Joan of Arc Chapter 20

THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL

TO understand the trial of Joan of Arc, it is necessary to know something of the form of trial ordinarily used in the fifteenth century, and especially of the methods of the Holy Inquisition and other ecclesiastical tribunals.

The old Teutonic theory of jurisprudence knew no broad difference between civil and criminal law, and regarded all criminal proceedings as lawsuits brought by the aggrieved person against the offender. As between the two parties to the suit, the court, however constituted, held itself impartial, and left them to fight it out or to settle it according to some one of the traditional methods of trial. This primitive theory was quite inadequate to meet the conditions of advancing civilization. In England the community, which originally acted only as the judge between complainant and defendant, in later times became vested with two distinct and even contradictory functions. On the one hand the sovereign, theoretically at least, replaced the original private complainant in a criminal suit and prosecuted it as an interested party, avowedly hostile to the defendant; on the other hand, the sovereign's judges sat to hear the case with primitive impartiality, deciding it as between party and party, substantially like a civil action. Neither the sovereign as complainant, nor the sovereign as judge, acting separately, undertook to determine if the accused was really guilty. The former strove to prove him guilty, the latter, with the help of a jury, decided if the proof offered at the trial was formally and substantially sufficient to sustain the complaint or indictment. If the proof failed, either in form or substance, then, though the accused were plainly the greatest scoundrel in the realm, yet the court held him harmless.

This method, theoretically absurd, but in the conditions of medivæval civilization practically pretty sensible, found less favor on the Continent. In France the idea of criminal prosecution as a contest between two parties tended to disappear, and the courts undertook in the first instance to seek out the criminal and afterwards to judge him. The defendant might, indeed, be denounced to the judge by some person whom he had wronged, but private complaint or denunciation was not necessary. The judge himself, of his own notion, made inquisition for the offender. Even if the complaint was originally made by a private person, yet the judge usually held a preliminary inquest before proceeding to the trial of the case, acting after the manner of an English grand jury. This inquest was called an information, and it differed from the proceedings before the grand jury in this respect among others, that it was conducted by the same tribunal which subsequently tried the offender.

In England, again, where a criminal proceeding was treated as a lawsuit between the sovereign and the accused, the latter, like a party to a civil suit, was not allowed to testify, and so could not be compelled to do so. In France the accused was naturally the most important witness, inasmuch as he knew most about the crime to be investigated; and so he was examined, not only at the trial, but at the inquiry which preceded it. There was another important difference between the English system and the French. In England, when the trial was had, the decision of the facts was left to the jury, a changing body of common men, not experts in the law, but men who made up their minds about each case as it arose, without elaborating any theory of presumption or of proof. In France permanent judges passed upon facts and law alike, and, being experts, soon framed a very elaborate and technical theory of proof which rapidly hardened into law. This theory of proof was doubtless intended to secure the accused from unjust condemnation; in fact it required for his conviction proof of such extraordinary strength that it hardly permitted the conviction of any one except upon his own confession in court.

In France, then, the courts were charged with the discovery and prosecution of criminals as well as with their trial, and by the rules they had established were almost forbidden to convict a criminal except upon his own confession. In this system, it became one of the principal duties of a judge to extort a confession from the accused, by gentle means if possible, otherwise by torture. Wherever the accused is permitted to arrest justice by his contumacy, torture becomes a necessity. This was true even in England; the English law did not permit a man to be tried or condemned unless he pleaded to the indictment, guilty or not guilty, and, if the accused was contumacious and would not plead at all, even the English law provided that he should be tortured until he spoke or died.

What has been said hitherto concerning French procedure applies to the civil tribunals as distinguished from the ecclesiastical, but the theory of ecclesiastical procedure was the same. Doubtless the Holy Office was more arbitrary in its rules than the courts of the king, and even than those of the bishop; but in northern France it followed, at least in theory, much the same rules of evidence and the same mechanical doctrine of presumption. An ecclesiastical court, however, had an additional reason for seeking the confession of the accused. Only by his confession could be secured his repentance, and so his ultimate salvation.

Joan's trial, therefore, may be divided into two parts. The first was the inquest or informatio præparatoria, a somewhat rambling investigation into the facts of the case, a gathering of evidence to be taken down at the time, and used subsequently to support an accusation or indictment which had not yet been prepared. This evidence thus taken served a double purpose; it supplied the material out of which the indictment was framed, and then was used in proof of the same indictment. The second part of the trial was the processus ordinarius or trial proper, in which the evidence gathered at the preliminary inquiry, with some additional evidence taken at the trial itself, was examined to see if it afforded proof technically sufficient of Joan's guilt.

