err, but is guided by the Holy Spirit.
And this being the case she was asked if she would refer her cause to
the Church militant thus explained to her. She replied that she had
come to the King of France on the part of God, on the part of the Virgin
Mary, the blessed Saints of Paradise, and the Church victorious in
Heaven, and at their commandment; and to that Church she submitted all
her good deeds, and all that she had done and might do. And if they
asked her whether she would submit to the Church militant, answered,
that she would now answer no more than this.

Here again the argument strayed back to the futile subject of dress,
always at hand to be taken up again, one would say, when the judges were
non-plussed. Her first reply on this subject is remarkable and shows
that dark and terrible forebodings were already beginning to mingle with
her hopes.

Asked, what she had to say about the woman's dress that had been offered
to her, to hear mass in: she answered, that she would not take it yet,
not until the Lord pleased; but that if it were necessary to lead her
out to be executed, and if she should then have to be undressed, she
required of the Lords of the Church that they would give her the grace
to have a long chemise, and a kerchief for her head; that she would
prefer to die rather than to alter what our Lord had directed her to do,
and that she firmly believed our Lord would not let her descend so low,
but that she should soon be helped by God and by a miracle. She was then
asked, if what she did in respect to the man's costume was by command of
God, why she asked for a woman's chemise in case of death? answered, _It
is enough that it should be long_.

The effect of these words in which so much was implied, must have made
a supreme sensation among the handful of men gathered round the helpless
girl in her prison, bringing the stake in all its horror before the
eyes of the judges as before her own. No other thing could have been
suggested by that piteous prayer. The stake, the scaffold, the fire--and
the shrinking figure all maidenly, helpless, exposed to every evil gaze,
must have showed themselves at least for a moment against that dark
background of prison wall. It was enough that it should be long--to hide
her as much as was possible from those dreadful staring eyes.

The interrogatory goes on wildly after this about the age and the dress
of the saints. But a tone of fate had come into it, and Jeanne herse