. I call the attention of the court to it.
JOAN. Heresy, he calls it! Am I a heretic because I try to escape from prison?
D'ESTIVET. Assuredly, if you are in the hands of the Church, and you wilfully take yourself out of its hands, you are deserting the Church; and that is heresy.
JOAN. It is great nonsense. Nobody could be such a fool as to think that.
D'ESTIVET. You hear, my lord, how I am reviled in the execution of my duty by this woman. [He sits down indignantly].
CAUCHON. I have warned you before, Joan, that you are doing yourself no good by these pert answers.
JOAN. But you will not talk sense to me. I am reasonable if you will be reasonable.
THE INQUISITOR [interposing] This is not yet in order. You forget, Master Promoter, that the proceedings have not been formally opened. The time for questions is after she has sworn on the Gospels to tell us the whole truth.
JOAN. You say this to me every time. I have said again and again that I will tell you all that concerns this trial. But I cannot tell you the whole truth: God does not allow the whole truth to be told. You do not understand it when I tell it. It is an old saying that he who tells too much truth is sure to be hanged. I am weary of this argument: we have been over it nine times already. I have sworn as much as I will swear; and I will swear no more.
COURCELLES. My lord: she should be put to the torture.
THE INQUISITOR. You hear, Joan? That is what happens to the obdurate. Think before you answer. Has she been shewn the instruments?
THE EXECUTIONER. They are ready, my lord. She has seen them.
JOAN. If you tear me limb from limb until you separate my soul from my body you will get nothing out of me beyond what I have told you. What more is there to tell that you could understand? Besides, I cannot bear to be hurt; and if you hurt me I will say anything you like to stop the pain. But I will take it all back afterwards; so what is the use of it?
LADVENU. There is much in that. We should proceed mercifully.
COURCELLES. But the torture is customary.
THE INQUISITOR. It must not be applied wantonly. If the accused will confess voluntarily, then its use cannot be justified.
COURCELLES. But this is unusual and irregular. She refuses to take the oath.
LADVENU [disgusted] Do you want to torture the girl for the mere pleasure of it?
COURCELLES [bewildered] But it is not a pleasure. It is the law. It is customary. It is always done.
THE INQUISITOR. That is not so, Master, except when the inquiries are carried on by people who do not know their legal business.
COURCELLES. But the woman is a heretic. I assure you it is always done.
CAUCHON [decisively] It will not be done today if it is not necessary. Let there be an end of this. I will not have it said that we proceeded on forced confessions. We have sent our best preachers and doctors to this woman to exhort and implore her to save her soul and body from the fire: we shall not now send the executioner to thrust her into it.
COURCELLES. Your lordship is merciful, of course. But it is a great responsibility to depart from the usual practice.
JOAN. Thou are a rare noodle, Master. Do what was done last time is thy rule, eh?
COURCELLES [rising] Thou wanton: dost thou dare call me noodle?
THE INQUISITOR. Patience, Master, patience: I fear you will soon be only too terribly avenged.
COURCELLES [mutters] Noodle indeed! [He sits down, much discontented].
THE INQUISITOR. Meanwhile, let us not be moved by the rough side of a shepherd lass's tongue.
JOAN. Nay: I am no shepherd lass, though I have helped with the sheep like anyone else. I will do a lady's work in the house--spin or weave--against any woman in Rouen.
THE INQUISITOR. This is not a time for vanity, Joan. You stand in great peril.
JOAN. I know it: have I not been punished for my vanity? If I had not worn my cloth of gold surcoat in battle like a fool, that Burgundian soldier would never have pulled me backwards off my horse; and I should not have been here.
THE CHAPLAIN. If you are so clever at woman's work why do you not stay at home and do it?
JOAN. There are plenty of other women to do it; but there is nobody to do my work.
CAUCHON. Come! we are wasting time on trifles. Joan: I am going to put a most solemn question to you. Take care how you answer; for your life and salvation are at stake on it. Will you for all you have said and done, be it good or bad, accept the judgment of God's Church on earth? More especially as to the acts and words that are imputed to you in this trial by the Promoter here, will you submit your case to the inspired interpretation of the Church Militant?
JOAN. I am a faithful child of the Church. I will obey the Church--
CAUCHON [hopefully leaning forward] You will?
JOAN.--provided it does not command anything impossible.
Cauchon sinks back in his chair with a heavy sigh. The Inquisitor purses his lips and frowns. Ladvenu shakes his head pitifully.
D'ESTIVET. She imputes to the Church the error and folly of commanding the impossible.
JOAN. If you command me to declare that all that I have done and said, and all the visions and revelations I have had, were not from God, then that is impossible: I will not declare it for anything in the world. What God made me do I will never go back on; and what He has commanded or shall command I will not fail to do in spite of any man alive. That is what I mean by impossible. And in case the Church should bid me do anything contrary to the command I have from God, I will not consent to it, no matter what it may be.
THE ASSESSORS [shocked and indignant] Oh! The Church contrary to God! What do you say now? Flat heresy. This is beyond everything, etc., etc.
D'ESTIVET [throwing down his brief] My lord: do you need anything more than this?
CAUCHON. Woman: you have said enough to burn ten heretics. Will you not be warned? Will you not understand?
THE INQUISITOR. If the Church Militant tells you that your revelations and visions are sent by the devil to tempt you to your damnation, will you not believe that the Church is wiser than you?
JOAN. I believe that God is wiser than I; and it is His commands that I will do. All the things that you call my crimes have come to me by the command of God. I say that I have done them by the order of God: it is impossible for me to say anything else. If any Churchman says the contrary I shall not mind him: I shall mind God alone, whose command I always follow.
LADVENU [pleading with her urgently] You do not know what you are saying, child. Do you want to kill yourself? Listen. Do you not believe that you are subject to the Church of God on earth?
JOAN. Yes. When have I ever denied it?
LADVENU. Good. That means, does it not, that you are subject to our Lord the Pope, to the cardinals, the archbishops, and the bishops for whom his lordship stands here today?
JOAN. God must be served first.
D'ESTIVET. Then your voices command you not to submit yourself to the Church Militant?
JOAN. My voices do not tell me to disobey the Church; but God must be served first.
CAUCHON. And you, and not the Church, are to be the judge?
JOAN. What other judgment can I judge by but my own?
THE ASSESSORS [scandalized] Oh! [They cannot find words].
CAUCHON. Out of your own mouth you have condemned yourself. We have striven for your salvation to the verge of sinning ourselves: we have opened the door to you again and again; and you have shut it in our faces and in the face of God. Dare you pretend, after what you have said, that you are in a state of grace?
JOAN. If I am not, may God bring me to it: if I am, may God keep me in it!
LADVENU. That is a very good reply, my lord.
COURCELLES. Were you in a state of grace when you stole the Bishop's horse?
CAUCHON [rising in a fury] Oh, devil take the Bishop's horse and you too! We are here to try a case of heresy; and no sooner do we come to the root of the matter than we are thrown back by idiots who understand nothing but horses. [Trembling with rage, he forces himself to sit down].
THE INQUISITOR. Gentlemen, gentlemen: in clinging to these small issues you are The Maid's best advocates. I am not surprised that his lordship has lost patience with you. What does the Promoter say? Does he press these trumpery matters?
D'ESTIVET. I am bound by my office to press everything; but when the woman confesses a heresy that must bring upon her the doom of excommunication, of what consequence is it that she has been guilty also of offences which expose her to minor penances? I share the impatience of his lordship as to these minor charges. Only, with great respect, I must emphasize the gravity of two very horrible and blasphemous crimes which she does not deny. First, she has intercourse with evil spirits, and is therefore a sorceress. Second, she wears men's clothes, which is indecent, unnatural, and abominable; and in spite of our most earnest remonstrances and entreaties, she will not change them even to receive the sacrament.
JOAN. Is the blessed St Catherine an evil spirit? Is St Margaret? Is Michael the Archangel?
COURCELLES. How do you know that the spirit which appears to you is an archangel? Does he not appear to you as a naked man?
JOAN. Do you think God cannot afford clothes for him?
The assessors cannot kelp smiling, especially as the joke is against Courcelles.
LADVENU. Well answered, Joan.
