On May 24, 1431, for the first time since her December arrival, Joan was taken out of the castle into full daylight. Platforms had been erected in the graveyard adjacent to the church of Saint-Ouen. One held important prelates and English officials. Joan was placed where everyone could see her, and a preacher, Guillaume Erard, hurled pious abuse at her for two hours. She interrupted him once, when he accused Charles VII of being a heretic:
By my faith, sir, with respect, I dare to tell you and swear to you on pain of my life that he is the noblest Christian of all the Christians, and who better loves the faith and the Church, and is not such as you say.
The public executioner was stationed nearby with a cart, where Joan could see him. At the end of the sermon, Joan was permitted to speak. She repeated what she had been saying from the beginning, that she was a good Christian and had done all she had done by God’s commandment. The English royal secretary handed her a short written statement said to contain her promise not to carry arms, wear men’s clothes, or cut her hair short. A French priest read it to her. She still hesitated, but when she was told that if she signed she would be taken out of the English prison, she signed. Cauchon’s first words when she had signed were to order the English guards to take her back to her cell.
Despite the betrayal, Joan kept her promise and changed into women’s clothing. That was on May 24. No one knows exactly what happened between then and May 28 when Joan broke the terms of the abjuration by resuming men’s clothing.
In the 1999 television miniseries, Pierre Cauchon is presented as a sympathetic character who wishes only to save Joan’s soul. The historical Cauchon, however, wanted Joan to burn. Personal animosity may have been a part of it. Her troops had driven him out of his home in Beauvais, but he also wanted to rise higher in the church. The English could appoint him archbishop of Rouen. To obtain this goal, he had to give his English employers what they wanted.
Persuading Joan to abjure was the first step in a two-part plan. A heretic who abjured was considered to be a reformed heretic. The usual punishment for a reformed heretic was a three-year prison sentence in a church prison. A heretic who abjured and relapsed could be turned over to the civil authorities to be executed. Whatever prompted Joan to resume men’s attire, it is strange that her jailers would leave it where she could put it back on. One can conclude only that Cauchon orchestrated Joan’s relapse as he had manipulated everything else in the proceedings.
At the end of the expensive five-month trial at Rouen, the only aspects of Joan’s behavior that could be used to condemn her were her insistence that saints had spoken to her and the fact that she dressed like a man. When Joan resumed her male clothing, and told Cauchon that her voices had spoken to her after her abjuration, her death at the stake was assured.
On the morning of May 30, 1431, Joan was taken under guard—one witness estimated her escort at 800 men “with axes and swords”—to the Old Marketplace in Rouen. She had to stand for another lengthy sermon. The usual procedure was for a clergyman to declare the verdict of heresy and then permit the secular authorities to announce the sentence of death, after which the stake would be prepared. In Joan’s case, the stake was already prepared and she was led directly to it, without formality or delay. Joan requested a cross. According to witnesses, “an Englishman” made a small cross for her by joining two bits of wood. Joan kissed it and tucked it into her dress. Then she asked that a processional cross be brought so she could look at it as she was dying. The parish clerk brought one and held it where she could see it. She cried out the name “Jesus” several times. The name was her last spoken word. Before Joan’s body was completely burned, the executioner raked back the fire so that spectators could see for themselves that she was dead.
World History
