The Christian maid had usually kept her sword in its scabbard, and even in the heat of the most stubbornly contested battles never used it against men. She contented herself with guiding her soldiers with it and with her standard. Every day, when at all possible, she knelt in the temple and held communion with the angels. In the letters that she addressed to the foreign captains and the chiefs of the civil factions, she conjured the English in the name of the God of charity, of concord and of justice to abandon a country that they held contrary to right and that they ruled with violence, and she promised to them mercy and peace if they renounced the iniquitous conquest that rapine and massacre had rendered still more odious. When she addressed herself to the Frenchmen in arms against the French she ever reminded them that they were of France, and conjured them to join against the common enemy.
As a woman, Joan Darc ever gave the example of the most generous and most angelic virtues. Her chastity inspired her with sublime words that will remain the admiration of the centuries.
How could the ecclesiastical judges formulate against the warrior, the Christian and the virgin a single accusation that does not cause common judgment to revolt? an accusation that is not a heinous outrage, a despicable insult, a sacrilegious challenge cast at all that ever has been and ever will be the object of man's admiration?
These infamous ecclesiastics, these bishops sold to the English, ransacked the canons of the Church and the decretals of the Inquisition, and with the aid of these found twelve capital charges against the warrior, the Christian and the virgin.
Twelve capital charges! And what is still more abominable, in the eyes of the orthodox judges, the charges are well founded and legitimate. They are the "complete, absolute, irrevocable and infallible" expression of the Roman Church. They flow in point of right, from the legal application of the jurisdiction of a church that is infallible, eternal and divine—one as God; infallible as God; divine as God; eternal as God!—according to the claims of the ecclesiastics!
The sentence of Joan is supposed to be the summary of the life of the Maid, now present before her judges, and though broken and feverish, yet with a soul full of faith and of energy.
The session is re-opened.
Bishop Cauchon (addressing the accused in a grave voice)—"Joan, our very dear brother Maurice will read to you the sentence that has been pronounced upon you." (The Bishop devoutly crosses himself.)
All the Judges (crossing themselves)—"Amen."
Canon Maurice (reading in a sepulchral and threatening voice)—"'First: You said, Joan, that at thirteen years you had revelations and apparitions of angels and saints to whom you give the name of St. Michael, of St. Marguerite and of St. Catherine. You said you frequently saw them with the eyes of your body. You said that you frequently conversed with them.