THE INQUISITOR. It is, in effect, well answered. But no evil spirit would be so simple as to appear to a young girl in a guise that would scandalize her when he meant her to take him for a messenger from the Most High. Joan: the Church instructs you that these apparitions are demons seeking your soul's perdition. Do you accept the instruction of the Church?
JOAN. I accept the messenger of God. How could any faithful believer in the Church refuse him?
CAUCHON. Wretched woman: again I ask you, do you know what you are saying?
THE INQUISITOR. You wrestle in vain with the devil for her soul, my lord: she will not be saved. Now as to this matter of the man's dress. For the last time, will you put off that impudent attire, and dress as becomes your sex?
JOAN. I will not.
D'ESTIVET [pouncing] The sin of disobedience, my lord.
JOAN [distressed] But my voices tell me I must dress as a soldier.
LADVENU. Joan, Joan: does not that prove to you that the voices are the voices of evil spirits? Can you suggest to us one good reason why an angel of God should give you such shameless advice?
JOAN. Why, yes: what can be plainer commonsense? I was a soldier living among soldiers. I am a prisoner guarded by soldiers. If I were to dress as a woman they would think of me as a woman; and then what would become of me? If I dress as a soldier they think of me as a soldier, and I can live with them as I do at home with my brothers. That is why St Catherine tells me I must not dress as a woman until she gives me leave.
COURCELLES. When will she give you leave?
JOAN. When you take me out of the hands of the English soldiers. I have told you that I should be in the hands of the Church, and not left night and day with four soldiers of the Earl of Warwick. Do you want me to live with them in petticoats?
LADVENU. My lord: what she says is, God knows, very wrong and shocking; but there is a grain of worldly sense in it such as might impose on a simple village maiden.
JOAN. If we were as simple in the village as you are in your courts and palaces, there would soon be no wheat to make bread for you.
CAUCHON. That is the thanks you get for trying to save her, Brother Martin.
LADVENU. Joan: we are all trying to save you. His lordship is trying to save you. The Inquisitor could not be more just to you if you were his own daughter. But you are blinded by a terrible pride and self-sufficiency.
JOAN. Why do you say that? I have said nothing wrong. I cannot understand.
THE INQUISITOR. The blessed St Athanasius has laid it down in his creed that those who cannot understand are damned. It is not enough to be simple. It is not enough even to be what simple people call good. The simplicity of a darkened mind is no better than the simplicity of a beast.
JOAN. There is great wisdom in the simplicity of a beast, let me tell you; and sometimes great foolishness in the wisdom of scholars.
LADVENU. We know that, Joan: we are not so foolish as you think us. Try to resist the temptation to make pert replies to us. Do you see that man who stands behind you [he indicates the Executioner]?
JOAN [turning and looking at the man] Your torturer? But the Bishop said I was not to be tortured.
LADVENU. You are not to be tortured because you have confessed everything that is necessary to your condemnation. That man is not only the torturer: he is also the Executioner. Executioner: let The Maid hear your answers to my questions. Are you prepared for the burning of a heretic this day?
THE EXECUTIONER. Yes, Master.
LADVENU. Is the stake ready?
THE EXECUTIONER. It is. In the market-place. The English have built it too high for me to get near her and make the death easier. It will be a cruel death.
JOAN [horrified] But you are not going to burn me now?
THE INQUISITOR. You realize it at last.
LADVENU. There are eight hundred English soldiers waiting to take you to the market-place the moment the sentence of excommunication has passed the lips of your judges. You are within a few short moments of that doom.
JOAN [looking round desperately for rescue] Oh God!
LADVENU. Do not despair, Joan. The Church is merciful. You can save yourself.
JOAN [hopefully] Yes, my voices promised me I should not be burnt. St Catherine bade me be bold.
CAUCHON. Woman: are you quite mad? Do you not yet see that your voices have deceived you?
JOAN. Oh no: that is impossible.
CAUCHON. Impossible! They have led you straight to your excommunication, and to the stake which is there waiting for you.
LADVENU [pressing the point hard] Have they kept a single promise to you since you were taken at Compiègne? The devil has betrayed you. The Church holds out its arms to you.
JOAN [despairing] Oh, it is true: it is true: my voices have deceived me. I have been mocked by devils: my faith is broken. I have dared and dared; but only a fool will walk into a fire: God, who gave me my commonsense, cannot will me to do that.
LADVENU. Now God be praised that He has saved you at the eleventh hour! [He hurries to the vacant seat at the scribes' table, and snatches a sheet of paper, on which he sets to work writing eagerly].
CAUCHON. Amen!
JOAN. What must I do?
CAUCHON. You must sign a solemn recantation of your heresy.
JOAN. Sign? That means to write my name. I cannot write.
CAUCHON. You have signed many letters before.
JOAN. Yes; but someone held my hand and guided the pen. I can make my mark.
THE CHAPLAIN [who has been listening with growing alarm and indignation] My lord: do you mean that you are going to allow this woman to escape us?
THE INQUISITOR. The law must take its course, Master de Stogumber. And you know the law.
THE CHAPLAIN [rising, purple with fury] I know that there is no faith in a Frenchman. [Tumult, which he shouts down]. I know what my lord the Cardinal of Winchester will say when he hears of this. I know what the Earl of Warwick will do when he learns that you intend to betray him. There are eight hundred men at the gate who will see that this abominable witch is burnt in spite of your teeth.
THE ASSESSORS [meanwhile] What is this? What did he say? He accuses us of treachery! This is past bearing. No faith in a Frenchman! Did you hear that? This is an intolerable fellow. Who is he? Is this what English Churchmen are like? He must be mad or drunk, etc., etc.
THE INQUISITOR [rising] Silence, pray! Gentlemen: pray silence! Master Chaplain: bethink you a moment of your holy office: of what you are, and where you are. I direct you to sit down.
THE CHAPLAIN [folding his arms doggedly, his face working convulsively] I will NOT sit down.
CAUCHON. Master Inquisitor: this man has called me a traitor to my face before now.
THE CHAPLAIN. So you are a traitor. You are all traitors. You have been doing nothing but begging this damnable witch on your knees to recant all through this trial.
THE INQUISITOR [placidly resuming his seat] If you will not sit, you must stand: that is all.
THE CHAPLAIN. I will NOT stand [he flings himself back into his chair].
LADVENU [rising with the paper in his hand] My lord: here is the form of recantation for The Maid to sign.
CAUCHON. Read it to her.
JOAN. Do not trouble. I will sign it.
THE INQUISITOR. Woman: you must know what you are putting your hand to. Read it to her, Brother Martin. And let all be silent.
LADVENU [reading quietly] 'I, Joan, commonly called The Maid, a miserable sinner, do confess that I have most grievously sinned in the following articles. I have pretended to have revelations from God and the angels and the blessed saints, and perversely rejected the Church's warnings that these were temptations by demons. I have blasphemed abominably by wearing an immodest dress, contrary to the Holy Scripture and the canons of the Church. Also I have clipped my hair in the style of a man, and, against all the duties which have made my sex specially acceptable in heaven, have taken up the sword, even to the shedding of human blood, inciting men to slay each other, invoking evil spirits to delude them, and stubbornly and most blasphemously imputing these sins to Almighty God. I confess to the sin of sedition, to the sin of idolatry, to the sin of disobedience, to the sin of pride, and to the sin of heresy. All of which sins I now renounce and abjure and depart from, humbly thanking you Doctors and Masters who have brought me back to the truth and into the grace of our Lord. And I will never return to my errors, but will remain in communion with our Holy Church and in obedience to our Holy Father the Pope of Rome. All this I swear by God Almighty and the Holy Gospels, in witness whereto I sign my name to this recantation.'
THE INQUISITOR. You understand this, Joan?
JOAN [listless] It is plain enough, sir.
THE INQUISITOR. And is it true?
JOAN. It may be true. If it were not true, the fire would not be ready for me in the market-place.
LADVENU [taking up his pen and a book, and going to her quickly lest she should compromise herself again] Come, child: let me guide your hand. Take the pen. [She does so; and they begin to write, using the book as a desk] J.E.H.A.N.E. So. Now make your mark by yourself.
JOAN [makes her mark, and gives him back the pen, tormented by the rebellion of her soul against her mind and body] There!
LADVENU [replacing the pen on the table, and handing the recantation to Cauchon with a reverence] Praise be to God, my brothers, the lamb has returned to the flock; and the shepherd rejoices in her more than in ninety and nine just persons. [He returns to his seat].
