"Your objection is serious," answered the Sire of La Tremouille. "Nevertheless, just supposing the girl to be chaste, what must not be her shame at the thought of so humiliating an investigation! The more conscious she be of the chastity of her life, that they say has been irreproachable until now, all the more will the creature feel grieved and indignant at a suspicion that so outrages her honor! The chaster she is, all the more will she revolt at the shamefulness of the verification! She will scorn the proposition as an unbearable insult, and will refuse to appear before the council of matrons!—Skilfully exploited, her refusal will turn against her."
"Upon the word of a soldier, the idea is ingenious and droll! I foresee that our wanton Sire will himself want to preside over the council that is to do the examining!"
"And yet, should Joan submit to the trial, and come out triumphant, she will then have a great advantage over us."
"No greater than if she is believed to be a maid upon her own word. The convocation of a council of matrons offers us two chances: if Joan submits to the disgraceful examination she may be declared a strumpet; if she refuses, her refusal makes against her!"
"There is nothing to answer to that," said Raoul of Gaucourt; "I adhere to the plan of a council of matrons to pass upon her virginity."
"Now, let us sum up and lay down our plan of conduct. First, to obtain from the King that a council of matrons be summoned to pass and publicly pronounce itself upon the maidenhood of our adventuress; secondly, in case she issues triumphant from that trial, to convoke a canonical council, instructed to put to the girl the most subtle, the hardest, the most perplexing theological questions, and to announce from her answers whether or not she is inspired by God; thirdly, and lastly, in the next to impossible event that this second examination also result in her favor, to manoeuvre in such manner that she lose her first battle and remain a prisoner in the hands of the English—one way or another she is bound to go down."
At this moment the equerry of Charles VII knocked at the door of the council hall, and entered to announce to the Sire of La Tremouille that the King demanded his minister's immediate presence.
CHAPTER II.
ALOYSE OF CASTELNAU.
Charles VII—the "gentle Dauphin" of France and object of the fervent adoration of Joan, who now for several days lay sequestered in the tower of Coudray—soon tired of the interview to which he had summoned his minister, and sought recreation elsewhere. He found it in the company of his mistress, Aloyse of Castelnau. Indolently stretched upon a cushion at her feet he chatted with her. Frail and slight of stature, the prince, although barely twenty-three years of age, was pale, worn-out and unnerved by excesses. Aloyse, on the other hand, in the full splendor of her beauty, soon found occasion to answer a joke of her royal lover on the subject of Joan the Maid. She said smiling:
"Fie, Charles! Fie, you libertine! To hold such language about an inspired virgin who wishes to restore to you the crown of France!"