the droop vanished from her form and it straightened up soldierly
and noble, my heart leaped for joy; and I said, all is well, all is
well–they have not broken her, they have not conquered her, she is
Joan of Arc still! Yes, it was plain to me now that there was one
spirit there which this dreaded judge could not quell nor make
afraid.
She moved to her place and mounted the dais and seated herself
upon her bench, gathering her chains into her lap and nestling her
little white hands there. Then she waited in tranquil dignity, the
only person there who seemed unmoved and unexcited. A bronzed
and brawny English soldier, standing at martial ease in the front
rank of the citizen spectators, did now most gallantly and
respectfully put up his great hand and give her the military salute;
and she, smiling friendly, put up hers and returned it; whereat
there was a sympathetic little break of applause, which the judge
sternly silence.
Now the memorable inquisition called in history the Great Trial
began. Fifty experts against a novice, and no one to help the
novice!
The judge summarized the circumstances of the case and the
public reports and suspicions upon which it was based; then he
required Joan to kneel and make oath that she would answer with
exact truthfulness to all questions asked her.
Joan’s mind was not asleep. It suspected that dangerous
possibilities might lie hidden under this apparently fair and
reasonable demand. She answered with the simplicity which so
often spoiled the enemy’s best-laid plans in the trial at Poitiers, and
said:
“No; for I do not know what you are going to ask me; you might
ask of me things which I would not tell you.”
This incensed the Court, and brought out a brisk flurry of angry
exclamations. Joan was not disturbed. Cauchon raised his voice
and began to speak in the midst of this noise, but he was so angry
that he could hardly get his words out. He said:
“With the divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite
these proceedings for the welfare of your conscience. Swear, with
your hands upon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the
questions which shall be asked you!” and he brought down his fat
hand with a crash upon his official table.
Joan said, with composure:
“As concerning my father and mother, and the faith, and what
things I have done since my coming into France, I will gladly
answer; but as regards the revelations which I have received from
God, my Voices have forbidden me to confide them to any save
my King–”
Here there was another angry outburst of threats and expletives,
and much movement and confusion; so she had to stop, and wait
for the noise to subside; then her waxen face flushed a little and
she straightened up and fixed her eye on the judge, and finished
her sentence in a voice that had the old ring to it:
–“and I will never reveal these things though you cut my head
off!”
Well, maybe you know what a deliberative body of Frenchmen is
like. The judge and half the court were on their feet in a moment,
and all shaking their fists at the prisoner, and all storming and
vituperating at once, so that you could hardly hear yourself think.
They kept this up several minutes; and because Joan sat untroubled
and indifferent they grew madder and noisier all the time. Once
she said, with a fleeting trace of the old-time mischief in her eye
and manner:
“Prithee, speak one at a time, fair lords, then I will answer all of
you.”
At the end of three whole hours of furious debating over the oath,
the situation had not changed a jot. The Bishop was still requiring
an unmodified oath, Joan was refusing for the twentieth time to
take any except the one which she had herself proposed. There was
a physical change apparent, but it was confined to the court and
judge; they were hoarse, droopy, exhausted by their long frenzy,
and had a sort of haggard look in their faces, poor men, whereas