Bishop Cauchon rises, terrible, and with his hands extended to heaven makes ready to utter the final curse upon the accused. "Joan!" he cries, "listen to your sentence. In the name of the Church, we, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the mercy of God, declare you--" Joan Darc interrupts the approaching imprecation with a shriek of terror, clasps her hands, and collapses upon the scaffold, crying: "Mercy! Mercy!" "Do you submit yourself to the judgment of the Church?" again asks Bishop Cauchon. Livid and her teeth chattering with terror, Joan Darc answers: "Yes, I submit myself!" "Do you renounce your apparitions and visions as false, sacrilegious, and diabolical?" the Bishop asks. Wholly broken down, and in a gasping voice, Joan makes answer: "Yes--yes--I renounce them--seeing the priests consider them wicked things. I submit to their opinion--I shall submit to everything that the Church may order--Mercy! Have pity upon me!" and cowering upon herself, she hides her face in her hands amidst convulsive sobs. "Oh, my very dear brothers!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon with an affectation of charity. "What a beautiful day! What a holy day! What a glorious day! that on which the Church in her maternal joy opens her arms to one of her children, repentful after having long wandered from the fold! Joan, your submission saves your body and your soul! Repeat after me the formula of abjuration." The Bishop beckons to one of the registrars, who brings to him a parchment containing the formula of abjuration. Violent outcries break out from the crowd. The English soldiers and the people of the Burgundian party feel irritated at the prospect of the Maid's escaping death, and break out into imprecations against the judges. They charge the Bishop and the Cardinal with treason and threaten to burn down their houses. The English captains share the indignation of their men. One of the former, the Earl of Warwick, steps out of the group in which he stands, rushes up the stairs of the scaffold, and approaching the prelate says to him angrily, in a low voice: "Bishop, Bishop, is that what you promised us?" "Be patient!" answers the prelate, also in a low voice; "I shall keep my promise; but calm your men; they are quite capable of massacring us!"