It may be well here to enumerate some of the false and ridiculous charges that were brought against Saint Joan, nearly all of which contradicted one another and were used at the pleasure of her accusers, both for and against her.
She would not renounce her belief that her Saints and Voices were good; she could not - for they to her were realities. Even supposing they were illusions, Saint Joan was not to be blamed for thinking otherwise; many sincere and truthful persons have been the victims of illusions. That does not constitute a crime.
She believed herself given to understand and predict future events - neither was that a crime.
Saint Joan wore a male dress, and while wearing it received the Sacraments. When she was willing to renounce it for that of a woman, she was not furnished with feminine garments. That was not her fault.
This "Saint of the Fatherland" used the words Jesus Maria, as her motto, and said the course of the war would show which party was right. From the beginning the name of the Lord has been the watchword of His children, why then, in the case of Saint Joan, who time and again professed her adherence to the Church, should it be called blasphemy?
She obeyed her Saints in many things, but toward the end not in all - and yet she was condemned both for obeying and disobeying them.
She refused to submit herself to the judgment of the Church; which was untrue, for she was refused permission to appeal to the Council of Basle, which she was eager to do.
All of this was the farce which prefaced the fearful, closing tragedy.
It was decided that Saint Joan must die; a decision, which in the hearts of her persecutors had been made as soon as she was captured. The majority were villains, the best of them cowards, afraid to utter the conviction that lay in the bottom of their hearts.
The Maid was ordered to appear at the Old Market of Rouen on May 30th. It did not take long to read the charges against her, futile as they were, nor to pronounce her doom. Saint Joan heard them in a sort of stupor. We may reasonably infer that until this moment she had hoped, and placed some reliance, however slender, upon the shifty promises that had been made her.
When all was finished she turned to Cauchon, and cried out boldly: "Bishop, through you I die, wherefore I arraign you before God!" The cry has followed him down the centuries, setting the seal upon his impiety and infamy.
Alas! Poor Saint Joan of Arc! Where now were the Voices that bade her hasten to the succor of her King that he might be victorious over his enemies and be crowned at Rheims? Their mission was finished when that part of Saint Joan's appointed task was ended; it is but logical to believe that whatever she did afterward was done independently of them.
All that was left for her Saints to do was to sustain the Maid's courage until the last dark ordeal should be over; to strengthen and comfort her in the dreadful termination of her brave young life, to receive her soul in Paradise when the torture and fire should have completed their work.
Where now were the admiring multitudes that followed the fearless Maid's footsteps from Orleans to Rheims? Hidden behind their shutters with fearful, timid or eager, greedy eyes to deprecate or approve the fate which had been adjudged her.
Where the men-at-arms that had followed at their beloved leader's bidding to the fatal field where her enemies had captured her? Powerless or unwilling to make an effort in her behalf; passing her prison doors with hurrying feet and averted eyes, lest perhaps they might catch a sight of her behind the barred window, and to her silent look of supplication be suspected of making her a hopeful signal or a glance of friendly compassion.
Where now the King whose supremacy she had gone forth to proclaim and did proclaim, to whom she had given her heart's best fealty and homage, who owed to her his Kingdom and his throne? There was not a sign that he remembered her existence, much less her glorious deeds.
The fiat had gone forth: the Maid of Domremy must die.
- taken from A Child's Life of Saint Joan of Arc, by Mary Ellen Mannix