Article LXX. All and each of these propositions contained in these Articles are true, notorious and manifest; the public voice and rumour hath occupied and doth occupy itself therewith; the Accused hath recognized and acknowledged these things as true, many times and sufficiently, before witnesses proved and worthy of belief, in and out of court.
“What have you to say on this Article?”
“I deny all that I have not recognized and confessed.”
CONCLUSION.—Having attained conviction of the truth of all or part of the preceding Articles in a manner to justify the proposed end, which is that you may be enabled to pronounce in recognition of the cause, the Promoter doth conclude that it will be ultimately judged by you, upon the whole, according to law and right.
And the said Promoter humbly imploreth your offices on all these things, as may be suitable.
The Seventy Articles preceding [p. [341]] which form the Act of Accusation for the Trial, were reduced to Twelve by Maître Nicolas Midi; the twelve Articles are here given.
THE TWELVE ARTICLES OF ACCUSATION.
ARTICLE I.
A woman doth say and affirm that when she was of the age of thirteen years or thereabouts, she did, with her bodily eyes, see Saint Michael come to comfort her, and from time to time also Saint Gabriel; that both the one and the other appeared to her in bodily form. Sometimes also she hath seen a great multitude of Angels; since then, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret have shewn themselves to her in bodily form; every day she sees these two Saints and hears their voices; she hath often kissed and embraced them, and sometimes she hath touched them, in a physical and corporeal manner. She hath seen the heads of these Angels and these Saints, but of the rest of their persons and of their dress she will say nothing. The said Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret have also formerly spoken to her near a spring which flows at the foot of a great tree, called in the neighbourhood “The Fairies’ Tree.” This spring and this tree nevertheless have been, it is said, frequented by fairies; persons ill of fever have repaired there in great numbers to recover their health. This spring and this tree are nevertheless in a profane place. There and elsewhere she hath often venerated these two Saints, and hath done them obeisance.
Besides this, she doth say that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret appear and shew themselves to her adorned with most beautiful and most precious crowns. At this time and very often since, they have announced to her, by the order of God, that she was to go in search of a certain secular Prince, promising that, by her help and succour, this same Prince should, by force of arms, recover a great temporal domain and the honour of this world, and should obtain victory over his adversaries: this same Prince received her, and furnished her with arms and soldiers for the carrying out of what has just been said. Further, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret have ordered this same woman, by the command of God, to take and to wear a man’s dress, which she hath borne and doth still bear, persisting in obeying this order, to the extent that she saith she would rather die than give up this dress, adding that she will only abandon it by the express order of God. She hath even preferred not to assist in the Office of the Mass and to deprive herself of the Holy Communion of the Eucharist, at the time when the Church commands the faithful to receive it, rather than to resume female dress and to quit this man’s habit.