e before the flames had had
time to ascend; but the Rouen executioner was too terrified of the
prodigies worked by the Maid to do thus; and besides he would have
found it difficult to reach her, because the Bailie had had the
plaster scaffold made unusually high. Wherefore the executioner
himself, hardened man that he was, judged her death to have been a
terribly cruel one.[2577]

[Footnote 2577: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 7.]

Once again Jeanne uttered the name of Jesus; then she bowed her head
and gave up her spirit.[2578]

[Footnote 2578: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 186.]

As soon as she was dead the Bailie commanded the executioner to
scatter the flames in order to see that the prophetess of the
Armagnacs had not escaped with the aid of the devil or in some other
manner.[2579] Then, after the poor blackened body had been shown to the
people, the executioner, in order to reduce it to ashes, threw on to
the fire coal, oil and sulphur.

[Footnote 2579: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 191. _Journal d'un bourgeois de
Paris_, pp. 269, 270.]

In such an execution the combustion of the corpse was rarely
complete.[2580] Among the ashes, when the fire was extinguished, the
heart and entrails were found intact. For fear lest Jeanne's remains
should be taken and used for witchcraft or other evil practices,[2581]
the Bailie had them thrown into the Seine.[2582]

[Footnote 2580: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p.
478.]

[Footnote 2581: _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol. 507 verso. _Journal
d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 2582: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 159, 160, 185; vol. iv, p. 518.
Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 83.
Th. Cochard, _Existe-t-il des reliques de Jeanne d'Arc?_ Orleans,
1891, in 8vo.]

CHAPTER XV

AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID--THE END OF THE SHEPHERD--LA DAME DES
ARMOISES

In the evening, after the burning, the executioner, as was his wont,
went whining and begging to the monastery of the preaching friars. The
creature complained that he had found it very difficult to make an end
of Jeanne. According to a legend invented afterwards, he told the
monks that he feared damnation for having burned a saint.[2583] Had he
actually spoken thus in the house of the Vice-Inquisitor he would have
been straightway cast into the lowest dungeon, there to await a trial
for heresy, which would have probably resulted in his being sentenced
to suffer the death he had infl