Saint Joan

wrath? The Chaplain Hardly able to believe his ears. Does your lordship compare Sir John Talbot, the heir to the earldom of Shrewsbury, to a mad bull?!!! Warwick It would not be seemly for you to do so, Messire John, as you are still six removes from a barony. But as I am an earl, and Talbot is only a knight, I may make bold to accept the comparison. To the Bishop. My lord: I wipe the slate as far as the witchcraft goes. None the less, we must burn the woman. Cauchon I cannot burn her. The Church cannot take life. And my first duty is to seek this girl’s salvation. Warwick No doubt. But you do burn people occasionally. Cauchon No. When the Church cuts off an obstinate heretic as a dead branch from the tree of life, the heretic is handed over to the secular arm. The church has no part in what the secular arm may see fit to do. Warwick Precisely. And I shall be the secular arm in this case. Well, my lord, hand over your dead branch; and I will see that the fire is ready for it. If you will answer for the Church’s part, I will answer for the secular part. Cauchon With smouldering anger. I can answer for nothing. You great lords are too prone to treat the Church as a mere political convenience. Warwick Smiling and propitiatory. Not in England, I assure you. Cauchon In England more than anywhere else. No, my lord: the soul of this village girl is of equal value with yours or your king’s before the throne of God; and my first duty is to save it. I will not suffer your lordship to smile at me as if I were repeating a meaningless form of words, and it were well understood between us that I should betray the girl to you. I am no mere political bishop: my faith is to me what your honor is to you; and if there be a loophole through which this baptized child of God can creep to her salvation, I shall guide her to it. The Chaplain Rising in a fury. You are a traitor. Cauchon Springing up. You lie, priest. Trembling with rage. If you dare do what this woman has done⁠—set your country above the holy Catholic Church⁠—you shall go to the fire with her. The Chaplain My lord: I⁠—I went too far. I⁠—He sits down with a submissive gesture. Warwick Who has risen apprehensively. My lord: I apologize to you for the word used by Messire John de Stogumber. It does not mean in England what it does in France. In your language traitor means betrayer: one who is perfidious, treacherous, unfaithful, disloyal. In our country it means simply one who is not wholly devoted to our English interests. Cauchon I am sorry: I did not understand. He subsides into his chair with dignity. Warwick Resuming his seat, much relieved. I must apologize on my own account if I have seemed to take the burning of this poor girl too lightly. When one has seen whole countrysides burnt over and over again as mere items in military routine, one has to grow a very thick skin. Otherwise one might go mad: at all events, I should. May I venture to assume that your lordship also, having to see so many heretics burnt from time to time, is compelled to take⁠—shall I say a professional view of what would otherwise be a very horrible incident? Cauchon Yes: it is a painful duty: even, as you say, a horrible one. But in comparison with the horror of heresy it is less than nothing. I am not thinking of this girl’s body, which will suffer for a few moments only, and which must in any event die in some more or less painful manner, but of her soul, which may suffer to all eternity. Warwick Just so; and God grant that her soul may be saved! But the practical problem would seem to be how to save her soul without saving her body. For we must face it, my lord: if this cult of The Maid goes on, our cause is lost. The Chaplain His voice broken like that of a man who has been crying. May I speak, my lord? Warwick Really, Messire John, I had rather you did not, unless you can keep your temper. The Chaplain It is only this. I speak under correction; but The Maid is full of deceit: she pretends to be devout. Her prayers and confessions are endless. How can she be accused of heresy when she neglects no observance of a faithful daughter of The Church? Cauchon Flaming up. A faithful daughter of The Church! The Pope himself at his proudest dare not presume as this woman presumes. She acts as if she herself were The Church. She brings the message of God to Charles; and The Church must stand aside. She will crown him in the cathedral of Rheims: she, not The Church! She sends letters to the king of England giving him God’s command through her to return to his island on pain of God’s vengeance, which she will execute. Let me tell you that the writing of such letters was the practice of the accursed Muhammad, the antichrist. Has she ever in all her utterances said one word of The Church? Never. It is always God and herself. Warwick What can you expect? A beggar on horseback! Her head is turned. Cauchon Who has turned it? The devil. And for a mighty purpose. He is spreading this heresy everywhere. The man Hus, burnt only thirteen years ago at Constance, infected all Bohemia with it. A man named WcLeef, himself an anointed priest, spread the pestilence in England; and to your shame you let him die in his bed. We have such people here in France too: I know the breed. It is cancerous: if it be not cut out, stamped out, burnt out, it will