University of Virginia Library

In the market-place
That synod of the unholy met once more.
Beauvais and Beaufort shouldered through the crowds:
(Men honour least the priest that courts their suffrage).
The Cardinal spake: ‘Bishop, those varlets flout you!
Look well before you! When you've burned yon Maid,
The noblest spirit this land has ever bred,
Be sure you drown her ashes in the Seine!
They'll quicken else more late to fiery snakes
And sting your France to death!—
I joined your hunting-match for England's sake
Remembering those two lands were ever foes:—
With you compared I seem but half a villain.’

They reached the court; the twain together sat.
A summary of the trial duly read,
Beauvais kept silence long. A Norman cried,
‘No friend art thou to Henry's babe late crowned
If thou release that Traitress!’ Beauvais rose:
With fear in haught demeanour veiled he spake:
‘This day at dawn I saw her in her cell;
She watched the hour; she waited some deliverance;
Those Voices she revered were pledged to one.
Scorning her sacred vow of yestereve
The sorceress stood steel-mailed!’ Again he sat:
In thunder roared the hall. Death-pale he rose:
‘Relapsed! All know the sentence—Death by fire.’

At morn the Maid, her last confession ended,
Christ's Body had received. Unmoved she stood,
Unmoved as Mary by the Saviour's cross:
Unmoved she heard the preacher's funeral sermon.
Full sorely he descanted on her crimes,
Next on the King's. That second censure moved her.
High as she might she raised her arm —'twas chained—
She spake: ‘I pray you, sir,’ gainst me alone
Launch your rebuke, the King is no offender.
The King he is of France; her Christian King.’
Again she spake: ‘I pray for those who slay me,
I pray for Charles the rightful King of France,
For God's good pardon, and for grace to pass
Gladly to Him; not caitiff-like, nor coward.’
That moment from the pyre the flames burst up:
Then first the Maid wox white and trembled sorely;
And from the crowd a soldier stept, and brake
A slender staff in twain and made a cross
And placed it in her hand. She kissed that cross
And pressed it to her heart. In agony
She wept, ‘O any death save death by fire!’
Noting that many wept—there are who say
That Beauvais' self was of them—shivering she cried
‘Pray for me all ye Christian people, pray!’
Then fell from God a wonder. At her word
That multitude, late raging, knelt on the earth
And prayed for her who could no longer pray;
And o'er the Maid there came an answering change:
Raptured she raised her hands; a splendour fell
Full on her face; she seemed to grow in stature;
A wingèd Spirit she looked nor Maid, nor Woman.
Then first she heard the Bridal Song of Heaven;
Heard last those Voices heard so oft of old:
‘We promised thee deliverance in two months;
This thy deliverance is, and this we promised—
Deliverance to thy God.’ The flames rose high;
A sweet and sudden gust blew them towards her:
Aloud she cried, ‘He makes His angels flames!
Cleanse me, my God!
My Voices were true voices; true my Mission!
All praise to Him Who sent it! Jesus! Jesus!’
Forward she bent her to that flame, and died.
Then horror fell on all; and from those seats
In circle reared where still the judges sat
That hour by thickening smoke-clouds veiled from man
Rang forth a piercing, solitary cry;
‘All lost! We've slain a Saint! She reigns in Heaven!
Who wrought that sin, on them the doom shall fall.’
And wild through Rouen's streets till set of sun
Thousands there ran with hands high tossed, and cried,
‘We've slain a Saint! On us the doom shall fall!’

But all the heart of France from north to south
Like Alpine floods in spring, rushed to the Maid
Till, through her praise on earth and prayer on high,
King Charles—her King—reigned o'er his rightful realm.
We know not if he laboured to protect her:
It may be Agnes Sorel willed it not:
Likelier he sent to her some message gentle:
Being, e'er a King, a courteous Prince and kind.
Her kinsfolk he ennobled, and their name
Changed to ‘De Lys’; for thus he said, ‘That Maid
Was more than maid—the Lily sole of France.’
Likewise a later Pope reversed the sentence
By schismatics and traitors passed that day.