On the 12th of April a meeting under the presidency of Erard Emenyart, consisting of a score of lawyers and clergy, was held in the chapel of the archiepiscopal palace.  At this meeting, with scarcely a dissentient voice, it was voted that Joan of Arc had by her deeds and her expressed opinions proved herself schismatical and strongly tainted with heresy.  A second meeting took place in the same building on the following day, attended by some more Church functionaries.  Some of these suggested that the prisoner should be promptly handed over to the secular arm—­if she refuses still to renounce her errors—­and if she acknowledges them, her fate will then be to be imprisoned for life, and given for nourishment ’the bread of sorrows and the water of anguish.’  Eleven advocates—­all belonging to Rouen—­however, added the following clause, that the latter should be her punishment, ’provided that her revelations do not come from God.’  But with the fear of Cauchon before them, they added to this clause that the revelations coming from such a source seems hardly probable, and they appeal to the bachelors in theology to set them right on that head.  The Bishop of Lisieux, who had already given as his reason for not believing that Joan of Arc’s mission could be Heaven-inspired the fact of the low station from which she came, now repeated the same absurdity on this occasion.  There were others who preferred delaying their verdict until the decision arrived at by the University of Paris had been made known.  A number of the Churchmen belonging to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Rouen hesitated, divided between two opinions, for and against the Maid, and of these only twenty put in an appearance when summoned by Cauchon to meet on the 13th of April.  They were threatened and bullied by the Bishop to come in stronger numbers on the next day, when they attended to the number of thirty-one, but could not be prevailed on to give a definite opinion until the answer arrived from the University—­which ultimatum Cauchon had to take with as much grace as he could.  While these things were taking place, Joan of Arc fell ill—­worn out probably by her long and harsh imprisonment, by the mental as well as physical torment she must have undergone during those weeks of cross-questioning and endless browbeating.  Her jailers were more alarmed about her condition than she was herself, for were she to die a natural death, half the moral effect her enemies counted on obtaining by giving her the death of a sorceress and heretic would be lost.  Doctors were sent for—­sent by the Cardinal of Winchester and Warwick.  When asked what ailed her she said that her illness had commenced after eating a fish that had been sent her by the Bishop of Beauvais.  Warwick is said to have had the brutality to tell the doctors that her life must be saved at all hazards, for she had to die by the hands of the executioners.  The doctors ordered her to be bled, and her naturally strong constitution soon restored her to health.  During the days of the weakness following her illness, Cauchon, thinking probably that more might be then wrung from her than when well, came to see her.  This was on the 18th of April.  He went to the dungeon accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor and half-a-dozen judges, and the following charitable exhortation, as the chronicler styles it, took place.