ands of the English.'

And with this ended the sixth and last public day of the heroine's
trial.

Joan of Arc's judges had found nothing to attach guilt to her in any
of her replies; but as she had been condemned before the farce was
enacted of trying her, her innocence could not save her life. As
Michelet observes, Joan of Arc's answers may have had some effect in
touching the hearts of even such men as were her judges; and it was
perhaps on this account that Cauchon thought it more prudent to
continue holding the trial with only a few, and those few picked men,
of whose sympathies, characters, and feelings he was sure. The
Bishop's ostensible reason in having the trial henceforth carried on
in private was in order 'not to tire the others.' A most thoughtful
and tender-hearted Bishop! The details of the trial were now placed in
the hands of two judges and two witnesses. Cauchon now felt he had a
free hand. On the 12th of March he had obtained the permission of the
Grand Inquisitor of the Holy Office in France to make use of the
services of his Vicar-General--his name, as has already been said, was
John Lemaitre.

The first of the long series of secret interrogations was held in Joan
of Arc's prison--probably in the principal tower--on the 10th of
March.

John de la Fontaine questioned the prisoner as follows:--

'When you went to Compiegne from which place did you start?'

'From Crespy-en-Valois.'

'When you arrived at Compiegne did many days elapse before you made
the sortie?'

'I arrived secretly at an early hour of the morning, and entered the
town so that the enemy could not be aware of my arrival, and the same
day, in the evening, I made the sortie in which I was captured.'

'Were the bells of the church rung on the occasion of your arrival?'

'If they were, it was not by my command. I had not given it a
thought.'

'Did you not order them to be rung?'

'I have no recollection of having done so.'

'Did you make the sortie by the command of your voices?'

'Last Easter, when in the trenches of Melun, the voices of Saint
Catherine and Saint Margaret told me I should be taken prisoner before
St. John's Day; but that I was to keep a brave heart, and take all
that befell me with patience, and that in the end God would come to my
aid.'

'Since then, did your voices tell you that you would be taken?'

'Yes, often; nearly every day; and I implored my voices that when I
was taken I might then die, and n