She told them that she had asked her Voices if, hard pressed as she was, she should submit to the Church.
“If you would have God come to your aid, wait on Him for all your doings,” was their answer.
“Shall I burn?” she had asked them.
“Wait on our Lord. He will help you.”
Torture was spared that day, as being likely to profit her little, “considering her hardness of heart,” and she was returned to her cell. Cauchon afterward put the question of torture to fourteen of his assessors. Two voted for it: Courcelles, and the spy, Loyseleur, who held that it might be “a salutary medicine for her soul.” The majority, however, were in favor of mercy, considering that there was enough for her condemnation without it.
A few days later the decision of the University of Paris, to whom the twelve articles had been sent, arrived. After an explanation of the consideration which had been given to each article, that learned tribunal gave its verdict upon each indictment; concluding with:
“If the beforesaid woman, charitably exhorted and admonished by competent judges, does not return spontaneously to the Catholic faith, publicly abjure her errors, and give full satisfaction 367 to her judges, she is hereby given up to the secular judge to receive the reward of her deeds.”
In accordance with this decision the final session of the court was held on the twenty-third of May in a small room near Jeanne’s cell to hear Maître Pierre Maurice deliver their final admonition to the captive.
Jeanne listened as always with courtesy to the preacher, though he was expounding to her all her faults. All this to a girl who had lived with but one motive: the service of God, and the deliverance of her country. When he had finished she was again questioned personally. Her answer was clear and undaunted:
“What I have always said in the trial, and held, I wish still to say and maintain. If I were condemned, if I saw the torch lighted, the faggots prepared, and the executioner ready to kindle the fire, and if I myself were in the fire, I would not say otherwise, and would maintain to the death all that I have said.”