This sublime answer, of such legitimate and touching pride and bearing the stamp of antique simplicity, strikes the assembled ecclesiastical executioners with admiration. They pause despite their bitter malice towards their victim. These were heroic and scathing words. They told of the price of perils and above all of disenchantment that Joan had paid for her triumph. Aye, she and her glorious standard had been cruelly in pain, poor martyr that she was. Her virginal body was broken by the rude trials of war. She had shed her generous blood on the fields of battle. She had struggled with admirable stubbornness, with mortal anxieties born of the most sacred patriotism, against the treasonable plots of the captains who finally brought on her downfall. She had struggled against the sloth of Charles VII, the poltroon whom with so much pain she dragged from victory to victory as far as Rheims, where she had him consecrated King. Her only recompense was to see her standard "at the honor" of that solemn consecration, from which she expected the salvation of Gaul. Her standard had been at the pain--it was entitled to be at the honor. The astonishment of the ecclesiastics at these sublime words is profound. Deep silence ensues. Bishop Cauchon is the first to break it. Addressing himself to the accused in measured words, an ordinary symptom with him of some lurking perfidy, he asks: BISHOP CAUCHON--"Joan, when you entered a town, did not the inhabitants kiss your hands, your feet, your clothes?" JOAN DARC--"Many wished to; and when poor people, women and children, came to me, I feared to grieve them if I repelled them." This answer is to be used against her; several of the judges note it down, while a sinister smile plays around the lips of Bishop Cauchon; he proceeds: BISHOP CAUCHON--"Did you ever hold a child at the baptismal font?" JOAN DARC--"Yes; I held a child at the holy font of Soissons, and two others at St. Denis. These are the only ones to whom I have been god-mother." BISHOP CAUCHON--"What names did you give them?" JOAN DARC--"To the boy the name of Charles, in honor of the King of France; to the girls the name of Joan, because the mothers so wished it." These words, that charmingly depict the enthusiasm which the martial maid inspired among the people, and the generosity that she showed towards Charles, are to be a further charge against her. Several judges note them down. BISHOP CAUCHON--"A mother at Lagny asked you to visit her dying child, did she not?" JOAN DARC--"Yes, but the child had been brought to the Church of Notre-Dame. Young girls of the town were on their knees at the door and prayed for the child. I knelt down among them, and I also prayed to God for His blessing upon the child." CANON LOYSELEUR (from under his completely lowered hood and disguising his voice)--"Which of the two Popes is the real Pope?" JOAN DARC (stupefied)--"Are there, then, two Popes, sir? I did not know that."