Six labourers, who had been playmates with Joan in childhood, then came forward.  These men, named respectively Le Cuin, Guillemeth, Waterin, Colin, Masnier, and Jacquard, were between the ages of forty-four and fifty.  All these humbly born witnesses agreed in their answers to the twelve questions asked them in the following order:—­

     1.  When and where was Joan born?

     2.  Who were her parents?  Were they of good character and of
        good repute?

     3.  Who were her god-fathers?

     4.  Was she piously brought up?

     5.  How did she conduct herself between her seventh year up
        to the time she left her home?

     6.  Did she often frequent the churches and places of
        devotion of her free-will?

     7.  How did she occupy herself, and what were her duties?

     8.  Did she confess often?

     9.  Did she frequent the fairies’ tree and the haunted well,
        and did she go to places with the other young people of the
        neighbourhood?

    10.  How did she leave her home, and how did she accomplish
        her journey?

    11.  Were any investigations made in her native country at
        the time she was taken prisoner?

    12.  Did Joan on one occasion escape to Neufchateau on
        account of a military raid, and was she then in the company
        of her parents?

We now arrive at a higher grade in the ranks of the witnesses, in the shape of ‘l’honorable homme Nicolas Bailly.’  Bailly was a man of sixty; he had been employed by the English in 1430, and by Cauchon—­he was a scrivener (tabellion) by profession—­to make investigations into the character of Joan in her native place.

Then came the old bell-ringer of Joan of Arc’s village—­Perrin le Drassier, aged sixty.  He told how the maiden loved the sound of the church bells, and how she would blame him when he neglected ringing them, and of her little gifts to him to make him more diligent in his office.  After the bell-ringer came three priests—­all belonging to the neighbourhood of Domremy.  The first—­namely, the ’discrete personne Messire Henri Arnolin’—­belonged to Gondrecourt-le-Chateau, near to Commercy, and was sixty-four.  The next is the ’venerable personne Messire Etienne de Sionne,’ curate of the parish church at Raucessey-sous-Neufchateau, aged fifty-four; and the third was named Dominic Jocab, curate of the parish church of Moutier-sur-Saulx.

Next came an old peasant from Domremy, named Bertrand Laclopsse, a thatcher by profession, ninety years of age; after him three neighbours of Joan’s father—­Thevenin le Royer, seventy years old; Jacquier, sixty; and John Moen, wheelwright, fifty-six.  But a far more important witness than any of the preceding three-and-twenty was the uncle of the heroine, Durand Laxart, farm labourer at Burey-le-Petit,