It was about five o'clock that afternoon when Joan of Arc rode out of Compiegne at the head of five hundred horsemen and foot soldiers. Flavy remained within the town, of which he was Governor. The attack led by the Maid on Margny, with splendid impetuosity, proved a complete success, and the enemy fled for shelter to their companions at Clairvoix. Here the resistance made was far more stubborn. While the French and Burgundians were combating in the meadows at Clairvoix, the English came from Venette to the assistance of their allies, and attacked the French in their rear. A panic was created by this attack among the French troops, and a sauve qui peut ensued, both foot and horse dashing back in confusion towards Compiegne, and when they reached the river either taking refuge in the boats or on the redoubts near the bridge. Mixed among this panic-stricken crowd of fugitives came the English in hot pursuit, followed by the Burgundians.

Carried away by the throng of frightened soldiers, Joan was among the last to leave the field, and to those who cried to her to make her escape she answered that all might yet be saved, and urged her men to rally. Nevertheless, she was forced back towards the bridge, across which fugitives were making their escape into the town. In a few seconds Joan could have been safe across the drawbridge, and under shelter of the towers which defended it. At this instant, whether intentionally to exclude the heroine from safety, or through panic and fear of the Burgundians and English entering the town along with the French, the drawbridge was lifted, and Joan, with a handful of the faithful few who were ever at her side in time of peril, was surrounded by a sea of foemen. In a moment half a dozen soldiers secured her horse and seized her on every side, trying to drag her out of the saddle. The long skirts which the heroine wore were soon torn off by these rough hands. An archer of Picardy, belonging to the army of John of Luxembourg, wrenched her from her horse and made her prisoner. Her brother Peter, her faithful squire d'Aulon, and Pothon de Xaintrailles were all captured at the same time.

Thus fell Joan of Arc into the hands of her enemies, and the question whether through treachery or not has never been settled.

According to an old work published early in the sixteenth century, called Le Miroir des Femmes Vertueuses, Joan of Arc had taken the communion in the Church of Saint James at Compiegne, and was standing leaning against a pillar of that church; a large number of citizens with many children stood around, to whom she said: 'My children and dear friends, I bid you to mark that I have been sold and betrayed, and that I shall be shortly put to death. So I beseech you all to pray to God for me, for never more shall I be able to be of service to the King or to the kingdom of France.'

This story, which, whether authentic or not, is surely a touching one, is full of the spirit of the heroine. It rests upon the testimony of two persons, one eighty-six and the other eighty-eight years of age, by whom the author was told the tale in 1498, both affirming that they had been in the church when Joan of Arc spoke of her betrayal. There can be but little doubt that Joan had had for some time before she went to Compiegne a presentiment of her soon falling into her enemies' power. On the eve of the King's coronation at Rheims she said to her friends that what she alone feared was treason—a foreboding too soon, alas! to come true. She never, however, seems to have fixed on any particular period when the treason she dreaded would occur; and during her trial she acknowledged that, had she known she would have been taken prisoner during the sortie on the 24th of May, she would not have undertaken that adventure.

One of her best historians, M. Wallon, thinks that the words which she is supposed to have spoken to the people in the Church of Saint James at Compiegne were owing to her discouragement at not having, a few weeks previously, been able to cross the river Aisne at Soissons, and thus finding herself prevented from attacking the Duke of Burgundy at Choisy, and thence having been obliged to return to Compiegne. Wallon points out that in coming to defend Compiegne, Joan of Arc came entirely at her own instigation, and that during the previous six months Flavy had defended Compiegne against the English and Burgundians with success and energy; nay more, that, in spite of bribes from the Duke of Burgundy, Flavy contrived to hold the town till the close of the war.

On the other side, a recent writer of the heroine's life, especially as regarded from a military standpoint, M. Marin, gives at great length his reasons for believing in the treachery of Flavy. M. Marin points out that, in the first place, Flavy's character was a notoriously bad one; secondly, that he was very possibly under the influence of both La Tremoille and the Chancellor Regnault de Chartres, bitter opponents, as we have already shown, of the Maid; thirdly, that it was in Flavy's interest that the prestige of saving Compiegne from the Burgundians and English should be entirely owing to his own conduct; and fourthly, that he, Flavy, with the majority of the French officers, was affected against Joan of Arc since the execution of Franquet d'Arras. M. Marin goes on to prove that Joan of Arc might have been rescued without difficulty, and that the enemy could not have forced their way into the town alongside of the retreating French, unless they were ready to be cut up as soon as they had come within its walls. M. Marin's opinion, having the authority of a soldier, carries weight with it; and his opinion is that Joan of Arc was deliberately betrayed by Flavy, and purposely allowed to fall into the hands of her enemies.

The names of La Tremoille and Regnault de Chartres should also be pilloried by the side of that of Flavy—the two great courtiers who held the ear of the King, and who had always plotted against Joan of Arc. As has already been said, it was Regnault de Chartres who had the effrontery to announce the news of Joan of Arc's capture to the citizens of Rheims as being a judgment of Heaven upon her. She had, this mean prelate said, offended God by her pride, and in wearing rich apparel, and in having preferred to follow her own will rather than that of God! Verily, and with reason, might poor Joan have prayed to be delivered from such friends as those creatures and courtiers about her King, for whom she had done and suffered so much.

* * * * *

The archer who had captured Joan of Arc was in the pay of the Bastard of Wandome, or Wandoune, and this Wandome was himself in the service of John de Ligny, a vassal of the Duke of Burgundy, and a cadet of the princely house of Luxembourg. Like most younger sons, John de Ligny was badly off, and the temptation of the English reward in exchange for his prisoner, whose escape he greatly feared, overtopped any scruples he may have felt in receiving this blood-money.



The historian Monstrelet tells us he was present when Joan of Arc was brought into the Burgundian camp, at Margny, and before the Duke of Burgundy. But the old chronicler relates nothing with regard to that eventful meeting; only he is eloquent on the joy caused by the capture of the Maid of Orleans among the English and their allies; and he tells us that in their opinion Joan's capture was equal by itself to that of five hundred ordinary prisoners, for they had feared her, he adds, more than all the other French leaders put together. Of the high opinion held by her enemies of the Maid's influence, one could not ask for a more remarkable proof than this testimony, coming as it does from a partisan of her foes.

After three days passed at Margny, Joan of Arc was taken, for greater security, by Luxembourg to the castle of Beaulieu, in Picardy.



CHAPTER V.

IMPRISONMENT AND TRIAL.

The news of Joan's capture soon reached Paris, and within a few hours of that event becoming known, the Vicar-General of the Order of the Inquisition sent a letter to the Duke of Burgundy, accompanied by another from the University of Paris, praying that Joan of Arc might be delivered up to the keeping of Mother Church as a sorceress and idolatress. That terrible engine, the Inquisition, had, like some mighty reptile scenting its prey near, slowly unfolded its coils. Whether Bedford had or had not caused these letters to be sent the Duke is not known, but the Regent had both in the Church and the University of Paris the men he wanted—instruments by whom his vengeance could be worked on Joan of Arc; and he had the astuteness to see that in calling in the aid of the Church, and treating Joan of Arc as a heretic and witch, the rules of war could be laid aside. What no civilised body of men could do, namely, kill a prisoner of war, that thing could be done in the name and by the authority of the Church and its holy office; and in the Bishop of Beauvais, the inexorable Cauchon, Bedford had the tool necessary to his hand whereby this dastardly plot could be carried out.

The first move that Bedford now was obliged to take was to secure the victim; and in order to do so the Bishop of Beauvais was applied to. The name of Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, will go down to the latest posterity with the execration of humanity, for the part he played in the tragedy of the worst of judicial murders of which any record exists. Let us give even the devil his due. According to Michelet the Bishop was 'not a man without merit,' although the historian does not say in what Cauchon's merit consisted. Born at Rheims, he had been considered a learned priest when at the University of Paris; but he had the reputation of being a harsh and vindictive opponent to all who disagreed with his views, within or without the Church. He was forced to leave Paris, in 1413, for some misconduct. It was then that Cauchon became a strong partisan of the Duke of Burgundy. It was through the Duke that he obtained the See of Beauvais. The English also favoured Cauchon, and obtained for him a high post in the University of Paris. When the tide of French success reached Beauvais, in 1429, Cauchon was obliged to escape, and found shelter in England. There Winchester received him with cordiality. While in England, Cauchon became a thorough partisan of the English, and the humble servant of the proud Prince-Cardinal. Winchester promised Cauchon preferment, and, when the See of Rouen fell vacant, recommended the Pope to place Cauchon on its throne. The Pope, however, refused his consent, and the Rouen Chapters would hear naught of the Anglicised Bishop. At that time the Church at Rouen was at war with the University of Paris, and did not wish one of the members of that University placed over it.

Joan of Arc's place of capture happened to be in the diocese of Beauvais, and although Cauchon was now only nominally Bishop of Beauvais, he still retained that title. Cauchon now placed himself, body and soul, at the disposal of the English, hoping thereby sooner to obtain the long-coveted Archbishopric of Rouen in exchange for helping his friends to the utmost in his power by furthering their schemes and in ridding them of their prisoner once and for ever. The bait held out by Winchester and Bedford was the Archbishopric of Rouen, and eagerly did Cauchon seize his prey. What added to his zeal was his wish to gratify base feelings of revenge on those who had thrust him out of his Bishopric of Beauvais, and on her without whose deeds he might have still been living in security in his palatial home there.

After a consultation with the leaders of the University of Paris, Cauchon arrived at the Burgundian camp before Compiegne on the 14th of July, and claimed Joan of Arc as prisoner from the keeping of the Duke of Burgundy. Cauchon justified his demand by letters which he had obtained from the doctors of the University, and he made the offer in the name of the child-king of England. The sum handed over for the purchase of the prisoner was 10,000 livres tournois, equivalent to 61,125 francs of French money of to-day—about L2400 sterling. This was the ordinary price in that day for the ransom of any prisoner of high rank. Luxembourg, to his shame and that of his order, consented to the sale on those terms, and Cauchon soon returned with the news of his bargain to his English employers.

