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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 23
THE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel
and me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it
was so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices, and
said the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at "the
last moment"--"that other time was not the last moment, but this is; it
will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with them our
veterans, and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart
again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of
steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see our
prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand.
But this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night, when
Manchon came in, he said:
"I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor
child."
A message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have discovered
me--discovered that my indifference concerning the prisoner was a
pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so exalted
to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my face and
manner.
"A message for me, your reverence?"
"Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the young
man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I think he would
do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what it
was, and she said a letter--would you write a letter to her mother?
"And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but
she said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the young man
would not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for
herself, she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you,
and at that the sadness vanished out of her face. Why, it was as if she
was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not
permitted. I did my best, but the orders remain as strict as ever, the
doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but officials
may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed, and was
sad again. Now this is what she begs you to write to her mother. It is
partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said her
mother would understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her family
and her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for that this
night--and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is final--she has
seen the Vision of the Tree.'"
"How strange!"
"Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents
would understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and
thinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these lines,
which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring peace
and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have some
connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they were a
mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no meaning, at
least no relevancy."
I took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find:
And when in exile wand'ring, we
Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,
Oh, rise upon our sight!
There was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's letter was
a message to Noel and me, as well as to her family, and that its object
was to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth of
the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her soldiers,
would know it for a command to bear it as became us and her, and so
submit to the will of God; and in thus obeying, find assuagement of our
grief. It was like her, for she was always thinking of others, not of
herself. Yes, her heart was sore for us; she could find time to think of
us, the humblest of her servants, and try to soften our pain, lighten the
burden of our troubles--she that was drinking of the bitter waters; she
that was walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
I wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my telling
you. I wrote it with the same wooden stylus which had put upon parchment
the first words ever dictated by Joan of Arc--that high summons to the
English to vacate France, two years past, when she was a lass of
seventeen; it had now set down the last ones which she was ever to
dictate. Then I broke it. For the pen that had served Joan of Arc could
not serve any that would come after her in this earth without abasement.
The next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and forty-two
responded. It is charitable to believe that the other twenty were ashamed
to come. The forty-two pronounced her a relapsed heretic, and condemned
her to be delivered over to the secular arm. Cauchon thanked them.
Then he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning to the
place known as the Old Market; and that she be then delivered to the
civil judge, and by the civil judge to the executioner. That meant she
would be burnt.
All the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was flying,
and the people of the country-side flocking to Rouen to see the
tragedy--all, at least, who could prove their English sympathies and
count upon admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in the streets,
the excitement grew higher and higher. And now a thing was noticeable
again which had been noticeable more than once before--that there was
pity for Joan in the hearts of many of these people. Whenever she had
been in great danger it had manifested itself, and now it was apparent
again--manifest in a pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many
faces.
Early the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another friar were
sent to Joan to prepare her for death; and Manchon and I went with
them--a hard service for me. We tramped through the dim corridors,
winding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper and deeper into that
vast heart of stone, and at last we stood before Joan. But she did not
know it. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, thinking,
and her face was very sad. One might not know what she was thinking of.
Of her home, and the peaceful pastures, and the friends she was no more
to see? Of her wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties which
had been put upon her? Or was it of death--the death which she had longed
for, and which was now so close?
Or was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she
feared only one kind, and that one had for her unspeakable terrors. I
believed she so feared that one that with her strong will she would shut
the thought of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and believe that God
would take pity on her and grant her an easier one; and so it might
chance that the awful news which we were bringing might come as a
surprise to her at last.
We stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still deep
in her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said, softly:
"Joan."
She looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said:
"Speak. Have you a message for me?"
"Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?"
"Yes"--very softly, and her head drooped again.
"I am come to prepare you for death."
A faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a pause. In
the stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said, still in that
low voice:
"When will it be?"
The muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the
distance.
"Now. The time is at hand."
That slight shiver passed again.
"It is so soon--ah, it is so soon!"
There was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed
through it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was broken at
last:
"What death is it?"
"By fire!"
"Oh, I knew it, I knew it!" She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound her
hands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so piteously, and
mourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one and then another of
us, and search our faces beseechingly, as hoping she might find help and
friendliness there, poor thing--she that had never denied these to any
creature, even her wounded enemy on the battle-field.
"Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never been
defiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner would I that
my head were cut off seven times than suffer this woeful death. I had the
promise of the Church's prison when I submitted, and if I had but been
there, and not left here in the hands of my enemies, this miserable fate
had not befallen me.
"Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which has
been done me."
There was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with the
tears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees at her
feet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and whispered in my
hear: "Up!--do not peril yourself, good heart. There--God bless you
always!" and I felt the quick clasp of her hand. Mine was the last hand
she touched with hers in life. None saw it; history does not know of it
or tell of it, yet it is true, just as I have told it. The next moment
she saw Cauchon coming, and she went and stood before him and reproached
him, saying:
"Bishop, it is by you that I die!"
He was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly:
"Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your promise,
but have returned to your sins."
"Alas," she said, "if you had put me in the Church's prison, and given me
right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not have happened.
And for this I summon you to answer before God!"
Then Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than before, and he
turned him about and went away.
Joan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she wiped her
eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their violence was
modifying now, and the intervals between them were growing longer.
Finally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice, who had come in with the
Bishop, and she said to him:
"Master Peter, where shall I be this night?"
"Have you not good hope in God?"
"Yes--and by His grace I shall be in Paradise."
Now Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for the
sacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been publicly cut
off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its privileges than
an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent to
Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws, human and divine, were
alike to that man--he respected none of them. He sent back orders to
grant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his
fears, perhaps; it could not reach his heart, for he had none.
The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it
with such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It was a solemn
moment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public courts
of the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of men
and women, who had learned what was going on in Joan's cell, and had come
with softened hearts to do--they knew not what; to hear--they knew not
what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And there
were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in masses outside the
castle gates. And when the lights and the other accompaniments of the
Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison, all those multitudes
kneeled down and began to pray for her, and many wept; and when the
solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan's cell, out of the
distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our ears--it was those
invisible multitudes chanting the litany for a departing soul.
The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come again
no more, except for one fleeting instant--then it would pass, and
serenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end.
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