Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/387

 JOAN OF ARC. 371 obtain possession of her they had been obliged to call in the eccle- siastical authorities and the Inquisition, and they were too lit- tle familiar with trials for heresy to recognize that inquisitorial proceedings were based on the assumption of seeking the salvation of the soul and not the destruction of the body. When they saw how the affair was going a great commotion arose at what they inevitably regarded as a mockery. Joan's death was a political necessity, and their victim was eluding them though in their grasp. In spite of the servility which the ecclesiastics had shown, they were threatened with drawn swords and were glad to leave the cemetery of St. Ouen in safety.* In the afternoon Jean le Maitre and some of the assessors vis- ited her in her cell, representing the mercy of the Church and the gratitude with which she should receive her sentence, and warning her to abandon her revelations and follies, for if she relapsed she could have no hope. She was humbled, and when urged to wear female apparel she assented. It was brought and she put it on ; her male garments were placed in a bag and left in her cell.f What followed will never be accurately known. The reports are untrustworthy and contradictory — mere surmises, doubtless — and the secret lies buried in the dungeon of Eouen Castle. The brutal guards, enraged at her escape from the flames, no doubt abused her shamefully ; perhaps, as reported, they beat her, dragged her by the hair, and offered violence to her, till at last she felt that her man's dress was her only safety. Perhaps, as other stories go, her Voices reproached her for her weakness, and she deliberately resumed it. Perhaps, also, Warwick, resolved to make her commit an act of relapse, had her female garments re- moved at night, so that she had no choice but to resume her male apparel. The fact that it was left within her reach and not con- veyed away shows at least that there was a desire to tempt her to resume it. Be this as it may, after wearing her woman's dress for two or three days word was brought to her judges that she had relapsed and abandoned it. On May 28 they hastened to her prison to verify the fact. The incoherence of her replies to their examination shows how she was breaking down under the fearful t Proces, pp. 508-9.— Le Brim de Charmettes, IV. 147.
 * Le Brun de Charmettes. IV. 141.