to lay down her young life in their behalf.  ’Christ have pity!  Saint Margaret have pity!  Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her!  Saints and angels intercede for her!  From Thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her!  O, Lord God, save her!  Have mercy on her, we beseech thee, good Lord!’ The poor, helpless people had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but these we may believe were not unavailing.  There are few more pathetic events recorded in history than this weeping, helpless, praying crowd, holding their lighted candles, and kneeling, on the pavement, beneath the prison walls of the old fortress.

It was about nine o’clock when they placed on Joan of Arc a long white shirt, such as criminals wore at their execution, and on her head they set a mitre-shaped paper cap, on which the words ’heretic, relapsed, apostate, idolatress,’ were written.

This was the head-dress which the victims of the Inquisition carried, and in which they were burnt.

When Joan of Arc was taken forth to die, there mounted with her on to the cart the two priests, Martin Ladvenu and Isambard.  Eight hundred English troops lined the road by which the death-cart and its load passed from the castle to the old market-place; they were armed with staves and with axes.  These soldiers, as the victim passed, fell into line behind the cart, and kept off with their staves the crowd, eager to show its sympathy for Joan.

Suddenly, when as yet the procession had gone but a short distance, a man pushed his way through the crowd and the soldiers, and threw himself at Joan of Arc’s feet, imploring her forgiveness.

It was the priest Loiseleur, Joan’s confessor and betrayer.  Roughly thrown back by the men-at-arms, Loiseleur disappeared in the throng, but not before Joan had bestowed her pardon on him.  On the old market-place—­where now not a single building remains which witnessed the tragedy of that day—­was a wide space, surrounded by picturesquely gabled and high-roofed houses, like those which still survive in the old Norman capital, and within a short distance of the churches of Saint Sauveur and Saint Michel, now destroyed.  Two tribunes had been raised on either side of the square.  Between this, placed high on a stage of masonry, stood the pile.  A placard affixed in front of this pile bore a long inscription, beginning thus:  ’Joan, known as the Maid’ ... and ending with a cumbrous list of epithets, among which ‘apostate’ and ‘schismatic’ were the least abusive.

Pending the final act, a monk named Nicolas Midi was ordered by Cauchon to address the prisoner and those present.  The Bishop’s words have come down to us.

‘For your admonition,’ he began, ’and for the edification of all those present, a learned discourse will now be delivered by the distinguished doctor, Nicolas Midi’; and the distinguished doctor then took for his text, from the first Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, twelfth chapter, the words:  ‘If one member suffereth,’ etc.