THE INQUISITOR [taking the paper from Cauchon] We declare thee by this act set free from the danger of excommunication in which thou stoodest. [He throws the paper down to the table].
JOAN. I thank you.
THE INQUISITOR. But because thou has sinned most presumptuously against God and the Holy Church, and that thou mayst repent thy errors in solitary contemplation, and be shielded from all temptation to return to them, we, for the good of thy soul, and for a penance that may wipe out thy sins and bring thee finally unspotted to the throne of grace, do condemn thee to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the water of affliction to the end of thy earthly days in perpetual imprisonment.
JOAN [rising in consternation and terrible anger] Perpetual imprisonment! Am I not then to be set free?
LADVENU [mildly shocked] Set free, child, after such wickedness as yours! What are you dreaming of?
JOAN. Give me that writing. [She rushes to the table; snatches up the paper; and tears it into fragments] Light your fire: do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole? My voices were right.
LADVENU. Joan! Joan!
JOAN. Yes: they told me you were fools [the word gives great offence], and that I was not to listen to your fine words nor trust to your charity. You promised me my life; but you lied [indignant exclamations]. You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear: I can live on bread: when have I asked for more? It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. Bread has no sorrow for me, and water no affliction. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to make me breathe foul damp darkness, and keep from me everything that brings me back to the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him: all this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.
THE ASSESSORS [in great commotion] Blasphemy! blasphemy! She is possessed. She said our counsel was of the devil. And hers of God. Monstrous! The devil is in our midst, etc., etc.
D'ESTIVET [shouting above the din] She is a relapsed heretic, obstinate, incorrigible, and altogether unworthy of the mercy we have shewn her. I call for her excommunication.
THE CHAPLAIN [to the Executioner] Light your fire, man. To the stake with her.
The Executioner and his assistants hurry out through the courtyard.
LADVENU. You wicked girl: if your counsel were of God would He not deliver you?
JOAN. His ways are not your ways. He wills that I go through the fire to His bosom; for I am His child, and you are not fit that I should live among you. That is my last word to you.
The soldiers seize her.
CAUCHON [rising] Not yet.
They wait. There is a dead silence. Cauchon turns to the Inquisitor with an inquiring look. The Inquisitor nods affirmatively. They rise solemnly, and intone the sentence antiphonally.
CAUCHON. We decree that thou art a relapsed heretic.
THE INQUISITOR. Cast out from the unity of the Church.
CAUCHON. Sundered from her body.
THE INQUISITOR. Infected with the leprosy of heresy.
CAUCHON. A member of Satan.
THE INQUISITOR. We declare that thou must be excommunicate.
CAUCHON. And now we do cast thee out, segregate thee, and abandon thee to the secular power.
THE INQUISITOR. Admonishing the same secular power that it moderate its judgment of thee in respect of death and division of the limbs. [He resumes his seat].
CAUCHON. And if any true sign of penitence appear in thee, to permit our Brother Martin to administer to thee the sacrament of penance.
THE CHAPLAIN. Into the fire with the witch [he rushes at her, and helps the soldiers to push her out].
Joan is taken away through the courtyard. The assessors rise in disorder, and follow the soldiers, except Ladvenu, who has hidden his face in his hands.
CAUCHON [rising again in the act of sitting down] No, no: this is irregular. The representative of the secular arm should be here to receive her from us.
THEINQUISITOR [also on his feet again] That man is an incorrigible fool.
CAUCHON. Brother Martin: see that everything is done in order.
LADVENU. My place is at her side, my Lord. You must exercise your own authority. [He hurries out].
CAUCHON. These English are impossible: they will thrust her straight into the fire. Look!
He points to the courtyard, in which the glow and flicker of fire can now be seen reddening the May daylight. Only the Bishop and the Inquisitor are left in the court.
CAUCHON [turning to go] We must stop that.
THE INQUISITOR [calmly] Yes; but not too fast, my lord.
CAUCHON [halting] But there is not a moment to lose.
THE INQUISITOR. We have proceeded in perfect order. If the English choose to put themselves in the wrong, it is not our business to put them in the right. A flaw in the procedure may be useful later on: one never knows. And the sooner it is over, the better for that poor girl.
CAUCHON [relaxing] That is true. But I suppose we must see this dreadful thing through.
THE INQUISITOR. One gets used to it. Habit is everything. I am accustomed to the fire: it is soon over. But it is a terrible thing to see a young and innocent creature crushed between these mighty forces, the Church and the Law.
CAUCHON. You call her innocent!
THE INQUISITOR. Oh, quite innocent. What does she know of the Church and the Law? She did not understand a word we were saying. It is the ignorant who suffer. Come, or we shall be late for the end.
CAUCHON [going with him] I shall not be sorry if we are: I am not so accustomed as you.
They are going out when Warwick comes in, meeting them.
WARWICK. Oh, I am intruding. I thought it was all over.
[He makes a feint of retiring].
CAUCHON. Do not go, my lord. It is all over.
THE INQUISITOR. The execution is not in our hands, my lord; but it is desirable that we should witness the end. So by your leave--[He bows, and goes out through the courtyard].
CAUCHON. There is some doubt whether your people have observed the forms of law, my lord.
WARWICK. I am told that there is some doubt whether your authority runs in this city, my lord. It is not in your diocese. However, if you will answer for that I will swear for the rest.
CAUCHON. It is to God that we both must answer. Good morning, my lord.
WARWICK. My lord: good morning.
They look at one another for a moment with unconcealed hostility. Then Cauchon follows the Inquisitor out. Warwick looks round. Finding himself alone, he calls for attendance.
WARWICK. Hallo: some attendance here! [Silence]. Hallo, there! [Silence]. Hallo! Brian, you young blackguard, where are you? [Silence]. Guard! [Silence]. They have all gone to see the burning: even that child.
The silence is broken by someone frantically howling and sobbing.
WARWICK. What in the devil's name--?
The Chaplain staggers in from the courtyard like a demented creature, his face streaming with tears, making the piteous sounds that Warwick has heard. He stumbles to the prisoner's stool, and throws himself upon it with heartrending sobs.
WARWICK [going to him and patting him on the shoulder] What is it, Master John? What is the matter?
THE CHAPLAIN [clutching at his hand] My lord, my lord: for Christ's sake pray for my wretched guilty soul.
WARWICK [soothing him] Yes, yes: of course I will. Calmly, gently--
THE CHAPLAIN [blubbering miserably] I am not a bad man, my lord.
WARWICK. No, no: not at all.
THE CHAPLAIN. I meant no harm. I did not know what it would be like.
WARWICK [hardening] Oh! You saw it, then?
THE CHAPLAIN. I did not know what I was doing. I am a hotheaded fool; and I shall be damned to all eternity for it.
WARWICK. Nonsense! Very distressing, no doubt; but it was not your doing.
THE CHAPLAIN [lamentably] I let them do it. If I had known, I would have torn her from their hands. You don't know: you havnt seen: it is so easy to talk when you dont know. You madden yourself with words: you damn yourself because it feels grand to throw oil on the flaming hell of your own temper. But when it is brought home to you; when you see the thing you have done; when it is blinding your eyes, stifling your nostrils, tearing your heart, then--then--[Falling on his knees] O God, take away this sight from me! O Christ, deliver me from this fire that is consuming me! She cried to Thee in the midst of it: Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! She is in Thy bosom; and I am in hell for evermore.
WARWICK [summarily hauling him to his feet] Come come, man! you must pull yourself together. We shall have the whole town talking of this. [He throws him not too gently into a chair at the table] If you have not the nerve to see these things, why do you not do as I do, and stay away?
THE CHAPLAIN [bewildered and submissive] She asked for a cross. A soldier gave her two sticks tied together. Thank God he was an Englishman! I might have done it; but I did not: I am a coward, a mad dog, a fool. But he was an Englishman too.
WARWICK. The fool! they will burn him too if the priests get hold of him.
THE CHAPLAIN [shaken with a convulsion] Some of the people laughed at her. They would have laughed at Christ. They were French people, my lord: I know they were French.
WARWICK. Hush! someone is coming. Control yourself.
Ladvenu comes back through the courtyard to Warwick's right hand, carrying a bishop's cross which he has taken from a church. He is very grave and composed.
