Oakfield High School - Oak Leaves Yearbook (Oakfield, WI)

Page 16 text:

done what she had promised amid incredible difficulties. She had given a king to France and given France to her king. Not by nr.ght nor by power had she done this out by the spirit of the Lord. She now asked to return to her father's home, but there were other cities to be conquered, and the leaders of f'ranee seeing how much she was adoreu by the people, were not disposed to part with so great an instrument of success, but. her enthusiasm was gone, her councils became timid and vacillating, the power over her soldiers was soon broken and she was taken a prisoner by the Burgundian army. Then she was sold by one potentate to another as if she were merchandise,—as if she was a slave, until she finally fell into the hands of the English. And where was Charles VII all th:s time? Was he straining every nerve to raise a ransom for the poor girl? Was he making appeals to her countrymen not to let the favorite of heaven, as they had long thought her, fall into the hands of the wolves who were thirsting for blood? Did he offer English prisoners of whom he had many in exchange? He did absolutely nothing. He sat still in stupid indifference and left her to her fate. The English regent, knowing that all the world would cry shame upon him if he killed a defenseless prisoner, did the most cruet thing that wickedness could devise—he handed her over to the bishops. They pretended to think her an enemy of the church and a sorceress who had used unlawful arts, though it was plain to every one who had ever been with her that she was as religious as she was patriotic; but they were friends of the English and angry because she had helped her own country men against them, so it was resolved that she should die. If they had hanged or beheaded her at once, it would have been merciful in comparison with their methods. Sixteen times did they bring her out from the dungeon, with heavy irons on her feet and hands, to answer the cruel questions in which they tried in every way to entrap her into saying that she had been helped by the devil. She gave such simple straightforward answers that they failed to make out what they wanted to, and finally induced her to sign a paper, confessing that she had been wrong in some things- she believed in. She was finally pronounced guilty of heresy. Joan guilty of heresy! On that ground there was never a more innocent person tried by the Inquisition. Her whole life was eminently virtuous. But nothing short of her death would satisfy the English so she was condemned to be burned at the stake. Picture that last sad scene in a life grown dear to us,—the scene of Joan’s martyrdom. She is dressed in a long white robe of penitence—the robe of sacrifice. She is led for the last time down the echoing stairs to the crowded courtyard. The streets are filled with people. Eight hundred English soldiers are surrounding and following the cortege and mocking her. She is looking wildly around for rescue, but in vain. She is calling upon the saints, but they do not answer. She is feeling the terrible humiliation and abandonment and shame in the sight of men. When the place for execution is reached,