The whole transaction sounds more like what one might expect to have occurred amongst an uncivilised nation rather than among a people who prided themselves on their chivalry and their usages of fair-play in matters relating to warfare. That a high dignitary of the Church, and a countryman of Joan of Arc, should have bought her from a prince, the descendant of emperors and kings, also a countryman of the heroic Maid's, for English gold, is bad enough; and that the so-called 'good' Duke of Burgundy should have been a silent spectator of the infamous transaction, brands all the actors as among the most sordid and meanest of individuals. But what is infinitely worse is the fact that no steps appear to have been taken by Charles to rescue the Maid, or to attempt an exchange of her for any other prisoner or prisoners.

Thus Joan of Arc, bound literally hand and foot, was led like a lamb to the shambles, not a hand being raised by those for whom she had done such great and noble deeds.

The University of Paris, whose decisions carried so great a weight in the issue of the trial of the Maid of Orleans, consisted at this period of an ecclesiastical body of doctors; but as far as its attributes consisted it was a body secular, and holding an independent position owing to its many privileges. The University was a political as well as an ecclesiastical body, supreme under the Pope above the whole of the Gallican Church. Although divided into two parties through the war then raging between England and France, its judicature was greatly influenced by the Church. It was a matter of certainty that the Doctors of Theology who sat in the University of Paris, and who were all, or nearly all, French by birth, would favour the English, and give an adverse decision to that of those French ecclesiastics who had examined into Joan's life and character when assembled at Poitiers, and who then considered her to be acting under the influence and with the protection of the Almighty.

As a prisoner, Joan of Arc's behaviour was as modest and courageous as it had been in her days of success and liberty. In the first times of her durance, d'Aulon, who, as we mentioned, had been captured at the same time, appears to have been allowed to remain with her. On his telling her that he feared Compiegne would now probably be taken by the enemy, Joan of Arc said such a thing could not occur, 'For all the places,' she added, 'which the King of Heaven has placed in the keeping of King Charles by my means will never again be retaken by his enemies, at any rate as long as he cares to keep them.'

Although willing to endure for the sake of her beloved country all the cruelty her enemies could inflict upon her, Joan was most anxious to return in order to continue her mission. While in the castle of Beaulieu she made a desperate attempt to escape. She managed to squeeze herself between two beams of wood placed across an opening in her prison, and was on the point of leaving her dungeon tower when one of the jailers caught sight of her, and she was retaken. Probably in consequence of this attempt, Joan of Arc, after an imprisonment of four months at Beaulieu, was transferred thence by Ligny to his castle of Beaurevoir, near the town of Cambrai, a place far removed from the neighbourhood of the war, and consequently more secure than Beaulieu. At Beaurevoir lived the wife and the aunt of Ligny; they showed some attention and compassion to the prisoner. They offered her some of their dresses, and tried to persuade her to quit her male attire. Joan, however, refused: she gave as her reason for not complying with their request that the time had not yet arrived for her to cease wearing the clothes she had worn during the time of her mission. That she had good reason not to don woman's attire even when at Beaurevoir, and keep to her male attire as a protection, is probable, as she was not safe from wanton insult at the hands of the rough soldiery placed about her person. This clinging to her male dress, we shall see, under similar circumstances at Rouen, was the principal indictment made against her by her executioners.

At Beaurevoir Joan of Arc was placed in a chamber at the top of a high tower, whence Ligny thought that no attempt at escape would be made, but Joan of Arc tried once again to recover her liberty. In the course of her trial she told her judges how her voices counselled her not again to make this venture, and of her perplexity whether she should obey them, or, at the risk of her life, escape from the clutches of the English, for at this time she knew that she had been sold to her bitterest foes.

What appears to have determined her decision was hearing that Compiegne was in imminent peril of falling into the hands of the English, and that the inhabitants would be massacred. In her desperation, feeling, like young Arthur, that

'The wall is high; and yet will I leap down:— Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!... As good to die, and go, as die, and stay'

she knotted some thongs together and let herself out of a window; but the thongs broke, and she fell from a great height—the tower is supposed to have been no less than sixty feet high. She was found unconscious at its foot, and for several days she was not expected to recover from the injuries she had received. But she was doomed for a far more terrible death.

For several days Joan of Arc took no nourishment. Gradually she revived, and she told her jailers that her beloved Saint Catherine had visited and comforted her; and she also told them that she knew Compiegne would not be taken, and would be free from its enemies before the Feast of Saint Martin.

Beaurevoir is now a ruin: although above the lintel can still be seen the coat-of-arms of the jailer of the Maid, the tower in which she was imprisoned, and from which she so nearly met her death, has been destroyed.

In the month of November of that year (1430), in spite of the entreaties of his wife and aunt, Ligny delivered up his prisoner into the custody of the Duke of Burgundy, from whose keeping she was soon transferred into that of the English.

On the 20th of November the University of Paris sent a message to Cauchon, advising him to bring Joan of Arc before a tribunal. Cauchon, however, waited the arrival of Winchester, bringing with him his great-nephew, Henry VI. Winchester arrived with the boy-king on the 2nd of December. The Cardinal intended the function of the crowning of his great-nephew to be as imposing a ceremony as possible; and he also meant, by defaming the source of the French King's successes, to show the French people that Charles' coronation at Rheims had been brought about by what the Regent Bedford called a 'limb of the evil one.' It was, therefore, Bedford's plan that it should be declared before the world that Joan of Arc was inspired by Satanic agencies, and that consequently the French King's coronation was also due to these agencies. By similar means it would be made clear that all the French victories were owing to the same influence; for were it not, argued the English, they would be proved to have been themselves fighting against and defeated by—not the spirit of evil but—the spirit of righteousness.

Nothing, indeed, could be clearer than Winchester's argument. It was now only necessary that Joan of Arc should be at once placed on her trial as a sorceress and a witch—one who was in league with the evil one; and, when that had been satisfactorily proved, that she should publicly meet with the fate which a merciful Church had, in its infinite wisdom, ordained for such as she. Thus would the English army and people be avenged, and the French King's crown and prerogative suffer an irreparable damage.

From Beaurevoir, Joan of Arc was first taken to the town of Arras, thence to Crotoy, where, about the 21st of November, she was handed over to the English.

A chronicler of that day writes that the English rejoiced as greatly on that occasion as if they had received all the wealth of Lombardy. The Duke of Burgundy had never merited the title of 'Good,' which, somehow or other, has been linked with his name. Had he been the most virtuous of princes of any time, he yet deserves to have his memory branded for the part he then took in the sale of Joan of Arc—a transaction whereof the poor excuse of not losing the benefits of his alliance with the English avails nothing. For this, if nothing else, we reverse the good fame which lying history has accorded him.

In the underground portion of a tower at Crotoy, still to be seen, although the upper part has disappeared, facing the sea, is a door-way, which local tradition points out as that of the dungeon of Joan of Arc. Crotoy, or Le Crotoy, is on the coast of Picardy, a little to the north of Abbeville. In the fifteenth century it was a place of some warlike importance, especially to the English. Its situation near the coast, and the strength of its fortress, made Le Crotoy one of the principal places on the sea line, whence stores and war provender could be carried into France. Le Crotoy had fallen into possession of the English through the marriage of Henry III. with Eleanor of Castille, Countess of Ponthieu, of which Crotoy formed a part. During the hundred years' war, the port could receive vessels of considerable tonnage; and from this point the booty taken by the English could be shipped and sent across the Channel. Now but a few vestiges can be traced of its once strong and ably fortified castle. A few years ago, a statue, representing the Maid of Orleans in the garb of a prisoner, was placed near the ruins of the castle in which she passed most of the month of December, 1430.

At Crotoy, Joan of Arc was permitted to assist at the celebration of the Mass in the chapel of the castle; and while here she received a visit from some of her admirers from Abbeville—a few noble hearts who still remained loyal to the once all-powerful deliveress of their country, now a poor and abandoned prisoner on her road to a long imprisonment and a cruel death! Touched by this mark of sympathy from these Abbeville folk, Joan gave them, on parting from them, her blessing, and asked them to remember her in their prayers. The enlightened clergy and doctors, lay and spiritual, who formed the body known as the University of Paris, preferred that Joan of Arc should be sent to the capital, there to undergo her trial, and wrote to this effect to Bedford, through the name of the boy-king. They also despatched a letter to Cauchon (probably inspired by Bedford), in which they rated him for not bringing the Maid at once to her trial. They told him he was showing a lamentable laxness in not immediately punishing the scandals which had been committed under his jurisdiction against the Christian religion.

Paris was not considered enough of a safe place to take Joan of Arc into; the French lay too near its walls, and the loyalty of its citizens to the English was a doubtful quantity. Besides, it was not convenient that the University of Paris should be allowed the entire direction of the trial. It was well that the University should be made use of; but Cauchon relied on the Inquisition to carry out his and Bedford's plan. Cauchon must be the principal agent and judge, and he felt, with Bedford, that they had a freer hand if the trial were to be at Rouen; therefore Rouen was decided on as the place of trial and punishment. Rouen, also, being in the midst of the English possessions, was perfectly safe from attack, should it occur to any of Joan of Arc's countrymen to attempt a rescue.

At the close of December Joan of Arc was taken across the river Somme, in a boat, to Saint Valery, and thence, strongly guarded, and placed on horseback, she was led along the Normandy coast by Eure and Dieppe to the place of her martyrdom. On arriving at Rouen it was seriously debated by some of her captors whether or not she should be at once put to death. They suggested her being sewn into a sack and thrown into the river! The reason these people gave for summarily disposing of Joan of Arc without form or trial was that, as long as she lived, there was no security for the English in France. As has already been noticed, those who commanded and sided with the English were desirous that Joan of Arc should be first branded as a witch and a sorceress, both by the doctors of the Church and by the State, before being put to death.

Arrived at Rouen, Joan of Arc was immured in the old fortress built by Philip Augustus. One tower alone remains of the seven massive round towers which surrounded the circular castle. Her jailers had the barbarity to place their prisoner in an iron cage, in which she was fastened with iron rings and chains, one at the neck, another at the hands, and a third confining the feet. Joan was thus caged as if she were a wild animal until her trial commenced. After that, she was chained to a miserable truckle bed.