WARWICK. I am informed that it is all over, Brother Martin.
LADVENU [enigmatically] We do not know, my lord. It may have only just begun.
WARWICK. What does that mean, exactly?
LADVENU. I took this cross from the church for her that she might see it to the last: she had only two sticks that she put into her bosom. When the fire crept round us, and she saw that if I held the cross before her I should be burnt myself, she warned me to get down and save myself. My lord: a girl who could think of another's danger in such a moment was not inspired by the devil. When I had to snatch the cross from her sight, she looked up to heaven. And I do not believe that the heavens were empty. I firmly believe that her Savior appeared to her then in His tenderest glory. She called to Him and died. This is not the end for her, but the beginning.
WARWICK. I am afraid it will have a bad effect on the people.
LADVENU. It had, my lord, on some of them. I heard laughter. Forgive me for saying that I hope and believe it was English laughter.
THE CHAPLAIN [rising frantically] No: it was not. There was only one Englishman there that disgraced his country; and that was the mad dog, de Stogumber. [He rushes wildly out, shrieking] Let them torture him. Let them burn him. I will go pray among her ashes. I am no better than Judas: I will hang myself.
WARWICK. Quick, Brother Martin: follow him: he will do himself some mischief. After him, quick.
Ladvenu hurries out, Warwick urging him. The Executioner comes in by the door behind the judges' chairs; and Warwick, returning, finds himself face to face with him.
WARWICK. Well, fellow: who are you?
THE EXECUTIONER [with dignity] I am not addressed as fellow, my lord. I am the Master Executioner of Rouen: it is a highly skilled mystery. I am come to tell your lordship that your orders have been obeyed.
WARWICK. I crave your pardon, Master Executioner; and I will see that you lose nothing by having no relics to sell. I have your word, have I, that nothing remains, not a bone, not a nail, not a hair?
THE EXECUTIONER. Her heart would not burn, my lord; but everything that was left is at the bottom of the river. You have heard the last of her.
WARWICK [with a wry smile, thinking of what Ladvenu said] The last of her? Hm! I wonder!
Looking down the great hall from the middle of the inner end, the judicial chairs and scribes' table are to the right. The prisoner's stool is to the left. There are arched doors right and left. It is a fine sunshiny May morning.
Warwick comes in through the arched doorway on the judges' side, followed by his page.
THE PAGE [pertly] I suppose your lordship is aware that we have no business here. This is an ecclesiastical court; and we are only the secular arm.
WARWICK. I am aware of that fact. Will it please your impudence to find the Bishop of Beauvais for me, and give him a hint that he can have a word with me here before the trial, if he wishes?
THE PAGE [going] Yes, my lord.
WARWICK. And mind you behave yourself. Do not address him as Pious Peter.
THE PAGE. No, my lord. I shall be kind to him, because, when The Maid is brought in, Pious Peter will have to pick a peck of pickled pepper.
Cauchon enters through the same door with a Dominican monk and a canon, the latter carrying a brief.
THE PAGE. The Right Reverend his lordship the Bishop of Beauvais. And two other reverend gentlemen.
WARWICK. Get out; and see that we are not interrupted.
THE PAGE. Right, my lord [he vanishes airily].
CAUCHON. I wish your lordship good-morrow.
WARWICK. Good-morrow to your lordship. Have I had the pleasure of meeting your friends before? I think not.
CAUCHON [introducing the monk, who is on his right] This, my lord, is Brother John Lemaître, of the order of St Dominic. He is acting as deputy for the Chief Inquisitor into the evil of heresy in France. Brother John: the Earl of Warwick.
WARWICK. Your Reverence is most welcome. We have no Inquisitor in England, unfortunately; though we miss him greatly, especially on occasions like the present.
The Inquisitor smiles patiently, and bows. He is a mild elderly gentleman, but has evident reserves of authority and firmness.
CAUCHON [introducing the Canon, who is on his left] This gentleman is Canon John D'Estivet, of the Chapter of Bayeaux. He is acting as Promoter.
WARWICK. Promoter?
CAUCHON. Prosecutor, you would call him in civil law.
WARWICK. Ah! prosecutor. Quite, quite. I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Canon D'Estivet.
D'Estivet bows. [He is on the young side of middle age, well mannered, but vulpine beneath his veneer].
WARWICK. May I ask what stage the proceedings have reached? It is now more than nine months since The Maid was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundians. It is fully four months since I bought her from the Burgundians for a very handsome sum, solely that she might be brought to justice. It is very nearly three months since I delivered her up to you, my Lord Bishop, as a person suspected of heresy. May I suggest that you are taking a rather unconscionable time to make up your minds about a very plain case? Is this trial never going to end?
THE INQUISITOR [smiling] It has not yet begun, my lord.
WARWICK. Not yet begun! Why, you have been at it eleven weeks!
CAUCHON. We have not been idle, my lord. We have held fifteen examinations of The Maid: six public and nine private.
THE INQUISITOR [always patiently smiling] You see, my lord, I have been present at only two of these examinations. They were proceedings of the Bishop's court solely, and not of the Holy Office. I have only just decided to associate myself--that is, to associate the Holy Inquisition--with the Bishop's court. I did not at first think that this was a case of heresy at all. I regarded it as a political case, and The Maid as a prisoner of war. But having now been present at two of the examinations, I must admit that this seems to be one of the gravest cases of heresy within my experience. Therefore everything is now in order, and we proceed to trial this morning. [He moves towards the judicial chairs].
CAUCHON. This moment, if your lordship's convenience allows.
WARWICK [graciously] Well, that is good news, gentlemen. I will not attempt to conceal from you that our patience was becoming strained.
CAUCHON. So I gathered from the threats of your soldiers to drown those of our people who favor The Maid.
WARWICK. Dear me! At all events their intentions were friendly to you, my lord.
CAUCHON [sternly] I hope not. I am determined that the woman shall have a fair hearing. The justice of the Church is not a mockery, my lord.
THE INQUISITOR [returning] Never has there been a fairer examination within my experience, my lord. The Maid needs no lawyers to take her part: she will be tried by her most faithful friends, all ardently desirous to save her soul from perdition.
D'ESTIVET. Sir: I am the Promotor; and it has been my painful duty to present the case against the girl; but believe me, I would throw up my case today and hasten to her defence if I did not know that men far my superiors in learning and piety, in eloquence and persuasiveness, have been sent to reason with her, to explain to her the danger she is running, and the ease with which she may avoid it. [Suddenly bursting into forensic eloquence, to the disgust of Cauchon and the Inquisitor, who have listened to him so far with patronizing approval] Men have dared to say that we are acting from hate; but God is our witness that they lie. Have we tortured her? No. Have we ceased to exhort her; to implore her to have pity on herself; to come to the bosom of her Church as an erring but beloved child? Have we--
CAUCHON [interrupting drily] Take care, Canon. All that you say is true; but if you make his lordship believe it I will not answer for your life, and hardly for my own.
WARWICK [deprecating, but by no means denying] Oh, my lord, you are very hard on us poor English. But we certainly do not share your pious desire to save The Maid: in fact I tell you now plainly that her death is a political necessity which I regret but cannot help. If the Church lets her go--
CAUCHON [with fierce and menacing pride] If the Church lets her go, woe to the man, were he the Emperor himself, who dares lay a finger on her! The Church is not subject to political necessity, my lord.
THE INQUISITOR [interposing smoothly] You need have no anxiety about the result, my lord. You have an invincible ally in the matter: one who is far more determined than you that she shall burn.
WARWICK. And who is this very convenient partisan, may I ask?
THE INQUISITOR. The Maid herself. Unless you put a gag in her mouth you cannot prevent her from convicting herself ten times over every time she opens it.
D'ESTIVET. That is perfectly true, my lord. My hair bristles on my head when I hear so young a creature utter such blasphemies.
WARWICK. Well, by all means do your best for her if you are quite sure it will be of no avail. [Looking hard at Cauchon] I should be sorry to have to act without the blessing of the Church.
CAUCHON [with a mixture of cynical admiration and contempt] And yet they say Englishmen are hypocrites! You play for your side, my lord, even at the peril of your soul. I cannot but admire such devotion; but I dare not go so far myself. I fear damnation.
