The next day, Tuesday 29 May, forty-one of the assessors met with Cauchon and voted unanimously. The decision: relapsed heretic. Joan was to be handed over to the secular authorities to be burnt.
Wednesday, 30 May 1431 dawned clear and bright.
Massieu, who had defied Cauchon by allowing Joan to pray outside the chapel, was with her on this the last day of her life. He stayed with her to the end, and it is from his record of that day that we know what happened.
It was the priest Ladvenu’s duty to tell Joan her fate, and Massieu and a monk named Toutmouillé went with him.
The two English guards posted outside the cell barely acknowledged them. They had seen the priests come and go often enough. Inside the cell were four other guards.
“Leave us with the prisoner,” Ladvenu said to them. “
