These cries in the Old Marketplace, which she uttered in a high and strong voice, according to those who were there, above the crackling flame amid the noise of the crowd, moved many who were present, including some of the English.
Several witnesses in the retrail of 1456 remembered the tears of Louis of Luxembourg, bishop of Thérouanne, who was entirely devoted to the English cause.
The executioner who had been called to torture her in the dungeon in Rouen, Magier Leparmentier, said: “Once in the fire, she cried out more than six times, ‘Jesus!’ and especially in her last breath, she cried with a strong voice, ‘Jesus!’ so that everyone present could hear it; almost all wept with pity.”
Isambart reported an event that marked Joan’s fellowship with the martyrs according to the sensibility of medieval Christianity:
One of the Englishmen, a soldier who detested her [Joan of Arc] exceptionally and had sworn that with his own hand he would bring a bundle of sticks to Joan’s stake, at the moment he did it and heard Joan crying the name of Jesus in her last moment, stood struck with stupor as though in an ecstasy and had to be led to a tavern near the Old Marketplace, so that with the help of some drink he could regain his strength. And having a meal with a friar of the order of Friars Preachers, this Englishman confessed through the mouth of that friar who was also English that he had sinned gravely and that he repented what he had done against Joan, whom he now took to be a holy woman; for as it seemed to him, this Englishman had himself seen, at the moment that Joan gave up her spirit, a white dove emerge from her and take flight toward France. And the executioner, after lunch on that same day, came to a convent of Friars Preachers and told me as well as Friar Martin Ladvenu that he was damned because he had burned a holy woman.
Source:
Pernoud, Régine, Marie-Véronique Clin, Jeremy DuQuesnay. Adams, and Bonnie Wheeler. “Joan’s Trial and Execution at Rouen.” Joan of Arc: Her Story. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. 136. Print.
Further Reading:
Jeanne d’Arc / Joan of Arc / La Pucelle d'Orléans / The Maid of Orléans (Wikipedia)
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