elations, had not the less docilely
obeyed the commands of the Church; could she, who till now had believed
herself in her simplicity "a good girl," as she said, a girl altogether
submissive to the Church--could she without terror see the Church
against her?

After all, what, who was she, to undertake to gainsay these prelates,
these doctors? How dared she speak before so many able men--men who had
studied? Was there not presumption and damnable pride in an ignorant
girl's opposing herself to the learned--a poor, simple girl, to men in
authority? Undoubtedly fears of the kind agitated her mind.

On the other hand, this opposition is not Jeanne's, but that of the
saints and angels who have dictated her answers to her, and, up to this
time, sustained her. Wherefore, alas! do they come no more in this
pressing need of hers? Wherefore is the so long promised deliverance
delayed? Doubtless the prisoner has put these questions to herself over
and over again.

There was one means of escaping; this was, without expressly disavowing,
to forbear affirming, and to say, "It seems to me." The lawyers thought
it easy for her to pronounce these few simple words; but in her mind, to
use so doubtful an expression was in reality equivalent to a denial; it
was abjuring her beautiful dream of heavenly friendships, betraying her
sweet sisters on high. Better to die. And indeed, the unfortunate,
rejected by the visible, abandoned by the invisible, by the Church, by
the world, and by her own heart, was sinking. And the body was following
the sinking soul.

It so happened that on that very day she had eaten part of a fish which
the charitable Bishop of Beauvais had sent her, and might have imagined
herself poisoned. The bishop had an interest in her death; it would have
put an end to this embarrassing trial, would have got the judge out of
the scrape; but this was not what the English reckoned upon. The Earl of
Warwick, in his alarm, said: "The King would not have her by any means
die a natural death. The King has bought her dear. She must die by
justice and be burned. See and cure her."

All attention, indeed, was paid her; she was visited and bled, but was
none the better for it, remaining weak and nearly dying. Whether through
fear that she should escape thus and die without retracting, or that her
bodily weakness inspired hopes that her mind would be more easily dealt
with, the judges made an attempt while she was lying in this state,