[Illustration:  TOUR D’HORLOGE—­CHINON.]

The first conference between these prelates, lawyers, and Joan lasted two hours.  At first they appeared to doubt the Maid, but her frank and straightforward answers to all the questions put her impressed them with the truth of her character.  They were, according to the old chronicles, ’grandement ebahis comme une ce simple bergere jeune fille pouvait ainsi repondre.’

One of her examiners, Jean Lombard by name, a professor of theology from the University of Paris, in asking Joan what had induced her to visit the King, was told she had been encouraged so to do by ’her voices’—­those voices which had taught her the great pity felt by her for the land of France; that although at first she had hesitated to obey them, they became ever more urgent, and commanded her to go.

‘And, Joan,’ then asked a doctor of theology named William Aymeri, ’why do you require soldiers, if you tell us that it is God’s will that the English shall be driven out of France?  If that is the case, then there is no need of soldiers, for surely, if it be God’s will that the enemy should fly the country, go they must!’

To which Joan answered:  ’The soldiers will do the fighting, and God will give the victory!’

Sequier, whose account of the proceedings has come down to us, then asked Joan in what language the Saints addressed her.

‘In a better one than yours,’ she answered.

Now Brother Sequier, although a doctor of theology, had a strong and disagreeable accent which he had brought from his native town of Limoges, and, doubtless, the other clerks and priests tittered not a little at Joan’s answer.  Sequier appears to have been somewhat irritated, and sharply asked Joan whether she believed in God.

‘Better than you do,’ was the reply; but Sequier, who is described as a ‘bien aigre homme,’ was not yet satisfied, and returned to the charge.  Like the Pharisees, he wished for a sign, and he declared that he for one could not believe in the sacred mission of the Maid, did she not show them all a sign, nor without such a sign could he advise the King to place any one in peril, merely on the strength of Joan’s declaration and word.

To this Joan said that she had not come to Poitiers to show signs, but she added:—­

’Let me go to Orleans, and there you will be able to judge by the signs I shall show wherefore I have been sent on this mission.  Let the force of soldiers with me be as small as you choose; but to Orleans I must go!’

For three weeks did these conferences last.  Nothing was neglected to discover every detail regarding Joan’s life:  of her childhood, of her family and her friends.  And one of the Council visited Domremy to ferret out all the details that could be got at.  Needless to say, all that he heard only redounded to the Maid’s credit; nothing transpired which was not honourable to the Maid’s character and way of life, and in keeping with the testimony Jean de Metz and Poulangy had given the King at Chinon.