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Having failed throughout the trial to get Joan to say anything incriminating regarding Charles VII. or anything which might tend to injure him in the minds of his subjects, Cauchon had Joan questioned as to what she thought respecting the murder of the Duke of Orleans by Charles. 'It was a great misfortune for the kingdom of France, was her answer.
Finally, the Maid was awarded to Jean Cauchon whom people called the unworthy bishop, the unworthy Frenchman, and the unworthy man. Jean de Luxembourg sold the Maid to Cauchon and the English for ten thousand livres, and the Duke of Bedford paid them.
"And thou," was the retort, "art a traitor to the King." These grave personages seemed to be on the point of going to cuffs on the judgment-seat. Erard, not discouraged, threatened, prayed. One while he said, "Jeanne, we pity you so!" and another, "Abjure or be burned!" "Well, then," she said, "I will sign." On this Cauchon, turning to the Cardinal, respectfully inquired what was to be done next.
Ranged round the circular walls were placed the instruments of torture, and men skilled in their use were ready at hand. 'Joan, said Cauchon, who had now dropped his hypocritical semblance of sympathy, which he had assumed when interrogating the prisoner in her cell, 'I command you to tell the truth.
Cauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a new scheme to try now. He would see what persuasion could do argument, eloquence, poured out upon the incorrigible captive from the mouth of a trained expert. That was his plan. But the reading of the Twelve Articles to her was not a part of it.
Then, in spite of the promises made to her of being placed in the charge of the clergy, Cauchon ordered that Joan should be taken back to her former prison. Warwick is said to have displayed anger at this termination of the proceedings.
Jeanne was sent from castle to castle and confined in one prison after another. On one occasion she was jailed in a high tower and she tried to escape by leaping from a window more than sixty feet above the ground, only to be picked up insensible and bleeding as she lay at the foot of the castle wall. Then her worst enemy appeared before her. This was Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais.
Some of these suggested that the prisoner should be promptly handed over to the secular arm if she refuses still to renounce her errors and if she acknowledges them, her fate will then be to be imprisoned for life, and given for nourishment 'the bread of sorrows and the water of anguish. Eleven advocates all belonging to Rouen however, added the following clause, that the latter should be her punishment, 'provided that her revelations do not come from God. But with the fear of Cauchon before them, they added to this clause that the revelations coming from such a source seems hardly probable, and they appeal to the bachelors in theology to set them right on that head.
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!"
Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other matters and hurried the trial quickly to an end. As Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned and dazed, and kept saying to myself, "Such a little while ago she said the saving word and could have gone free; and now, there she goes to her death; yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it.
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