s own interests and
honour, did he refrain from testifying in favour of her through whom
he had recovered his episcopal city? Wherefore did he not assert his
right and do his duty as metropolitan and censure and suspend his
suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was guilty of prevarication in
the administration of justice? Why did not the illustrious clerics,
whom King Charles had appointed deputies at the Council of Bale,
undertake to bring the cause of the Maid before the Council? And
finally, why did not the priests, the ecclesiastics of the realm, with
one voice demand an appeal to the Holy Father?

[Footnote 2439: From a theological point of view the record of the
Poitiers trial may have been insignificant; but at any rate it
contained the arguments presented to the King and the memoranda of
Gelu and of Gerson.]

They all with one accord, as if struck dumb with astonishment,
remained passive and silent. Can they have feared that too searching a
light would be cast on Jeanne's cause by that illustrious University,
that Sun of the Church, which was consulted on religious matters by
all Christian states? Can they have suspected that this woman, who in
France had been considered a saint, might after all have been inspired
by the devil? But if what they had once believed they still held to be
true, if they believed that the Maid had come from God to lead their
King to his glorious coronation, then what are we to think of those
clerks, those ecclesiastics who denied the Daughter of God, on the eve
of her passion?

CHAPTER XIII

THE ABJURATION--THE FIRST SENTENCE

On Saturday, the 19th of May, the doctors and masters, to the number
of fifty, assembled in the archiepiscopal chapel of Rouen. There they
unanimously declared their agreement with the decision of the
University of Paris; and my Lord of Beauvais ordained that a new
charitable admonition be addressed to Jeanne.[2440] Accordingly, on
Wednesday the 23rd, the Bishop, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the Promoter
went to a room in the castle, near Jeanne's cell. They were
accompanied by seven doctors and masters, by the Lord Bishop of Noyon
and by the Lord Bishop of Therouanne.[2441] The latter, brother to
Messire Jean de Luxembourg who had sold the Maid, was held one of the
most notable personages of the Great Council of England; he was
Chancellor of France for King Henry, as Messire Regnault de Chartres
was for King Charles.[2442]

[Footnote 2440: _Trial_,