At last the door opens and Canon Loyseleur appears at the entrance. He feigns indignation. He brings with him a little trunk containing Joan's male clothes, and addressing the captain of the tower who enters with him, says: "You see it with your own eyes! An infamous attempt is contemplated upon the unfortunate woman!" Perhaps not wholly dead to conscience, Berwick and Talbot allow Joan Darc to escape from their grasp, and leave the cell, followed by the captain. Distracted, her face black and blue and covered with blood, Joan Darc falls almost senseless upon her couch, near which the canon has deposited her man's attire. Before he has time to speak with the victim, he is called away by the jailer, who, shaking his fist at him, says roughly:
"Get out of here, you tonsured dotard, canon of Satan! The devil take the marplot!"
"Poor child!" cries the priest, walking out, "I brought you your clothes. Put them on despite the oath you took. You may perhaps be sentenced as a relapsed heretic. But death is preferable to outrage!"
The door of the cell closes behind the canon. Silence and darkness resume their empire in Joan's dungeon. The plot to cause Joan's condemnation, induce her abjuration and then provoke her relapse so as to justify her being publicly burned to death is being carried out to the letter.
CHAPTER IX.
THE WORM TURNS.
It is eight o'clock of the following morning. Joan Darc is again clad in her male attire. She is again chained. Her handsome face is bruised from the blows that she received in the nocturnal struggle. One thought only absorbs her mind—can she manage to confess aloud the truth of what she has denied? The heroine's expectations are met by the event. Instructed by his accomplice of the happenings of the day before, the Bishop has commissioned several judges to visit Joan in her cell. They are seven. Here are their names:
Nicolas of Venderesse, William Haiton, Thomas of Courcelles, Isambard of La Pierre, James Camus, Nicolas Bertin, Julien Floquet.
Considering her crime flagrant, Joan Darc feels a bitter joy at the sight of the priests. Her head erect, calm, resolute, she seems to challenge their questions. Out of modesty and dignity, however, and unwilling to run the risk of blushing before these men, she decides to be silent upon the attempt of the previous night. The judges range themselves around the couch of the enchained captive.
Thomas of Courcelles (affecting astonishment)—"What, Joan, again in man's attire? And despite your oath to renounce such idolatrous garb forever?"
Joan Darc (tersely)—"I have resumed these clothes because I was forced to."