But she answered as she had often answered before:
"I will go in a woman's robe to all services of the Church if I may be permitted, but I will resume the other dress when I return to my cell."
They set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say, they placed suppositious propositions before her and cunningly tried to commit her to one end of the propositions without committing themselves to the other. But she always saw the game and spoiled it. The trap was in this form:
"Would you be willing to do so and so if we should give you leave?"
Her answer was always in this form or to this effect:
"When you give me leave, then you will know."
Yes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits about her, and they could not catch her anywhere. It was a long, long session, and all the old ground was fought over again, foot by foot, and the orator-expert worked all his persuasions, all his eloquence; but the result was the familiar one--a drawn battle, the sixty-two retiring upon their base, the solitary enemy holding her original position within her original lines.
Chapter 16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack
THE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made everybody's heart to sing, as I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling light-hearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break out and laugh upon the least occasion; and so when the news went around that the young girl in the tower had scored another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there was abundant laughter--abundant laughter among the citizens of both parties, for they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the English-hearted majority of the people wanted Joan burned, but that did not keep them from laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for anybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of Cauchon's assistant judges, but to laugh at Cauchon or D'Estivet and Loyseleur was safe--nobody would report it.
The difference between Cauchon and cochon [1] was not noticeable in speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for puns; the opportunities were not thrown away.
Some of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three months, from repeated use; for every time Cauchon started a new trial the folk said "The sow has littered [2] again"; and every time the trial failed they said it over again, with its other meaning, "The hog has made a mess of it."
And so, on the third of May, No‰l and I, drifting about the town, heard many a wide-mouthed lout let go his joke and his laugh, and then move tot he next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it off again:
"'Od's blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has made a mess of it!"
And now and then one was bold enough to say--but he said it softly:
"Sixty-three and the might of England against a girl, and she camps on the field five times!"
Cauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded by English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the walls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his paint and brush. Yes, he had been thee, and had smeared the sacred walls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones; hogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter irreverently cocked on the side of their heads.
Cauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence during seven says; then he conceived a new scheme. You shall see what it was; for you have not cruel hearts, and you would never guess it.
On the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out materials together and started. But this time we were to go to one of the other towers--not the one which was Joan's prison. It was round and grim and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest masonry--a dismal and forbidding structure. [3] We entered the circular room on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sick--the instruments of torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black heart of Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his nature there was no such thing as pity.