’No, I had not one then; I used to wear it constantly up to the time that I left Saint Denis, after the assault on Paris.’

‘What benediction did you bestow on that sword?’

‘None,’ said Joan; and she added, on being questioned as to her feeling about the sword, that she had a particular liking for it, from its having been found in the Church of Sainte Catherine, her favourite saint.

Then Beaupere inquired whether Joan was not in the habit of placing this sword on the altar, in order to bring it good luck.

Joan answered in the negative.

‘But then,’ the priest asked, ’had she not prayed that it might bring her good fortune?’

‘It is enough to know,’ answered Joan, ’that I wished my armour might bring me good fortune.’

‘What had become of the Fierbois sword?’ asked the priest.

‘I offered up at Saint Denis,’ answered Joan, ’a sword and some armour, but not the Fierbois sword.’

‘Had you it when at Lagny?’ asked Beaupere.

‘Yes,’ answered the prisoner.

But between the time passed at Lagny and Compiegne she wore another sword, taken from a Burgundian soldier, which she said was a good weapon, able to deal shrewd blows.  But she would not satisfy Beaupere’s curiosity as to what had become of the sword of Fierbois:  ‘That,’ she said, ‘has nothing to do with the trial.’

Beaupere next inquired as to what had become of Joan of Arc’s goods.

She said her brother had her horses and her goods; she said she believed the latter amounted to some twelve thousand ecus.

‘Had you not,’ asked the priest, ’when you went to Orleans, a banner or pennon?  Of what colour was that?’

’My banner had a field all covered with fleurs-de-lis.  In it was represented the world, with angels on either side.  It was white, made of white cloth, of a kind called coucassin.  On it was written Jesu Maria.  It was bordered with silk.’

‘Which were you fondest of?’ asked Beaupere,—­’your banner or your sword?’

‘I loved my banner,’ was the answer, ’forty times as much as I did my sword.’

‘Who painted your banner?’

This Joan would not say.

‘Who bore your flag?’ asked the priest.

Joan of Arc said she carried it herself when charging the enemy, ’in order,’ she added, ‘to avoid killing any one.  I never killed any one,’ she said.

‘How many soldiers did the King give you,’ asked the priest, ’when he gave you a command?’

‘Between ten and twelve thousand men,’ answered Joan.

Then Beaupere questioned her regarding the relief of Orleans, and he was told by the Maid that she first went to the redoubt of Saint Loup by the bridge.

‘Did you expect,’ was the next question, ’that you would be able to raise the siege?’

‘Yes,’ she was certain, Joan answered, from a revelation which she had received, and of which she had told the King before making the expedition.