death and the mutilation of your
limbs, the Church treats you with moderation.'

These last words were the usual formula used by the Inquisition when
its victims were about to be committed to the flames. Joan of Arc
meanwhile was praying fervently; and when Cauchon had finished
speaking, she humbly begged those around her to pray for her. Her
tears, her fervour, and her submission, overcame the feelings even of
her judges.

Winchester was seen to weep, and a great wave of pity swept over the
immense confused crowd; for her enemies as well as her friends among
the people were all more or less under its influence.

In her prayers the heroine implored the Divine Mercy to pardon those
from whom she had suffered so much. 'Pray for me in your churches,'
she said to the priests--to those priests and to the Church that had
deserted and condemned her; for in spite of all that she had endured
at the hands of those Churchmen, Joan of Arc remained to the end as
fervent and loyal a Churchwoman as she had been throughout her life.

One thing she missed. Turning to Massieu, she asked him if he had a
cross. He had not, nor could one be found; but an Englishman broke his
stave into two pieces, and these tied together formed a rude cross.

This cross Joan took, and placed it against her heart; but she still
wanted a consecrated cross to be held before her while struggling in
the flames, and this was at length obtained by the priest Isambard,
who fetched one from the adjacent Church of Saint Sauveur.

Meanwhile the English soldiers began to grumble at the length of these
preparations: 'Do they expect us to dine here?' they growled.

As soon as the cross from the church had been placed in her hands, she
devoutly kissed it, invoking God and her saints to assist her in this
the heaviest of her needs, when all human help had abandoned her.

The heroine appears to have been then seized by the English
sergeants-at-arms, and given by them into the charge of the
executioners; and while she was being led to the foot of the high pile
of clay and wood--the instrument of her martyrdom--the men-at-arms
surrounded and roughly handled their prisoner. The scene had become so
poignant that many of the judges left their tribune, unable to endure
the sight of that white-robed and helpless figure in the midst of the
brutal soldiers hounding her on to her death. It must indeed have been
a ghastly spectacle, even for men accustomed to scenes of savage