A sudden change was now made in the cross-examination according to the methods of that operation, throwing her back without warning upon the village superstitions of Domremy, the magic tree and fountain.  Many of the questions which follow are so trivial and are so evidently instinct with evil meaning, that it seems a wrong to Beaupere to impute the whole of the interrogatory to him; other questions were evidently interposed by the excited assembly.

Asked, if St. Catherine and St. Margaret talked with her under the tree of which mention had been made above, she answered, “I know nothing about it.”  Asked, if the saints were seen at the fountain near the tree, answered yes, that she had heard them there; but what her saints promised to her, there or elsewhere, she answered, that nothing was promised except by permission from God.  Asked, what promises were made to her, she answered, “This has nothing at all to do with your trial,” but added, that among other things they said to her that her King should be restored to his kingdom, and that his adversaries should be destroyed.  She said also that they promised to take her, the said Jeanne, to Paradise, as she had asked them to do.  Asked, if she had any other promises, she said there was one promise that had nothing to do with the trial, but that in three months she would tell them what that other promise was.  Asked, if the voices told her she would be set free from her prison in three months, she answered:  “This does not concern your trial; nor do I know when I shall be set free.”  And she added that those who wished to send her out of this world might well go before her.  Asked, if her council did not tell her when she should be set free from her present prison, answered:  “Ask me this in three months’ time; I can promise you as much as that”—­but added:  “You may ask those present, on their oaths, if this has anything to do with the trial.”

Startled by this suggestion, the judges seem to have held a hurried consultation among themselves to see whether these matters did really touch the trial; the result apparently decided them to return again to the question of the local superstitions of Domremy, the only point on which there seemed a chance of breaking down the extraordinarily just and steadfast intelligence of the girl who stood before them.  After this pause she resumed, apparently not in answer to any question.

“I have well told you that there were things you should not know, and some time I must needs be set free.  But I must have permission if I speak; therefore I will ask to have delay in this.”  Asked, if her voices forbade her to speak the truth, she said:  “Do you expect me to tell you things that concern the King of France?  There is a great deal here that has nothing to do with the trial.”  She said also that she knew that her King should enjoy the kingdom of France, as well as she knew that they were there before her in judgment.  She added that she would have been dead but for the