“Pucelle, I am a priest. Nay,” as Jeanne turned toward him with an exclamation of joy, “speak low. Some of the guards may understand French, and I am come to help you.”
“A priest?” The maiden’s thin, white face grew radiant. “A priest, messire? Then you can hear me in confession?”
“Gladly, my child.” And forthwith the girl innocently opened up her heart to him.
The man was in reality a priest, one Nicholas Loyseleur, a representative of the University of Paris, and full of treachery and hypocrisy. He served Cauchon well, for Jeanne trusted him wholly, never dreaming that every word she said to him was overheard and recorded by secret listeners. For there was provision made for espionage, openings being in the walls through which everything that took place in the room, every proceeding could be spied upon, and every word heard. Although the long conversations that this man held with Jeanne elicited nothing that she did not say publicly, he was always giving her advice which, when she followed it, she followed to her hurt.
The preliminaries, as has been said, threatened to be endless, but at length, on Wednesday, February twenty-first, the Great Trial began at eight o’clock in the morning in the royal chapel of the castle.
Jeanne gave a sigh of relief as the officer of the court, who was sent to conduct her to the chapel, released her from her fetters.
“You are summoned to appear before the court, Pucelle,” he explained.
“May I hear mass before entering the court?” asked she wistfully.
“Nay; it is not permitted,” he answered. “Come!”