But how grant the communion to one who had been publicly cut
off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its privileges
than an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent
to Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws, human and divine, were
alike to that man--he respected none of them. He sent back orders to
grant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his
fears, perhaps; it could not reach his heart, for he had none.

The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it
with such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It was a solemn
moment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public courts
of the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of
men and women, who had learned what was going on in Joan's cell, and had
come with softened hearts to do--they knew not what; to hear--they knew
not what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And
there were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in
masses outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other
accompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison,
all those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray for her, and many
wept; and when the solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan's
cell, out of the distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our
ears--it was those invisible multitudes chanting the litany for a
departing soul.

The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come
again no more, except for one fleeting instant--then it would pass, and
serenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end.

24 Joan the Martyr

AT NINE o'clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in
the grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her life for
the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King that had
abandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for felons. In one
respect she was treated worse than a felon; for whereas she was on her
way to be sentenced by the civil arm, she already bore her judgment
inscribed in advance upon a miter-shaped cap which she wore:

HERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER

In the cart with her sat the friar Martin Ladvenu and Maetre Jean
Massieu. She looked girlishly fair and sweet and saintly in her long
white robe, and when a gush of sunlight flooded her as she emerged from
the gloom of the prison and was yet fo