Although, during the last days of the heroine’s life, it is most difficult to gather anything authentic as to her treatment in the prison, we are led to understand, by the least untrustworthy testimony, that what happened in the interval between Thursday night and the following Sunday was as follows.

The soldiers placed in charge of Joan after her recantation and her return to the prison had rendered her existence a long martyrdom; and there is reason to believe that on her discarding her man’s dress these ruffians attempted to violate the prisoner:  so, sooner than suffer this, although she knew that to return to her former dress would be equivalent to meeting certain death, she did not hesitate to save her maidenhood at the exposure of her life.

Michelet, in his history of the Maid, quotes from the deposition of one of the officials—­Massieu, who saw much of Joan of Arc in those last days—­the statement that on the morning of Trinity Sunday, on waking, she asked the soldiers to leave her alone for a few moments while she dressed; that one of the men removed her woman’s clothes, and in place substituted the dress of a man; and that, in order not to be naked, she was obliged to put on the latter.

Be this as it may, on the following morning, Cauchon, followed by several of his creatures, returned to the prison, in order that he might see and show to others that his victim had been entrapped at last.  ‘We have come,’ he said to the prisoner, ’to find out the state of your soul, and we find you, in despite of our command, and despite of your promise to renounce this man’s dress, again thus attired.  Tell us the reason why you have dared again to wear these clothes.’

Joan’s answer was that she preferred that dress to the other, and that, being placed among men, it was better that she should wear it than the dress of a woman.  Although not placed in the judicial record of this interview, Manchon adds in his account of the proceedings on that day, that Joan of Arc also said that she had returned to wearing her male attire, feeling safer when in that dress than when she was dressed in woman’s clothes.  This seems to us an evident avowal that she had to resist the brutality of the men placed over her in the dungeon.  Massieu also adds to Manchon’s testimony that he knew Joan was unable to protect herself against attempts made to violate her.  Her legs were chained to the wood with which her pallet bed was framed, and this chain was again fixed to a large beam about six feet long, and locked with a padlock; so that the poor creature could hardly move.  To the above testimony of these two men, Isambard de la Pierre adds his.  He states that when Cauchon came to the Maid’s dungeon she bore all the traces of having undergone a violent struggle, ’being all in tears, and so bruised and outraged (outragee) that he (Isambard) could not help feeling pity for her.’

But the strongest testimony of all is that of the priest, Martin Ladvenu, who heard her confession on the eve of her death, and he confirms Isambard’s statement entirely.  He even adds that not only had Joan of Arc to suffer from the brutality of the soldiery placed about her, but that a millourt d’Angleterre had acted as shamefully as these men towards her.