WARWICK. If we feared anything we could never govern England, my lord. Shall I send your people in to you?
CAUCHON. Yes: it will be very good of your lordship to withdraw and allow the court to assemble.
Warwick turns on his heel, and goes out through the courtyard. Cauchon takes one of the judicial seats; and D'Estivet sits at the scribes' table, studying his brief.
CAUCHON [casually, as he makes himself comfortable] What scoundrels these English nobles are!
THE INQUISITOR [taking the other judicial chair on Cauchon's left] All secular power makes men scoundrels. They are not trained for the work; and they have not the Apostolic Succession. Our own nobles are just as bad.
The Bishop's assessors hurry into the hall, headed by Chaplain de Stogumber and Canon de Courcelles, a young priest of 30. The scribes sit at the table, leaving a chair vacant opposite D'Estivet. Some of the assessors take their seats: others stand chatting, waiting for the proceedings to begin formally. De Stogumber, aggrieved and obstinate, will not take his seat: neither will the Canon, who stands on his right.
CAUCHON. Good morning, Master de Stogumber. [To the Inquisitor] Chaplain to the Cardinal of England.
THE CHAPLAIN [correcting him] Of Winchester, my lord. I have to make a protest, my lord.
CAUCHON. You make a great many.
THE CHAPLAIN. I am not without support, my lord. Here is Master de Courcelles, Canon of Paris, who associates himself with me in my protest.
CAUCHON. Well, what is the matter?
THE CHAPLAIN [sulkily] Speak you, Master de Courcelles, since I do not seem to enjoy his lordship's confidence. [He sits down in dudgeon next to Cauchon, on his right].
COURCELLES. My lord; we have been at great pains to draw up an indictment of The Maid on sixty-four counts. We are not told that they have been reduced, without consulting us.
THE INQUISITOR. Master de Courcelles: I am the culprit. I am overwhelmed with admiration for the zeal displayed in your sixty-four counts; but in accusing a heretic, as in other things, enough is enough. Also you must remember that all the members of the court are not so subtle and profound as you, and that some of your very great learning might appear to them to be very great nonsense. Therefore I have thought it well to have your sixty-four articles cut down to twelve--
COURCELLES [thunderstruck] Twelve!!!
THE INQUISITOR. Twelve will, believe me, be quite enough for your purpose.
THE CHAPLAIN. But some of the most important points have been reduced almost to nothing. For instance, The Maid has actually declared that the blessed saints Margaret and Catherine, and the holy Archangel Michael, spoke to her in French. That is a vital point.
THE INQUISITOR. You think, doubtless, that they should have spoken in Latin?
CAUCHON. No: he thinks they should have spoken in English.
THE CHAPLAIN. Naturally, my lord.
THE INQUISITOR. Well, as we are all here agreed, I think, that these voices of The Maid are the voices of evil spirits tempting her to her damnation, it would not be very courteous to you, Master de Stogumber, or to the King of England, to assume that English is the devil's native language. So let it pass. The matter is not wholly omitted from the twelve articles. Pray take your places, gentlemen; and let us proceed to business.
All who have not taken their seats, do so.
THE CHAPLAIN. Well, I protest. That is all.
COURCELLES. I think it hard that all our work should go for nothing. It is only another example of the diabolical influence which this woman exercises over the court. [He takes his chair, which is on the Chaplain's right].
CAUCHON. Do you suggest that I am under diabolical influence?
COURCELLES. I suggest nothing, my lord. But it seems to me that there is a conspiracy here to hush up the fact that The Maid stole the Bishop of Senlis's horse.
CAUCHON [keeping his temper with difficulty] This is not a police court. Are we to waste our time on such rubbish?
COURCELLES [rising, shocked] My lord: do you call the Bishop's horse rubbish?
THE INQUISITOR [blandly] Master de Courcelles: The Maid alleges that she paid handsomely for the Bishop's horse, and that if he did not get the money the fault was not hers. As that may be true, the point is one on which The Maid may well be acquitted.
COURCELLES. Yes, if it were an ordinary horse. But the Bishop's horse! how can she be acquitted for that? [He sits down again, bewildered and discouraged].
THE INQUISITOR. I submit to you, with great respect, that if we persist in trying The Maid on trumpery issues on which we may have to declare her innocent, she may escape us on the great main issue of heresy, on which she seems so far to insist on her own guilt. I will ask you, therefore, to say nothing, when The Maid is brought before us, of these stealings of horses, and dancings round fairy trees with the village children, and prayings at haunted wells, and a dozen other things which you were diligently inquiring into until my arrival. There is not a village girl in France against whom you could not prove such things: they all dance round haunted trees, and pray at magic wells. Some of them would steal the Pope's horse if they got the chance. Heresy, gentlemen, heresy is the charge we have to try. The detection and suppression of heresy is my peculiar business: I am here as an inquisitor, not as an ordinary magistrate. Stick to the heresy, gentlemen; and leave the other matters alone.
CAUCHON. I may say that we have sent to the girl's village to make inquiries about her, and there is practically nothing serious against her.
THE CHAPLAIN } [rising and clamoring together] [together] {No, my lord.
JOAN [continuing] They are determined that I shall be burnt as a witch; and they sent their doctor to cure me; but he was forbidden to bleed me because the silly people believe that a witch's witchery leaves her if she is bled; so he only called me filthy names. Why do you leave me in the hands of the English? I should be in the hands of the Church. And why must I be chained by the feet to a log of wood? Are you afraid I will fly away?
D'ESTIVET [harshly] Woman: it is not for you to question the court: it is for us to question you.
COURCELLES. When you were left unchained, did you not try to escape by jumping from a tower sixty feet high? If you cannot fly like a witch, how is it that you are still alive?
JOAN. I suppose because the tower was not so high then. It has grown higher every day since you began asking me questions about it.
D'ESTIVET. Why did you jump from the tower?
JOAN. How do you know that I jumped?
D'ESTIVET. You were found lying in the moat. Why did you leave the tower?
JOAN. Why would anybody leave a prison if they could get out?
D'ESTIVET. You tried to escape?
JOAN. Of course I did; and not for the first time either. If you leave the door of the cage open the bird will fly out.
D'ESTIVET [rising] That is a confession of heresy. I call the attention of the court to it.
JOAN. Heresy, he calls it! Am I a heretic because I try to escape from prison?
D'ESTIVET. Assuredly, if you are in the hands of the Church, and you wilfully take yourself out of its hands, you are deserting the Church; and that is heresy.
JOAN. It is great nonsense. Nobody could be such a fool as to think that.
D'ESTIVET. You hear, my lord, how I am reviled in the execution of my duty by this woman. [He sits down indignantly].
CAUCHON. I have warned you before, Joan, that you are doing yourself no good by these pert answers.
JOAN. But you will not talk sense to me. I am reasonable if you will be reasonable.
THE INQUISITOR [interposing] This is not yet in order. You forget, Master Promoter, that the proceedings have not been formally opened. The time for questions is after she has sworn on the Gospels to tell us the whole truth.
JOAN. You say this to me every time. I have said again and again that I will tell you all that concerns this trial. But I cannot tell you the whole truth: God does not allow the whole truth to be told. You do not understand it when I tell it. It is an old saying that he who tells too much truth is sure to be hanged. I am weary of this argument: we have been over it nine times already. I have sworn as much as I will swear; and I will swear no more.
COURCELLES. My lord: she should be put to the torture.
THE INQUISITOR. You hear, Joan? That is what happens to the obdurate. Think before you answer. Has she been shewn the instruments?
THE EXECUTIONER. They are ready, my lord. She has seen them.
JOAN. If you tear me limb from limb until you separate my soul from my body you will get nothing out of me beyond what I have told you. What more is there to tell that you could understand? Besides, I cannot bear to be hurt; and if you hurt me I will say anything you like to stop the pain. But I will take it all back afterwards; so what is the use of it?
LADVENU. There is much in that. We should proceed mercifully.
COURCELLES. But the torture is customary.
THE INQUISITOR. It must not be applied wantonly. If the accused will confess voluntarily, then its use cannot be justified.
COURCELLES. But this is unusual and irregular. She refuses to take the oath.
LADVENU [disgusted] Do you want to torture the girl for the mere pleasure of it?
COURCELLES [bewildered] But it is not a pleasure. It is the law. It is customary. It is always done.
