The scribes seated below the dais stared about them in consternation; they had never before known such a tumult in a court of this nature and were uncertain how to act. The prisoner appeared to be calmer than anyone. She sat pale and aloof as though she did not care that her life was at stake.

Finally Cauchon succeeded in establishing order. He told Jeannette that she must swear to answer the whole truth.

She considered this carefully. ‘But I do not know what questions you will ask,’ she pointed out. ‘It may be that you will ask about something I cannot tell you.’

Cauchon said: ‘Will you swear to do as you are told?’

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I can tell you of my home, of my parents and what I have done since I took the road to France. But what God has revealed to me I will not tell except to Charles the King.’

They were wasting time, said Cauchon. She must take the oath otherwise her evidence would be worthless. But he had to agree that she should answer questions about her actions and her faith but might not find she could do so about her visions.

If she would not take the oath and answer all the questions put to her Cauchon could have condemned her right away, but that would not have suited the Duke of Bedford. He wanted to expose her, and the King of France with her, as dabblers in witchcraft. That was what Cauchon’s masters expected of him and it was to his advantage to please them.

The first session had come to an end. It seemed to have been completely taken up by formalities. As Jeannette was about to leave the Court Cauchon said to her: ‘I must warn you. Should you attempt to escape it will go ill with you.’

‘If the opportunity to escape came, I should take it,’ she retorted. ‘It is every prisoner’s right and I have never promised anyone not to do so.’

‘Are you aware that you are the prisoner of Holy Church, and that it is a terrible crime to wish to be free of that Church?’

‘I have promised to no one that I should not escape,’ she answered stubbornly.

‘Do you believe you have God’s permission to leave prison?’

‘Yes. If the opportunity was given me I should take it.’

When the Court was cleared Cauchon discussed the proceedings with the assessors. How could they know what the girl would say next? Young and ignorant as she was, she was a powerful adversary. They would have to tread very carefully.

Later he talked to Jean Beaupère, a former rector of the University of Paris who had been assigned to assist him in the cross-examination. Cauchon had great respect for Beaupère. He was a shrewd man, learned in the ways of the law as well as in those of the Church. He was a man of calm, clear judgement and he had argued that under clever cross-examination a simple peasant girl would destroy herself; and when Cauchon said she could be condemned after her first appearance in Court it was Beaupère who pointed out it would be better for her to entangle herself. There would be repercussions, they could be sure. They wanted a clear case of heresy and witchcraft. They wanted the Inquisition to find her guilty and hand her over to the secular arm for sentence which would be – as it was for witchcraft – burning at the stake.

‘The next session should be held in a smaller chamber,’ said Beaupère. ‘We do not want a repetition of today’s scene. The girl has courage. Let the Court be conducted among ourselves. We do not want all that turmoil outside. It is against her now. It could turn to her.’

Cauchon agreed that this was wise and the next day the Court was set up in a small room and guards were placed outside the door to keep out the mob.

The Inquisitor Jean Le Maître was present, as he had insisted, not to question, but to observe, and among the assessors was the sly Loiseleur who had posed as a cobbler and sought to trap Jeannette.

She saw all these people and was less afraid than she had been when she had had to face the ruffians in her cell. She had heard her voices in the early morning and Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret had told her to be of good cheer. God was watching over her and above all she must be bold. She must speak out and say what was in her mind. Refuse to answer if they asked her something which she felt was too sacred to be spoken of. And on other matters, tell the truth.

Beaupère spoke gently. Had she been as simple as some thought her, she would almost have thought he was on her side. He asked a great many questions about her childhood. She had no objections to talking about that. But it was inevitable, of course, that they should arrive at that time when she had heard the voices.

‘What form did the angel take?’ Beaupère asked.

He wanted her to describe some humanised form because it seemed a good way to trap her. She was aware of this. It was as though her voices were warning her.

‘I refuse to answer that question,’ she said.

One of the assessors cried out: ‘What does the prisoner mean – she will not answer! She is here to answer any question that is put to her.’

Beaupère looked at Cauchon. They understood each other. The girl could refuse to talk altogether. What then? They could torture her. There were many things they could do to her. But would that be wise? They wanted her to talk. They wanted her to betray herself through the answers to subtle questions.

Cauchon shouted to the assessor to be silent. ‘Let the Court proceed,’ he added.

Beaupère ignored her refusal and did not press for a description of the angel. Instead he wanted to know how she had picked out the Dauphin when she had been presented to him. He had tried to press someone else on her, had he not? But she had known him at once.

She was guided to him, she said.

‘By what sign?’

‘That I will not speak of.’

The assessors murmured amongst themselves. What sort of a trial was this where the prisoner continually refused to answer certain questions?

They turned to Beaupère, but he was biding his time. He believed he could force her into a position where she would entrap herself. That was what he wanted.

‘So these voices came to you, a humble peasant girl. You were to do this strange thing … leave your cows and sheep and lead the Dauphin to victory.’

‘That was what I was told to do.’