A chronicler of that time, named Macy, tells the following story of an incident which, for the sake of English manhood, one trusts is untrue. Among others who went to see Joan of Arc in her prison came one day the Earl of Warwick, with Lord Stafford and Ligny—Joan's former jailer. The latter told her in a jeering way that he had come to buy her back from the English, provided she promised never again to make war against them.

'You are mocking me,' said Joan of Arc. 'For I know that you have not the power to do that, neither the will.' And she added, 'I know well that these English will kill me, thinking that by doing so they will reconquer the kingdom of France; but even if there were one hundred thousand Godons more in France than there are now, they will never again conquer the kingdom!'

On hearing these words Stafford drew his dagger, and would have struck her had not Warwick prevented the cowardly act.

Cauchon formed his tribunal of the following:—

1. John Graverent, a Dominican priest, D.D., Grand Inquisitor of France. It was he who appointed John Lemaitre as judge in the trial of the Maid. The following July this Graverent preached a sermon in Paris, in which he glorified the death of Joan of Arc.

2. John Lemaitre, who represented the Inquisition on the trial. He was a Dominican prior. He appears to have been a feeble-minded creature, and a mere tool of Cauchon and Graverent.

3. Martin Bellarme, D.D., another Dominican, and also a member of the Inquisition.

4. John d'Estivet, surnamed 'Benedicite,' canon of Beauvais and Bayeux, was another of Cauchon's creatures. He acted the part of Procureur-General during the trial. D'Estivet was a gross and cruel ecclesiastic, and it is somewhat satisfactory to know his end. He was found dead in a muddy ditch soon after Joan of Arc's death. As M. Fabre justly says, 'He perished in his native element.'

5. John de la Fontaine, M.A. He was Conseille d'Instruction during the trial. In the course of it he was threatened by Cauchon for having given some friendly advice to the prisoner, and escaped from Rouen before the conclusion of the trial.

6, 7, 8. William Manchon, William Colles, and Nicolas Taquel, all three recorders. They belonged to the Church. It is to Manchon that we are indebted for a summary of the most interesting account of the trial. We shall find that at the time of Joan's execution this man was horrified at the part he had taken in it. He confesses his horror at having received money for his infamy, but instead of casting his blood-money at the feet of Cauchon, and hanging himself like another Judas, he somewhat naively informs us that he laid it out in the purchase of a breviary in order to pray for the soul of the martyr.

9. Massieu, another priest, who acted as the sheriffs officer. He appears to have had feelings of humanity, and attended Joan to the end.

10. Louis de Luxembourg, Bishop of Therouenne and the Chancellor of France to King Henry VI. This bishop was the go-between of Cauchon and Winchester throughout the trial; but he only appears to have taken part in these occasions during the examinations. It was he who was made Archbishop of Rouen, which post Cauchon had hoped to gain; and it was for this archbishopric that Cauchon had taken the presiding post during the trial.

11. John de Mailly, Bishop of Noyon; he was another staunch auxiliary of Cauchon. In the year 1456, at the trial for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc's memory, Mailly signed his name among those who condemned the deed he had helped to carry out.

12. Zanon de Castiglione, Bishop of Lisieux. One of the reasons that this man gave for condemning Joan of Arc to the stake was that she was born in too low a rank of life to have been inspired by God. This decision makes one wonder so aristocratic a prelate could demean himself by belonging to a religion which owed its origin to One who had followed the trade of a carpenter.

13. Philibert de Montjeu, Bishop of Coutances.

14. John de Saint Avet, Bishop of Avranches. The latter was the only one of the above Bishops, Dominicans, and members of the French Church who gave his vote against the condemnation of Joan of Arc, although the trial minutes have not recorded the fact.

Besides the above French prelates, were:—

15. John Beaupere, M.A. and D.D., formerly a rector of the University of Paris, also a canon of Besancon. It was he who, with the following five representatives of the University of Paris, took the most prominent part in the cross-questioning of the prisoner.

16. Thomas de Courcelles, a canon of Amiens, of Therouenne, and of Laon. This person was employed to read the articles of accusation to the prisoner, and was in favour of employing torture to make Joan confess what was required of her by her prosecutors. He was considered one of the shining lights of the University of Paris. He died in 1469, and until the Revolution an engraved slab, on which his virtues and learning were recorded, covered his remains.

17. Gerard Feuillet. He was sent to Paris during the trial in order to lay the twelve articles of accusation before the University, and did not take part in the latter portion of the trial.

18. Nicolas Midi, D.D., a celebrated preacher. He is supposed to have been the author of the twelve articles; and he it was who preached a sermon at the time of the execution of Joan of Arc. Attacked soon after by leprosy, he sufficiently recovered to see Charles VII. enter Paris; and he had the audacity to send the King an address of felicitation in the name of the faculties of the University by whose instrumentality Joan of Arc had been executed.

19. Peter Morice, a doctor of the University and a canon of Rouen. He was one of the most eager to bring Joan to the stake.

20. James de Touraine, also a doctor of the University, was violently hostile to Joan of Arc.

The above six doctors, with Cauchon, were those who had most to do with the proceedings of the trial, and those whose duty it was principally to question the prisoner.

21. Nicolas Loiseleur, M.A., a canon of Rouen; he was the most abject of all the gang of priests and doctors who formed part of this infamous tribunal. It was Loiseleur who, in the disguise of a layman, attempted to worm secrets from Joan, pretending to be her friend and sympathiser. When he found he gained nothing by the subterfuge, he resumed his clerical garb, and succeeded in getting, under the promise of secrecy from his order, a confession from the prisoner. He also introduced spies into the prison who took notes of Joan's words. When the idea was mooted of putting Joan of Arc to the torture, Loiseleur was one of the most urgent for it to be applied. However, on the day of the execution this man, who, strange as it may seem, appears to have had some kind of conscience, or at least to have been able to feel remorse for the base part he had played in the trial of the Maid, implored Joan of Arc's forgiveness. He, however, after the execution, helped Cauchon to spread calumnies regarding their victim. This infamous scoundrel died suddenly at Basle.

22. Raoul Roussel de Vernon, D.C.L., and the canon treasurer of the Cathedral of Rouen. He acted throughout the trial as reporter. In 1443 Roussel became Archbishop of Rouen.

23. Robert Barbier, also a D.C.L., and canon of Rouen Cathedral.

24. Nicolas Coppequesne, also a canon of Rouen Cathedral.

25. Nicolas de Venderes, a canon of Rouen, and Cauchon's chaplain.

26. John Alessee, also a canon of Rouen. This Alessee was greatly moved at the heroine's death, and exclaimed, 'I pray to God my soul may one day be where hers is now.'

27. Raoul Auguy, another canon.

28. William de Baubribosc, also a canon of Rouen.

29. John Brullot, another canon and precentor of Rouen.

30. John Basset, another canon and a M.A.

31. John Brullot, another canon. Besides these were seventeen others, named Caval, Columbel, Cormeilles, Crotoy, Duchemin, Dubesert, Garin, Gastinel, Ledoux, Leroy, Maguerie, Manzier, Morel, Morellet, Pinchon, Saulx, and Pasquier de Vaux, who became Bishop of Meaux, Evreux, and Lisieux. In all, nine-and-twenty canons of Rouen.

After these came a list of mitred abbots, priors, and heads of religious houses: Peter de Crique, Prior of Sigy; William Lebourg, Prior of the College of Saint Lo of Rouen; Peter Migiet, Prior of Longueville.

After these priors came eleven abbots: Durement, Abbot of Fecamp, later Bishop of Coutances; Benel, Abbot of Courcelles; De Conti, Abbot of Sainte Catherine; Dacier, Abbot of Saint Corneille of Compiegne; Frique, Abbot of Bee; Jolivet, Abbot of Saint Michael's Mount in Normandy; Labbe, Abbot of Saint George de Bocherville; Leroux, Abbot of Jumieges; Du Masle, Abbot of Saint Ouen; Moret, Abbot of Preaux; and Theroude, Abbot of Mortemer.

Besides these there were many doctors and assessors from the University of Paris; among the latter lot appears the name of an English priest, William Haiton, a secretary of Henry VI. He and William Alnwick, Bishop of Norwich, Privy Seal to the English King, are the only two names belonging to the English clergy who took part in the trial. The Cardinal of Winchester never once appeared during the proceedings, although he was, together with Cauchon, the prime mover in the business. To complete the list of the other French clergy—French only by birth and nationality indeed—must be added the names of Chatillon, Archdeacon of Evreux; Erard, Canon of Langres, Laon, and Beauvais; Martin Ladvenu, a Dominican priest, one of the few who showed some humanity to the prisoner. It was Ladvenu who heard her confession on the day of her execution, and who after her death testified to her saintliness. Isambard de la Pierre, also a Dominican. Although he voted for her death, de la Pierre showed signs of pity and compassion for his victim, and assisted her at her last moments. Testimony to her pure character was given by him in the time of her rehabilitation. Besides these were Emenyart, Fiexvet, Guerdon, Le Fevre, Delachambre, and Tiphanie, all of whom, with the exception of the last two, who were doctors of medicine, were members of the University. As we have already stated, out of this vast crowd of ecclesiastics and a few laymen, only two Englishmen took part in the trial. But the immediate guard of the prisoner was composed of English soldiers—namely, of the following: John Gris, an English knight, one of Henry's bodyguard, who was in personal attendance on Joan of Arc; also John Berwoit (?) and William Talbot, subordinator to Gris. These men commanded a set of soldiers called houspilleurs, placed in the cell of the prisoner day and night. According to J. Bellow's pocket dictionary, the term houspilleur is derived from the old French term houspiller—Ang. 'to worry.' And these fellows certainly carried out that meaning of the word.

