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Unit 23: Saint Joan: Detailed Analysis of the Text

has only recently become involved in the case, he says, for only recently has the Inquisitor decided Notes
that Joan’s is “one of the gravest cases of heresy within [his] experience.” The Earl of Warwick
makes it clear that he is looking forward to a hasty resolution and condemnation of Joan; Cauchon
affirms again that Joan shall have a fair hearing, for “[t]he Church is not subject to political necessity.”
D’Estivet and the Inquisitor, however, remark that Joan has been doing much to condemn herself,
every time she has opened her mouth in her previous examinations.
Not all of Joan’s opponents are satisfied with the proceedings thus far, however. Chaplain de
Stogumber and De Courcelles, a Parisian cleric, arrive and protest that the Inquisitor has reduced
the charges against Joan, eliminating a number of what the Inquisitor considers lesser matters-for
example, a charge that Joan stole a bishop’s horse, or that she dances “round fairy trees with the
village children, and praying at haunted wells, and a dozen other things.” The Inquisitor is firm:
“Heresy, gentlemen, heresy is the charge we have to try.” He points out that they cannot leave a
door open for Joan to defend herself successfully against lesser charges while the most important
charge of heresy remains, inferring that any acquittal Joan might gain, however small, would
undercut the case against her. He reminds his hearers that Joan’s heresy in particular cannot be
overlooked or forgiven, for she is one of many “vain and ignorant persons setting up their own
judgment against the Church, and taking it upon themselves to be the interpreters of God’s will.”
He urges the court to remember mercy, but also to insist upon justice and to set aside their natural
compassion: “[R]emember that nothing is so cruel in its consequences as the toleration of heresy.”
Cauchon labels Joan’s error the “arch heresy” of “Protestantism,” which, if left unchecked, could
well bring the “mighty structure of Catholic Christendom” to ruin.
A guard of English soldiers brings Joan, in shackles, before the court. Joan protests her treatment,
but is told that nothing else can be done, for she tried to jump out the window of the tower where
she was being held. Joan retorts that of course she tried to escape; it was a commonsense action, and
her survival of the jump is a sign, not of witchcraft, but the degree to which the tale has grown in the
re-telling-the tower’s height has been exaggerated. Joan insists that she is neither a witch nor mad:
“I am reasonable if you will be reasonable.” When talk of making her yet again swear an oath to tell
the truth arises, Joan refuses, claiming, “God does not allow the whole truth to be told.” She further
declares that she will not profess that her voices and visions, and the actions they prompted, spring
from any diabolical source: “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. My voices do not tell
me to disobey the Church; but God must be served first.”
At length, Joan realizes in horror that the stake is being readied for her even at that moment.
Frightened, she says, after prompting from the court officials, that her voices have misled her. In
order to avoid excommunication (the spiritual punishment) and execution (the temporal one), Joan
makes her mark on a document of recantation. De Stogumber and other English officials are furious
when the Inquisitor allows Joan to recant. Her recanting, however, does not last long, for a sentence
is still pronounced: Joan must spend the rest of her life in prison, with only bread and water for
sustenance. Now understanding that she is not to be set free, Joan tears up the recantation. Now
judged as a “relapsed heretic,” the Inquisitor and Cauchon solemnly intone the judgment of
excommunication, and Joan is led away to the stake. The Inquisitor remarks, “[I]t is a terrible thing
to see a young and innocent creature crushed between these mighty forces, the Church and the
Law.”
After Joan is burnt, de Stogumber, who has witnessed it all, returns to the castle interior, where he
seeks consolation from Warwick. He laments, “I did not know what I was doing.” He relates how
Joan, as she burned, asked for a cross, and a nearby soldier took two sticks and tied them together
for her. She clutched the cross until it was snatched from her, and as she died, she warned Ladvenu,
another of the court officials, not to get too close to the flames. She thought of another’s danger at
her own moment of death. “Jesus!” the chaplain cries. “She is in Thy bosom; and I am in hell
forevermore.” Ladvenu prophesies, “This is not the end for her, but the beginning.” And though
the executioner reports that there is nothing left of Joan’s body-save her heart, which would not
burn Warwick believes that none have heard the last of Joan of Arc.

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