‘And what was to be your reward for all this?’

‘The salvation of my soul.’

Beaupère was exasperated. He had not expected such quick thinking of a peasant girl.

Cauchon was getting exasperated. The girl was making such a good impression. Of course they would find her guilty but it must be done in such a way as to leave no doubt. They did not want her to be a martyr after her death.

At the next assembly he told her that he would have no more nonsense about her refusing to take the recognised oath. But she again refused to take it.

‘I could condemn you for that,’ he said.

‘Take care,’ she warned. ‘I am sent by God. You put yourself in danger by your treatment of me.’

Beaupère smiled at her pleasantly. He pursued his questions concerning the voices – each one cleverly couched to catch her. He came at length to the rites that had been observed during her childhood. They were pagan ceremonies, he hinted, and she had taken part in them. There was a suggestion that during them she had become imbued with the witches’ craft.

At the end of the session she was taken back to her dreary prison there to stretch out on her straw pallet and pray for guidance until she fell asleep exhausted.

A great fear had come to her. She would not be allowed to go on refusing to take the oath. She knew that behind the smiling face of Beaupère there was a wolf waiting to devour her.

During the next days her weariness was apparent. Beaupère was the first to notice. He was cutting the ground around her, teasing her with seemingly innocent questions, standing by waiting for her to fall into his traps.

At last he had finished. He had done her great harm she knew, but she was not sure in what ways. He had been so quiet, had seemed so calm – even compassionate.

Cauchon took up the questions. Weary and without much hope for she knew that everything was going against her, she cried out: ‘I went to war on God’s business. I do not belong here. Send me back to my home.’

‘Are you sure you are in God’s grace?’ asked Cauchon slyly.

‘If I be not,’ she answered firmly, ‘please God to bring me to it. And if I be, please God to keep me in it.’

Cauchon despaired of bringing the trial to a satisfactory end. He consulted with his friends as to whether they should threaten her with torture.

She must stop her appeals direct to God; she must show greater respect for the Church. And yet how could they condemn her for praying to God?

She was surprised when she was allowed to stay in her prison for a day or so. She did wonder what fresh trials were being prepared for her. Then she discovered.

They came to her and releasing her from her chains led her out of prison. She gasped with horror when she saw the instruments in that dark apartment to which they had brought her. This was the torture chamber.

‘Let me bear it, oh God,’ she cried.

Cauchon regarded her steadily. ‘It is our desire to bring you back into the ways of truth,’ he said. ‘You have made wicked inventions and placed your soul in peril. Only confession can save your soul and if you will not save it without, torture may induce you to.’

In the midst of her terror a great calm suddenly descended on Jeannette and the words which came to her lips seemed to have been put there by the saints whom she so dearly loved.

‘If you will you must tear me limb from limb and I can do naught but submit. And if in the extremity of the torture your cruelty imposes on me I admit what you wish me to say, I should afterwards tell the world that it was lies forced from me by your instruments of torture.’

Beaupère laid an arm on that of Cauchon.

He withdrew him to a corner.

‘The girl is too clever,’ he said. ‘What she says is right. None would believe the confessions which are extracted under torture. It will not do in her case. Our task is to prove her guilty. We will not do it with torture. It is the sure way to setting her up as a martyr.’

They took her back to her prison and the idea of torture was abandoned.

But the end of the trial was in sight.

Back in Court she was told that she was disobedient to Christ if she did not obey his prelates of the Church.

How could Holy Church survive if all its members might make private treaties with Heaven? This was her sin. She demeaned Holy Church. If any man or woman would have contact with Heaven it could only be through the Church. In setting herself up as a confidante of God and His saints she was placing herself above Heaven’s representatives on Earth – the prelates of the Church. She had been guilty of pride and witchcraft for they would not believe her voices came from Heaven. She was guilty of bloodshed. But her great sin was in denying the supremacy of the Church and any who did that was guilty of heresy.

She lay on her pallet. Her body burned with fever. She believed she was back in the fields of Domrémy … dancing under L’Arbre des Dames. She was young, only a child, and she had not then heard the voices.

She tossed on her bed.

She was exhausted mentally and bodily. She had scarcely eaten for days – nothing but a little bread soaked in wine. She had tried to answer their eternal questions, being careful to avoid those which she believed might give offence to Heaven.

Sometimes she felt they were sustaining her, those voices. At others she felt they had deserted her. When they spoke ill of the King she defended him fiercely, but in her heart she knew that he had deserted her too.

They came to take her to the Court. She looked at them with unseeing eyes.

‘God help us, she is sick,’ said Cauchon. ‘She is sick unto death.’


* * *

They sent doctors to her. She must not die. That would never do. They must have her condemned; that must show her to have been the tool of the Devil.

Cauchon sent the best doctors to her. She was exhausted, was all they could say. She needed rest, food, peace of mind.

The two first she could have. It was hardly likely that the third would be available to her.

After a few days when Cauchon came to see her he was relieved to hear that she was a little better.