If anything is needed to prove what an important case the English and those allied to them in France considered that of Joan of Arc, the great number of prelates and doctors assembled to judge her is sufficient to show. The doctors who had been summoned to attend the trial, and who had come to Rouen from Paris, were well paid by Winchester. Some of the receipts are still in existence. The Inquisition and Cauchon also received pay from the English Government.

Besides money, as we have said, Cauchon expected also to receive the Archbishopric of Rouen for his zeal in bringing Joan of Arc to the stake. Cupidity, lust of place and power, and fear of the enemies of the French were the principal motives which influenced these men, whose names should for ever be execrated. In truth, a vulgar greed induced them to destroy one of the noblest creatures that had ever honoured humanity.

The proces-verbal and the minutes of the trial were written in Latin, and translated by Thomas de Courcelles; only a portion of the original translation has been preserved. There were three reporters who took notes during the trial—Manchon, Colles, and Taquel. The notes in Latin, written as the trial proceeded, were collected in the evenings, and translated into French by Manchon.

One difficult question arises—namely, are these notes to be relied on? Manchon appears to have been honest in his writing, but Cauchon was not to be trifled with in what he wished noted, as the following instance will show. A sheriff's officer, named Massieu, was overheard to say that Joan of Arc had done nothing worthy of the death sentence. It was repeated to Cauchon, who threatened to have Massieu drowned. When Isambert de la Pierre advised Joan to submit herself to the Council then holding meetings at Bale, to which she assented, Cauchon shouted out, 'In the devil's name hold your peace!' On being asked by Manchon whether the prisoner's wish to submit her case to the Council at Bale should be placed on the minutes of the trial, Cauchon roughly refused. Joan of Arc overhearing this, said, 'You write down what is against my interest, but not what is in my favour.' But we think the truth comes out, on the whole, pretty clearly; and we have in the answers of Joan to her judges, however much these answers may have been altered to suit Cauchon's views and ultimate object, a splendid proof of her presence of mind and courage. This she maintained day after day in the face of that crowd of enemies who left no stone unturned, no subtlety of law or superstition disused, to bring a charge of guilt against her.

No victory of arms that Joan of Arc might have accomplished, had her career continued one bright and unclouded success, could have shown in a grander way the greatness of her character than her answers and her bearing during the entire course of her examinations before her implacable enemies, her judicial murderers.

After holding some preliminary and private meetings, in which Cauchon, with some of the prelates, drew up a series of articles of indictment against the prisoner, the first public sitting of the tribunal took place in the chapel of the castle, in the same building in which Joan was imprisoned.

This was on the 21st of February, 1431. As we have said, from the day of her arrival in Rouen, at the end of December of the previous year, till this 21st day of February, Joan had been kept in an iron cage—a martyrdom of fifty days' daily and nightly torture. During the trial her confinement was less barbarous, but she was kept chained to a wooden bed, and the only wonder is that she did not succumb to this barbarous imprisonment. We shall see that she fell seriously ill, and the English at one time feared she would die a natural death, and defeat their object of having her exposed and destroyed as a witch and a heretic.

On the day before the meeting of the tribunal, Cauchon sent summonses for all the judges to attend. Joan of Arc had meanwhile made two demands, both of which were refused. One was, that an equal number of clergy belonging to the French party should form an equal number in the tribunal to those of the English faction. The other demand was that she should be allowed to hear Mass before appearing before the tribunal.

At eight in the morning of Wednesday, the 21st of February, Cauchon took his seat as presiding judge for the trial about to commence. Beneath him were ranged forty-three assessors—there were ninety-five assessors in all who took part in the trial. On the public days their numbers varied from between forty to sixty.

The prisoner was led into the chapel by the priest Massieu. Cauchon opened the proceedings with the following harangue:—

'This woman,' he said, pointing to Joan of Arc, 'this woman has been seized and apprehended some time back, in the territory of our diocese of Beauvais. Numerous acts injurious to the orthodox faith have been committed by her, not merely in our diocese, but in many other regions. The public voice which accuses her of such crimes has become known throughout Christendom, and quite recently the high and very Christian Prince, our lord the King, has delivered her up and given her in our custody in order that a trial in the cause of religion shall be made, as it seemeth right and proper. For as much in the eyes of public opinion, and owing to certain matters which have come to our knowledge'—(Cauchon here refers to the information that he sought to obtain from Domremy: as nothing could be learnt there but what redounded to Joan of Arc's credit, no further use was made of the information by the Bishop)—'we have, with the assistance of learned doctors in religious and civil law, called you together in order to examine the said Joan, in order that she be examined on matters relating to faith. Therefore,' he continued, 'we desire in this trial that you fill the duty of your office for the preservation and exaltation of the Catholic faith; and, with the Divine assistance of our Lord, we call upon you to expedite these proceedings for the welfare of your consciences, that you speak the plain and honest truth, without subterfuge or concealment, on all questions that will be made you touching the faith. And in the first place we call upon you to take the oath in the form prescribed. Swear, the hands placed on the Gospels, that you will answer the truth in the questions that will be asked you.'

The latter words the Bishop had addressed to Joan; who answered that she knew not on what Cauchon would question her. 'Perhaps,' she said, 'you will ask me things about which I cannot answer you.'

'Will you swear,' said Cauchon, 'to tell the truth respecting the things which will be asked you concerning the faith, and of which you are cognisant?'

'Of all things regarding my family, and what things I have done since coming into France, I will gladly answer; but, as regards the revelation which I have received from God, I have never revealed to any one, except to Charles my King, and I will never reveal these things, even if my head were to be cut off, because my voices have ordered me not to confide these things to any one save the King. But,' she continued, 'in eight days' time I shall know whether or not I may be allowed to tell you about them.'

Cauchon then repeated his question to the prisoner, namely, whether she would answer any questions put to her regarding matters of faith, and the Gospels were placed before her. The prisoner, kneeling, laid her hands upon them, and swore to speak the truth in what was asked her as regarded matters of faith.

'What is your name?' asked Cauchon.

J.—'In my home I was called Jeannette. Since I came to France I was called Joan. I have no surname.'

C.—'Where were you born?'

J.—'At Domremy, near Greux. The principal church is at Greux.'

C.—'What are your parents' names?'

J.—'My father's name is James d'Arc; my mother's, Isabella.'

C.—'Where were you baptized?'

J.—'At Domremy.'

Cauchon then asked her the names of her god-parents, who baptized her, her age (she was about nineteen), and what her education amounted to.

'I have learnt,' Joan said, in answer to the last question, 'from my mother the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Belief. All that I know has been taught me by my mother.'

Cauchon then called upon her to repeat the Lord's Prayer.

In trials for heresy the prisoners had to repeat this prayer before the judges. At the commencement of Joan of Arc's trial the crime of magic was brought against her, but as Cauchon completely failed to find any evidence for such a charge against his prisoner, he altered the charge of magic into one of heresy. It was probably supposed that a heretic would be unable to repeat the prayer and the creed, being under diabolic influence.

Joan of Arc then asked whether she might make her confession before the tribunal. Cauchon refused this request, but told her that he would send some one to whom she might confess. He then warned her that if she were to leave her prison she would be condemned as a heretic. Considering the way she was chained to her cell, it sounds strange that Cauchon should fear her flight.

'I have never,' the Maid said, 'given my promise not to attempt to escape if I can.'

'Have you anything to complain about?' asked the Bishop; and Joan then said how cruelly she was fastened by chains round her body and her feet. Probably, had she then promised not to escape from prison, this severity would have been relaxed, but Joan of Arc had not the spirit to stoop to her persecutors; she would not give her word not to get free if she could. 'The hope of escape is allowed to every prisoner,' she bravely said.

At the close of the sitting, John Gris, the English knight who had the chief charge over the prisoner, with the two soldiers Berwoit and Talbot, were called, and took an oath not to allow the prisoner to see any one without Cauchon's permission, and to strictly guard the prisoner. And with that the first day's trial ended.

Manchon, in his minutes on the day's proceedings, says that shouts and interruptions interfered with the reporters and their notes, and that Joan of Arc was repeatedly interrupted. Cauchon had placed some of his clerks behind the tapestry in the depth of a window of the chapel, whose duty it was to make a garbled copy of Joan of Arc's answers to suit the Bishop.

Possibly finding the chapel of the castle too small for the number of people present at the trial, the next meeting of the judges was held in a different place, more suitable—namely, in the great hall of the castle. That second day's trial took place on the 22nd of February. The tribunal consisted of Cauchon and forty-seven assessors.

Cauchon commenced the proceedings by introducing John Lemaitre, vicar of the Inquisition, to the judges, after which Joan was brought into the hall—a splendid chamber used on happier occasions for festivities and Court pageants.

Cauchon again commanded the prisoner to take the oath, as on the first day's trial. She said that she had already once sworn to speak nothing but the truth, and that that should suffice. Cauchon still insisted, and again Joan replied that as far as any question was put to her regarding faith and religion she had promised to answer, but that she could not promise more, and Cauchon failed to get anything more from her.

The Bishop then applied to one of the doctors of theology to examine and cross-question the prisoner. This man's name was Beaupere.

B.—'In the first place, Joan, I will exhort you to tell the truth, as you have sworn to do, on all that I may have to ask you.'

J.—'You may ask me questions on which I shall be able to answer you, and on others about which I cannot. If you were well informed about me you should wish me out of your power. All that I have done has been the work of revelation.'

B.—'How old were you when you left your home?'

J.—'I do not exactly know.'

B.—'Did you learn any trade at home?'

J.—'Yes, to sew and to spin, and for that I am not afraid to be matched by any woman in Rouen?'

B.—'Did you not once leave your father's house before you left it altogether?'

J.—'We left for fear of the Burgundians, and I once left my father's house and went to Neufchateau in Lorraine, to visit a woman named La Rousse, where I remained for fifteen days.'

B.—'What was your occupation when at home?'

J.—'When I was with my father I looked after the household affairs, and I went but seldom with the sheep and cattle to the fields.'

B.—'Did you make your confession every year?'

J.—'Yes, to my curate, and when he was prevented hearing it, to another priest, with my curate's permission. I think on two or three occasions I have confessed to mendicant friars. That happened at Neufchateau. I took the Communion at Easter.'

