this admonition, and confined herself to answering, "As to my deeds and
sayings, what I said of them at the trial I do hold to and mean to abide
by." "Think you that you are not bound to submit your sayings and deeds
to the Church militant or to any other than God?" "The course that I
always mentioned and pursued at the trial I mean to maintain as to that.
If I were at the stake, and saw the torch lighted, and the executioner
ready to set fire to the fagots, even if I were in the midst of the
flames, I should not say aught else, and I should uphold that which I
said at the trial even unto death."

According to the laws, ideas, and practices of the time the legal
question was decided. Joan, declared heretic and rebellious by the
Church, was liable to have sentence pronounced against her; but she had
persisted in her statements, she had shown no submission. Although she
appeared to be quite forgotten, and was quite neglected by the king whose
coronation she had effected, by his councillors, and even by the brave
warriors at whose side she had fought, the public exhibited a lively
interest in her; accounts of the scenes which took place at her trial
were inquired after with curiosity. Amongst the very judges who
prosecuted her, many were troubled in spirit, and wished that Joan, by an
abjuration of her statements, would herself put them at ease and relieve
them from pronouncing against her the most severe penalty. What means
were employed to arrive at this end? Did she really, and with full
knowledge of what she was about, come round to the adjuration which there
was so much anxiety to obtain from her? It is difficult to solve this
historical problem with exactness and certainty. More than once, during
the examinations and the conversations which took place at that time
between Joan and her judges, she maintained her firm posture and her
first statements. One of those who were exhorting her to yield said to
her one day, "Thy king is a heretic and a schismatic." Joan could not
brook this insult to her king. "By my faith," said she, "full well dare
I both say and swear that he is the noblest Christian of all Christians,
and the truest lover of the faith and the Church." "Make her hold her
tongue," said the usher to the preacher, who was disconcerted at having
provoked such language. Another day, when Joan was being urged to submit
to the Church, brother Isambard de la Pierre, a Dominican, who was
interested in