CAUCHON. Come! we are wasting time on trifles. Joan: I am going to put a most solemn question to you. Take care how you answer; for your life and salvation are at stake on it. Will you for all you have said and done, be it good or bad, accept the judgment of God’s Church on earth? More especially as to the acts and words that are imputed to you in this trial by the Promoter here, will you submit your case to the inspired interpretation of the Church Militant? JOAN. I am a faithful child of the Church. I will obey the Church— CAUCHON [_hopefully leaning forward_] You will? JOAN. —provided it does not command anything impossible. _Cauchon sinks back in his chair with a heavy sigh. The Inquisitor purses his lips and frowns. Ladvenu shakes his head pitifully._ D’ESTIVET. She imputes to the Church the error and folly of commanding the impossible. JOAN. If you command me to declare that all that I have done and said, and all the visions and revelations I have had, were not from God, then that is impossible: I will not declare it for anything in the world. What God made me do I will never go back on; and what He has commanded or shall command I will not fail to do in spite of any man alive. That is what I mean by impossible. And in case the Church should bid me do anything contrary to the command I have from God, I will not consent to it, no matter what it may be. THE ASSESSORS [_shocked and indignant_] Oh! The Church contrary to God! What do you say now? Flat heresy. This is beyond everything, etc., etc. D’ESTIVET [_throwing down his brief_] My lord: do you need anything more than this? CAUCHON. Woman: you have said enough to burn ten heretics. Will you not be warned? Will you not understand? THE INQUISITOR. If the Church Militant tells you that your revelations and visions are sent by the devil to tempt you to your damnation, will you not believe that the Church is wiser than you? JOAN. I believe that God is wiser than I; and it is His commands that I will do. All the things that you call my crimes have come to me by the command of God. I say that I have done them by the order of God: it is impossible for me to say anything else. If any Churchman says the contrary I shall not mind him: I shall mind God alone, whose command I always follow. LADVENU [_pleading with her urgently_] You do not know what you are saying, child. Do you want to kill yourself? Listen. Do you not believe that you are subject to the Church of God on earth? JOAN. Yes. When have I ever denied it? LADVENU. Good. That means, does it not, that you are subject to our Lord the Pope, to the cardinals, the archbishops, and the bishops for whom his lordship stands here today? JOAN. God must be served first. D’ESTIVET. Then your voices command you not to submit yourself to the Church Militant? JOAN. My voices do not tell me to disobey the Church; but God must be served first. CAUCHON. And you, and not the Church, are to be the judge?