and was once more
adjured to speak the truth, with the threat of torture if she continued
to refuse. Never was her attitude more calm, more dignified and lofty in
its simplicity, than at this grim moment.

"Truly," she replied, "if you tear the limbs from my body, and my soul
out of it, I can say nothing other than what I have said; or if I said
anything different, I should afterwards say that you had compelled me to
do it by force." She added that on the day of the Holy Cross, the 3d of
May past, she had been comforted by St. Gabriel. She believed that it
was St. Gabriel: and she knew by her voices that it was St. Gabriel. She
had asked counsel of her voices whether she should submit to the Church,
because the priests pressed her so strongly to submit: but it had been
said to her that if she desired our Lord to help her she must depend
upon Him for everything. She added that she knew well that our Lord had
always been the master of all she did, and that the Enemy had nothing
to do with her deeds. Also she had asked her voices if she should be
burned, and the said voices had replied to her that she was to wait for
the Lord and He would help her.

Afterwards in respect to the crown which had been handed by the angel to
the Archbishop of Rheims, she was asked if she would refer to him. She
answered: "Bring him here, that I may hear what he says, and then I
shall answer you; he will not dare to say the contrary of that which I
have said to you."

The Archbishop of Rheims had been her constant enemy; all the hindrances
that had occurred in her active life, and the constant attempts made
to balk her even in her brief moment of triumph, came from him and his
associate La Tremouille. He was the last person in the world to whom
Jeanne naturally would have appealed. Perhaps that was the admirable
reason why he was suggested in this dreadful crisis of her fate.

A few days later, it was discussed among those dark inquisitors whether
the torture should be applied or not. Finally, among thirteen there were
but two (let not the voice of sacred vengeance be silent on their shame
though after four centuries and more), Thomas de Courcelles, first of
theologians, cleverest of ecclesiastical lawyers, mildest of men, and
Nicolas L'Oyseleur, the spy and traitor, who voted for the torture. One
man most reasonably asked why she should be put to torture when they
had ample material for judgment without it? One cannot but feel that
the pro