THE INQUISITOR. That is not so, Master, except when the inquiries are carried on by people who do not know their legal business.
COURCELLES. But the woman is a heretic. I assure you it is always done.
CAUCHON [decisively] It will not be done today if it is not necessary. Let there be an end of this. I will not have it said that we proceeded on forced confessions. We have sent our best preachers and doctors to this woman to exhort and implore her to save her soul and body from the fire: we shall not now send the executioner to thrust her into it.
COURCELLES. Your lordship is merciful, of course. But it is a great responsibility to depart from the usual practice.
JOAN. Thou are a rare noodle, Master. Do what was done last time is thy rule, eh?
COURCELLES [rising] Thou wanton: dost thou dare call me noodle?
THE INQUISITOR. Patience, Master, patience: I fear you will soon be only too terribly avenged.
COURCELLES [mutters] Noodle indeed! [He sits down, much discontented].
THE INQUISITOR. Meanwhile, let us not be moved by the rough side of a shepherd lass's tongue.
JOAN. Nay: I am no shepherd lass, though I have helped with the sheep like anyone else. I will do a lady's work in the house--spin or weave--against any woman in Rouen.
THE INQUISITOR. This is not a time for vanity, Joan. You stand in great peril.
JOAN. I know it: have I not been punished for my vanity? If I had not worn my cloth of gold surcoat in battle like a fool, that Burgundian soldier would never have pulled me backwards off my horse; and I should not have been here.
THE CHAPLAIN. If you are so clever at woman's work why do you not stay at home and do it?
JOAN. There are plenty of other women to do it; but there is nobody to do my work.
CAUCHON. Come! we are wasting time on trifles. Joan: I am going to put a most solemn question to you. Take care how you answer; for your life and salvation are at stake on it. Will you for all you have said and done, be it good or bad, accept the judgment of God's Church on earth? More especially as to the acts and words that are imputed to you in this trial by the Promoter here, will you submit your case to the inspired interpretation of the Church Militant?
JOAN. I am a faithful child of the Church. I will obey the Church--
CAUCHON [hopefully leaning forward] You will?
JOAN.--provided it does not command anything impossible.
Cauchon sinks back in his chair with a heavy sigh. The Inquisitor purses his lips and frowns. Ladvenu shakes his head pitifully.
D'ESTIVET. She imputes to the Church the error and folly of commanding the impossible.
JOAN. If you command me to declare that all that I have done and said, and all the visions and revelations I have had, were not from God, then that is impossible: I will not declare it for anything in the world. What God made me do I will never go back on; and what He has commanded or shall command I will not fail to do in spite of any man alive. That is what I mean by impossible. And in case the Church should bid me do anything contrary to the command I have from God, I will not consent to it, no matter what it may be.
THE ASSESSORS [shocked and indignant] Oh! The Church contrary to God! What do you say now? Flat heresy. This is beyond everything, etc., etc.
D'ESTIVET [throwing down his brief] My lord: do you need anything more than this?
CAUCHON. Woman: you have said enough to burn ten heretics. Will you not be warned? Will you not understand?
THE INQUISITOR. If the Church Militant tells you that your revelations and visions are sent by the devil to tempt you to your damnation, will you not believe that the Church is wiser than you?
JOAN. I believe that God is wiser than I; and it is His commands that I will do. All the things that you call my crimes have come to me by the command of God. I say that I have done them by the order of God: it is impossible for me to say anything else. If any Churchman says the contrary I shall not mind him: I shall mind God alone, whose command I always follow.
LADVENU [pleading with her urgently] You do not know what you are saying, child. Do you want to kill yourself? Listen. Do you not believe that you are subject to the Church of God on earth?
JOAN. Yes. When have I ever denied it?
LADVENU. Good. That means, does it not, that you are subject to our Lord the Pope, to the cardinals, the archbishops, and the bishops for whom his lordship stands here today?
JOAN. God must be served first.
D'ESTIVET. Then your voices command you not to submit yourself to the Church Militant?
JOAN. My voices do not tell me to disobey the Church; but God must be served first.
CAUCHON. And you, and not the Church, are to be the judge?
JOAN. What other judgment can I judge by but my own?
THE ASSESSORS [scandalized] Oh! [They cannot find words].
CAUCHON. Out of your own mouth you have condemned yourself. We have striven for your salvation to the verge of sinning ourselves: we have opened the door to you again and again; and you have shut it in our faces and in the face of God. Dare you pretend, after what you have said, that you are in a state of grace?
JOAN. If I am not, may God bring me to it: if I am, may God keep me in it!
LADVENU. That is a very good reply, my lord.
COURCELLES. Were you in a state of grace when you stole the Bishop's horse?
CAUCHON [rising in a fury] Oh, devil take the Bishop's horse and you too! We are here to try a case of heresy; and no sooner do we come to the root of the matter than we are thrown back by idiots who understand nothing but horses. [Trembling with rage, he forces himself to sit down].
THE INQUISITOR. Gentlemen, gentlemen: in clinging to these small issues you are The Maid's best advocates. I am not surprised that his lordship has lost patience with you. What does the Promoter say? Does he press these trumpery matters?
D'ESTIVET. I am bound by my office to press everything; but when the woman confesses a heresy that must bring upon her the doom of excommunication, of what consequence is it that she has been guilty also of offences which expose her to minor penances? I share the impatience of his lordship as to these minor charges. Only, with great respect, I must emphasize the gravity of two very horrible and blasphemous crimes which she does not deny. First, she has intercourse with evil spirits, and is therefore a sorceress. Second, she wears men's clothes, which is indecent, unnatural, and abominable; and in spite of our most earnest remonstrances and entreaties, she will not change them even to receive the sacrament.
JOAN. Is the blessed St Catherine an evil spirit? Is St Margaret? Is Michael the Archangel?
COURCELLES. How do you know that the spirit which appears to you is an archangel? Does he not appear to you as a naked man?
JOAN. Do you think God cannot afford clothes for him?
The assessors cannot kelp smiling, especially as the joke is against Courcelles.
LADVENU. Well answered, Joan.
THE INQUISITOR. It is, in effect, well answered. But no evil spirit would be so simple as to appear to a young girl in a guise that would scandalize her when he meant her to take him for a messenger from the Most High. Joan: the Church instructs you that these apparitions are demons seeking your soul's perdition. Do you accept the instruction of the Church?
JOAN. I accept the messenger of God. How could any faithful believer in the Church refuse him?
CAUCHON. Wretched woman: again I ask you, do you know what you are saying?
THE INQUISITOR. You wrestle in vain with the devil for her soul, my lord: she will not be saved. Now as to this matter of the man's dress. For the last time, will you put off that impudent attire, and dress as becomes your sex?
JOAN. I will not.
D'ESTIVET [pouncing] The sin of disobedience, my lord.
JOAN [distressed] But my voices tell me I must dress as a soldier.
LADVENU. Joan, Joan: does not that prove to you that the voices are the voices of evil spirits? Can you suggest to us one good reason why an angel of God should give you such shameless advice?
JOAN. Why, yes: what can be plainer commonsense? I was a soldier living among soldiers. I am a prisoner guarded by soldiers. If I were to dress as a woman they would think of me as a woman; and then what would become of me? If I dress as a soldier they think of me as a soldier, and I can live with them as I do at home with my brothers. That is why St Catherine tells me I must not dress as a woman until she gives me leave.
COURCELLES. When will she give you leave?
JOAN. When you take me out of the hands of the English soldiers. I have told you that I should be in the hands of the Church, and not left night and day with four soldiers of the Earl of Warwick. Do you want me to live with them in petticoats?
LADVENU. My lord: what she says is, God knows, very wrong and shocking; but there is a grain of worldly sense in it such as might impose on a simple village maiden.
JOAN. If we were as simple in the village as you are in your courts and palaces, there would soon be no wheat to make bread for you.
CAUCHON. That is the thanks you get for trying to save her, Brother Martin.
LADVENU. Joan: we are all trying to save you. His lordship is trying to save you. The Inquisitor could not be more just to you if you were his own daughter. But you are blinded by a terrible pride and self-sufficiency.
JOAN. Why do you say that? I have said nothing wrong. I cannot understand.
