r cage, but was still
chained by one foot to a wooden beam during the day, and at night to the
posts of her bed. Sometimes her guards would wake her to tell her that
she had been condemned and was immediately to be led forth to execution;
but that was a small matter. Attempts were also made to inflict the
barest insult and outrage upon her, and on one occasion she is said to
have been saved only by the Earl of Warwick, who heard her cries and
went to her rescue. By night as by day she clung to her male garb,
tightly fastened by the innumerable "points" of which Shakespeare so
often speaks. Such were the horrible circumstances in which she awaited
her public appearance before her judges. She was brought before them
every day for months together, to be badgered by the keenest wits in
France, coming back and back with artful questions upon every detail
of every subject, to endeavour to shake her firmness or force her into
self-contradiction. Imagine a cross-examination going on for months,
like those--only more cruel than those--to which we sometimes see an
unfortunate witness exposed in our own courts of law. There is nothing
more usual than to see people break down entirely after a day or two
of such a tremendous ordeal, in which their hearts and lives are turned
inside out, their minds so bewildered that they know not what they are
saying, and everything they have done in their lives exhibited in the
worst, often in an entirely fictitious, light, to the curiosity and
amusement of the world.

But all our processes are mercy in comparison with those to which French
prisoners at the bar are still exposed. It is unnecessary to enter into
an account of these which are so well known; but they show that even
such a trial as that of Jeanne was by no means so contrary to common
usage, as it would be, and always would have been in England. In England
we warn the accused to utter no rash word which may be used against him;
in France the first principle is to draw from him every rash word that
he can be made to bring forth. This was the method employed with Jeanne.
Her judges were all Churchmen and dialecticians of the subtlest wit
and most dexterous faculties in France; they had all, or almost all, a
strong prepossession against her. Though we cannot believe that men of
such quality were suborned, there was, no doubt, enough of jealous and
indignant feeling among them to make the desire of convicting Jeanne
more powerful with them