Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/360

 344 POLITICAL HERESY. — THE STATE. Two months had been wasted in these preliminaries, and it was the end of April before the determination was reached. A convoy was in preparation to throw provisions into the town, and it was resolved that Joan should accompany it. Under instructions from her Voices she had a standard prepared, representing on a white field Christ holding the world, with an angel on each side — a standard which was ever in the front of battle, which was re- garded as the surest guarantee of success, and which in the end was gravely investigated as a work of sorcery. She had assigned to her a troop or guard, but does not seem to have been intrusted with anv command, vet she assumed that she was taking the field as the representative of God, and must first give the enemy due notice of defiance. Accordingly, on April 18, she addressed four letters, one to Henry VI. and the others to the Regent Bedford, the captains before Orleans, and the English soldiers there, in which she demanded the surrender of the keys of all the cities held in France ; she announced herself ready to make peace if they will abandon the land and make compensation for the dam- ages inflicted, otherwise she is commissioned by God, and will drive them out with a shock of arms such as had not been seen in France for a thousand years. It is scarce to be wondered that these uncourtly epistles excited no little astonishment in the English camp. Rumors of her coming had spread ; she was de- nounced as a sorceress, and all who placed faith in her as heretics. Talbot declared that he would burn her if she was captured, and golden crown, too rich for description, such as no goldsmith on earth could make, telling him at the same time that with the aid of God and her champion- ship he would recover all France, but that unless he set her to work his corona- tion would be delayed. This she averred had been seen and heard by the Arch- bishop of Reims and many bishops, Charles de Bourbon, the Due d' Alencon, La Tremouille, and three hundred others, and thus she had been relieved from the annoying examinations of the clerks. "When asked whether she would refer to the archbishop to vouch for the story, she replied, "Let him come here and let me speak with him ; he will not dare to tell me the contrary of what I have told you " — which was a very safe offer, seeing that the trial was in Rouen, and the archbishop was the Chancellor of France (Proems, pp. 482-6, 495, 502). His testimony, however, could it have been had, would not probably have been ad- vantageous to her, as he belonged to the party of La Tremouille, the favorite, who was persistently hostile to her.