afraid of nothing, keeping her self-possession, all her wits about her as we say, without panic and without presumption.  The trial of Jeanne is indeed almost more miraculous than her fighting; a girl not yet nineteen, forsaken of all, without a friend!  It is less wonderful that she should have developed the qualities of a general, of a gunner, every gift of war—­than that in her humiliation and distress she should thus hold head against all the most subtle intellects in France, and bear, with but one moment of faltering, a continued cross-examination of three months, without losing her patience, her heart, or her courage.

*****

The third day brought a still larger accession of judges, sixty-two of them taking their places on the benches round the Bishop in the great hall; and the day began with another and longer altercation between Cauchon and Jeanne on the subject of the oath again demanded of her.  She maintained her resolution to say nothing of her voices.  “We” according to the record “required of her that she should swear simply and absolutely without reservation.”  She would seem to have replied with impatience, “Let me speak freely:”  adding “By my faith you may ask me many questions which I will not answer”:  then explaining, “Many things you may ask me, but I will tell you nothing truly that concerns my revelations; for you might compel me to say things which I have sworn not to say; and so I should perjure myself, which you ought not to wish.”  This explains several statements which she made later in respect to her introduction to the King.  She repeated emphatically:  “I warn you well, you who call yourselves my judges, that you take a great responsibility upon you, and that you burden me too much.”  She said also that it was enough to have already sworn twice.  She was again asked to swear simply and absolutely, and answered, “It is enough to have sworn twice,” and that all the clerks in Rouen and Paris could not condemn her unless lawfully; also that of her coming she would speak the truth but not all the truth; and that the space of eight days would not be enough to tell all.

“We the said Bishop” (continues the report) “then said to her that she should ask advice from those present whether she ought to swear or not.  She replied again that of her coming she would speak truly and not otherwise, nor would it be fit that she should talk at large.  We then told her that it would throw suspicion on what she said if she did not swear to speak the truth.  She answered as before.  We repeated that she must swear precisely and absolutely.  She answered that she would say what she knew, but not all, and that she had come on the part of God, and appealed to God from whom she came.  Again requested and admonished to swear on pain of every punishment that could be put on her, again answered ‘Passez outre.’  Finally she consented to swear that she would speak the truth in everything that concerned the trial.”