'When I first had tidings,' he says, 'of Joan of Arc and of her arrival at Court, I was at Puy, where at that time were her mother and some people who had accompanied her to Chinon. Having come to me, they said, "You must come with us and see Joan; we will not allow you to leave us until you have seen her." So I went with them to Chinon, and also to Tours. At that time I was reader in a convent in that town. When she came to Tours, Joan lived in the house of John Dupuy, a burgher of that place. It was there that I first met her. "Joan," they said to her, "we have brought this good father to see you. When you know him well you will like him very much." And Joan answered them and said, "The good father pleases me much; I have heard about him already, and I will make my confession to him to-morrow."
'And I heard her confession on the day following, when I also sang the Mass before her. Since that I have always followed Joan, and I remained her chaplain till the time of her capture at Compiègne.'
It was in this good priest's evidence that the touching trait of Joan of Arc's fondness for gathering children about her was made known. 'She confessed nearly every day,' he said, 'and took the Sacrament often. When near any community of begging friars she asked me to remind her of the days on which the beggar children received the Eucharist, so that she might receive it at the same time with them. It was her delight,' he said, 'to take the Sacrament along with the poor mendicant children. She shed tears often at confession.'
Later on in his evidence Pasquerel adds to the above, 'that often at night I have seen her kneeling, praying for her King and for the success of her mission. I certainly,' he said, 'firmly believed in the divine source of her mission, for she was always engaged in good works, and she was full of every good quality. During a campaign when provisions ran short Joan would never take that which had been gained by pillage. To the wounded she was ever pitiful—to the English as well as to those of her own country, and she always tried to get them to make their confession, if badly, and even if only slightly, wounded. The fear of God was ever before her, nor would she for anything in the world do anything which she considered contrary to His will: for instance, when she was wounded in the shoulder by the dart from a crossbow, when some people wished her to allow the wound to be charmed, promising that if she had it done her hurt would be healed, Joan said that to do so would be a sin, and that she would sooner die than commit one.
'I am greatly surprised,' continued the unsophisticated old priest, 'that such great lawyers (grands clercs) as were those at Rouen could have sentenced Joan to death. How could they put to death that poor child, who was such a good and such a simple Christian, and that too, so cruelly, without a reason—for surely they had not sufficient reason at any rate to kill her!'
Pasquerel could evidently not grasp the real reason for the part played by Cauchon in the execution of the Maid of Orleans, or imagine that in order to obtain an archbishopric his beloved Joan had been condemned by the Bishop of Beauvais to the flames. Pasquerel's evidence ends thus:—
'I have nothing more to add except this. On several occasions Joan told me that if she were to die, she hoped our lord the King would found chantries in which the Almighty might be entreated in intercession for the souls of those who had been slain in the defence of the kingdom.'
The next witness is John d'Aulon, knight, Seneschal of Beaucaire, member of the King's Council. It was he who had served Joan of Arc as esquire during all her campaigns. His evidence is of importance, as it proves clearly the grounds on which the trial of rehabilitation was held—namely, to clear the King of having been crowned and anointed through the agency of one condemned by the Church as an apostate and heretic. The Archbishop thus wrote to d'Aulon on the 20th of April, 1456:—
'By the sentence pronounced against Joan the English wish it to be believed that the Maid was a sorceress, a heretic, and in league with the devil, and therefore that the King had received his kingdom by those means; and thus they hold as heretics the King and those that have served him.'
Nothing can be clearer than this declaration, or show better the real object for which that utterly selfish prince, Charles VII., had, after the lapse of a quarter of a century since the death of Joan of Arc, instituted these proceedings—not at all in order to do honour to the heroine's memory, but in order that his position as King of France should not be tainted with the heresy which had been charged to the account of Joan by and through the clergy and French doctors of theology and learning.