r a moment still framed in the
arch of the somber gate, the massed multitudes of poor folk murmured
"A vision! a vision!" and sank to their knees praying, and many of the
women weeping; and the moving invocation for the dying arose again,
and was taken up and borne along, a majestic wave of sound, which
accompanied the doomed, solacing and blessing her, all the sorrowful way
to the place of death. "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!"

It is just and true what one of the histories has said: "The poor and
the helpless 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."

And it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon their
knees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with the faint
yellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden flowers.

But there were some that did not kneel; these were the English soldiers.
They stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan's road, and walled it in
all the way; and behind these living walls knelt the multitudes.

By and by a frantic man in priest's garb came wailing and lamenting, and
tore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers and flung himself
on his knees by Joan's cart and put up his hands in supplication, crying
out:

"O forgive, forgive!"

It was Loyseleur!

And Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew nothing
but forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity for all that
suffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had no word of
reproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and night with deceits
and treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to her death.

The soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved his
life. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from the world
somewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.

In the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the stake
that had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The platforms were
occupied as before, the one by Joan and her jud