But I am wandering from the trial.  Joan was asked to definitely name the time that she would be delivered from prison.

“I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything.  I am to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell you the day.  That is why I wish for delay.”

“Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?”

“Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France?  I tell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I know it as well as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal.”  She sighed and, after a little pause, added:  “I should be dead but for this revelation, which comforts me always.”

Some trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael’s dress and appearance.  She answered them with dignity, but one saw that they gave her pain.  After a little she said: 

“I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling that I am not in mortal sin.”

She added, “Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me to confess myself to them.”

Here was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her innocence.

“When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?”

But her reply did her no hurt.  So the inquiry was shifted once more to the revelations made to the King—­secrets which the court had tried again and again to force out of Joan, but without success.

“Now as to the sign given to the King—­”

“I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it.”

“Do you know what the sign was?”

“As to that, you will not find out from me.”

All this refers to Joan’s secret interview with the King—­held apart, though two or three others were present.  It was known—­through Loyseleur, of course—­that this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the verity of Joan’s mission.  But that is all a mystery until this day—­the nature of the crown, I mean—­and will remain a mystery to the end of time.  We can never know whether a real crown descended upon the King’s head, or only a symbol, the mystic fabric of a vision.

“Did you see a crown upon the King’s head when he received the revelation?”

“I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury.”

“Did the King have that crown at Rheims?”

“I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a much richer one was brought him afterward.”

“Have you seen that one?”

“I cannot tell you, without perjury.  But whether I have seen it or not, I have heard say that it was rich and magnificent.”

They went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown, but they got nothing more out of her.  The sitting closed.  A long, hard day for all of us.

  10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits’ End

The court rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third of March.