the aid of one condemned by the laws of God and of the Church, that the
consecration was, in fact, but an impious mockery of religious rites,
because a sorceress had led him to the altar. For this reason it was
determined to deliver Jeanne to the mercies of the ecclesiastical
courts. Cauchon was rector of the University of Paris, and could command
the assent of that body to whatever seemed to him expedient; the
representative of the Inquisition, who seemed decidedly averse to having
anything to do with the proceedings, was likewise overawed by Cauchon
and by the English cardinal. All that remained to do was to constitute
the court and to bring the accused before it for trial.

Rouen was to be the scene of the trial, and here Cauchon began his
proceedings early in January, 1431. The charge against Jeanne was to be
the working of magic; but the acute and punctilious Norman lawyers
picked so many flaws in the paltry charges and in the documents
presented in their support, that Cauchon was compelled to change his
intention, and substituted the charge of heresy. It was under this
preposterous indictment that the pious Jeanne was brought face to face
with her judges on February 21st. For months she had been kept in close
confinement, loaded with fetters, and kept under the guardianship of
men. The sturdy girl had lost much of her vigor, as, indeed, had been
the intention of her captors. But though the body was weakened, the
spirit was yet unbroken; and Jeanne met the accusing judges, whom she
knew to be already resolved upon her destruction, with the same firmness
and untutored practical sagacity that had marked her bearing in the
first encounter with those who sought to entangle her in the subtleties
of metaphysics and theology. Of metaphysics and theology she knew not so
much as the names, but she had a clear head and a thorough understanding
of the fundamental principles of justice and of faith. So long as her
physical strength lasted, the most adroit and insinuating queries of the
prosecution could not trap her into compromising answers. Counsel for
the defendant there was none; her own wit must defend her in the contest
with judges who were at the same time prosecutors.

Being admonished by the insidious Cauchon to answer truly and without
evasion or subterfuge whatever should be asked, she checkmated this move
at once: "I do not know what you mean to question me about; you might
ask me things which I would not tell yo