After this the Bishop began to read the definitive sentence.  When a great part of it was read, Jeanne began to speak and said that she would hold to all that the judges and the Church said, and obey in everything their ordinance and will.  And there in the presence of the above-named and of the great multitude assembled she made her abjuration in the manner that follows: 

And she said several times that since the Church said her apparitions and revelations should not be sustained or believed, she would not sustain them; but in everything submit to the judges and to our Mother the Holy Church.

*****

In this strange, brief, subdued manner is the formal record made.  Manchon writes on his margin:  At the end of the sentence Jeanne, fearing the fire, said she would obey the Church.  Even into the bare legal document there comes a hush as of awe, the one voice responding in the silence of the crowd, with a quiver in it; the very animation of the previous outcry enhancing the effect of this low and faltering submission, timens igneum—­in fear of the fire.

The more familiar record, and the recollections long after of those eye-witnesses, give us another version of the scene.  Erard, from his pulpit, read the form of abjuration prepared.  But Jeanne answered that she did not know what abjuration meant, and the preacher called upon Massieu to explain it to her.  “And he” (we quote from his own deposition), “after excusing himself, said that it meant this:  that if she opposed the said articles she would be burnt; but he advised her to refer it to the Church universal whether she should abjure or not.  Which thing she did, saying to Erard, ’I refer to the Church universal whether I should abjure or not.’  To which Erard answered, ’You shall abjure at once or you will be burnt.’  Massieu gives further particulars in another part of the Rehabilitation process.  Erard, he says, asked what he was saying to the prisoner, and he answered that she would sign if the schedule was read to her; but Jeanne said that she could not write, and then added that she wished it to be decided by the Church, and ought not to sign unless that was done:  and also required that she should be placed in the custody of the Church, and freed from the hands of the English.  The same Erard answered that there had been ample delay, and that if she did not sign at once she should be burned, and forbade Massieu to say any more.”

Meanwhile many cries and entreaties came, as far as they dared, from the crowd.  Some one, in the excitement of the moment, would seem to have promised that she should be transferred to the custody of the Church.  “Jeanne, why will you die?  Jeanne, will you not save yourself?” was called to her by many a bystander.  The girl stood fast, but her heart failed her in this terrible climax of her suffering.  Once she called out over their heads, “All that I did was done for good, and it was well to do it:”—­her last cry.