’Upon your banner, the one you carried, was not a picture painted representing the world and two angels?  What was the significance of that?’

‘My saints told me to carry that banner boldly.’

‘Did you not also bear arms and a shield?’

’Not I; but the King gave my brothers a coat-of-arms; a shield with a blue ground, on which were two fleurs-de-lis of gold, and a sword between.’

‘Did you make a present to your brothers of those arms?’

’They were given my brothers by the King, without any request made by me.’

‘What kind of horse were you riding when you were captured?’

‘I was mounted on a demi-coursier.’

‘Who had given you that horse?’

‘My King,’ answered Joan of Arc; and she went on to tell them how she had had fine horses purchased by the King for her use; she also gave them an account of her few possessions.

There is, indeed, so much repetition in the questions and answers during these long examinations, that it would be a weariness to the reader did one minutely re-write them as they appear in the chronicle.  We shall therefore confine ourselves to the principal and most important facts and statements which bear most prominently on our heroine’s career, and on the answers most characteristic made by her.

The remainder of that first day’s trial in the prison consisted nearly entirely of trying to elicit from Joan of Arc what was the special sign or secret that she had revealed to the King at Chinon.  She, however, gave them no further information than in saying that the sign was a beautiful and honoured mark of Divine favour.  For hours she was urged to tell of what this special sign or token consisted—­whether of precious stones, gold, or silver.  Joan, who apparently was wearied out by the pertinacity of her inquisitors, seems to have allowed herself to mix with the reality the fabulous, and described that an angel had appeared to Charles bringing him a crown of matchless beauty.  She seems, poor creature, half dazed and bewildered by her sufferings and her tormentors, to have mixed up in her mind and in her replies the actual event of the King’s coronation at Rheims with her angelic visions and voices; for to her one must have appeared as real and actual as the other.

Nine examinations in the prison tower of Rouen were undergone by Joan of Arc:—­Once on the 10th of March; twice on the 12th, and again on the 13th; twice on the 14th; again on the 15th; and twice more on the 17th.  In all these successive trials, nothing of importance was obtained by the judges from the prisoner.  Both answers and questions were similar to those which have already been recorded during the days of her examinations in public.  Throughout all this trying process of a week’s long and minute cross-questioning, the heroine maintained the same firmness, and answered with the same simple dignity as on the former occasions.  Two of her answers may be justly called sublime.  When during the course of the seventh day’s trial, she was asked what doctrine Saint Michel had inspired her with, she answered:—­