tion for all, of relief
from pain and sorrow, there lay in the castle dungeon a peasant girl,
sick in body, sick in mind, dreaming of the fresh green fields, and the
forests just now beginning to put forth their tender leaves, hearing the
bells of her own far-away church in Domremy, and the homely talk of old
friends as they plodded by on their way to that church. She woke in the
morning with the sound of the bells in her ears, and on that holy
morning, as oh many another for many weary weeks, there were the double
chains upon her limbs padlocked to a transverse beam at the foot of her
rough bed. And in the room, watching every move and torturing her with
coarse jests or terrifying her with yet more cruel threats, were four or
five soldiers, no woman near to minister to her wants or to shield her
modesty. With such torture, with the added mental torture of almost
daily cross-questioning whose object was to force her into the jaws of
death, is it any wonder that Jeanne was ill, well-nigh reduced to the
frenzy of despair? Yet this forlorn creature, even when confronted with
the threat of actual torture, never made an admission that would
seriously conflict with the simple statement of her faith and of her
mission which she had volunteered at the very beginning. Refusing to
retract anything, she yet signified her willingness to submit to the
authority of the Church. This was all that Cauchon had been able to
accomplish after more than two months' labor. A highly theatrical
ceremony was arranged to dignify what they called her formal abjuration.
Two scaffolds were erected in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen. On one sat
Cardinal Winchester, Cauchon, and the other dignitaries. On the other,
chained hand and foot and fastened at the waist to a post, surrounded by
clerks who might take down any chance words and by the ministers of
torture with their dread instruments, stood the poor child whom they had
dragged from the prison. After a tedious and impious harangue by a
famous preacher, whose false statements she would not listen to in
silence, Jeanne consented to sign an abjuration which did not affect the
validity of her claim. When the notary presented the pen to her
unpractised fingers she smiled and blushed a little at her ignorance and
awkwardness. She drew a circle upon the parchment at the place
indicated, and then, the notary guiding her hand, made a cross within
the circle. Then the Church admitted her to its _grace_, and the