At another time she was asked if she had ever been present when English blood

was shed.

“In God’s name, yes. How mildly you talk! Why did they not leave France and

go back to their own country?”

Thereupon a great English lord cried out: “She is a brave girl! If only she were English!”

These public hearings lasted six days, through long weary hours, filled with tiresome repetitions, and hidden stratagems to catch her unawares. But there had been little progress made, so Cauchon brought them to an abrupt close. It was high time. As at Poictiers Jeanne’s compelling personality was beginning to make itself felt. There was a visible softening toward her, and one or two of the judges tried to give her warnings or to aid her by whispered suggestions.

In the streets men were whispering that the judges were “persecuting her out of perverse vengeance, of which they gave every sign; that she was kept in a secular prison against the opinion of the court for fear of displeasing the English; that the English believed that they could have neither glory nor success while

she lived.”

There was passing through Rouen one Jean de Lohier, who boldly declared that

the trial was not valid. (1) It was held in a castle, where men were not at liberty to give their free and full opinions. (2) The honour of the King of France was impeached; he was a party in the suit, yet he did not appear, and had no representative. (3) The “libel,” or accusation, had not been given to the Maid, and she had no counsel; she was a simple girl, tried in deep matters of faith. To Manchon, the clerk, he said: “You see how they are going on! They will catch her in her words, as when she says, ‘I know for certain that I touched the apparitions.’ If she said, ‘so it seemed to me,’ I think no man could condemn her.”

Cauchon was very angry when these words came to him, and Lohier had to fly

the country. It was quite time proceedings were changed. The Bishop, therefore, chose certain doctors, saying that he would not “fatigue all and each of the masters who at this moment assist us in such great numbers.” He told the others that they should be kept informed of the evidence, which they might study at their leisure, and expressly forbade them to leave Rouen before the end of the trial. Then with his chosen henchmen he proceeded to make the inquiry a private one.

So Jeanne was deprived of even the brief respite which the change from cell to

court afforded. The examinations were chiefly repetitions of the interrogations of the public ones, though both questions and answers were fuller and freer, but were in consequence fatiguing and more trying.

Asked one day what she meant when she said that Monseigneur Beauvais put himself in danger by bringing her to trial, she answered that what she had said to Monseigneur Beauvais was:

“You say that you are my judge. I know not whether you are so; but take care that you judge well, or you will put yourself in great danger. I warn you, so that if our Lord should chastise you for it, I may have done my duty in warning you.”

“What is the danger that may befall him?”

“I know not. My Voices have told me that I shall be delivered by a great victory.” Her thin face was filled with sudden radiance. “It may be that judgment may come upon him then. And they add: ‘Be resigned; have no care for your martyrdom; you will come in the end to the Kingdom of Paradise.’ They have told me this simply, absolutely, and without fail. I do not know if I shall have greater suffering to bear; for that I refer me to God.”

It was very plain that the maiden expected to be rescued. “Delivered by a great victory” could mean but one thing to one so young as she; so day after day she

answered their questions in the manner of one who is waiting expectantly for some great good to happen.

As the time passed without bringing either rescue, or help of any sort from her friends Jeanne uttered no word that could discredit or reproach them. There was never such loyalty as hers to her King and her party. A monk, Brother Isambard, was moved one day to give her some advice about submitting to the General Council of Basle, the Congregation of the Universal Church and of Christendom,

wherein were men of all parties. Jeanne heard of it gladly.

“Oh! If in that place there are any of our side, I am quite willing to submit to the Council of Basle,” she cried.

“Hold your tongue, in the devil’s name,” shouted Cauchon to Isambard. Turning

to Manchon, the clerk, he continued angrily: “Make no note of that answer.” But Jeanne protested:

“You write what is against me, but not what is in my favor.” Manchon had already written, “And she appeals––” He dared write no more.

In the afternoon Isambard, Brother Guillaume Duval and Jean de la Fontaine, three men who honestly wished to aid the Maid, went to the prison to give her

further advice, when Warwick intercepted them.

“If any of you take the trouble to deliver her and to advise her for her good, I will have you thrown into the Seine,” he told them.

And Brother Isambard thereafter kept silence in fear of his life, while Brother Duval fled to his convent of St. Jacques, and appeared no more. The private examinations came to an end the day before Passion Sunday, and Cauchon called

a meeting of the assessors to consider the evidence and decide upon further action. D’Estivet, his secretary, was instructed to make a digest of the proceedings which should form an act of accusation to be submitted to the assessors. The Bishop meantime visited Jeanne, offering his ultimatum:

If she consented to wear woman’s dress, she might hear mass, as she had so often desired, but not otherwise. To which Jeanne sorrowfully replied; that she would have done so before now if she could; but that it was not in her power to do so. It was for the sake of her womanhood that she retained man’s attire.

In Holy Week her troubles began again. Early Tuesday morning of that week Massieu, the usher of the court, appeared in the cell, removed her fetters, and

conducted her to the room at the end of the great hall where the court was held before. All the assessors were present, for Cauchon had sent out a general summons for them. The case was opened, and Cauchon made a prefatory speech

in which he told her how merciful were her judges, who had no wish to punish,

but rather to instruct and lead her in the right way. And now, at this late stage in the proceedings, he offered her the privilege of having as counsel one or more of the learned doctors present.

Jeanne answered him courteously:

“In the first place, concerning my good and our faith, I thank you and all the company. As for the counsellor you offer me, I thank you also, but I have no need to depart from our Lord as my counsellor.”

Thomas de Courcelles, a young doctor of the University, now began to read the

charges against her. The accusations were mostly frivolous, and some were unjust. It was charged that she had received no religious training; that she had worn mandrakes; that she dressed in man’s attire; that she had bewitched her banner and her ring (this was the poor little ring of base metal which her father and mother had given her so long before); that she believed her apparitions were saints and angels; that she had blasphemed; and other charges to the number of

seventy. After each one the young doctor paused to ask?

“What have you to say to this article?”

And Jeanne would reply as she could, referring all her acts to the judgment of God. It mattered little how she replied; she was foredoomed by these men. For

Jeanne D’Arc was guilty of one thing: she had deeply wounded the English pride. That was her crime. She was a girl, but she had frightened them, had driven them half the length of France, taken them in their fortresses, and conquered them in the field. That was her crime, and it was intolerable. Nothing but burning her alive could satisfy the vengeance of pride so mortified.

This re-examination took several days, and then Jeanne was sent back to her cell, but not to peace. While the seventy articles and the substance of her replies were being reduced to twelve articles by Cauchon and a few picked men, she was admonished “gently and charitably” in her cell, in order to lead her back into the way of truth and to a sincere profession of the faith.

Jeanne fell ill under the strain. Even her magnificent endurance broke under the burden. She was ill with nausea and fever, and Warwick sent immediately for several medical men who were among the judges.

“Do your best for her,” he urged. “My King would on no account have her die a natural death. He bought her dear, and holds her dear, and she shall die by the law, and be burned.”

Thereupon D’Estivet, Cauchon’s secretary, escorted the leeches to the prison where, weak and in chains, Jeanne lay upon her bed.

“I have eaten a fish that was sent me by the Bishop of Beauvais,” she told them when the doctors inquired what caused the indisposition. “I doubt not that this is the cause of my illness.”

“You shameful woman,” shouted D’Estivet. “You have been eating herring, and