B.—'Have you received the Eucharist at other festivals besides that of Easter?'

Joan of Arc said that what she had already told regarding this question was sufficient.

'Passez outre' is the term she used, not an easy one to translate. Perhaps 'that will suffice' is like it.

Beaupere now began questioning Joan of Arc regarding 'her voices,' and one can imagine how eagerly this portion of the prisoner's examination must have been listened to by all present.

'When did you first hear the voices?' asked Beaupere.

'I was thirteen,' answered Joan, 'when I first heard a voice coming from God to help me to live well. That first time I was much alarmed. The voice came to me about mid-day; it was in the summer, and I was in my father's garden.'

'Had you been fasting?' asked Beaupere.

J.—'Yes, I had been fasting.'

B.—'Had you fasted on the day before?'

J.—'No, I had not.'

B.—'From what direction did the voices come?'

J.—'I heard the voice coming from my right—from towards the church.'

B.—'Was the voice accompanied with a bright light?'

J.—'Seldom did I hear it without seeing a bright light. The light came from the same side as did the voice, and it was generally very brilliant. When I came into France I often heard the voices very loud.'

B.—'How could you see the light when you say it was at the side?'

To this question Joan gave no direct answer, but she said that when she was in a wood she would hear the voices coming towards her.

'What,' next asked Beaupere, 'what did you think this voice which manifested itself to you sounded like?'

J.—'It seemed to me a very noble voice, and I think it was sent to me by God. When I heard it for the third time I recognised it as being the voice of an angel.'

B.—'Could you understand it?'

J.—'It was always quite clear, and I could easily understand it.'

B.—'What advice did it give you regarding the salvation of your soul?'

J.—'It told me to conduct myself well, and to attend the services of the Church regularly; and it told me that it was necessary that I should go to France.'

B.—'In what manner of form did the voice appear?'

J.—'As to that I will give you no answer.'

B.—'Did that voice solicit you often?'

J.—'It said to me two or three times a week, "Leave your village and go to France."'

B.—'Did your father know of your departure?'

J.—'He knew nothing about it. The voice said, "Go to France," so I could not remain at home any longer.'

B.—'What else did it say to you?'

J.—'It told me that I should raise the siege of Orleans.'

B.—'Was that all?'

J.—'The same voice told me to go to Vaucouleurs, to Robert de Baudricourt, captain of that place, and that he would give me soldiers to accompany me on my journey; and I answered it, that I was a poor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight.'

B.—'What did you do then?'

J.—'I went to my uncle, and told him that I wished to remain with him for some time, and I lived with him eight days. I then told him that I must go to Vaucouleurs, and he took me there. When I arrived there I recognised Robert de Baudricourt, although it was the first time that I saw him.'

B.—'How, then, did you recognise him?'

J.—'I knew him through my voices. They said to me, "This is the man," and I said to him, "I must go to France." Twice he refused to listen to me. The third time he received me. The voices had told me this would happen.'

B.—'Had you not some business with the Duke of Lorraine?'

J.—'The Duke ordered that I should be brought to him. I went and said to him, "I must go to France." The Duke asked me how he should recover his health. I told him I knew nothing about that.'

B.—'Did you speak much to him about your journey?'

J.—'I told him very little about it. But I asked him to allow his son, with some soldiers, to go to France with me, and that I should pray God to cure him. I had gone to him with a safe conduct. After leaving him I returned to Vaucouleurs.'

B.—'How were you dressed when you left Vaucouleurs?'

J.—'When I left Vaucouleurs I wore a man's dress. I had on a sword which Robert de Baudricourt had given me, without any other arms. I was accompanied by a knight, a squire, and four servants. We went to the town of Saint Urban, and I passed that night in the abbey. On the way, we passed through the town of Auxerre, where I attended mass in the principal church. At that time I heard my voices often, with that one of which I have already spoken.'

B.—'Tell me, now, by whose advice did you come to wear the dress of a man?'

Joan of Arc refused to answer, in spite of being repeatedly told to do so.

B.—'What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?'

J.—'He made them who went with me promise to take charge of me, and as I left he said, "Go, and let come what may!"' (Advienne que pourra!)

B.—'What do you know regarding the Duke of Orleans, now a prisoner in England?'

J.—'I know that God protects the Duke of Orleans, and I have had more revelations about the Duke than about any other person in the world, with the exception of the King.'

She was now again asked as to who it was who had advised her to wear male attire. She said it was necessary that she should dress in that manner.

'Did your voice tell you so?' was asked her.

'I believe my voice gave me good advice,' she answered.

B.—'What did you do on arriving at Orleans?'

J.—'I sent a letter to the English before Orleans. In it I told them to depart; a copy of this letter has been read to me here in Rouen. There are two or three sentences in that copy which were not in my letter. For instance, "Give back to the Maiden" should read, "Give back to the King." Also these words, "Troop for troop" and "Commander-in-chief," which were not in my letters.'

In this Joan of Arc was mistaken, M. Fabre points out in his Life of the Maid of Orleans, the text being the same both in the original and in the copy of the letter.

B.—'When at Chinon, could you see as often as you wished him you call your King?'

J.—'I used to go whenever I wished to see my King. When I arrived at the village of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois, I sent a messenger to Chinon to the King. We arrived about mid-day at Chinon, and lodged at an inn. After dinner I went to see the King at the castle.'

Either here Joan of Arc, or the reporter, which is more likely, makes a slip, as she did not see Charles till two days after her arrival at Chinon.

B.—'Who pointed out the King to you?'

J.—'When I entered the chamber I recognised the King from among all the others, my voices having revealed him to me. I told the King that I wished to go and make war on the English.'

B.—'When your voices revealed your King to you, were they accompanied by any light?'

Joan made no answer.

B.—'Did you see any angel above the figure of the King?'

'Spare me such questions,' pleaded Joan; but the Inquisitor was not to be so easily put off, and repeated the question again and again, until Joan said that the King had also seen visions and heard revelations.

'What were these revelations?' asked the priest.

This Joan refused to answer, and told Beaupere that he might, if he liked, send to Charles and ask him.

'Did you expect the King to see you?' then asked the priest.

Her answer was that the voice had promised her that the King would soon see her after her arrival.

'And why,' asked Beaupere, 'did he receive you?'

'Those on my side,' said Joan, 'knew well that I was sent by God; they have known and acknowledged that voice.'

'Who?' asked Beaupere.

'The King and others,' answered Joan, 'have heard the voices coming to me. Charles of Bourbon also, and two or three others.'

(The Charles of Bourbon was the Count of Clermont.)

'Did you often hear that voice?' asked the priest.

'Not a day passes that I do not hear it,' Joan replied.

'What do you ask of it?' inquired Beaupere.

'I have never,' answered Joan, 'asked for any recompense, except the salvation of my soul.'

'Did the voice always encourage you to follow the army?'

'The voice told me to remain at Saint Denis. I wished to remain, but against my will the knights obliged me to leave. I would have remained had I had my free-will.'

'When were you wounded?' asked Beaupere.

'I was wounded,' Joan answered, 'in the moat before Paris, having gone there from Saint Denis. At the end of five days I recovered.'

'What did you attempt to do against Paris?'

Joan answered that she had made one skirmish (escarmouche) in front of Paris.

'Was it on a feast day?' asked the priest.

'It was,' replied Joan. And on being asked if she considered it right to make an attack on such a day, she refused to answer.

It is plain that the gist of those questions made by Beaupere was to try and make Joan of Arc avow that her voices had given her evil counsel. On the following day the same tactics were pursued.

The third meeting of the tribunal was held on the 24th of February, in the same chamber. Sixty-two assessors were present. Again Cauchon commenced by admonishing Joan to tell the truth on all subjects asked her, and again she protested that as far as her revelations were concerned she could give no answers. On Cauchon insisting, she said, 'Take care what you, who are my judge, undertake, for you take a terrible responsibility on yourself, and you presume too far. It is enough,' she added, 'that I have already twice taken the oath.'

Upon her saying this, Cauchon lost all control, and he stormed and threatened her with instant condemnation if she refused to take the oath.

'All the clergy in Paris and Rouen could not condemn me,' was the proud answer, 'if they had not the right to do so.' But, as on the previous occasions, she said she would willingly answer all questions relating to her deeds since leaving her home, but that it would take many days for her to tell them all. Wearied with the persistence and threats of her arch-tormentor, Cauchon, Joan said that she had been sent by God and wished to return to God. 'I have nothing more to do here,' she added.

Beaupere was again ordered to cross-examine the prisoner.

He began by asking her when she had last eaten.

'Not since yesterday at mid-day,' she said. (It was then Lent.)

Beaupere then began again to question her regarding the voice. When had she last heard it?

'On the previous day,' Joan said, 'and also on that day too.'

'At what o'clock of the day before?'

Thrice she had heard the voice in the morning, and once at the hour of Vespers, and again when the Ave Maria was being sung.

'What were you doing,' asked Beaupere, 'when the voices called you?'

'I was sleeping,' answered Joan, 'and the voice awoke me.'

'Did it awake you by touching your arm?'

'The voice awoke me without its touching me.'

'Was it in your room?'

'Not that I know, but it was in the castle.'

'Did you acknowledge it by kneeling?'

'I acknowledged its presence by sitting up and clasping my hands. I had begged for its help.'

'And what did it say to you?'

'It told me to answer boldly.'

'Tell us more clearly what it said to you.'

'I asked its advice in what I should answer, and bade it ask the Saviour for counsel. And the voice said, "Answer boldly; God will help you."'

'Had it said anything to you before you interrupted it?'

'Some words it had said which I did not clearly comprehend; but when fully awake I understood it to tell me to answer boldly.' Then, emboldened as it seemed by the recollection of that voice, she turned to Cauchon and exclaimed, 'You, Bishop, you tell me that you are my judge—have a care how you act, for in truth I am sent by God, and your position is one of great peril.'

Then Beaupere broke in again, and asked Joan of Arc if the voice had ever altered its advice, and whether it had told Joan not to answer all the questions that would be put to her.

