Here was a good strong trap, well laid and baited. If she answered "Yes," she was guilty of presumption in holy matters; if "No," her own mouth spoke her condemnation. Quietly the Maid uttered what her historian calls her inspired reply. "If I am not in grace, may God bring me thither; if I am, God keep me there."[66] Considering her steadfast and valiant bearing throughout these days of trial, we may well believe that the God she adored gave her strength and constancy. She had no earthly friend. The only person who visited her in the guise of human kindness was a spy of the Inquisition, one Loiseleur, a canon of Chartres and Rouen, and a close friend and ally of Cauchon. This base wretch, set on by his chief and the Earl of Warwick, did visit the Maid in her cell, in accordance with a mandate of the Inquisition which reads: "Let no one approach the heretic, unless it be from time to time two faithful and skilful persons, who shall act as if they had pity on him, and shall warn him to save himself by confessing his errors, promising him, if he does so, that he shall not be burned." Loiseleur came in layman's dress, telling Joan that he was a man of Lorraine, her friend and that of France. He was full of interest and solicitude. The Voices gave no warning, and the lonely girl talked with him far more freely than with her judges. He would gently lead the subject to some point which was to be brought up the next day, and on his report the Council would frame its questions. Manchon, the notary, was asked to establish himself in a closet hard by, where he could hear and take down the words of the prisoner; this, to his lasting honor, he indignantly refused to do, saying he would report what was said in open court and nothing else. The days dragged on, and the weeks; weeks of prayer, of fasting, of torment. On March 14th she was interrogated concerning her leap from the tower of Beaurevoir. Was it true that after her fall she had blasphemed God and her saints? Not of her consciousness, she replied. "God and good confession" knew; she had no knowledge of what she might have said in delirium. St. Catherine had promised her help, how or when she knew not. "Generally, the Voices say that I shall be delivered through great victory; and furthermore they say, 'Take all things peacefully; heed not thine affliction. Thence thou shalt come at last into the kingdom of Paradise.'" The judges took up this question delightedly; it was one after their own hearts. Did she, they asked, feel assurance of salvation? "As firmly as if I were in heaven already." "Do you believe that, _after this revelation_, you could not sin mortally?" "I know not. I leave it to God." "Your answer (about her assurance of salvation) is very weighty." "I hold it for a very great treasure."