on and your return into the way of truth and salvation. As
you are neither learned nor sufficiently instructed in letters or in
the difficult matters which are to be discussed, to take counsel of
yourself, touching what you should do or reply, we offer you to choose
as your advocate one or more of those present, as you will. If you
will not choose, then one shall be appointed for you by us, in order
that he may advise you touching what you may do or say...."[2403]

[Footnote 2403: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 200, 201. J. Quicherat, _Apercus
nouveaux_, pp. 129, 130.]

Considering what the method of procedure was, this was a gracious
offer. And even though my Lord of Beauvais obliged the accused to
choose from among the counsellors and assessors, whom he had himself
summoned to the trial, he did more than he was bound to do. The choice
of a counsel did not belong to the accused; it belonged to the judge,
whose duty it was to appoint an honest, upright person. Moreover, it
was permissible for an ecclesiastical judge to refuse to the end to
grant the accused any counsel whatsoever. Nicolas Eymeric, in his
_Directorium_, decides that the Bishop and the Inquisitor, acting
conjointly, may constitute authority sufficient for the interpretation
of the law and may proceed informally, _de plano_, dispensing with the
ceremony of appointing counsel and all the paraphernalia of a
trial.[2404]

[Footnote 2404: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition_,
pp. 400 _et seq._ U. Chevalier, _L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc_, p.
34.]

We may notice that my Lord of Beauvais offered the accused an advocate
on the ground of her ignorance of things divine and human, but without
taking her youthfulness into account. In other courts of law
proceedings against a minor--that is, a person under twenty-five--who
was not assisted by an advocate, were legally void.[2405] If this rule
had been binding in Inquisitorial procedure the Bishop, by his offer
of legal aid, would have avoided any breach of this rule; and as the
choice of an advocate lay with him, he might well have done so without
running any risk. "Our justice is not like theirs," Bernard Gui
rightly said, when he was comparing inquisitorial procedure with that
of the other ecclesiastical courts which conformed to the Roman law.

[Footnote 2405: Meru, _Directorium Inquisitorium_, p. 147.]

Jeanne did not accept the judge's offer: "First," she said, "touching
what you admonish me for my go