THE INQUISITOR. The blessed St Athanasius has laid it down in his creed that those who cannot understand are damned. It is not enough to be simple. It is not enough even to be what simple people call good. The simplicity of a darkened mind is no better than the simplicity of a beast.
JOAN. There is great wisdom in the simplicity of a beast, let me tell you; and sometimes great foolishness in the wisdom of scholars.
LADVENU. We know that, Joan: we are not so foolish as you think us. Try to resist the temptation to make pert replies to us. Do you see that man who stands behind you [he indicates the Executioner]?
JOAN [turning and looking at the man] Your torturer? But the Bishop said I was not to be tortured.
LADVENU. You are not to be tortured because you have confessed everything that is necessary to your condemnation. That man is not only the torturer: he is also the Executioner. Executioner: let The Maid hear your answers to my questions. Are you prepared for the burning of a heretic this day?
THE EXECUTIONER. Yes, Master.
LADVENU. Is the stake ready?
THE EXECUTIONER. It is. In the market-place. The English have built it too high for me to get near her and make the death easier. It will be a cruel death.
JOAN [horrified] But you are not going to burn me now?
THE INQUISITOR. You realize it at last.
LADVENU. There are eight hundred English soldiers waiting to take you to the market-place the moment the sentence of excommunication has passed the lips of your judges. You are within a few short moments of that doom.
JOAN [looking round desperately for rescue] Oh God!
LADVENU. Do not despair, Joan. The Church is merciful. You can save yourself.
JOAN [hopefully] Yes, my voices promised me I should not be burnt. St Catherine bade me be bold.
CAUCHON. Woman: are you quite mad? Do you not yet see that your voices have deceived you?
JOAN. Oh no: that is impossible.
CAUCHON. Impossible! They have led you straight to your excommunication, and to the stake which is there waiting for you.
LADVENU [pressing the point hard] Have they kept a single promise to you since you were taken at Compiègne? The devil has betrayed you. The Church holds out its arms to you.
JOAN [despairing] Oh, it is true: it is true: my voices have deceived me. I have been mocked by devils: my faith is broken. I have dared and dared; but only a fool will walk into a fire: God, who gave me my commonsense, cannot will me to do that.
LADVENU. Now God be praised that He has saved you at the eleventh hour! [He hurries to the vacant seat at the scribes' table, and snatches a sheet of paper, on which he sets to work writing eagerly].
CAUCHON. Amen!
JOAN. What must I do?
CAUCHON. You must sign a solemn recantation of your heresy.
JOAN. Sign? That means to write my name. I cannot write.
CAUCHON. You have signed many letters before.
JOAN. Yes; but someone held my hand and guided the pen. I can make my mark.
THE CHAPLAIN [who has been listening with growing alarm and indignation] My lord: do you mean that you are going to allow this woman to escape us?
THE INQUISITOR. The law must take its course, Master de Stogumber. And you know the law.
THE CHAPLAIN [rising, purple with fury] I know that there is no faith in a Frenchman. [Tumult, which he shouts down]. I know what my lord the Cardinal of Winchester will say when he hears of this. I know what the Earl of Warwick will do when he learns that you intend to betray him. There are eight hundred men at the gate who will see that this abominable witch is burnt in spite of your teeth.
THE ASSESSORS [meanwhile] What is this? What did he say? He accuses us of treachery! This is past bearing. No faith in a Frenchman! Did you hear that? This is an intolerable fellow. Who is he? Is this what English Churchmen are like? He must be mad or drunk, etc., etc.
THE INQUISITOR [rising] Silence, pray! Gentlemen: pray silence! Master Chaplain: bethink you a moment of your holy office: of what you are, and where you are. I direct you to sit down.
THE CHAPLAIN [folding his arms doggedly, his face working convulsively] I will NOT sit down.
CAUCHON. Master Inquisitor: this man has called me a traitor to my face before now.
THE CHAPLAIN. So you are a traitor. You are all traitors. You have been doing nothing but begging this damnable witch on your knees to recant all through this trial.
THE INQUISITOR [placidly resuming his seat] If you will not sit, you must stand: that is all.
THE CHAPLAIN. I will NOT stand [he flings himself back into his chair].
LADVENU [rising with the paper in his hand] My lord: here is the form of recantation for The Maid to sign.
CAUCHON. Read it to her.
JOAN. Do not trouble. I will sign it.
THE INQUISITOR. Woman: you must know what you are putting your hand to. Read it to her, Brother Martin. And let all be silent.
LADVENU [reading quietly] 'I, Joan, commonly called The Maid, a miserable sinner, do confess that I have most grievously sinned in the following articles. I have pretended to have revelations from God and the angels and the blessed saints, and perversely rejected the Church's warnings that these were temptations by demons. I have blasphemed abominably by wearing an immodest dress, contrary to the Holy Scripture and the canons of the Church. Also I have clipped my hair in the style of a man, and, against all the duties which have made my sex specially acceptable in heaven, have taken up the sword, even to the shedding of human blood, inciting men to slay each other, invoking evil spirits to delude them, and stubbornly and most blasphemously imputing these sins to Almighty God. I confess to the sin of sedition, to the sin of idolatry, to the sin of disobedience, to the sin of pride, and to the sin of heresy. All of which sins I now renounce and abjure and depart from, humbly thanking you Doctors and Masters who have brought me back to the truth and into the grace of our Lord. And I will never return to my errors, but will remain in communion with our Holy Church and in obedience to our Holy Father the Pope of Rome. All this I swear by God Almighty and the Holy Gospels, in witness whereto I sign my name to this recantation.'
THE INQUISITOR. You understand this, Joan?
JOAN [listless] It is plain enough, sir.
THE INQUISITOR. And is it true?
JOAN. It may be true. If it were not true, the fire would not be ready for me in the market-place.
LADVENU [taking up his pen and a book, and going to her quickly lest she should compromise herself again] Come, child: let me guide your hand. Take the pen. [She does so; and they begin to write, using the book as a desk] J.E.H.A.N.E. So. Now make your mark by yourself.
JOAN [makes her mark, and gives him back the pen, tormented by the rebellion of her soul against her mind and body] There!
LADVENU [replacing the pen on the table, and handing the recantation to Cauchon with a reverence] Praise be to God, my brothers, the lamb has returned to the flock; and the shepherd rejoices in her more than in ninety and nine just persons. [He returns to his seat].
THE INQUISITOR [taking the paper from Cauchon] We declare thee by this act set free from the danger of excommunication in which thou stoodest. [He throws the paper down to the table].
JOAN. I thank you.
THE INQUISITOR. But because thou has sinned most presumptuously against God and the Holy Church, and that thou mayst repent thy errors in solitary contemplation, and be shielded from all temptation to return to them, we, for the good of thy soul, and for a penance that may wipe out thy sins and bring thee finally unspotted to the throne of grace, do condemn thee to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the water of affliction to the end of thy earthly days in perpetual imprisonment.
JOAN [rising in consternation and terrible anger] Perpetual imprisonment! Am I not then to be set free?
LADVENU [mildly shocked] Set free, child, after such wickedness as yours! What are you dreaming of?
JOAN. Give me that writing. [She rushes to the table; snatches up the paper; and tears it into fragments] Light your fire: do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole? My voices were right.
LADVENU. Joan! Joan!
JOAN. Yes: they told me you were fools [the word gives great offence], and that I was not to listen to your fine words nor trust to your charity. You promised me my life; but you lied [indignant exclamations]. You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear: I can live on bread: when have I asked for more? It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. Bread has no sorrow for me, and water no affliction. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to make me breathe foul damp darkness, and keep from me everything that brings me back to the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him: all this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.
THE ASSESSORS [in great commotion] Blasphemy! blasphemy! She is possessed. She said our counsel was of the devil. And hers of God. Monstrous! The devil is in our midst, etc., etc.
D'ESTIVET [shouting above the din] She is a relapsed heretic, obstinate, incorrigible, and altogether unworthy of the mercy we have shewn her. I call for her excommunication.
THE CHAPLAIN [to the Executioner] Light your fire, man. To the stake with her.
The Executioner and his assistants hurry out through the courtyard.
LADVENU. You wicked girl: if your counsel were of God would He not deliver you?
JOAN. His ways are not your ways. He wills that I go through the fire to His bosom; for I am His child, and you are not fit that I should live among you. That is my last word to you.
