“Are there two?”
One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers there, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:
“By God, it was a master stroke!”
As soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came back to the charge, but was prudent and passed by Joan’s question:
“Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking you which of the three Popes he ought to obey?”
“Yes, and answered it.”
Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had not been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count’s letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:
“So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer him from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest.”
She was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.
“I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he ought to obey”; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, “but as for me, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome.”