It made the Bishop’s purple face fairly blanch with consternation.
If Joan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a
mine under this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop’s
schemes to the four winds of heaven, and she didn’t know it. She
had made that speech by mere instinct, not suspecting what
tremendous forces were hidden in it, and there was none to tell her
what she had done. I knew, and Manchon knew; and if she had
known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the
knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and
none was allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there
she sat, once more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious
of it. She was miserably worn and tired, by the long day’s struggle
and by illness, or she must have noticed the effect of that speech
and divined the reason of it.
She had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke.
It was an appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had
persisted in it Cauchon’s plot would have tumbled about his ears
like a house of cards, and he would have gone from that place the
worst-beaten man of the century. He was daring, but he was not
daring enough to stand up against that demand if Joan had urged it.
But no, she was ignorant, poor thing, and did not know what a
blow she had struck for life and liberty.
France was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the
destruction of this messenger of God.
Rome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her
cause needed. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and
honored, and blessed.
But it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to
other matters and hurried the trial quickly to an end.
As Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned
and dazed, and kept saying to myself, “Such a little while ago she
said the saving word and could have gone free; and now, there she
goes to her death; yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They
will double the guards; they will never let any come near her now
between this and her condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak
that word again. This is the bitterest day that has come to me in all
this miserable time.”
Chapter 13 The Third Trial Fails
SO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no
definite result. The character of it I have described to you. It was
baser in one particular than the previous one; for this time the
charges had not been communicated to Joan, therefore she had
been obliged to fight in the dark.
There was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was
no foreseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for
them. Truly it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as
this one was. One day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of
Normandy, MaЊtre Lohier, happened to be in Rouen, and I will
give you his opinion of that trial, so that you may see that I have
been honest with you, and that my partisanship has not made me
deceive you as to its unfair and illegal character. Cauchon showed
Lohier the procЉs and asked his opinion about the trial. Now this
was the opinion which he gave to Cauchon. He said that the whole
thing was null and void; for these reasons: 1, because the trial was
secret, and full freedom of speech and action on the part of those
present not possible; 2, because the trial touched the honor of the
King of France, yet he was not summoned to defend himself, nor
any one appointed to represent him; 3, because the charges against
the prisoner were not communicated to her; 4, because the
accused, although young and simple, had been forced to defend
her cause without help of counsel, notwithstanding she had so