terests of God and of his Church, by virtue of his
episcopal jurisdiction, who concludes the bargain. He offers ten
thousand golden francs, a sum in return for which, he says, according
to the custom prevailing in France, the King has the right to claim
any prisoner even were he of the blood royal.[2066]

[Footnote 2065: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 2066: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 14.]

There can be no doubt whatever that the high and solemn ecclesiastic,
Pierre Cauchon, suspected Jeanne of witchcraft. Wishing to bring her
to trial, he exercised his ecclesiastical functions. But he knew her
to be the enemy of the English as well as of himself; there is no
doubt on that point. So when he wished to bring her to trial he acted
as the Councillor of King Henry. Was it a witch or the enemy of the
English he was buying with his ten thousand gold francs? And if it
were merely a witch and an idolatress that the Holy Inquisitor, that
the University, that the Ordinary demanded for the glory of God, and
at the price of gold, wherefore so much ado, wherefore so great an
expenditure of money? Would it not be better in this matter to act in
concert with the ecclesiastics of King Charles's party? The Armagnacs
were neither infidels nor heretics; they were neither Turks nor
Hussites; they were Catholics; they acknowledged the Pope of Rome to
be the true head of Christendom. The Dauphin Charles and his clergy
had not been excommunicated. Neither those who regarded the Treaty of
Troyes as invalid nor those who had sworn to it had been pronounced
anathema by the Pope. This was not a question of faith. In the
provinces ruled over by King Charles the Holy Inquisition prosecuted
heresy in a curious manner and the secular arm saw to it that the
sentences pronounced by the Church did not remain a dead letter. The
Armagnacs burned witches just as much as the French and the
Burgundians. For the present doubtless they did not believe the Maid
to be possessed by devils; most of them on the contrary were inclined
to regard her as a saint. But might they not be undeceived? Would it
not be good Christian charity to present them with fine canonical
arguments? If the Maid's case were really a case for the
ecclesiastical court why not join with Churchmen of both parties and
take her before the Pope and the Council? And just at that time a
Council for the reformation of the Church and the establishment of
peace in the kingdom was sitting in the t