‘Did the women not touch your rings and charms?’

‘Many,’ she answered, ’were wont to touch both my hands and my rings; but I know not with what intention.’

’Did she not receive the sacrament and confess herself as she passed through the country?’

‘Often,’ she answered.

‘And did you,’ asked the priest, ’receive the sacrament in your male attire?’

‘Yes,’ she said; ’but not, if I recollect right, when wearing my armour.’

This confession of having received the Eucharist in her male dress was made one of the accusations of sacrilege by Joan of Arc’s judges.

She was next questioned about a horse she had bought from the Bishop of Senlis, and ridden in battle.

The next point related to the supposed miraculous resurrection—­a very temporary one however—­of an infant three days old at Lagny.  When Joan was in that place, this child appeared to have died, and was put before the image of the Virgin, in front of which some young women were kneeling.  Joan of Arc joined them in their prayers, upon which it was noticed that the supposed dead infant gave some signs of life; he or she was baptized, and soon after expired.  Joan of Arc had never for a moment supposed that it was owing to her presence and her prayers that this miracle had occurred.

‘But,’ asked Beaupere, ’was it not the common talk of the town of Lagny that you had performed this miracle, and had been the means of restoring the infant to life?’

‘I did not inquire,’ she said.

She was then asked about the woman, Catherine de la Rochelle, whom, it may be remembered, Joan had discovered to be a vulgar impostor, and whom she had tried to dissuade from making people believe that she could discover hidden treasures, advising her to return to her husband and her children.

Next she was asked why she had tried to escape from her prison tower at Beaurevoir.  She said that she had made the attempt, although against the warning of her voices, which had counselled her to have patience—­but that Saint Catherine had comforted her after her fall from the tower, telling her that she would recover, and also that Compiegne would not be taken.

It was tried to prove that in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy she intended committing suicide.  To this accusation she answered:—­

’I have already said that I would sooner give up my soul into God’s keeping, than fall into the hands of the English.’

And with this ended the sixth and last public day of the heroine’s trial.

Joan of Arc’s judges had found nothing to attach guilt to her in any of her replies; but as she had been condemned before the farce was enacted of trying her, her innocence could not save her life.  As Michelet observes, Joan of Arc’s answers may have had some effect in touching the hearts of even such men as were her judges; and it was perhaps on this account that Cauchon thought it more prudent to