And Manchon, the clerk, was so struck by this reply that he wrote on the margin of his paper: “Responsio Johannae superba.”
“Have you nothing further to say?” asked Cauchon of promoter and prisoner.
“No;” was the reply, and he declared the trial concluded.
“We summon you to-morrow to hear the law which will be laid down by us, to be carried out afterward and proceeded with according to law and right.”
Jeanne was led back to her prison and the company of John Grey’s men. It was the twenty-third of May, and she had 368 been a prisoner a year. A year, and for nearly five months of that time she had been chained and ironed like a wild beast. Through almost four months of it she had been tortured, badgered, and bullied through the most cruel and unjust trial the world has ever known. And she had faced this daily torment with high spirit and undaunted mien. But she was weary, and worn, and the despondency that follows a period of high exaltation came upon her. Her Voices had promised “deliverance by a great victory,” and deliverance had not come. The next day there would be the sentence, and death by fire. All night the girl lay in her chains striving to commune with her saintly visitors, but her guards were noisy, and she could catch but little of what they were saying:
“Answer boldly all that is said to you,” they told her. “God will help you. Fear naught.”
The morning came, and found her listless, sad, and inexpressibly weary. The false Loyseleur was on hand early, urging her to submit to the Church.
“Do all that you are told, and you may be saved,” he said to her. “Accept the woman’s dress, and do as I tell you; then you will be given over to the Church. Otherwise you are in peril of death.”
Came also Jean Beaupère, one of the assessors.
“You will soon be led to the scaffold to be preached to,” he said. “If you are a good Christian place all your deeds and words in the ordering of our Holy Mother Church, and especially of the ecclesiastical judges.”