Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And DeathOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And Death
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
France -- History; Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431
No doubt conversations of this kind were being carried on all over
Rouen. Would she be burned? What would happen? Could any one stand and
answer like that hour after hour and day by day, inspired only by the
devil? There was no popular enthusiasm for her even now. How should
there have been in that partisan province, more English than French? But
a chill doubt began to steal into many minds whether she was so bad as
had been thought, whether indeed she might not after all be something
quite different from what she had been thought? Nature had begun to work
in the agitated place, and even in that black-robed, eager assembly. If
there was a vile L'Oyseleur trying to get her confidence in private, and
so betray her, there was also a kind Frère Isambard, privately plucking
at her sleeve, imploring her to be cautious, whispering an answer
probably not half so wise as her own natural reply, yet warming her
heart with the suggestion of a friend at hand.
On the fourth day, Jeanne was again required to swear, and replied as
before, that so far as concerned the trial she would answer truly,
but not all she knew. "You ought to be satisfied: I have sworn
sufficiently," she said; and with this her judges seem to have been
content. Beaupère then resumed his questions, but first asked her,
perhaps with a momentary gleam of compassion and a sudden consciousness
of the pallor and weariness of the young prisoner, how she did. She
answered, one can imagine with what tone of indignant disdain: "You see
how I am: I am as well as I can be." He then cross-examined her closely
as to what voices she had heard since her last appearance in court,
but drew from her only the same answer, "The voice tells me to answer
boldly," and that she would tell them as much as she was permitted by
God to tell them, but concerning her revelations for the King of France
she would say nothing except by permission of her voices.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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