In vain all the venerable doctors present exhorted the prisoner to make her submission; they quoted Scripture, chapter and verse, to her (Matt. xviii.), without obtaining any more success than the Bishop had done.
As they were leaving the prison one of these 'venerable doctors' hissed to Joan: 'If you refuse to submit to the Church, the Church will abandon you as if you were a Saracen.'
To this Joan of Arc replied: 'I am a good Christian—a Christian born and baptized—and a Christian I shall die.'
Before Cauchon left his victim he made one further attempt to obtain a decided answer from Joan of Arc, this time making use of a bait which he thought must catch her—namely, permission to receive the Communion: 'As,' he said, 'you desire the Eucharist, will you, if you are allowed to do so, submit yourself to the Church?'
To this offer Joan answered: 'As to that submission I can give no other answer than that I have already given you. I love God; Him I serve, as a good Christian should. Were I able I would help the Church with all my strength.'
'But,' said Cauchon, 'if we were to order a grand procession to restore your health, then would you not submit yourself?'
'I only request,' she answered, 'that the Church and all good Catholics will pray for me.'
Some of the judges had suggested that, in a more public place than in her prison, Joan of Arc should be again admonished relating to the crimes of which she was accused; and Cauchon accordingly summoned a public meeting of the judges for the 2nd of May, to be held in a chamber near the Great Hall.
On that day sixty-two judges were present. Cauchon took care that the actual charges contained in the twelve articles which had been sent to the University should not be read in the presence of the prisoner, and told her that she had only been summoned in order to receive another admonition before a larger assemblage than had as yet met.
In his opening allocution he told his audience that the private admonition had been unattended with good results, that Joan had refused to submit herself to the Church, and that he had accordingly invited to the present meeting a learned doctor of theology, namely, John de Chatillon, archdeacon of Evreux, whose eloquence he doubted not would have a beneficial effect upon the stubbornness of the prisoner.