'I cannot answer you about that,' said Joan. 'I have revelations of matters concerning the King which I shall not reveal.'

The Maid then asked whether she might wait for fifteen days, in order that, by that time, she might know whether she might, or might not, answer questions relating to this point.

The priest then asked whether she knew that the voice came from God.

'Yes,' she answered, 'and by this order—that,' she continued, 'I believe as firmly as I believe the Christian religion, and that God has saved us from the pains of hell.'

She was then asked if the voice was that of a male or of a female.

'It is a voice sent by God,' she only deigned to say to this.

Joan again asked for an interval of fifteen days, in order that she might better be able in that time to know how much she might reveal to her judges relating to her voices.

On being asked whether she believed the Almighty would be displeased at her telling the whole truth, she said that she had been ordered by the voices to reveal certain things to the King, and not to her judges; that her voices had told her that very night many things for the good of the King which he alone was to know.

But, asked Beaupere, could she not prevail on the voices to visit the King?

'I know not if the voices would consent,' she answered.

'But why,' then asked Beaupere, 'does the voice not speak to the King now, as it did formerly, when you were with him?'

'I know not if it be the wish of God,' Joan answered: 'without the grace of God I should be able to do nothing.'

This remark, most innocent to our comprehension, was afterwards made use of as a weapon to accuse the prisoner of the charge of heresy.

Later on in the day Beaupere asked Joan if the voice had form and features. This the prisoner refused to answer.

'There is a saying among children,' she said, 'that one is sometimes hanged for speaking the truth.'

On being asked by Beaupere if she was sure of being in a state of grace—a question to which he had carefully led up, and whereby Cauchon hoped to entrap her into a statement which might be used in the accusation of heresy he was now framing against Joan of Arc—her answer even disarmed the Bishop.

'If I am not, may God place me in it; if I am already, may He keep me in it.'

When that test question had been put to the prisoner, one of the judges, guessing the object of its being made, expostulated, to Cauchon's rage—who roughly bade him hold his peace.

To that triumphant reply Joan of Arc added these words: 'If I am not in God's grace I should be the most unhappy being in the world, and I do not think, were I living in sin, that my voices would come to me. Would,' she cried, 'that every one could hear them as well as I do myself!'

Beaupere then asked her about her childhood, and when she had first heard the voices. Asked if there were many people at Domremy in favour of the Burgundians, she said she only knew of one individual. Then came a string of questions about the fairy-well, the haunted oak-tree. All these questions Joan fully answered. She had never, she said, seen a fairy, nor had she heard the prophecy about the oak wood from which a maid was to come and deliver France. When asked if she would leave off wearing man's clothes, she said she would not, as it was the will of Heaven for her to wear them.

The fourth day of the trial was the 27th of February. Fifty-three judges were present. The usual attempt to make Joan take the oath was made to the prisoner by Cauchon, and she was again cross-examined by Beaupere. Again questioned as to her voices, she said that without their permission she could not say what they said to her relating to the King.

Asked if the voices came to her direct from God, or through some intermediary channel, she answered, 'The voices are those of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret; they wear beautiful crowns—of this I may speak, for they allow me to do so.' If, she added, her words were doubted, they might send to Poitiers, where she had already been questioned on the same subject.

'How do you distinguish one from the other?' asked Beaupere.

'By the manner in which they salute me,' Joan answered.

'How long have they been in communication with you?'

'I have been under their protection seven years,' was the answer.

Joan had referred to the succour which she had received from Saint Michel. On being asked which of these saints was the first to appear to her, she said it was the last named. She had seen him, she said, as clearly as she saw Beaupere, and that he was not by himself, but in a company of angels. When he left her she felt miserable, and longed to have been taken with the flight of angels.

When Beaupere asked her if it was her own idea to come into France, Joan replied in the affirmative, and also that she would sooner have been torn to pieces by horses than have come without the will of God.

'Does He,' asked the priest, 'tell you not to wear the man's dress? and had not Baudricourt,' he added, 'wished she should dress as a man?'

She said it was not by man's but by God's orders that she wore the dress of a man.

The questions again turned upon the vision and the voice.

Had an angel appeared above the head of the King at Chinon?

She answered that when she entered the King's presence, three hundred soldiers stood in the hall, and fifty torches burnt in the great hall of the castle, and that without counting the spiritual light within.

She was then asked respecting her examination before the clergy at Poitiers.

'They believed,' Joan answered, 'that there was nothing in me against matters of religion.'

Then Beaupere asked the prisoner if she had visited Sainte Catherine de Fierbois.

'Yes,' she answered; 'I heard mass there twice in one day, on my way to Chinon.'

'How did you communicate your message to the King?'

'I sent a letter asking him if I might be allowed to see him. That I had come one hundred and fifty miles to bring him assistance, and that I had much to do for him. I think,' she added, 'that I also said I should know him amongst all those who might be present.'

'Did you then wear a sword?' asked Beaupere.

'I had one that I had taken at Vaucouleurs.'

'Had you not another one as well?'

'Yes; I had sent to the church of Fierbois, either from Troyes or Chinon, for a sword from the back of the altar of Sainte Catherine. It was found, much rusted.'

'How did you know there was a sword there?'

'Through my voices. I asked in a letter that the sword should be given me, and the clergy sent me it. It lay underground—I am not certain whether at the front or at the back of the altar. It was cleaned by the people belonging to the church. They had a scabbard made for me; also one was made at Tours—one of velvet, the other of black cloth. I had also a third one for the Fierbois sword made of very strong leather.'

'Were you wearing that sword,' asked Beaupere, 'when you were captured?'

'No, I had not one then; I used to wear it constantly up to the time that I left Saint Denis, after the assault on Paris.'

'What benediction did you bestow on that sword?'

'None,' said Joan; and she added, on being questioned as to her feeling about the sword, that she had a particular liking for it, from its having been found in the Church of Sainte Catherine, her favourite saint.

Then Beaupere inquired whether Joan was not in the habit of placing this sword on the altar, in order to bring it good luck.

Joan answered in the negative.

'But then,' the priest asked, 'had she not prayed that it might bring her good fortune?'

'It is enough to know,' answered Joan, 'that I wished my armour might bring me good fortune.'

'What had become of the Fierbois sword?' asked the priest.

'I offered up at Saint Denis,' answered Joan, 'a sword and some armour, but not the Fierbois sword.'

'Had you it when at Lagny?' asked Beaupere.

'Yes,' answered the prisoner.

But between the time passed at Lagny and Compiegne she wore another sword, taken from a Burgundian soldier, which she said was a good weapon, able to deal shrewd blows. But she would not satisfy Beaupere's curiosity as to what had become of the sword of Fierbois: 'That,' she said, 'has nothing to do with the trial.'

Beaupere next inquired as to what had become of Joan of Arc's goods.

She said her brother had her horses and her goods; she said she believed the latter amounted to some twelve thousand ecus.

'Had you not,' asked the priest, 'when you went to Orleans, a banner or pennon? Of what colour was that?'

'My banner had a field all covered with fleurs-de-lis. In it was represented the world, with angels on either side. It was white, made of white cloth, of a kind called coucassin. On it was written Jesu Maria. It was bordered with silk.'

'Which were you fondest of?' asked Beaupere,—'your banner or your sword?'

'I loved my banner,' was the answer, 'forty times as much as I did my sword.'

'Who painted your banner?'

This Joan would not say.

'Who bore your flag?' asked the priest.

Joan of Arc said she carried it herself when charging the enemy, 'in order,' she added, 'to avoid killing any one. I never killed any one,' she said.

'How many soldiers did the King give you,' asked the priest, 'when he gave you a command?'

'Between ten and twelve thousand men,' answered Joan.

Then Beaupere questioned her regarding the relief of Orleans, and he was told by the Maid that she first went to the redoubt of Saint Loup by the bridge.

'Did you expect,' was the next question, 'that you would be able to raise the siege?'

'Yes,' she was certain, Joan answered, from a revelation which she had received, and of which she had told the King before making the expedition.

'At the time of the assault,' asked Beaupere, 'did you not tell your soldiers that you alone would receive all the arrows, bolts, and stones discharged by the cannon and culverins?'

'No,' she answered, 'there were over a hundred wounded; but,' she added, 'I said to my people, "Be assured that you will raise the siege."'

'Were you wounded?' asked the priest.

'I was wounded,' Joan answered, 'at the assault of the fortress on the bridge. I was struck and wounded by an arrow or a dart; but I received much comfort from Saint Catherine, and I recovered in less than fifteen days. I recovered, and in spite of the wound I did not give up riding or working.'

'Did you know beforehand that you would be wounded?' asked Beaupere.

'Yes,' was the answer; 'and I had told my King I should be wounded. My saints had told me of it.'

'In what manner were you wounded?' he asked.

'I was,' she answered, 'the first to raise a ladder against the fortress at the bridge. While raising the ladder I was struck by the bolt.'

'Why,' now asked the priest, 'did you not come to terms with the English captains at Jargeau?'

'The knights about me,' she answered, 'told the English that they could not have a truce of fifteen days, which they wanted; but that they and their horses must leave the place at once.'

'And what did you say?'

'I told them that if they left the place with their side arms (petites cottes) their lives would be spared. If not, that Jargeau would be stormed.'

'Had you then consulted your voices to know whether you should accord them that delay or not?'

Joan did not remember.

Here closed the fourth day's trial.

The fifth day of the trial took place on the 1st of March. Fifty-eight judges were present.

The opening proceedings were the same as on the former occasions, and Joan of Arc again professed her willingness to answer all questions put to her regarding her deeds as readily as if she were in the presence of the Pope of Rome himself; but, as formerly, she gave no promise of revealing what her voices had told her.

Beaupere caught immediately at the opportunity of her having spoken of the Pope to lay a pitfall in her path: Which Pope did she believe the authentic one—he at Avignon or the one in Rome?

'Are there two?' she asked. This was an awkward question to those bishops and doctors of the faith who had for so long a time encouraged the schism in the Church.

Beaupere evaded the question, and asked her if it were true that she had received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking her which of the two Popes he was bound to obey.

