The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

Whether one will be satisfied with nothing but a scientific diagnosis in psychology, or a less ponderous and infinitely more lyric presentation of certain mental phenomena will...

Domremy is a frontier village of Lorraine that cosily nestles on the slope of a fertile valley whose pasture grounds are watered by the Meuse. An oak forest, that still preserve...

On a brilliant summer day the sun was westering behind the Castle of Ile, a small fortress raised between the two arms of the Meuse at a considerable distance from Domremy. Jame...

That night Jeannette slept late and little. Silent and attentive during the messenger's narrative, she had then for the first time heard imprecations uttered at the ravages of t...

"'My poor grandmother, Oh, I wish to attend The feast that the King doth give.' 'No, Alain, to this feast shall you not go: Last night you wept in your dream.' 'Dear little moth...

Jeannette had listened to Sybille in rapt attention, struck above all by the singular circumstance of a peasant marrying the daughter of a king. From that moment Jeannette pardo...

"She was young, she was fair, And holy was she. To Hesus her blood gave For Gaul to be free. Hena her name! Hena, the Maid of the Island of Sen!

Several weeks went by. The prophecy of Merlin, the remembrance of the King's misfortunes and of the disasters of France, ravaged by the English, obstinately crowded upon Jeannet...

"Isabelle," one evening James Darc said to his wife, with a severe air, she and he being left alone near the hearth, "I am not at all satisfied with Jeannette. In a few months s...

The family of Darc had not been the only ones to discover the nocturnal raid of the English. The whole parish was on foot, a prey to consternation and terror.

During her sojourn in the Castle of Ile Jeannette had been the prey of severe attacks of fever. At times during her delirium she invoked St. Catherine and St. Marguerite, her go...

The fast to which Jeannette's father had sentenced her was destined to lead to grave consequences. Grieved at the reprovals he had heaped upon her, the young shepherdess led her...

During the next three years, from July, 1425, to February, 1429, that is from Joan's fourteenth to her seventeenth year, the communications from the spirit world became ever mor...

The three years of mysterious obsessions--between 1425 and 1429--which preluded her glory were for Joan a period of secret and distressing struggles. In order to obey her "voice...

Towards the end of February of 1429, a small troop of soldiers, on their way back to their duke in Lorraine, and belonging to the party of the Armagnacs, halted at Domremy. The...

Robert of Baudricourt, the commander-in-chief of Vaucouleurs, a man in the prime of life, of military bearing and of a face whose harshness was relieved by intelligent and penet...

Poor Denis Laxart tumbled out of the room and the Castle of Vaucouleurs at his wits' end; but he soon returned. He did not now come alone. He was accompanied by Joan; his mind w...

Shortly after Joan left, Robert of Baudricourt hastened to the table and prepared to write, while saying to John of Novelpont: "I now think like you; I shall forward the odd adv...

Towards sun-down of February 28 of the year 1429, a large crowd consisting of men, women and children pressed around the Castle of Vaucouleurs. The crowd was impatient; it was e...

Three of the principal members of the Council of King Charles VII--George of La Tremouille, chamberlain and a despotic, avaricious and suspicious minister; the Sire of Gaucourt,...

Charles VII--the "gentle Dauphin" of France and object of the fervent adoration of Joan, who now for several days lay sequestered in the tower of Coudray--soon tired of the inte...

Animated by conflicting sentiments, the men and women of the court of Charles VII, gathered in a gallery of the Castle of Chinon, awaited the arrival of Joan the Maid. Some, and...

Upon her arrival at Poitiers, where the parliament was then in session and where she was to undergo the two examinations--on her virginity and her orthodoxy--Joan was placed in...

In one week the martial Maid, inspired by the love for her people and country, vanquished the English, triumphant since the battle of Poitiers, more than seventy years before, w...

Just before daybreak, and punctual to his appointment made the previous evening, Master John the cannonier was at James Boucher's door. Immediately afterwards, Joan opened the w...

Unable to overcome the opposition of the captains to attacking the enemy on Sunday morning, Joan again proceeded at break of day and in the company of John the cannonier to exam...

Strengthened by her "voices," Joan sent her equerry, Daulon, early in the morning to convoke the captains for noon at the house of her host. Most of them responded to the call....

On Tuesday the council of war assembled at the house of James Boucher and in the presence of Joan. The Maid submitted briefly and spiritedly the plan of attack that she had matu...

Feeling certain of battling on the morrow, Joan slept on Tuesday night the peaceful sleep of a child, while Madeleine, on the contrary, remained almost constantly awake, tossed...

Despite the ingenuousness of her loyal nature, Joan could no longer doubt the ill will or jealousy of the captains. They hypocritically invoked the sanctity of the feast of the...

Early in the morning the Sire of Gaucourt, with a squad of soldiers and mercenaries, took possession of the Bourgogne Gate, through which Joan had to pass to reach the river ban...

Before daybreak Joan re-armed herself with the help of Madeleine. The wound in her foot pained her severely. Although the distance was short from Orleans to the Convent of the A...

Immediately upon the raising of the siege of Orleans, Joan hastened to the Castle of Loches. The fame of her triumphs ran ahead heralding her approach. The gates of the palace f...

In these my days, so-called "mysteries"--dialogued recitals between men and women who figure as historic personages--are frequently written and performed. These "mysteries" are...

It is still night. A lamp feebly lights a dark subterraneous cell in the old donjon of the Castle of Rouen. The cell is a semi-circular cave. Its greenish walls ooze with the mo...

The ecclesiastical tribunal before which Joan Darc is to appear is assembled in the ancient chapel of the old Castle of Rouen. The vaults overhead, the walls, the pillars, are b...

Livid, haggard, broken with exhaustion after her final interrogatory, Joan Darc reclines upon the straw of her cell; her male attire is still more dilapidated than when she firs...

The full ecclesiastical tribunal is assembled in a low, somber and vaulted apartment. The registrar reads to the ecclesiastical judges the last interrogatory, at which they had...

On the 24th of May, 1431, a great mass of people is crowding at about eight in the morning and under a brilliant springtide sun towards the cemetery of St. Audoin at Rouen. A lo...

After her formal abjuration Joan Darc is taken in an almost dying condition, not to her cell but to a room in the Castle of Rouen. By orders of the Bishop, two old women are app...

It has long been night. The little iron lamp lights the dungeon of Joan Darc, who lies upon her straw couch broken with remorse at the continuous reproaches of her voices, and r...

It is eight o'clock of the following morning. Joan Darc is again clad in her male attire. She is again chained. Her handsome face is bruised from the blows that she received in...

The scene changes. After the last interrogatory of Joan the priests proceed to Bishop Cauchon in order to inform him of the issue of their visit to the prisoner--a result that t...

During the evening of May 29, 1431, the rumor spreads through Rouen that the relapsed sinner is to be burned to death on the following day. That same night carpenters raise the...