The soldiers seize her.
CAUCHON [rising] Not yet.
They wait. There is a dead silence. Cauchon turns to the Inquisitor with an inquiring look. The Inquisitor nods affirmatively. They rise solemnly, and intone the sentence antiphonally.
CAUCHON. We decree that thou art a relapsed heretic.
THE INQUISITOR. Cast out from the unity of the Church.
CAUCHON. Sundered from her body.
THE INQUISITOR. Infected with the leprosy of heresy.
CAUCHON. A member of Satan.
THE INQUISITOR. We declare that thou must be excommunicate.
CAUCHON. And now we do cast thee out, segregate thee, and abandon thee to the secular power.
THE INQUISITOR. Admonishing the same secular power that it moderate its judgment of thee in respect of death and division of the limbs. [He resumes his seat].
CAUCHON. And if any true sign of penitence appear in thee, to permit our Brother Martin to administer to thee the sacrament of penance.
THE CHAPLAIN. Into the fire with the witch [he rushes at her, and helps the soldiers to push her out].
Joan is taken away through the courtyard. The assessors rise in disorder, and follow the soldiers, except Ladvenu, who has hidden his face in his hands.
CAUCHON [rising again in the act of sitting down] No, no: this is irregular. The representative of the secular arm should be here to receive her from us.
THEINQUISITOR [also on his feet again] That man is an incorrigible fool.
CAUCHON. Brother Martin: see that everything is done in order.
LADVENU. My place is at her side, my Lord. You must exercise your own authority. [He hurries out].
CAUCHON. These English are impossible: they will thrust her straight into the fire. Look!
He points to the courtyard, in which the glow and flicker of fire can now be seen reddening the May daylight. Only the Bishop and the Inquisitor are left in the court.
CAUCHON [turning to go] We must stop that.
THE INQUISITOR [calmly] Yes; but not too fast, my lord.
CAUCHON [halting] But there is not a moment to lose.
THE INQUISITOR. We have proceeded in perfect order. If the English choose to put themselves in the wrong, it is not our business to put them in the right. A flaw in the procedure may be useful later on: one never knows. And the sooner it is over, the better for that poor girl.
CAUCHON [relaxing] That is true. But I suppose we must see this dreadful thing through.
THE INQUISITOR. One gets used to it. Habit is everything. I am accustomed to the fire: it is soon over. But it is a terrible thing to see a young and innocent creature crushed between these mighty forces, the Church and the Law.
CAUCHON. You call her innocent!
THE INQUISITOR. Oh, quite innocent. What does she know of the Church and the Law? She did not understand a word we were saying. It is the ignorant who suffer. Come, or we shall be late for the end.
CAUCHON [going with him] I shall not be sorry if we are: I am not so accustomed as you.
They are going out when Warwick comes in, meeting them.
WARWICK. Oh, I am intruding. I thought it was all over.
[He makes a feint of retiring].
CAUCHON. Do not go, my lord. It is all over.
THE INQUISITOR. The execution is not in our hands, my lord; but it is desirable that we should witness the end. So by your leave--[He bows, and goes out through the courtyard].
CAUCHON. There is some doubt whether your people have observed the forms of law, my lord.
WARWICK. I am told that there is some doubt whether your authority runs in this city, my lord. It is not in your diocese. However, if you will answer for that I will swear for the rest.
CAUCHON. It is to God that we both must answer. Good morning, my lord.
WARWICK. My lord: good morning.
They look at one another for a moment with unconcealed hostility. Then Cauchon follows the Inquisitor out. Warwick looks round. Finding himself alone, he calls for attendance.
WARWICK. Hallo: some attendance here! [Silence]. Hallo, there! [Silence]. Hallo! Brian, you young blackguard, where are you? [Silence]. Guard! [Silence]. They have all gone to see the burning: even that child.
The silence is broken by someone frantically howling and sobbing.
WARWICK. What in the devil's name--?
The Chaplain staggers in from the courtyard like a demented creature, his face streaming with tears, making the piteous sounds that Warwick has heard. He stumbles to the prisoner's stool, and throws himself upon it with heartrending sobs.
WARWICK [going to him and patting him on the shoulder] What is it, Master John? What is the matter?
THE CHAPLAIN [clutching at his hand] My lord, my lord: for Christ's sake pray for my wretched guilty soul.
WARWICK [soothing him] Yes, yes: of course I will. Calmly, gently--
THE CHAPLAIN [blubbering miserably] I am not a bad man, my lord.
WARWICK. No, no: not at all.
THE CHAPLAIN. I meant no harm. I did not know what it would be like.
WARWICK [hardening] Oh! You saw it, then?
THE CHAPLAIN. I did not know what I was doing. I am a hotheaded fool; and I shall be damned to all eternity for it.
WARWICK. Nonsense! Very distressing, no doubt; but it was not your doing.
THE CHAPLAIN [lamentably] I let them do it. If I had known, I would have torn her from their hands. You don't know: you havnt seen: it is so easy to talk when you dont know. You madden yourself with words: you damn yourself because it feels grand to throw oil on the flaming hell of your own temper. But when it is brought home to you; when you see the thing you have done; when it is blinding your eyes, stifling your nostrils, tearing your heart, then--then--[Falling on his knees] O God, take away this sight from me! O Christ, deliver me from this fire that is consuming me! She cried to Thee in the midst of it: Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! She is in Thy bosom; and I am in hell for evermore.
WARWICK [summarily hauling him to his feet] Come come, man! you must pull yourself together. We shall have the whole town talking of this. [He throws him not too gently into a chair at the table] If you have not the nerve to see these things, why do you not do as I do, and stay away?
THE CHAPLAIN [bewildered and submissive] She asked for a cross. A soldier gave her two sticks tied together. Thank God he was an Englishman! I might have done it; but I did not: I am a coward, a mad dog, a fool. But he was an Englishman too.
WARWICK. The fool! they will burn him too if the priests get hold of him.
THE CHAPLAIN [shaken with a convulsion] Some of the people laughed at her. They would have laughed at Christ. They were French people, my lord: I know they were French.
WARWICK. Hush! someone is coming. Control yourself.
Ladvenu comes back through the courtyard to Warwick's right hand, carrying a bishop's cross which he has taken from a church. He is very grave and composed.
WARWICK. I am informed that it is all over, Brother Martin.
LADVENU [enigmatically] We do not know, my lord. It may have only just begun.
WARWICK. What does that mean, exactly?
LADVENU. I took this cross from the church for her that she might see it to the last: she had only two sticks that she put into her bosom. When the fire crept round us, and she saw that if I held the cross before her I should be burnt myself, she warned me to get down and save myself. My lord: a girl who could think of another's danger in such a moment was not inspired by the devil. When I had to snatch the cross from her sight, she looked up to heaven. And I do not believe that the heavens were empty. I firmly believe that her Savior appeared to her then in His tenderest glory. She called to Him and died. This is not the end for her, but the beginning.
WARWICK. I am afraid it will have a bad effect on the people.
LADVENU. It had, my lord, on some of them. I heard laughter. Forgive me for saying that I hope and believe it was English laughter.
THE CHAPLAIN [rising frantically] No: it was not. There was only one Englishman there that disgraced his country; and that was the mad dog, de Stogumber. [He rushes wildly out, shrieking] Let them torture him. Let them burn him. I will go pray among her ashes. I am no better than Judas: I will hang myself.
WARWICK. Quick, Brother Martin: follow him: he will do himself some mischief. After him, quick.
Ladvenu hurries out, Warwick urging him. The Executioner comes in by the door behind the judges' chairs; and Warwick, returning, finds himself face to face with him.
WARWICK. Well, fellow: who are you?
THE EXECUTIONER [with dignity] I am not addressed as fellow, my lord. I am the Master Executioner of Rouen: it is a highly skilled mystery. I am come to tell your lordship that your orders have been obeyed.
WARWICK. I crave your pardon, Master Executioner; and I will see that you lose nothing by having no relics to sell. I have your word, have I, that nothing remains, not a bone, not a nail, not a hair?
THE EXECUTIONER. Her heart would not burn, my lord; but everything that was left is at the bottom of the river. You have heard the last of her.
WARWICK [with a wry smile, thinking of what Ladvenu said] The last of her? Hm! I wonder!
( George Bernard Shaw )
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