Then came this remarkable question: "Have you received letters from Saint Michael or from your Voices?"
She replied: "I have not permission to tell you; but in a week I will willingly say all I know."[754]
Such was her manner of speaking when there was something she wanted to conceal but not to deny. The question must have been embarrassing therefore. Moreover, these interrogatories were based on a good store of facts either true or false; and in the questions addressed to the Maid we may generally discern a certain anticipation of her replies. What were those letters from Saint Michael and her other saints, the existence of which she did not deny, but which were never produced by her judges? Did certain of her party send them in the hope that she would carry out their intentions, while under the impression that she was obeying divine commands?
Without insisting further for the present, the examiner passed on to another grievance:
"Have not your Voices called you daughter of God, daughter of the Church, great-hearted damsel?"
"Before the siege of Orléans and since, every day when they speak to me, many times have they called me Jeanne the Maid, daughter of God."[755]
The examination was suspended and resumed in the afternoon.
Maître Jean de la Fontaine questioned Jeanne concerning a dream of her father, of which the judges had been informed in the preliminary inquiry.[756]
Sad it is to reflect that when Jeanne was accused of the sin of having broken God's commandment, "Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother," neither her mother nor any of her kin asked to be heard as witnesses. And yet there were churchmen in her family;[757] but a trial on a question of faith struck terror into all hearts.
Again her man's dress was reverted to, and not for the last time.[758] We marvel at the profound meditations into which the Maid's doublet and hose plunged these clerics. They contemplated them with gloomy terror and in the light of the precepts of Deuteronomy.