“It is more suitable for me to wear it, being among men,” said the Maid, taking the blame of the whole matter. “I have resumed it because the promise to me has not been kept; that is to say, that I should go to mass and should receive my Saviour, and that I should be taken out of irons.”
“Did you not promise and swear not to resume the dress of a man?”
“No; I am not aware that I took any such oath. I would rather die than be in irons. But if you will release me from these irons, and let me go to mass, and lie in gentle prison, I will be good and do as the Church desires.”
“Since last Thursday have you heard your Voices?” asked the Bishop, wishing to find some basis for the charge of “relapse.”
“Yes;” Jeanne’s sad face brightened at once.
“What did they say to you?”
“God made known to me by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret the great pity there was for the treason to which I consented by making revocation and abjuration in order to save my life. I have condemned myself that my life might be saved. On Thursday my Voices told me to answer that preacher boldly, and he was a false preacher, who preached. He accused me of many things that I never did. If I said that God did not send me, I should condemn myself, for God did send me. My Voices have told me that I committed sin in declaring that what I had done was wrong. All that I said and revoked, I said for fear of the fire.”
And Manchon, the clerk, wrote on the margin of his record: “Responsio mortifera.” “The answer that caused her death.”