This was not the only change they found, nor the greatest. Back in the cell, the Voices had spoken loud and clear in rebuke and reproach. St. Margaret, St. Catherine, both were there. Both told her of the great pity of that betrayal to which she had consented, when she made that abjuration and revocation to save her life; told her that by so doing she had condemned herself.
"If I were to say" (it is herself speaking now) "that God did not send me I would condemn myself, for true it is that God sent me. My Voices have told me since that I greatly sinned in that deed, in confessing that I had done ill. What I said, I said in fear of fire."[69]
And the clerk wrote against these words, on the margin of his notes, "Responsio Mortifera."
The Maid now clearly and emphatically revoked her submission. What she had said, she repeated, was said in dread of fire.
"Do you believe," asked Cauchon, "that your Voices are those of St. Catherine and St. Margaret?"
"Yes!" replied the Maid. "Their voices and God's!"
These words were spoken on May 28th, to Cauchon, who had hastened to the prison, hearing that Joan had resumed man's apparel. Angrily he asked why she had done this. She answered that it was more convenient, among men, to wear men's dress. She had not understood that she had sworn never to wear it again; if she had broken a pledge in this, one had been broken with her, the promise that she should be released from fetters, and should receive the sacrament.
"I would rather die," she said, "than remain in irons. If you will release me, and let me go to mass and lie in gentle prison, I will be good, and do what the Church desires."
There was only one thing that the Church, as represented in the person of Pierre Cauchon, desired, and that was the end of her. She had "relapsed"; it was enough. He hurried joyfully away, passing in the courtyard Warwick and his men, who were waiting for news.
"Farewell!" cried the Bishop of Beauvais. "Be of good cheer, for it is done."