Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/388

 372 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. stress to which she had been subjected. First she merely said that she had taken the dress ; then that it was more suitable since she was to be with men ; nobody had compelled her, but she denied that she had sworn not to resume it. Then she said that she had taken it because faith had not been kept with her — she had been promised that she should hear mass and receive the sacrament, and be released from her chains ; she would rather die than be kept in fetters — could she hear mass and be relieved of her irons she would do all that the Church required. She had heard the Voices since her abjuration, and had been told that she had incurred damnation by revoking to save her life, for she had only revoked through dread of the fire. The Voices are of St. Catharine and St. Margaret, and come from God : she had never revoked that, or, if she had, it was contrary to truth. She had rather die than endure the torture of her captivity, but if her judges wish she will resume the woman's dress ; as for the rest she knows nothing more.* These rambling contradictions, these hopeless ejaculations of remorse and despair, so different from her former intrepid self- confidence, show that the jailers had understood their work, and that body and soul had endured more than they could bear. It was enough for the judges ; she was a self-confessed relapsed, with whom the Church could have nothing more to do except to de- clare her abandoned to the secular arm without further hearing. Accordingly, the next day, May 29, Cauchon assembled such of his assessors as were at hand, reported to them how she had re- lapsed by resuming male apparel and declaring, through the sug- gestion of the devil, that her Voices had returned. There could be no question as to her deserts. She was a relapsed, and the only discussion was on the purely formal question, whether her abjuration should be read over to her before her judges abandoned her to the secular arm. A majority of the assessors were in favor of this, but Cauchon and le Maitre disregarded the recommen- dation, f At dawn on the following day, May 30, Frere Martin l'Advenu and some other ecclesiastics were sent to her prison to inform her tProces, p. 509.— Le Brun de Charmettes, IV 175-8.
 * Proems, p. 508.— Le Brun de Charmettes, IV 166-70.— L'Averdy, p. 506.