that sign. Asked, if the clergy of her party (_de par dela_) saw the
above sign; answered yes, that her King if he were satisfied; and he
answered yes. And afterwards she went to a little chapel close by, and
heard them say that after she was gone more than three hundred people
saw the said sign. She said besides that for love of her, and that they
should give up questioning her, God permitted those of her party to see
the sign. Asked, if the King and she made reverence to the angel when
he brought the sign; answered yes, for herself, that she knelt down and
took off her hood.

What Jeanne meant by this strange romance can only, I think be explained
by this hypothesis. She was "dazed and bewildered," say some of the
historians, evidently not knowing how to interpret so strange
an interruption to her narrative; but there is no other sign of
bewilderment; her mind was always clear and her intelligence complete.
Granting that the whole story was boldly ironical, its object is very
apparent. Honour forbade her to betray the King's secret, and she had
expressly said she would not do so. But her story seems to say--_since
you will insist that there was a sign, though I have told you I could
give you no information, have it your own way; you shall have a sign and
one of the very best; it delivered me from the priests of my own party
(de par dela)_. Jeanne was no milk-sop; she was bold enough to send a
winged shaft to the confusion of the priests of the other side who had
tormented her in the same way. One can imagine a lurking smile at the
corner of her mouth. Let them take it since they would have it. And we
may well believe there was that in her eye, and in the details heaped up
so lightly to form the miraculous tale, which left little doubt in the
minds of the questioners, of the spirit in which she spoke: though to us
who only read the record the effect is of a more bewildering kind.

Two days after, on Monday, the 12th of March, the Inquisitors began by
several additional questions concerning the angel who brought the
sign to the King; was it the same whom she first saw, or another? She
answered that it was the same, and no other was wanted. Asked, if this
angel had not deceived her since she had been taken prisoner; answered,
that SHE BELIEVED SINCE IT SO PLEASED OUR LORD THAT IT WAS BEST THAT SHE
SHOULD BE TAKEN. Asked, if the angel had not failed her; answered, "How
could he have failed me, when he comforts me every d