that when it came to pass, they might remember that she had said it.  She was again asked, if she would submit to the jurisdiction of the Church, and answered, “I refer everything to our Lord who sent me, to our Lady, and to the blessed Saints of Paradise”; and added her opinion was that our Lord and the Church meant the same thing, and that difficulties should not be made concerning this, when there was no difficulty, and they were both one.  She was then told that there was the Church triumphant, in which are God, the saints, the angels, and all saved souls.  The Church militant is our Holy Father the Pope, vicar of God on earth, the cardinals, the prelates of the Church, and the clergy and all good Christians and Catholics, which Church properly assembled cannot err, but is guided by the Holy Spirit.  And this being the case she was asked if she would refer her cause to the Church militant thus explained to her.  She replied that she had come to the King of France on the part of God, on the part of the Virgin Mary, the blessed Saints of Paradise, and the Church victorious in Heaven, and at their commandment; and to that Church she submitted all her good deeds, and all that she had done and might do.  And if they asked her whether she would submit to the Church militant, answered, that she would now answer no more than this.

Here again the argument strayed back to the futile subject of dress, always at hand to be taken up again, one would say, when the judges were non-plussed.  Her first reply on this subject is remarkable and shows that dark and terrible forebodings were already beginning to mingle with her hopes.

Asked, what she had to say about the woman’s dress that had been offered to her, to hear mass in:  she answered, that she would not take it yet, not until the Lord pleased; but that if it were necessary to lead her out to be executed, and if she should then have to be undressed, she required of the Lords of the Church that they would give her the grace to have a long chemise, and a kerchief for her head; that she would prefer to die rather than to alter what our Lord had directed her to do, and that she firmly believed our Lord would not let her descend so low, but that she should soon be helped by God and by a miracle.  She was then asked, if what she did in respect to the man’s costume was by command of God, why she asked for a woman’s chemise in case of death? answered, It is enough that it should be long.

The effect of these words in which so much was implied, must have made a supreme sensation among the handful of men gathered round the helpless girl in her prison, bringing the stake in all its horror before the eyes of the judges as before her own.  No other thing could have been suggested by that piteous prayer.  The stake, the scaffold, the fire—­and the shrinking figure all maidenly, helpless, exposed to every evil gaze, must have showed themselves at least for a moment against that dark background of prison wall.  It was enough that it should be long—­to hide her as much as was possible from those dreadful staring eyes.