‘Often,’ she says, ’Joan said to my mother, “Hope in God, for He will deliver the town of Orleans, and drive the enemy away."’

And last we find the evidence of two good wives of Orleans, one widow of John Hure, the other Petronille, wife of Beaucharnys.  After these came six clerics, canons of the Church of Saint Aignan at Orleans—­Robert de Farciaux, Peter Compaing, Peter de la Censurey, Raoul Godert, Herve Bonart, and Andre Bordez.  Peter Milet and his wife, Colette, were also witnesses.  All had known Joan when she was at Orleans, as had Aignan Viole, an advocate of Parliament, who had been in Orleans during the siege.

The ‘noble homme Guillaume de Richarville, panetier de la cour,’ gave his evidence, relating to Joan of Arc’s appearance at Court, as also did an old Court physician named Reginald Thierry; it is he who relates how, at the capture of Saint Pierre-le-Moutier, Joan prevented its church from being pillaged.

A doughty warrior follows, namely, ’noble et prudent Seigneur le chevalier Thibauld d’Armagnac, Sire de Thermes, Bailli de Chartres.’  D’Armagnac was fifty years old; he had followed Joan of Arc all through her campaign, and, like Alencon, had a very high opinion of her military talents.  At the close of his evidence, he says:  ’In the manner of the conduct and ordering of troops, in that of placing them in battle array, and of animating the men, Joan of Arc had as much capacity for these things as the most accomplished captain in the art of war.’

After the soldier, the peasant.  This peasant, or rather mechanic, is a coppersmith named Husson Lemaitre.  Lemaitre hailed from Domremy.  Being in the year 1456 at Rouen, he then and there gave his evidence.  He had known Joan of Arc’s family, and Joan too in her childhood; of all of them he spoke most highly.

Next comes ’honnete et prude femme demoiselle Marguerite la Tournelle,’ the widow of Rene de Bouligny.  It was at her house at Bourges that Joan lodged after the coronation at Rheims.

We now pass to an entirely different category of witnesses.  These are the men who sat in the trial of the heroine.  One can well understand the embarrassment shown by such folk in their replies to the questions they had to answer, and their wish if it were possible to turn the responsibility of their previous judgment on the heads of those who were no longer in this world to answer the charges made against them.

The first of these men is ’venerable et savante personne Maitre Thomas de Courcelles.’  De Courcelles was only fifty-six in 1456, when called on to make his deposition as to the part he had played in the heroine’s trial at Rouen, five-and-twenty years before.  His evidence is full of the feeblest argument, and his memory appears to have been a very convenient one, as he repeatedly evades an answer by the plea of having forgotten all about the incident alluded to.

Next follows that ’venerable et circonspecte personne, Maitre Jean Beaupere’—­a doctor of theology, and canon of Rouen, Paris, and Besancon.  This circumspect person was now in his seventieth year.  He laid most of the blame of Joan of Arc’s death upon the English, and the rest on Cauchon.  The English being away, and Cauchon dead, the circumspection of this doctor’s evidence is evident.