A copy of this letter was produced, as well as the one sent by Joan of Arc in reply.

When she sent her answer, the Maid said, she was about to mount her horse, and had told him she would be able better to answer his question when at rest in Paris or elsewhere. The copy of her letter which was now read, Joan said, did not quite agree with that she had sent to Armagnac.

'She had not,' Joan added, 'said in her letter that what she knew was by the inspiration of Heaven.'

Again pressed as to which of the two Popes she believed the true one, she said that the one then in Rome was to her that one.

Questioned regarding her letter to the English before Orleans, she acknowledged the accurateness of the copy produced, with the exception of a slight mistake. She retracted nothing regarding this letter, and declared that the English would, ere seven years were passed from that time, give a more striking proof of their loss of power in France than that which they had shown before Orleans. This prediction was literally carried out when, in 1436, Paris opened its gates to Charles VII., the loss of the capital being shortly after followed by the loss of all the other English conquests, with the exception of the town of Calais—the gains of a century of war being snatched from them in a score of years.

'They will meet,' said Joan of Arc, 'with greater reverses than have yet befallen them.'

When she was asked what made her speak thus, she answered that these things had been revealed to her. The examination again turned upon her voices and apparitions.

'Do they always appear to you in the same dress? Always in the same form, and richly crowned?'

Similar foolish questions were then put to her. Had the saints long hair? She did not know. And what language did they converse in with her?

'Their language,' she replied, 'is good and beautiful.'

'What sort of voices were theirs?'

'They speak to me in soft and beautiful French voices,' she said.

'Does not Saint Margaret speak in English?'

'How should she,' was the answer, 'when she is not on the side of the English?'

'Do they wear ear-rings?'

This Joan could not say; but the idiotic question reminded the prisoner that Cauchon had taken a ring from her. She had worn two—one had been taken by the Burgundians when she was captured, the other by the Bishop. The former had been given her by her parents, the latter by one of her brothers. This ring she asked Cauchon to give the Church.

'Had she not,' she was asked, 'made use of these rings to heal the sick?'

She had never done so.

It is very easy throughout all these questionings to see how eager Cauchon and the other judges were to find some acknowledgment from the lips of Joan of Arc, upon which they could found a charge of heresy against her. Her visions were distorted by them into a proof of infernal agency; even the harmless superstitions of her village home did not escape being turned into idolatrous and infernal matters of belief.

Had not her saints, questioned the Bishop, appeared to her beneath the haunted oak of Domremy?—and what had they promised her besides the re-establishment of Charles upon the throne?

'They promised,' she answered, 'to take me with them to Paradise, which I had prayed them to do.'

'Nothing more?' queried Cauchon.

'If they made me another promise,' Joan replied, 'I am not at liberty to say what that promise is till three months are past.'

'Did they say that you would be free in three months' time?'

That question remained unanswered, but before those three months had passed, the heroine had been delivered by death from all earthly sufferings.

She was again minutely questioned regarding the superstitions of her country. Was there not growing there a certain fabulous plant, called Mandragora? Joan of Arc knew nothing regarding such a plant—had never seen it, and did not know the use of it. Again the apparitions were brought forward.

'What was Saint Michel like? Was he clothed?'

'Do you think,' was the answer to this question, which could only have occurred to a foul-minded priest, 'do you think that God cannot clothe him?'

Other absurd questions followed—as to his hair; long or short? Had he a pair of scales with him? As before, Joan of Arc answered these futile, and sometimes indecent, questions with her wonderful patience. At one moment she could not help exclaiming how supremely happy the sight of her saints made her; it seemed as if a sudden vision of her beloved saints had been vouchsafed her in the midst of that crowd of persecuting priests.

She was again told to tell what the sign or secret was which she had revealed to the King on first seeing him at Chinon; but about this she was firm as adamant, and refused to give any information. To reveal that sign or secret would, she felt, be not only a breach of confidence and disloyalty between her and her King, but a crime to divulge a sacred secret, which Charles kept sealed in his breast, and which she was determined to utter to no one, and least of all to his enemies.

'I have already said,' she told her judges, 'that you will have nothing from me about that. Go and ask the King!'

Then followed questions as to the fashion of the crown that the King had worn at Rheims: which brought the fifth day of the trial to a close.

The sixth and last day's public examination took place on the 3rd of March, forty-two judges present. The long series of questions were nearly all relating to the appearance of the saints. Both questions and answers were nearly the same as on the previous occasions, and little more information was got from the prisoner.

After these, the subject of her dress—what she then wore, and what she had worn—was entered upon.

'When you came to the King,' she was asked, 'did he not inquire if your change in dress was owing to a revelation or not?'

'I have already answered,' said Joan, 'that I do not remember if he asked me. This evidence was made known when I was at Poitiers.'

'And the doctors who examined you,' asked Beaupere, 'at Poitiers, did they not want to know regarding your being dressed in man's clothes?'

'I don't remember,' she answered; 'but they asked me when I had first begun to wear man's dress, and I told them that it was when I was at Vaucouleurs.'

She was then asked whether the Queen had not asked her to leave off wearing male clothes. She answered that that had nothing to do with the trial.

'But,' next inquired Beaupere, 'when you were at the castle of Beaurevoir, did not the ladies there ask you to do so?'

'Yes,' was the answer, 'and they offered to give me a woman's dress. But the time had not yet come.' She would, she added, have yielded sooner to the wishes of those ladies than to those of any other, the Queen excepted.

The subject of the flags and banners used by her during her campaigns was now entered on.

Had her standards not been copied by the men-at-arms?

'They did so at their pleasures,' she answered.

'Of what material was the banner made? If the poles were broken, were they renewed?'

'They were,' she answered, 'when broken.'

'Did you not,' asked Beaupere, 'say that the flags made like your banners were of good augury?'

'What I said,' answered Joan, 'to my soldiers was, that they should attack the enemy with boldness.'

'Did you not sprinkle holy water on the banners?'

To this question Joan refused to answer.

Next she was questioned about a certain Friar Richard, the preaching friar who had seen her at Troyes. She answered that he came to her making the sign of the Cross, and that she told him to come up to her without fear.

She was asked if it was true that she had pictures painted of herself in the likeness of a saint.

'When at Arras,' she answered, 'she had seen a portrait of herself, in which she was represented kneeling before the King and presenting him with a letter.'

'But was there not a picture of you,' asked Beaupere, 'in your host's house at Orleans?'

Joan of Arc knew nothing regarding such a picture.

'Did you not know,' was the next question put, 'that your partisans had prayers and masses said in your honour?'

'If they did so,' she answered, 'it was not by my wish; but if they prayed for me,' she added, 'there was no harm in so doing.'

She was then asked what her opinion was regarding the people who kissed her hands and her feet, and even her clothes. She answered that, inasmuch as she could, she prevented them doing so; but she acknowledged that the poor people flocked eagerly around her, and that she gave them all the assistance in her power.

She was next asked if she had not stood sponsor to some children baptized at Rheims.

'Not at Rheims,' she said; but she had for one child at Troyes. She had also stood sponsor for two children at Saint Denis, and she had gladly had the boy christened by the name of Charles in honour of the King, and the girl Joan, as it pleased their mothers.

'Did the women not touch your rings and charms?'

'Many,' she answered, 'were wont to touch both my hands and my rings; but I know not with what intention.'

'Did she not receive the sacrament and confess herself as she passed through the country?'

'Often,' she answered.

'And did you,' asked the priest, 'receive the sacrament in your male attire?'

'Yes,' she said; 'but not, if I recollect right, when wearing my armour.'

This confession of having received the Eucharist in her male dress was made one of the accusations of sacrilege by Joan of Arc's judges.

She was next questioned about a horse she had bought from the Bishop of Senlis, and ridden in battle.

The next point related to the supposed miraculous resurrection—a very temporary one however—of an infant three days old at Lagny. When Joan was in that place, this child appeared to have died, and was put before the image of the Virgin, in front of which some young women were kneeling. Joan of Arc joined them in their prayers, upon which it was noticed that the supposed dead infant gave some signs of life; he or she was baptized, and soon after expired. Joan of Arc had never for a moment supposed that it was owing to her presence and her prayers that this miracle had occurred.

'But,' asked Beaupere, 'was it not the common talk of the town of Lagny that you had performed this miracle, and had been the means of restoring the infant to life?'

'I did not inquire,' she said.

She was then asked about the woman, Catherine de la Rochelle, whom, it may be remembered, Joan had discovered to be a vulgar impostor, and whom she had tried to dissuade from making people believe that she could discover hidden treasures, advising her to return to her husband and her children.

Next she was asked why she had tried to escape from her prison tower at Beaurevoir. She said that she had made the attempt, although against the warning of her voices, which had counselled her to have patience—but that Saint Catherine had comforted her after her fall from the tower, telling her that she would recover, and also that Compiegne would not be taken.

It was tried to prove that in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy she intended committing suicide. To this accusation she answered:—

'I have already said that I would sooner give up my soul into God's keeping, than fall into the hands of the English.'

And with this ended the sixth and last public day of the heroine's trial.

Joan of Arc's judges had found nothing to attach guilt to her in any of her replies; but as she had been condemned before the farce was enacted of trying her, her innocence could not save her life. As Michelet observes, Joan of Arc's answers may have had some effect in touching the hearts of even such men as were her judges; and it was perhaps on this account that Cauchon thought it more prudent to continue holding the trial with only a few, and those few picked men, of whose sympathies, characters, and feelings he was sure. The Bishop's ostensible reason in having the trial henceforth carried on in private was in order 'not to tire the others.' A most thoughtful and tender-hearted Bishop! The details of the trial were now placed in the hands of two judges and two witnesses. Cauchon now felt he had a free hand. On the 12th of March he had obtained the permission of the Grand Inquisitor of the Holy Office in France to make use of the services of his Vicar-General—his name, as has already been said, was John Lemaitre.

The first of the long series of secret interrogations was held in Joan of Arc's prison—probably in the principal tower—on the 10th of March.

