print and very difficult to
procure, no such detailed translation,(8) so far as I am aware, exists;
and it seems to me that, even at the risk of fatiguing the reader
(always capable of skipping at his pleasure), it is better to unfold the
complete scene with all its tedium and badgering, which brings out by
every touch the extraordinary self-command, valour, and sense of
this wonderful Maid, the youngest, perhaps, and most ignorant of the
assembly, yet meeting all with a modest and unabashed countenance, true,
pure, and natural,--a far greater miracle in her simplicity and noble
steadfastness than even in the wonders she had done.

(1) She was in reality detained two days, which fact, no
doubt, she judged to be an unimportant detail.

(2) Probably meaning, had been present when the voices came
to her and had perceived her state of listening and
abstraction.

(3) This was her special friend, Gerard of Epinal--her
_compere_ and gossip; was it jesting beguiled by some
childish recollection, or mock threat of youthful days that
she said this?

(4) An answer evidently given in the vagueness of imperfect
knowledge, meaning a very great number.

(5) Quicherat gives a note on this subject to point out that
there was really was but one Pope at this moment, the
question having been settled by the abdication of Clement
VIII., Benedict XIV. being a mere impostor. We cannot
believe, however, that this historical cutting of the knot
could be known to Jeanne. She probably felt only, with her
fine instinct, that there could be but one Pope, and that to
be deceived on such a matter ought to have been a thing
impossible to all those priests and learned men; as a matter
of fact the three claimants, on account of whom the Comte
d'Armagnac had appealed to her, were no longer existing at
the time he wrote.

(6) She meant Paris, which was lost by the English,
according to her prophecy within the time named.

(7) It should here be noted that Jeanne's sign to the King
being, as he afterwards declared, the answer to his most
private devotions and the final setting at rest of a doubt
which might have injured him much had it been known that he
entertained it--it would have been dishonourable on her part
and a great wrong to him had she revealed it.

(8) The translation of M. Fab