“I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure of God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in confession and also receive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground.”
Cauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body had the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of hell to follow. This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and said:
“Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do, and submit to the Church.”
He was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender in it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head away and said wearily:
“I have nothing more to say.”
Cauchon’s temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly and said that the more she was in danger of death the more she ought to amend her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless she would submit to the Church. Joan said:
“If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holy ground; if you will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour.”
There was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded again, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all her deeds to the Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body was weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out of that came the steadfast answer which these people were already so familiar with and detested so sincerely:
“Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have said already in your tribunals.”
Then the good theologians took turn about and worried her with reasonings and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the lure of the Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with them to surrender her mission to the Church’s judgment—that is to their judgment—as if they were the Church! But it availed nothing. I could have told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never asked me anything; I was too humble a creature for their notice.