She answered; above all things he said that she was to be a good child and that God would help her:  and among other things that she was to go to the succour of the King of France.  But the greater part of what the angel taught her, she continued, was already in their book; and THE ANGEL SHOWED HER THE GREAT PITY THERE WAS OF THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE.

The pity of it!  That which has always gone most to the tender heart:  a country torn in pieces, brother fighting against brother, the invader seated at the native hearth, and blood and fire making the smiling land a desert:  “la pitie qui estoit au royaume de France.”

Did the Inquisitor break down here?  Could no one go on? or was it mere human incompetence to feel the divine touch?  Some one broke into a foolish question about the height of the angel, and the sitting was hurriedly concluded.  Monseigneur might well be on his mettle; that very pity, was it not stealing into the souls of his private committee deputed for so different a use?

*****

Next day the questions about St. Michael’s personal appearance were resumed, as a little feint we can only suppose, for the great question of the Church was again immediately introduced; but in the meantime Jeanne had described her visitor in terms which it is pleasant to dwell on.  “He was in the form of a tres vrai prud’ homme.”  The term is difficult to translate, as is the Galantuomo of Italy.  The “King-Honest Man,” we used to say in English in the days of his late Majesty Victor Emmanuel of Italy; but that is not all that is meant—­un vrai prud’ homme, a man good, honest, brave, the best man, is more like it.  The girl’s honest imagination thought of no paraphernalia of wings or shining plumes.  It was not the theatrical angel, not even the angel of art whom she saw—­whom it would have been so easy to invent, nay to take quite truthfully from the first painted window, radiating colour and brightness through the dim, low-roofed church.  But even with such material handy, Jeanne was not led into the conventional.  She knew nothing about wings or emblematic scales.  He was in the form of a brave and gentle man.  She knew not anything greater, nor would she be seduced into fable however sacred.  Then once more the true assault began.

She was asked, if she would submit all her sayings and doings, good or evil, to the judgment of our Holy Mother, the Church.  She replied, that as for the Church, she loved it and would sustain it with all her might for our Christian faith; and that it was not she whom they ought to disturb and hinder from going to church or from hearing mass.  As to the good things she had done, and that had happened, she must refer all to the King of Heaven, who had sent her to Charles, King of France; and it should be seen that the French would soon gain a great advantage which God would send them, so great that all the kingdom of France would be shaken.  And this, she said,