Joan of Arc and Bluebeard. rough soldiers who kept ward over her. In the afternoon she put on woman's apparel, and had her hair arranged in feminine style. Her male garments were left in her cell. Most of the English in Rouen were furious at the idea that Joan had escaped them; they thought Canchón had betrayed them. But the Bishop was playing a deep game with a sure hand. What happened during the next two days to Joan is a secret that lies buried in her dun geon. Doubtless her brutal guards, enraged at her escape from the flames, abused her shamefully; some say they beat her, dragged her by the hair, offered violence to her, un til she felt that her man's dress was her only safety; others, that her " voices " reproached her for her weakness in recanting; others say that Warwick had her clothes removed as she slept; suffice it that in two days she had put on again lier old time tunic and cloak and leggings. In a couple of days Cauchon, with the vice-inquisitor, several assessors and the notaries, went to the prison to establish form ally the fact of Joan's relapse. She said at first merely that she had taken the dress; then, that it was more suitable for her where she was, that she had never sworn not to re sume it; faith had not been kept with her, she had not been suffered to hear mass, she had not been released from her chains; could she hear mass and be released, she would return to the woman's dress; but she would sooner die than remain as she was; her " voices " had been with her, those of St. Catherine and St. Margaret, they came from God, and she believed them. Rambling, incoherent, contradictory, were her state ments, far different from her manner during her trial, evidence that her jailers had done their work well and broken her spirit. Cauchon had been successful at last. Joan was a self-confessed relapsed, and the Church had nothing to do with her, save abandon her to the secular arm; so the judgment was on the 29th of May pronounced, " Rclinqnenda jiistitiae seen/an." This meant death by
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burning; the ecclesiastical tribunal could not shed blood, but they were as willing as the Jewish priests of old that others should do it for them. When the dread sentence was an nounced to her, she was at first overcome with terror, but soon grew calm, saying she would not have relapsed had she been in one of the Church prisons; then she put on her woman's dress, confessed, and received the sacrament. The next morning she was drawn on a tum bril to the Old Market, clad in a long black gown, with a high paper mitre on her head covered with the words "Heretic, Relapsed, Apostate, Idolater." The inevitable sermon was preached at her, asserting that she had been found guilty of schism, idolatry and witchcraft; that she had not truly repented of them, but had returned to her evil ways like a dog to his vomit. The English soldiery, wearied with the sermon, became restless; in the confusion the Bailiff of Rouen, as repre senting the State, forgot to pass the sentence of death. Joan was delivered over to the exe cutioners; on the scaffold on which she was placed was the superscription written, "Joan, called the Maid, liar, wrongdoer, deceiver of the people, witch, superstitious blasphemer of God, presumptuous unbeliever, braggart, idolater, cruel, lewd, sorceress, apostate, schismatic and heretic." She kissed the cru cifix; the flames were kindled. In her mor tal agony her heavenly visitants came to her again. She was heard to speak the name of St. Michael, and the last words on her lips were " Jesu, Jesu." When her garments were burned away, the executioner parted the burning wood so that all might see that she was indeed a woman. Her ashes were gathered together and tossed into the Seine. Twenty-four years afterward her mother and brother petitioned the Pope for a new trial. The Pope issued a bull to the Arch bishop of Rheims and others to reopen the case. The court sat in the splendid cathe dral of Paris. The mother, weeping bitterly, told amid the shouts and cries of the svm
