iracles. Send me
to Orleans and you shall have signs enough. Give me men-at-arms--few or
many--and let me go!"

The fire was leaping from her eyes--ah, the heroic little figure! can't
you see her? There was a great burst of acclamations, and she sat
down blushing, for it was not in her delicate nature to like being
conspicuous.

This speech and that episode about the French language scored two points
against Brother Seguin, while he scored nothing against Joan; yet, sour
man as he was, he was a manly man, and honest, as you can see by the
histories; for at the Rehabilitation he could have hidden those unlucky
incidents if he had chosen, but he didn't do it, but spoke them right
out in his evidence.

On one of the latter days of that three-weeks session the gowned
scholars and professors made one grand assault all along the line,
fairly overwhelming Joan with objections and arguments culled from the
writings of every ancient and illustrious authority of the Roman Church.
She was well-nigh smothered; but at last she shook herself free and
struck back, crying out:

"Listen! The Book of God is worth more than all these ye cite, and I
stand upon it. And I tell ye there are things in that Book that not one
among ye can read, with all your learning!"

From the first she was the guest, by invitation, of the dame De
Rabateau, wife of a councilor of the Parliament of Poitiers; and to that
house the great ladies of the city came nightly to see Joan and talk
with her; and not these only, but the old lawyers, councilors and
scholars of the Parliament and the University. And these grave men,
accustomed to weigh every strange and questionable thing, and cautiously
consider it, and turn it about this way and that and still doubt it,
came night after night, and night after night, falling ever deeper and
deeper under the influence of that mysterious something, that spell,
that elusive and unwordable fascination, which was the supremest
endowment of Joan of Arc, that winning and persuasive and convincing
something which high and low alike recognized and felt, but which
neither high nor low could explain or describe, and one by one they all
surrendered, saying, "This child is sent of God."

All day long Joan, in the great court and subject to its rigid rules of
procedure, was at a disadvantage; her judges had things their own way;
but at night she held court herself, and matters were reversed, she
presiding, with her tongue free an