Nearly four months she was continually harassed by questions and persecutions the most ridiculous and absurd. Her enemies termed her a “sorceress and a heretic.” The assembled university, having pronounced her a schismatic, proceeded to threaten her with the stake. She was repeatedly examined respecting her visions, revelations, and intercourse with departed saints, and required to submit to the church the truth of her inspirations. “To God,” she replied, “the fountain of truth, I am willing to submit them.” By this answer, she drew upon herself the charge of denying the authority of the church. She appealed from her judges to the Pope, but her appeal was fruitless. It was demanded whether she had not put her trust in a standard consecrated by magical incantations? Whether, at the coronation of Charles, she had not still displayed this mysterious standard? “Her trust,” she replied, “was in the image of the Almighty impressed on the banner, and that she, who had shared the danger of the field, was entitled to partake of the glory at Rheims.” Accused of violating the decorums of her sex, by assuming the habits and command over men, she boldly avowed and justified the purpose of this violation--“the defeat of the enemies of her country, and their expulsion from the kingdom.” During these examinations, she betrayed no weakness, nor gave to her persecutors any advantage; she disgraced not, when in the power of her determined adversaries, the heroism she had displayed in the field. Every species of imposition and baseness was practised upon her; she was required to abjure the masculine habit, and a paper for this purpose was tendered her to sign, to which a promise was subjoined never more to bear arms. Having complied with this proposition, a new deed was substituted in its place, in which she was made to criminate herself by the most odious and false imputations. The malice of her enemies, aggravated by superstition, led them to accuse her of various crimes, particularly of a compact made with infernal spirits. After having received judgment, she was delivered over for sentence to the secular arm. Harassed by injustice, exhausted by suffering, and subdued by cruelty, the spirit of Joan at length gave way; browbeaten by men of superior rank, condemned by those whose injunctions she had been accustomed to regard as sacred, basely deserted by the monarch she had served, sustained no longer by applause and success, her enthusiasm began to subside; the dreams of inspiration were superseded by the feelings of nature, while before the terrors of impending death, the visions of a distempered fancy faded away. Recanting, she acknowledged that she had been misled by illusions; which she solemnly engaged henceforward to renounce, and prayed to be reconciled to the bosom of the church. In consequence of this humiliation, her sentence was mitigated to perpetual imprisonment.