Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/11

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On the right and left of the stake were two scaffolds; upon the one were seen Pierre Cauchon and his clergy, on the other the Bailli of Rouen and the Assesseurs.

The Theologian Nicolas Midi pronounced an hypocritical discourse, concluding with these words:—"JOAN, go in peace, the Church abandons you to the "secular justice." The Bailli of Rouen had not power to pronounce sentence, all he could utter was, "menez la—let it be."

The preparation for death shook the firmness of JOAN:—she wept, and her tears softened the executioner, but not the Theologians. She was consumed before a numerous people, who, always late in their regrets, detested the atrocity on which they had assembled to glut their eyes.

The Assesseurs of Rouen abhorred their crime; and said themselves that they were dishonoured and undone. The executioner ran to throw himself at the feet of his confessor, but the Priests sung hymns for their detestable triumph.

Thus perished this admirable heroine, "to whom" (says Hume) "the more generous superstition of the ancients would have erected altars."

On the eighth of May, the epoch of it's deliverance, an annual fête is held as Orleans: and monuments have been erected to her memory. Her family was ennobled by Charles, but it should not be forgotten in the history of this monarch, that in the hour of misfortune he abandoned to her fate, the woman who had saved his kingdom.