Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/380

 364 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. ent manner, and her pursuers would again be foiled. In the whole series of interrogatories she manifested a marvellous combination of frank simplicity, shrewdness, presence of mind, and firmness that would do honor to a veteran diplomat. She utterly refused to take an unconditional oath to answer the questions put to her, saying, frankly, "I do not know what you will ask me ; perhaps it may be about things which I will not tell you : " she agreed to reply to all questions about her faith and matters bearing upon her trial, but to nothing else. When Cauchon's eagerness over- stepped the limit she would turn on him and warn him, " You call yourself my judge : I know not if you are, but take care not to judge wrongfully, for you expose yourself to great danger, and I warn you, so that if our Lord chastises you I shall have done my duty." When asked whether St. Michael was naked when he visited her, she retorted, " Do you think the Lord has not where- with to clothe his angels ?" When describing a conversation with St. Catharine about the result of the siege of Compiegne, some chance expression led her examiner to imagine that he could en- trap her, and he interrupted with the question whether she had said, " Will God so wickedly let the good folks of Compiegne perish ?" but she composedly corrected him by repeating, " What ! will God let these good folks of Compiegne perish, who have been and are so loyal to their lord '?" She could hardly have known that an attempt to escape from an ecclesiastical court was a sin of the deepest dye, and yet when tested with the cunning question whether she would now escape if opportunity offered, she replied that if the door was opened she would walk out ; she would try it only to see if the Lord so willed it. When an insidious offer was made to her to have a great procession to entreat God to bring her to the proper frame of mind, she quietly replied that she wished all good Catholics would pray for her. When threatened with torture, and told that the executioner was at hand to administer it, she simply said, " If you extort avowals from me by pain I will maintain that they are the result of violence." Thus alternating the horrors of her dungeon with the clamors of the examination- room, where perhaps a dozen eager questioners would bait her at once, she never faltered through all those weary weeks. *
 * Procfcs, pp. 468, 472, 473, 476, 486, 487, 489, 501.— L'Averdy, pp. 107, 395.