than the desire for pure justice. She was a true
Christian, but not perhaps the soundest of Church-women. Her visions had
not the sanction of any priest's approval, except indeed the official
but not warm affirmation of the Council at Poitiers. She had not
hastened to take the Church into her confidence nor to put herself under
its protection. Though her claims had been guaranteed by the company
of divines at Poitiers, she herself had always appealed to her private
instructions, through her saints, rather than to the guiding of any
priest. The chief ecclesiastical dignitary of her own party had just
held her up to the reprobation of the people for this cause: she was too
independent, so proud that she would take no advice but acted according
to her own will. The more accustomed a Churchman is to experience
the unbounded devotion and obedience of women, the more enraged he is
against those who judge for themselves or have other guides on whom
they rely. Jeanne was, beside all other sins alleged against her, a
presumptuous woman: and very few of these men had any desire to acquit
her. They were little accustomed to researches which were solely
intended to discover the truth: their principle rather was, as it has
been the principle of many, to obtain proofs that their own particular
way of thinking was the right one. It is not perhaps very good even for
a system of doctrine when this is the principle by which it is tested.
It is more fatal still, on this principle, to judge an individual for
death or for life. It will be abundantly proved, however, by all that is
to follow, that in face of this tribunal, learned, able, powerful, and
prejudiced, the peasant girl of nineteen stood like a rock, unmoved
by all their cleverness, undaunted by their severity, seldom or never
losing her head, or her temper, her modest steadfastness, or her high
spirit. If they hoped to have an easy bargain of her, never were men
more mistaken. Not knowing a from b, as she herself said, untrained,
unaided, she was more than a match for them all.

Round about this centre of eager intelligence, curiosity, and prejudice,
the cathedral and council chamber teeming with Churchmen, was a dark and
silent ring of laymen and soldiers. A number of the English leaders were
in Rouen, but they appear very little. Winchester, who had very
lately come from England with an army, which according to some of the
historians would not budge from Calais, where it had lan