Messire Jean Massieu, dean of Rouen, was a cleric of manners dissolute; his inveterate lewdness had involved him in difficulties with the Chapter and with the Official.[719] He may have been neither as brave nor as frank as he wished to make out, but he was not hard or pitiless.
He told his prisoner that there was a chapel on the way. And he pointed out to her the chapel of the castle.
Then she besought him urgently to take her into the chapel in order that she might worship Messire and pray.
Readily did Messire Jean Massieu consent; and he permitted her to kneel before the sanctuary. Devoutly bending, Jeanne offered her prayer.
The Lord Bishop, being informed of this incident, was highly displeased. He instructed the Usher that in the future such devotions must not be tolerated.
And the Promoter, Maître Jean d'Estivet, on his part, addressed many a reprimand to Messire Jean Massieu.
"Rascal," he said, "what possesses thee to allow an excommunicated whore to approach a church without permission? If ever thou doest the like again I will imprison thee in that tower, where for a month thou wilt see neither sun nor moon."
Messire Jean Massieu heeded not this threat. And the Promoter, perceiving this, himself took up his post at the chapel door when Jeanne went that way. Thus he prevented the hapless damsel from engaging in her devotions.[720]
The sixth sitting was held in the same court as before, in the presence of forty-one assessors, of whom six or seven were new, and among them was Maître Guillaume Erart, doctor in theology.[721]
In the beginning, the examiner asked Jeanne whether she had seen Saint Michael and the saints, and whether she had seen anything but their faces. He insisted: "You must say what you know."