mit that they come far short of satisfying our
curiosity, and for several reasons. First, because they replied to a
list of questions drawn up with the object of establishing a certain
number of facts within the scope of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The
Holy Inquisitor who conducted the trial was curious, but his curiosity
was not ours. This is the first reason for the insufficiency of the
evidence from our point of view.[48]

[Footnote 48: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 378-463.]

But there are other reasons. Most of the witnesses appear excessively
simple and lacking in discernment. In so large a number of men of all
ages and of all ranks it is sad to find how few were equipped with
lucid and judicial minds. It would seem as if the human intellect of
those days was enwrapped in twilight and incapable of seeing anything
distinctly. Thought as well as speech was curiously puerile. Only a
slight acquaintance with this dark age is enough to make one feel as
if among children. Want and ignorance and wars interminable had
impoverished the mind of man and starved his moral nature. The scanty,
slashed, ridiculous garments of the nobles and the wealthy betray an
absurd poverty of taste and weakness of intellect.[49] One of the most
striking characteristics of these small minds is their triviality;
they are incapable of attention; they retain nothing. No one who reads
the writings of the period can fail to be struck by this almost
universal weakness.

[Footnote 49: J. Quicherat, _Histoire du costume_, Paris, 1875, large
8vo, _passim_. G. Demay, _Le costume au moyen age d'apres les sceaux_,
Paris, 1880, p. 121, figs. 76 and 77.]

By no means all the evidence given in these one hundred and forty
depositions can be treated seriously. The daughter of Jacques Boucher,
steward to the Duke of Orleans, depones in the following terms: "At
night I slept alone with Jeanne. Neither in her words or her acts did
I ever observe anything wrong. She was perfectly simple, humble, and
chaste."[50]

[Footnote 50: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 34.]

This young lady was nine years old when she perceived with a
discernment somewhat precocious that her sleeping companion was
simple, humble, and chaste.

That is unimportant. But to show how one may sometimes be deceived by
the witnesses whom one would expect to be the most reliable, I will
quote Brother Pasquerel.[51] Brother Pasquerel is Jeanne's chaplain.
He may be expected to speak as one who has seen and a