Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (Complete Edition). Mark Twain

sheep and the cattle."

      Her voice trembled a little, but one could hardly notice it. As for me, it brought those old enchanted days flooding back to me, and I could not see what I was writing for a little while.

      Beaupere cautiously edged along up with other questions toward the forbidden ground, and finally repeated a question which she had refused to answer a little while back—as to whether she had received the Eucharist in those days at other festivals than that of Easter. Joan merely said:

      "Passez outre." Or, as one might say, "Pass on to matters which you are privileged to pry into."

      I heard a member of the court say to a neighbor:

      "As a rule, witnesses are but dull creatures, and an easy prey—yes, and easily embarrassed, easily frightened—but truly one can neither scare this child nor find her dozing."

      Presently the house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly, for Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's Voices, a matter of consuming interest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into heedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given her evil advice—hence that they had come from Satan, you see. To have dealing with the devil—well, that would send her to the stake in brief order, and that was the deliberate end and aim of this trial.

      "When did you first hear these Voices?"

      "I was thirteen when I first heard a Voice coming from God to help me to live well. I was frightened. It came at midday, in my father's garden in the summer."

      "Had you been fasting?"

      "Yes."

      "The day before?"

      "No."

      "From what direction did it come?"

      "From the right—from toward the church."

      "Did it come with a bright light?"

      "Oh, indeed yes. It was brilliant. When I came into France I often heard the Voices very loud."

      "What did the Voice sound like?"

      "It was a noble Voice, and I thought it was sent to me from God. The third time I heard it I recognized it as being an angel's."

      "You could understand it?"

      "Quite easily. It was always clear."

      "What advice did it give you as to the salvation of your soul?"

      "It told me to live rightly, and be regular in attendance upon the services of the Church. And it told me that I must go to France."

      "In what species of form did the Voice appear?"

      Joan looked suspiciously at he priest a moment, then said, tranquilly:

      "As to that, I will not tell you."

      "Did the Voice seek you often?"

      "Yes. Twice or three times a week, saying, 'Leave your village and go to France.'"

      "Did you father know about your departure?"

      "No. The Voice said, 'Go to France'; therefore I could not abide at home any longer."

      "What else did it say?"

      "That I should raise the siege of Orleans."

      "Was that all?"

      "No, I was to go to Vaucouleurs, and Robert de Baudricourt would give me soldiers to go with me to France; and I answered, saying that I was a poor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight."

      Then she told how she was balked and interrupted at Vaucouleurs, but finally got her soldiers, and began her march.

      "How were you dressed?"

      The court of Poitiers had distinctly decided and decreed that as God had appointed her to do a man's work, it was meet and no scandal to religion that she should dress as a man; but no matter, this court was ready to use any and all weapons against Joan, even broken and discredited ones, and much was going to be made of this one before this trial should end.

      "I wore a man's dress, also a sword which Robert de Baudricourt gave me, but no other weapon."

      "Who was it that advised you to wear the dress of a man?"

      Joan was suspicious again. She would not answer.

      The question was repeated.

      She refused again.

      "Answer. It is a command!"

      "Passez outre," was all she said.

      So Beaupere gave up the matter for the present.

      "What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?"

      "He made them that were to go with me promise to take charge of me, and to me he said, 'Go, and let happen what may!'" (Advienne que pourra!) After a good deal of questioning upon other matters she was asked again about her attire. She said it was necessary for her to dress as a man.

      "Did your Voice advise it?"

      Joan merely answered placidly:

      "I believe my Voice gave me good advice."

      It was all that could be got out of her, so the questions wandered to other matters, and finally to her first meeting with the King at Chinon. She said she chose out the King, who was unknown to her, by the revelation of her Voices. All that happened at that time was gone over. Finally:

      "Do you still hear those Voices?"

      "They come to me every day."

      "What do you ask of them?"

      "I have never asked of them any recompense but the salvation of my soul."

      "Did the Voice always urge you to follow the army?"

      He is creeping upon her again. She answered:

      "It required me to remain behind at St. Denis. I would have obeyed if I had been free, but I was helpless by my wound, and the knights carried me away by force."

      "When were you wounded?"

      "I was wounded in the moat before Paris, in the assault."

      The next question reveals what Beaupere had been leading up to:

      "Was it a feast-day?"

      You see? The suggestion that a voice coming from God would hardly advise or permit the violation, by war and bloodshed, of a sacred day.

      Joan was troubled a moment, then she answered yes, it was a feast-day.

      "Now, then, tell the this: did you hold it right to make the attack on such a day?"

      This was a shot which might make the first breach in a wall which had suffered no damage thus far. There was immediate silence in the court and intense expectancy noticeable all about. But Joan disappointed the house. She merely made a slight little motion with her hand, as when one brushes away a fly, and said with reposeful indifference:

      "Passez outre."

      Smiles danced for a moment in some of the sternest faces there, and several men even laughed outright. The trap had been long and laboriously prepared; it fell, and was empty.

      The court rose. It had sat for hours, and was cruelly fatigued. Most of the time had been taken up with apparently idle and purposeless inquiries about the Chinon events, the exiled Duke of Orleans, Joan's first proclamation, and so on, but all this seemingly random stuff had really been sown thick with hidden traps. But Joan had fortunately escaped them all, some by the protecting luck which attends upon ignorance and innocence, some by happy accident, the others by force of her best and surest helper, the clear vision and lightning intuitions of her extraordinary mind.

      Now, then, this daily baiting and badgering of this friendless girl, a captive in chains, was to continue a long, long time—dignified sport, a kennel of mastiffs and bloodhounds harassing a kitten!—and I may as well tell you, upon sworn testimony, what it was like from