第84章 THE PUBLIC EXAMINATION.FEBRUARY,(12)

Asked,if she saw anything more than their faces,she answered:"Ihave told you all I know of them:and I would rather have had my head taken off than tell you all I know."She then said that in whatever concerned the trial she would speak freely.Asked,if she believed that St.Michael and St.Gabriel had natural heads,she answered:"Isaw them with my eyes and I believe that they are,as firmly as Ibelieve that God is."Asked,if she believed that God made them in the form in which she saw them,she answered,"Yes."Asked,if she believed that God had created them in the same form from the beginning,answered:"You shall have no more for the present,except what I have already said."This subject was then dropped,and the examiner made another leap forward to a different part of her life."Did you know by revelation that you should break prison?"he said.To this Jeanne answered indignantly:"This has nothing to do with your trial.Would you have me speak against myself?"Again questioned what her "voices"had said to her in respect to her attempts at escape,she again answered:"This has nothing to do with the trial;I go back to the trial.If all your questions were about that,I should tell you all."She said besides,on her faith,that she knew neither the day nor the hour when she should escape.She was then asked what the voices said to her generally,and answered:"In truth,they tell me I shall be freed,but neither the day nor the hour;and that I ought to speak boldly,and with a glad countenance."She was then asked whether,when first she saw her King,he asked her whether it was by revelation that she had assumed the dress of a man?she replied:"I have answered this.I cannot recollect whether he asked me.But it is written in the book at Poitiers."Asked,whether the doctors who examined her there,some for a month,some for three weeks,had asked her about her change of dress;she answered:"I don't remember;but I know they asked me when I assumed the dress of a man,and I told them it was in the town of Vaucouleurs."Asked,whether these doctors had inquired whether it was her voices which had made her take that dress,answered,"I don't remember."Asked if her Queen wished her to change her dress when she first saw her,answered,"Idon't remember."Asked if her King,Queen,and all of her party did not ask her to lay aside the dress of a man,she answered,"This has nothing to do with the trial."Asked,if the same was not requested of her in the castle of Beaurevoir,she answered:"It is true.And Ireplied that I could not lay it aside without the permission of God."She said further that the demoiselle of Luxembourg (aunt of Jeanne's captor,and a very old woman)and the lady of Beaurevoir offered her a woman's dress,or stuff to make one,and begged her to wear it;but she replied that she had not yet the permission of our Lord,and that it was not yet time.Asked,if M.Jean de Pressy and others at Arras had offered her a woman's dress,she answered,"He and others have often asked it of me."Asked,if she thought she would have done wrong in putting on a woman's dress,she answered,that it was better to obey her sovereign Lord,that is,God;she said also that if she had done it,she would rather have done it at the request of these two ladies than of any other in France,except her Queen.Asked,if,when God revealed to her that she should change her dress,it was by the voice of St.Michael,St.Catherine,or St.Margaret,she answered,"You shall hear no more about it."Asked,when the King first employed her,and her standard was made,whether the men-at-arms and others who took part in the war did not have flags imitated from hers?she answered,"It is well to know that the lords retained their own arms";she also added that her brothers-in-arms made such pennons as pleased them.Asked,how these were made,if they were of linen or cloth,answered,that they were of white satin,some of them with lilies;that she had but two or three lances in her own company--but that in the rest of the army some carried pennons like hers,but only to distinguish them from others.Asked,if the banners were often renewed,answered:"I know not;when the staff was broken it was renewed."Asked,if she had not said that the pennons copied from hers were fortunate,answered,that she had said,"Go in boldly among the English";and that she had done the same herself.Asked,if she said that they should have good luck if they bore the banners well,answered,that she had told them what would happen,and what should still happen.Asked,if she had caused holy water to be sprinkled on the pennons when they were new,she answered,"That has nothing to do with the trial";but added that if she did so sprinkle them she was not instructed to answer that question now.Asked,if the others put /Jhesus Maria/upon their pennons,she answered:"By my faith,I know nothing about it."Asked,if she had ever carried or caused to be carried in a procession round a church or altar the linen of which the pennons were made,answered no,that she had never seen anything of the kind done.