John de la Fontaine questioned the prisoner as follows:—

'When you went to Compiegne from which place did you start?'

'From Crespy-en-Valois.'

'When you arrived at Compiegne did many days elapse before you made the sortie?'

'I arrived secretly at an early hour of the morning, and entered the town so that the enemy could not be aware of my arrival, and the same day, in the evening, I made the sortie in which I was captured.'

'Were the bells of the church rung on the occasion of your arrival?'

'If they were, it was not by my command. I had not given it a thought.'

'Did you not order them to be rung?'

'I have no recollection of having done so.'

'Did you make the sortie by the command of your voices?'

'Last Easter, when in the trenches of Melun, the voices of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret told me I should be taken prisoner before St. John's Day; but that I was to keep a brave heart, and take all that befell me with patience, and that in the end God would come to my aid.'

'Since then, did your voices tell you that you would be taken?'

'Yes, often; nearly every day; and I implored my voices that when I was taken I might then die, and not suffer a long imprisonment: and the voices said, "Be without fear, for these things must happen." But they did not tell me the time when I should be taken, for had I known that I should not have made that sortie.'

'Did you not question them about the time in which you would be taken?'

'I often inquired; but they never told me.'

'Did your voices cause you to make that sortie, and not tell you the manner by which you would be captured?'

'Had I known the hour of my capture I should not have gone out voluntarily; but had my voices ordered me to go and I had known, then would I have gone all the same, whatever might have happened.'

'When you made the sally did you pass over the bridge at Compiegne?'

'I passed over the bridge and along the redoubt; and I charged with my soldiers against John de Luxembourg's men. Twice were they driven back as far as the quarters of the Burgundians; the third time half as far. While so engaged the English arrived, and cut off our communications. While returning towards the bridge, I was taken in the meadows on the side nearest to Picardy.'

'Upon your banner, the one you carried, was not a picture painted representing the world and two angels? What was the significance of that?'

'My saints told me to carry that banner boldly.'

'Did you not also bear arms and a shield?'

'Not I; but the King gave my brothers a coat-of-arms; a shield with a blue ground, on which were two fleurs-de-lis of gold, and a sword between.'

'Did you make a present to your brothers of those arms?'

'They were given my brothers by the King, without any request made by me.'

'What kind of horse were you riding when you were captured?'

'I was mounted on a demi-coursier.'

'Who had given you that horse?'

'My King,' answered Joan of Arc; and she went on to tell them how she had had fine horses purchased by the King for her use; she also gave them an account of her few possessions.

There is, indeed, so much repetition in the questions and answers during these long examinations, that it would be a weariness to the reader did one minutely re-write them as they appear in the chronicle. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the principal and most important facts and statements which bear most prominently on our heroine's career, and on the answers most characteristic made by her.

The remainder of that first day's trial in the prison consisted nearly entirely of trying to elicit from Joan of Arc what was the special sign or secret that she had revealed to the King at Chinon. She, however, gave them no further information than in saying that the sign was a beautiful and honoured mark of Divine favour. For hours she was urged to tell of what this special sign or token consisted—whether of precious stones, gold, or silver. Joan, who apparently was wearied out by the pertinacity of her inquisitors, seems to have allowed herself to mix with the reality the fabulous, and described that an angel had appeared to Charles bringing him a crown of matchless beauty. She seems, poor creature, half dazed and bewildered by her sufferings and her tormentors, to have mixed up in her mind and in her replies the actual event of the King's coronation at Rheims with her angelic visions and voices; for to her one must have appeared as real and actual as the other.

Nine examinations in the prison tower of Rouen were undergone by Joan of Arc:—Once on the 10th of March; twice on the 12th, and again on the 13th; twice on the 14th; again on the 15th; and twice more on the 17th. In all these successive trials, nothing of importance was obtained by the judges from the prisoner. Both answers and questions were similar to those which have already been recorded during the days of her examinations in public. Throughout all this trying process of a week's long and minute cross-questioning, the heroine maintained the same firmness, and answered with the same simple dignity as on the former occasions. Two of her answers may be justly called sublime. When during the course of the seventh day's trial, she was asked what doctrine Saint Michel had inspired her with, she answered:—

'The pity that I have for the Kingdom of France!'

And again, when at the close of the last day's examination she was asked why she had taken such special care that her banner should be carried and held near the King during the ceremony of the coronation, she answered:—

'If it had been in the travail it was right that it should be in the place of greatest honour.' ('Il avait ete a la peine; c'etait bien raison qu'il fut a l'honneur!')

Glorious words, worthy of her who spoke them! They bear with them an heroic ring, and reveal by one sublime expression the very soul and spirit of Joan of Arc!

Little as the secret interrogations had revealed to Joan of Arc's examiners regarding the mysterious sign they were so eager to wrest from her, Cauchon had succeeded in inveigling his victim into making statements he considered could be used in a charge of heresy against her.

When bidden to say if she would be ready to submit herself regarding all her actions to the determination of the Church, she answered that she loved the Church, and was ready to obey its doctrines as far as lay in her power; and on being asked to which Church she alluded, whether to the Church Militant or to the Church Triumphant, she replied, 'I have been sent to France by God and the Virgin Mary, and by the saints of the Church Victorious from above, and to that Church I submit myself, and all that I have done or may have to do!'

This answer did not satisfy Cauchon, and he again inquired to which Church she submitted; but Joan had already answered, and would say no more—and on this Cauchon fixed his accusation of heresy against the heroine. Having failed throughout the trial to get Joan to say anything incriminating regarding Charles VII. or anything which might tend to injure him in the minds of his subjects, Cauchon had Joan questioned as to what she thought respecting the murder of the Duke of Orleans by Charles.

'It was a great misfortune for the kingdom of France,' was her answer.

Could the wariest statesman have better parried that question? Not on one single occasion during the long series of questions that Joan of Arc was made to undergo, without any counsel or help, and with some of the subtlest brains in the country eager to involve her in damaging statements and to entangle her in saying something which might be taken up as injurious to Charles—that mean prince, who made so much by her devotion to him and his cause, and in return for that devotion had not taken a step towards attempting her deliverance—not at any time did she drop one word or let an expression escape her which could cause any uneasiness to the King, who had proved himself so utterly unworthy of such a subject, or to the men about the King's person, some of whom, if not actually guilty of having given her over to her enemies, at any rate had allowed her to be kept during all those long months a close prisoner, without protest or any sign of sympathy.

When the judges asked Joan if she were as willing to answer the questions put to her, standing in the presence of the Pope, as she had done in the presence of the Bishop of Beauvais, she replied that she would willingly do so. The idea of referring her case to the Pope was not at all what Cauchon wished to enter her mind; and when he found that John de la Fontaine and two monks had visited the prisoner and advised her to submit herself to Rome, he was furious, and threatened them with condign punishment. They only escaped the Bishop's anger by taking flight from Rouen. It was not too soon for Cauchon's object that the trial was now conducted with closed doors. Joan of Arc's courage, firmness, and simplicity, accompanied by her transparent truth and pure fervent belief in her mission, impressed even her judges—and much more so those who had attended the public days of her trial as spectators. Now and again, after one of her straightforward and brave answers, which would expose and lay bare the malicious intention of the question, voices were heard to say in the great hall, 'Well spoken, Joan!' and an English knight was overheard to declare that, for his part, he regretted that such a courageous maid had not been born an Englishwoman. A reaction in favour of the heroine might have set in, and, as we have already said, it was for fear of this that Cauchon caused the trial in future to be held in private. It is clear from the previous narrative that the prisoner had no one to advise her, no one to support her. At the commencement of the trial she asked to be allowed counsel, but Cauchon refused this most just demand. Among the crowd of doctors and clergy it was impossible but that, now and again, some feeling of interest, even of sympathy, should gain a few of these men, who, in spite of their education and surroundings, were human beings after all. But whenever such feeling was shown, Cauchon, ever on the watch, sternly repressed its manifestation. The name of Isambard de la Pierre should be remembered for good; for he, although one of the creatures of the detestable Inquisition, showed humanity to Cauchon's victim. During the examinations it was the wont of Isambard to place himself as near as possible to Joan of Arc, and by nudging her, or by some sign, he attempted to help her and advise her in her answers to the questions of the judges. Cauchon's evil eye, however, at length detected Isambard's conduct, and he informed Warwick of it. Soon after, Isambard was confronted by Warwick, and the latter, with many abusive words, threatened to have him drowned in the Seine if he dared assist Joan of Arc.

Though the Maid's treatment in the dungeon of the castle was not, after the beginning of the trial, so barbarous as in the first days after her arrival at Rouen, when she was treated like a caged wild animal, the poor prisoner was watched day and night by three soldiers, who, one must fear, outraged every sense of humanity in their treatment of Joan. The very term houspiller proves that they were set apart to embitter the prisoner's already too cruel state. Although Joan of Arc never herself disclosed the abominable fact, the reason for retaining and continuing to wear her male dress was that it served her as a protection from these ruffians. Chained to a heavy wooden beam, her sufferings must have been at times almost beyond endurance; but in this long torture, which was only to terminate in the flaming death, her wonderful constancy and heaven-inspired spirit never failed. Had she given way to a kind of despair, as happened shortly before her final release—for only a few moments indeed—her jailers would not have neglected to record such weakness as a sign that her heavenly agencies had failed, if not forsaken her utterly. What appears to have constituted the greatest privation to Joan of Arc during her imprisonment was not being allowed the consolation of receiving the rites of the religion she so fervently believed. During the days on which the public examinations were held in the hall of the castle, she was wont to be led from her dungeon by a passage leading to the place of judgment: the castle chapel was passed in traversing this passage. One day while going by the chapel door she asked one of the sheriffs, Massieu, whether the Eucharist was then exposed within the chapel, and, if so, whether she might be permitted to kneel before the entrance. The man was humane enough to allow her to do so, but this coming to the knowledge of one of Cauchon's familiars, the sheriff was told if he allowed the prisoner again to kneel before the chapel door that he would be thrown into prison—'and,' added Cauchon, 'in a prison where no light of sun or moon should appear!'