from Fire From Heaven: A Novel About Gilles de Rais, by Michel Bataille, 1967, originally published in France as Le feu du ciel in 1964.
Habitually that marked that end. The executioner's assistants would then go away, and the remains of the victim would be buried.
But it was the wish of the English that nothing be left of Joan. There must not be any relics. This in itself showed they knew they were burning a Saint.
The executioner busied himself with the embers, adding pitch and coal to the debris.
The next day the executioner went to confession and disclosed the miracle which had troubled his rather superficial soul; he had not been able to burn either Joan's heart or her intestines. Even when filled with burning pitch, they remained scarlet and intact to the end.
What should have be done with these remains, these ashes? The English decided to throw them into the Seine. Joan must not have a sepulcher before which, one day, after the invader had left, a grateful populace could come and bow down.
This decision was a political mistake. If, later, Joan lay in some tomb, under some monument, she would be there and alone.
Since, on the contrary, they had not wanted her to be anywhere, she must needs be everywhere.
The universe would be her coffin, her funeral slab the immensity of the heavens. Commemorating the remembrance of Joan would not consist in her family visiting some cemetery on All Saints' Day. There was no cemetery; there was no tomb. Her immortality was to be found in the dreams of all mankind.
That was the ultimate mistake of the unfortunate Cardinal of Winchester.
Already, by having Joan burned, he had made certain that the English would be driven from France. And it was not long before this happened.
He wanted to have the ashes thrown into a river; he believed that in this way they would be caused to disappear. On the contrary, he spread them through the pages of history. For rivers, as the Cardinal of Winchester should have known, flow into the sea.
Swept along by the long reach of the Seine, the infinitesimal remains of Joan of Arc would travel far. They would float slowly between banks covered by the grass of Normandy as by a tapestry. They would pass within sight of the ever-white towers of the famous Abbey of Jumieges. They would parade past the chalk cliffs that fringe the right bank of the estuary, while the left bank stretches out flat. Between Honofleur and Havre de Grace, a name destined to be the most appropriate, the Seine becomes very wide.
Then already the waves begin to ruffle the water, which turns salt. The river is reaching the sea.
Thus in the gray and bitter immensity of the sea, without limit or bourne, always in motion, a motion that with an ever-recurring muffled roar breaks like a mysterious warning on the beaches of lands that are the haunts of men, everything comes to an end.
At sea, everything is lost. Everything that remained of Joan came to an end because the English so willed it, unforgettably, in the wild spaces that lave the continents, the only element on this unfortunate planet that evokes by its sublime expanse what the slow-moving generation of humans have called their God.
The heart-rending adventure begun hardly two years before stretched out across the sky like a rainbow, to be dissolved by the ocean fogs.
Where Joan was, a few sea gulls flew in circles in the misty sky. Some glided. Others uttered harsh cries.
Then they flew away.
There was nothing left.
There was nothing left on the surface of the ocean but a maid's honor.
But it was the wish of the English that nothing be left of Joan. There must not be any relics. This in itself showed they knew they were burning a Saint.
The executioner busied himself with the embers, adding pitch and coal to the debris.
The next day the executioner went to confession and disclosed the miracle which had troubled his rather superficial soul; he had not been able to burn either Joan's heart or her intestines. Even when filled with burning pitch, they remained scarlet and intact to the end.
What should have be done with these remains, these ashes? The English decided to throw them into the Seine. Joan must not have a sepulcher before which, one day, after the invader had left, a grateful populace could come and bow down.
This decision was a political mistake. If, later, Joan lay in some tomb, under some monument, she would be there and alone.
Since, on the contrary, they had not wanted her to be anywhere, she must needs be everywhere.
The universe would be her coffin, her funeral slab the immensity of the heavens. Commemorating the remembrance of Joan would not consist in her family visiting some cemetery on All Saints' Day. There was no cemetery; there was no tomb. Her immortality was to be found in the dreams of all mankind.
That was the ultimate mistake of the unfortunate Cardinal of Winchester.
Already, by having Joan burned, he had made certain that the English would be driven from France. And it was not long before this happened.
He wanted to have the ashes thrown into a river; he believed that in this way they would be caused to disappear. On the contrary, he spread them through the pages of history. For rivers, as the Cardinal of Winchester should have known, flow into the sea.
Swept along by the long reach of the Seine, the infinitesimal remains of Joan of Arc would travel far. They would float slowly between banks covered by the grass of Normandy as by a tapestry. They would pass within sight of the ever-white towers of the famous Abbey of Jumieges. They would parade past the chalk cliffs that fringe the right bank of the estuary, while the left bank stretches out flat. Between Honofleur and Havre de Grace, a name destined to be the most appropriate, the Seine becomes very wide.
Then already the waves begin to ruffle the water, which turns salt. The river is reaching the sea.
Thus in the gray and bitter immensity of the sea, without limit or bourne, always in motion, a motion that with an ever-recurring muffled roar breaks like a mysterious warning on the beaches of lands that are the haunts of men, everything comes to an end.
At sea, everything is lost. Everything that remained of Joan came to an end because the English so willed it, unforgettably, in the wild spaces that lave the continents, the only element on this unfortunate planet that evokes by its sublime expanse what the slow-moving generation of humans have called their God.
The heart-rending adventure begun hardly two years before stretched out across the sky like a rainbow, to be dissolved by the ocean fogs.
Where Joan was, a few sea gulls flew in circles in the misty sky. Some glided. Others uttered harsh cries.
Then they flew away.
There was nothing left.
There was nothing left on the surface of the ocean but a maid's honor.
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