But all our processes are mercy in comparison with those to which French prisoners at the bar are still exposed. It is unnecessary to enter into an account of these which are so well known; but they show that even such a trial as that of Jeanne was by no means so contrary to common usage, as it would be, and always would have been in England. In England we warn the accused to utter no rash word which may be used against him; in France the first principle is to draw from him every rash word that he can be made to bring forth. This was the method employed with Jeanne. Her judges were all Churchmen and dialecticians of the subtlest wit and most dexterous faculties in France; they had all, or almost all, a strong prepossession against her. Though we cannot believe that men of such quality were suborned, there was, no doubt, enough of jealous and indignant feeling among them to make the desire of convicting Jeanne more powerful with them than the desire for pure justice. She was a true Christian, but not perhaps the soundest of Church-women. Her visions had not the sanction of any priest's approval, except indeed the official but not warm affirmation of the Council at Poitiers. She had not hastened to take the Church into her confidence nor to put herself under its protection. Though her claims had been guaranteed by the company of divines at Poitiers, she herself had always appealed to her private instructions, through her saints, rather than to the guiding of any priest. The chief ecclesiastical dignitary of her own party had just held her up to the reprobation of the people for this cause: she was too independent, so proud that she would take no advice but acted according to her own will. The more accustomed a Churchman is to experience the unbounded devotion and obedience of women, the more enraged he is against those who judge for themselves or have other guides on whom they rely. Jeanne was, beside all other sins alleged against her, a presumptuous woman: and very few of these men had any desire to acquit her. They were little accustomed to researches which were solely intended to discover the truth: their principle rather was, as it has been the principle of many, to obtain proofs that their own particular way of thinking was the right one. It is not perhaps very good even for a system of doctrine when this is the principle by which it is tested. It is more fatal still, on this principle, to judge an individual for death or for life. It will be abundantly proved, however, by all that is to follow, that in face of this tribunal, learned, able, powerful, and prejudiced, the peasant girl of nineteen stood like a rock, unmoved by all their cleverness, undaunted by their severity, seldom or never losing her head, or her temper, her modest steadfastness, or her high spirit. If they hoped to have an easy bargain of her, never were men more mistaken. Not knowing a from b, as she herself said, untrained,