She refused to reply.[649]
This time nothing more was said of the crown. Maître Jean Beaupère asked Jeanne if she often heard the Voice.
"Not a day passes without my hearing it. And it is my stay in great need."[650]
She never spoke of her Voices without describing them as her refuge and relief, her consolation and her joy. Now all theologians agreed in believing that good spirits when they depart leave the soul filled with joy, with peace, and with comfort, and as proof they cited the angel's words to Zacharias and Mary: "Be not afraid."[651] This reason, however, was not strong enough to persuade clerks of the English party that Voices hostile to the English were of God.
And the Maid added: "Never have I required of them any other final reward than the salvation of my soul."[652]
The examination ended with a capital charge: the attack on Paris on a feast day. It was in this connection possibly that Brother Jacques of Touraine, a friar of the Franciscan order, who from time to time put a question, asked Jeanne whether she had ever been in a place where Englishmen were being slain.
"In God's name, was I ever in such a place?" Jeanne responded vehemently. "How glibly you speak. Why did they not depart from France and go into their own country?"
A nobleman of England, who was in the chamber, on hearing these words, said to his neighbours: "By my troth she is a good woman. Why is she not English?"[653]
The third public sitting was appointed for two days thence, Saturday, the 24th of February.[654]
It was Lent. Jeanne observed the fast very strictly.[655]