Next morning at nine o'clock she left the prison, clothed now in a woman's long gown, and wearing a mitre, inscribed with the words, _Heretic_, _Relapsed_, _Apostate_, _Idolatress_. A cart was waiting for her, and she got into it, accompanied by Brother Martin and the usher Massieu. A guard of about eight hundred soldiers surrounded her to keep off the crowd, but suddenly there rushed through their ranks a haggard and miserable figure. It was Nicolaus Loyseleur, who, seized by late and vain remorse, had come to ask forgiveness of her whom he had betrayed. But before he could reach her, the soldiers drove him back, and Joan probably neither saw nor heard him, for she was weeping and praying, her head bowed upon her hands. When she looked up, she saw beyond the soldiers a dense throng of people, most of them grieving for her, many of them lamenting that this thing should be done in their city. "O Rouen, Rouen!" she cried, "is it here that I must die?" At last she reached the Old Market Place, a very large space, where had been raised three scaffolds: one for the Bishop of Beauvais and his colleagues, and for all the prelates and nobles who desired to see the show; another for Joan and some priests and officials; the third, also for Joan--a pile of stone and plaster, raised high above the heads of the crowd, and heaped with faggots. In front of it was a tablet bearing this inscription: _Joan, who has called herself The Maid--liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, sorceress, superstitious, blasphemer of God, presumptuous, disbeliever of the faith of Christ, boaster, idolatress, dissolute, invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic, heretic._ Master Nicolas Midi, a famous doctor from Paris, preached Joan's last sermon, on the text, "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." At its close, he addressed her: "Joan, go in peace! The Church can no longer defend you; it gives you up to the secular power." Then the bishop spoke to her. He did not read the form of abjuration, as had been advised, for she would have boldly disavowed it, and would so have spoilt a scheme he had concocted. But he admonished her to think of her salvation, to remember her misdeeds, and repent of them. Finally, after the usual inquisitorial form, he declared her cut off from the Church, and delivered over to secular justice.