Catherine was released. Her ecclesiastical judges would not have
treated her so leniently had she spoken well of the Maid. The La
Rochelle Dame returned to King Charles.[2088]

[Footnote 2088: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 271.]

The two religious women who had followed Jeanne on her departure from
Sully and had been taken at Corbeil, Pierronne of Lower Brittany and
her companion, had been confined in ecclesiastical prisons at Paris
since the spring. They openly said that God had sent them to succour
the Maid Jeanne. Friar Richard had been their spiritual father and
they had been in the Maid's company. Wherefore they were strongly
suspected of having offended against God and his Holy Religion. The
Grand Inquisitor of France, Brother Jean Graverent, Prior of the
Jacobins at Paris, prosecuted them according to the forms usual in
that country. He proceeded in concurrence with the Ordinary,
represented by the official.

Pierronne maintained and believed it to be true that Jeanne was good,
and that what she did was well done and according to God's will. She
admitted that on the Christmas night of that year, at Jargeau, Friar
Richard had twice given her the body of Jesus Christ and had given it
three times to Jeanne.[2089] Besides, the fact had been well proved by
information gathered from eye-witnesses. The judges, who were
authorities on this subject, held that the monk should not thus have
lavished the bread of angels on such women. However, since frequent
communion was not formally forbidden by canon law, Pierronne could not
be censured for having received it. The informers, who were then
giving evidence against Jeanne, did not remember the three communions
at Jargeau.[2090]

[Footnote 2089: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 271, 272.]

[Footnote 2090: Voltaire, _Dictionnaire philosophique_, article, Arc.]

Heavier charges weighed upon the two Breton women. They were labouring
under the accusation of witchcraft and sorcery.

Pierronne stated and took her oath that God often appeared to her in
human form and spoke to her as friend to friend, and that the last
time she had seen him he was clothed in a purple cloak and a long
white robe.[2091]

[Footnote 2091: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 259, 260.]

The illustrious masters who were trying her, represented to her that
to speak thus of such apparitions was to blaspheme. And these women
were convicted of being possessed by evil spirits, who