h on account of the painting as of the doctrine. These three
women that the wealthy Maitre Boucher kept in his house were doubtless
nude. The painters of those days depicted on small panels allegories
and bathing scenes, and they painted nude women. Full foreheads, round
heads, golden hair, short figures of small build but with embonpoint,
their nudity minutely represented and but thinly veiled; many such
were produced in Flanders and in Italy. The illustrious masters, to
whom those pictures appeared corrupt and indecent, doubtless wished to
reproach Jeanne with having looked at them in the house of the
treasurer of the Duke of Orleans. It is not difficult to divine what
were the doctors' suspicions when they are found asking Jeanne whether
Saint Michael wore clothes, in what manner she greeted her saints, and
how she gave them her rings to touch.[2326]

[Footnote 2325: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 101.]

[Footnote 2326: _Ibid._, p. 89.]

They also wanted to make her admit that she had caused herself to be
honoured as a saint. She disconcerted them by the following reply:
"The poor folk came to me readily, because I did them no hurt, but
aided them to the best of my power."[2327]

[Footnote 2327: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 102.]

Then the examination ranged over many and various subjects: Friar
Richard; the children Jeanne had held over the baptismal fonts; the
good wives of the town of Reims who touched rings with her; the
butterflies caught in a standard at Chateau Thierry.[2328]

[Footnote 2328: _Ibid._, p. 103.]

In this town, certain of the Maid's followers were said to have caught
butterflies in her standard. Now doctors in theology knew for a
certainty that necromancers sacrificed butterflies to the devil. A
century before, at Pamiers, the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition had
condemned the Carmelite Pierre Recordi, who was accused of having
celebrated such a sacrifice. He had killed a butterfly and the devil
had revealed his presence by a breath of wind.[2329] Jeanne's judges
may have wished to involve her in similar fashion, or their design may
have been quite different. In war a butterfly in the cap was a sign
either of unconditional surrender or of the possession of a safe
conduct.[2330] Were the judges accusing her or her followers of having
feigned to surrender in order treacherously to attack the enemy? They
were quite capable of making such a charge. However that may be, the
examiner passed on to inquire concernin