od and in matters of religion, I thank
you and the company here assembled. As for the advocate you offer me,
I also thank you, but it is not my intent to depart from the counsel
of Our Lord. As for the oath you wish me to take, I am ready to swear
to speak the truth in all that concerns your suit."[2406]

[Footnote 2406: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 201.]

Thereupon Maitre Thomas de Courcelles began to read in French the
indictment which the Promoter had drawn up in seventy articles.[2407]
This text set forth in order the deeds with which Jeanne had already
been reproached and which were groundlessly held to have been
confessed by her and duly proved. There were no less than seventy
distinct charges of horrible crimes committed against religion and
Holy Mother Church. Questioned on each article, Jeanne with heroic
candour repeated her previous replies. The tedious reading of this
long accusation was continued and completed on the 28th of March, the
Wednesday after Palm Sunday.[2408] As was her wont, she asked for delay
in order to reply on certain points. On Easter Eve, the 31st of March,
the time granted having expired, my Lord of Beauvais went to the
prison, and, in the presence of the doctors and masters of the
University, demanded the promised replies. They nearly all touched on
the one accusation which included all the rest, the heresy in which
all heresies were comprehended,--the refusal to obey the Church
Militant. Jeanne finally declared her resolve to appeal to Our Lord
rather than to any man; this was to set at naught the authority of the
Pope and the Council.[2409]

[Footnote 2407: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 202-323.]

[Footnote 2408: _Ibid._, p. 202.]

[Footnote 2409: _Ibid._, pp. 324, 325.]

The doctors and masters of the University of Paris advised that an
epitome should be made of the Promoter's voluminous indictment, its
chief points selected, and the seventy charges considerably
reduced.[2410] Maitre Nicolas Midi, doctor in theology, performed this
task and submitted it when done to the judges and assessors.[2411] One
of them proposed emendations. Brother Jacques of Touraine, a friar of
the Franciscan order, who was charged to draw up the document in its
final stage, admitted most of the corrections requested.[2412] In this
wise the incriminating propositions,[2413] which the judges claimed,
but claimed falsely, to have derived from the replies of the accused,
were resolved into twelve articles.[2414]

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