And as for
witnesses, she could not call a single one in her defense; they were
all far away, under the French flag, and this was an English court; they
would have been seized and hanged if they had shown their faces at the
gates of Rouen. No, the prisoner must be the sole witness--witness for
the prosecution, witness for the defense; and with a verdict of death
resolved upon before the doors were opened for the court's first
sitting.

When she learned that the court was made up of ecclesiastics in the
interest of the English, she begged that in fairness an equal number of
priests of the French party should be added to these.

Cauchon scoffed at her message, and would not even deign to answer it.

By the law of the Church--she being a minor under twenty-one--it was her
right to have counsel to conduct her case, advise her how to answer
when questioned, and protect her from falling into traps set by cunning
devices of the prosecution. She probably did not know that this was her
right, and that she could demand it and require it, for there was none
to tell her that; but she begged for this help, at any rate. Cauchon
refused it. She urged and implored, pleading her youth and her ignorance
of the complexities and intricacies of the law and of legal procedure.
Cauchon refused again, and said she must get along with her case as best
she might by herself. Ah, his heart was a stone.

Cauchon prepared the proces verbal. I will simplify that by calling it
the Bill of Particulars. It was a detailed list of the charges against
her, and formed the basis of the trial. Charges? It was a list of
suspicions and public rumors--those were the words used. It was merely
charged that she was suspected of having been guilty of heresies,
witchcraft, and other such offenses against religion.

Now by the law of the Church, a trial of that sort could not be begun
until a searching inquiry had been made into the history and character
of the accused, and it was essential that the result of this inquiry be
added to the proces verbal and form a part of it. You remember that that
was the first thing they did before the trial at Poitiers. They did it
again now. An ecclesiastic was sent to Domremy. There and all about
the neighborhood he made an exhaustive search into Joan's history
and character, and came back with his verdict. It was very clear. The
searcher reported that he found Joan's character to be in every way what
he "would like his own s