Joan once more positively refused.  Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in his body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he ventured to do a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to have her case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many priests of her party as of the English party.

Joan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed a tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word Cauchon turned savagely upon him and exclaimed: 

“Shut up, in the devil’s name!”

Then Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in great fear for his life.  He asked Cauchon if he should enter Joan’s submission to the Council of Basel upon the minutes.

“No!  It is not necessary.”

“Ah,” said poor Joan, reproachfully, “you set down everything that is against me, but you will not set down what is for me.”

It was piteous.  It would have touched the heart of a brute.  But Cauchon was more than that.

  14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies

We were now in the first days of April.  Joan was ill.  She had fallen ill the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was growing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her cell.  It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage out of her weakened state.

Let us note some of the particulars in the new indictment—­the Twelve Lies.

Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her salvation.  She never said anything of the kind.  It also says she refuses to submit herself to the Church.  Not true.  She was willing to submit all her acts to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God in fulfilment of her mission.  Those she reserved for the judgment of God.  She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel.

A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with death those who would not obey her.  Distinctly false.  Another clause says she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God.  What she really said was, all that she had done well—­a correction made by herself as you have already seen.

Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any sin.  She never made any such claim.

Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin.  If it was, she had high Catholic authority for committing it—­that of the Archbishop of Rheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.

The Tenth Article was resentful against her for “pretending” that St. Catherine and St.

Marguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their politics.