Jean Beaupere, in the numerous examinations to which they
subjected her, elicited certain significant details on the subject of
her hallucinations.

Maitre Beaupere begins by inquiring very judiciously whether Jeanne
had fasted the day before she first heard her voices. Whence we infer
that the interdependence of inanition and hallucinations was
recognised by this illustrious professor of theology. Before
condemning Jeanne as a witch he wanted to make sure that she was not
merely suffering from weakness. Some time later we find Saint Theresa
suspecting that the visions said to have been seen by a certain nun
were merely the result of long fasting. Saint Theresa insisted on the
nun's partaking of food, and the visions ceased.

Jeanne replies that she had only fasted since the morning, and Maitre
Beaupere proceeds to ask:

_Q._ "In what direction did you hear the voice?"

_A._ "I heard it on the right, towards the church."

_Q._ "Was the voice accompanied by any light?"

_A._ "I seldom heard it without there being a light. This light
appeared in the direction whence the voice came."[2751]

[Footnote 2751: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 52 and _passim_.]

We might wonder whether by the expression "_a droite_" (_a latere
dextro_) Jeanne meant her own right side or the position of the church
in relation to her; and in the latter case, the information would have
no clinical significance; but the context leaves no doubt as to the
veritable meaning of her words.

"How can you," urges Jean Beaupere, "see this light which you say
appears to you, if it is on your right?"

If it had been merely a question of the situation of the church and
not of Jeanne's own right side, she would only have had to turn her
face to see the light in front of her, and Jean Beaupere's objection
would have been pointless.

Consequently at about the age of thirteen, at the period of puberty,
which for her never came, Jeanne would appear to have been subject on
her right side to unilateral hallucinations of sight and hearing. Now
Charcot[2752] considered unilateral hallucinations of sight to be
common in cases of hysteria.[2753] He even thought that in hysterical
subjects they are allied to a hemianaesthesia situated on the same side
of the body, and which in Jeanne would be on the right side. Jeanne's
trial might have proved the existence of this hemianaesthesia, an
extremely significant symptom in the diagnosis of hysteria, if the
judges had applied