deserting the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with
some little touch of soldierly disdain:
“As to the matter of women’s work, there’s plenty to do it.”
It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in
her. While that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able
to look trouble and fate in the face.
“It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had
from God, was to make war and pour out human blood.”
Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that
war was not her first move, but her second:
“To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was
refused, then I would fight.”
The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in
speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon.
But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act
and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled
to less brusque treatment than the English. She said:
As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and
by his ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the
English, the only peace for them was that they leave the country
and go home.”
Then she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific
disposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation
before attacking them.
“If they had listened to me,” said she, “they would have done
wisely.” At this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with
emphasis, “Before seven years they will see it themselves.”
Then they presently began to pester her again about her male
costume, and tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to
discard it. I was never deep, so I think it no wonder that I was
puzzled by their persistency in what seemed a thing of no
consequence, and could not make out what their reason could be.
But we all know now. We all know now that it was another of their
treacherous projects. Yes, if they could but succeed in getting her
to formally discard it they could play a game upon her which
would quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil work until at
last she broke out and said:
“Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though
you cut off my head!”
At one point she corrected the procЉs verbal, saying:
“It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by
the counsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said ‘all which I have
well done.'”
Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the
ignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at
that. She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is
no respecter of persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes
even oftener than he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she
phrased her rebuke in simpler terms:
“It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where
He will.”
She was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel
from on high. She said the form was brief and simple; then she
lifted her pallid face and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:
“Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if
you love me, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to
these churchmen. As concerns my dress, I know by what command
I have put it on, but I know not in what manner I am to lay it off. I
pray you tell me what to do.”
She was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God
and His saints, to assume empire over men and make herself
Commander-in-Chief. That touched the soldier in her. She had a
deep reverence for priests, but the soldier in her had but small
reverence for a priest’s opinions about war; so, in her answer to
this charge she did not condescend to go into any explanations or
excuses, but delivered herself with bland indifference and military