COURCELLES. I think it hard that all our work should go for nothing. It is only another example of the diabolical influence which this woman exercises over the court. [_He takes his chair, which is on the Chaplain’s right_]. CAUCHON. Do you suggest that I am under diabolical influence? COURCELLES. I suggest nothing, my lord. But it seems to me that there is a conspiracy here to hush up the fact that The Maid stole the Bishop of Senlis’s horse. CAUCHON [_keeping his temper with difficulty_] This is not a police court. Are we to waste our time on such rubbish? COURCELLES [_rising, shocked_] My lord: do you call the Bishop’s horse rubbish? THE INQUISITOR [_blandly_] Master de Courcelles: The Maid alleges that she paid handsomely for the Bishop’s horse, and that if he did not get the money the fault was not hers. As that may be true, the point is one on which The Maid may well be acquitted. COURCELLES. Yes, if it were an ordinary horse. But the Bishop’s horse! how can she be acquitted for that? [_He sits down again, bewildered and discouraged_]. THE INQUISITOR. I submit to you, with great respect, that if we persist in trying The Maid on trumpery issues on which we may have to declare her innocent, she may escape us on the great main issue of heresy, on which she seems so far to insist on her own guilt. I will ask you, therefore, to say nothing, when The Maid is brought before us, of these stealings of horses, and dancings round fairy trees with the village children, and prayings at haunted wells, and a dozen other things which you were diligently inquiring into until my arrival. There is not a village girl in France against whom you could not prove such things: they all dance round haunted trees, and pray at magic wells. Some of them would steal the Pope’s horse if they got the chance. Heresy, gentlemen, heresy is the charge we have to try. The detection and suppression of heresy is my peculiar business: I am here as an inquisitor, not as an ordinary magistrate. Stick to the heresy, gentlemen; and leave the other matters alone. CAUCHON. I may say that we have sent to the girl’s village to make inquiries about her; and there is practically nothing serious against her. THE CHAPLAIN } [_rising and { Nothing serious, my lord— COURCELLES } clamoring together_] { What! The fairy tree not— CAUCHON [_out of patience_] Be silent, gentlemen; or speak one at a time. _Courcelles collapses into his chair, intimidated._ THE CHAPLAIN [_sulkily resuming his seat_] That is what The Maid said to us last Friday. CAUCHON. I wish you had followed her counsel, sir. When I say nothing serious, I mean nothing that men of sufficiently large mind to conduct an inquiry like this would consider serious. I agree with my colleague the Inquisitor that it is on the count of heresy that we must proceed.