Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/390

 MARK TWAIN

gled into her cell, and he misused his sacred office to steal her confidence; she confided to him the things sealed from revealment by her Voices, and which her prosecutors had tried so long in vain to trick her into betraying. A concealed confederate set it all down and delivered it to Cauchon, who used Joan s secrets, thus obtained, for her ruin.

Throughout the Trials, whatever the foredoomed witness said was twisted from its true meaning when possible, and made to tell against her; and whenever an answer of hers was beyond the reach of twisting it was not allowed to go upon the record. It was upon one of these latter occasions that she uttered that pathetic reproach to Cauchon: Ah, you set down everything that is against me, but you will not set down what is for me.&quot;

That this untrained young creature s genius for war was wonderful, and her generalship worthy to rank with the ripe products of a tried and trained military experience, we have the sworn testimony of two of her veteran subordinates one, the Due d Alengon, the other the greatest of the French gen erals of the time, Dunois, Bastard of Orleans; that her genius was as great possibly even greater in the subtle warfare of the forum we have for witness the records of the Rouen Trials, that protracted ex hibition of intellectual fence maintained with credit against the master-minds of France; that her moral greatness was peer to her intellect we call the Rouen Trials again to witness, with their testimony to a fortitude which patiently and steadfastly endured during twelve weeks the wasting forces of captivity,

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