under that tree?”
“I do not know.”
“Or by the fountain near the tree?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“What promises did they make you?”
“None but such as they had God’s warrant for.”
“But what promises did they make?”
“That is not in your procЉs; yet I will say this much: they told me
that the King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his
enemies.”
“And what else?”
There was a pause; then she said humbly:
“They promised to lead me to Paradise.”
If faces do really betray what is passing in men’s minds, a fear
came upon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a
chosen servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her
death. The interest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased:
the stillness became almost painful.
Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the
questions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the
questioner very often already knew his fact before he asked his
question? Have you noticed that somehow or other the questioners
usually knew just how and were to search for Joan’s secrets; that
they really knew the bulk of her privacies–a fact not suspected by
her–and that they had no task before them but to trick her into
exposing those secrets?
Do you rememberLoyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest,
tool of Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of
the confessional joan freely and trustingly revealed ot him
everything concerning her history save only a few things regarding
her supernatural revelations which her Voices had forbidden her to
tell to any one–and that the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden
listener all the time?
Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that
long array of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety
and ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to
remember Loyseleur’s performance and recognize their source. Ah,
Bishop of Beauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity
these many years in hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your
help. There is but one among the redeemed that would do it; and it
is futile to hope that that one has not already done it–Joan of Arc.
We will return to the questionings.
“Did they make you still another promise?”
“Yes, but that is not in your procЉs. I will not tell it now, but
before three months I will tell it you.”
The judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already;
one gets this idea from his next question.
“Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three
months?”
Joan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of
the judges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror
to find my mind (which Icould not control) criticizing the Voices
and saying, “They counsel her to speak boldly–a thing which she
would do without any suggestion from them or anybody else–but
when it comes to telling her any useful thing, such as how these
conspirators manage to guess their way so skilfully into her affairs,
they are always off attending to some other business.”
I am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my
head they made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and
thunder at the time, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty
abide at my post and do my work.
Joan answered:
“That is not in your procЉs. I do not know when I shall be set free,
but some who wish me out of this world will go from it before
me.”
It made some of them shiver.
“Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this
prison?”
Without a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked
the question.
“Ask me again in three months and I will tell you.” She said it with
such a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And No‰l
Rainguesson, drooping yonder?–why, the floods of joy went
streaming through us from crown to sole! It was all that we could
do to hold still and keep from making fatal exposure of our