On Tuesday, January 9, 1431, only six days after the English had formally delivered to him their prisoner, Cauchon opened his court in the royal council chamber at Rouen for the trial of Joan of Arc. He did not sit alone; Joan's guilt was to be established, not by the judgment of a single bishop, but by that of many reverend and learned men. At the first meeting of the court some eight were gathered, two abbots, a prior, the treasurer of the cathedral of Rouen and four canons, all of them the holders of degrees in theology, in civil or in canon law. One John of Estivet, a canon of Beauvais and a follower of his bishop, was appointed by the court to be the prosecuting attorney. John of La Fontaine became the bishop's commissary, a sort of vice-president of the tribunal. William Boisguillaume and William Manchon were made notaries, and John Massieu sergeant, the three last named being priests who lived in Rouen. Cauchon exhorted the notaries in particular to serve the king faithfully, informing them that he intended to make Joan's a notable trial. To the tribunal thus constituted were read the letters written by the University of Paris and by Cauchon himself concerning the delivery of Joan and the proceedings against her, and those from the chapter of Rouen and the English authorities giving the bishop jurisdiction of the matter. The court then adjourned.

Four days later, oil January 13, it met again in Cauchon's house. The assessors in attendance at one meeting and another differed considerably; sometimes more than forty were present, sometimes only five or six. Some assessors sat but once or twice, others attended pretty regularly, these last being generally the men upon whom Cauchon could best rely. All were ecclesiastics, most of them. Normans, a few from the rest of France, only one or two Englishmen. Some did their work reluctantly, most of them as a matter of routine, a few with hearty and bitter zeal.

Before proceeding even to a preliminary inquest, it was advisable to produce some evidence indicating that Joan was a person reasonably suspected of crime, and to show this Cauchon caused to be read the depositions which had been taken at Domremy and thereabouts. In them was found very little discreditable to her; indeed the bishop is said to have complained bitterly of their uselessness, and to have reviled the man who brought them, refusing to pay him anything for his trouble. Thereat the messenger became angry in his turn, and went about saying that the depositions contained nothing concerning Joan that he would not be willing to find in his own. sister. Defective evidence such as this was eked out with minutes and memoranda much more satisfactory, drawn from the rumors and reports concerning Joan, from the legends current among English and Burgundian soldiers, and from the strange stories which for more than a year and a half had been told all over Europe. This mass of hearsay the court ordered to be condensed or digested into articles from which it might determine if there was sufficient reason for subjecting Joan to the inquest or preliminary inquiry above mentioned. Cauchon chose a committee for the purpose, and in about ten days it was ready to report.

No copy has been preserved of these articles. The earliest existing formal statement of the case against Joan is one which was framed after she had been examined many days, and this was based largely upon the answers she had given. In order to understand the course of her long examination, however, we must know as definitely as possible what were the matters concerning which at the outset of the trial the judges expected to find her guilty. These were the matters to which they would address their questions, in the hope of getting from her either a direct confession or such admissions as would amount to one.

First and principally it was charged that Joan had had dealings with familiar spirits. That she had dealt with some sort of spirits was plain to every one, and there was doubt only concerning their character. Joan asserted that she was a mere mountebank, or completely self-deceived, were improbable suppositions in the fifteenth century that they were saints; her enemies quite naturally believed them to be devils, and for their belief adduced several reasons. Magic was not unknown in Domremy; the depositions, even if they were otherwise worthless, contained stories of the fairy tree and of the magic fountain, -- stories which might easily be exaggerated and applied to Joan. Again, Joan had apparently ascribed supernatural virtue to a particular sword and banner, and there were reports that she had used secret charms, and had promised to her soldiers safety in the face of the enemy. Other acts were even more plainly culpable. Not only had she entered upon an unwomanly career, and practiced all sorts of unwomanly exercises, but she had persistently worn men's clothes, a thing absolutely forbidden by Holy Scripture and the councils of the church. These were grave offenses in themselves, and they made Joan's boast of saintly guidance seem almost absurd. Moreover, she had attacked Paris on the feast of the Annunciation; she had attempted her own life at Beaurevoir, as a witch would do, instead of bearing her imprisonment patiently, like a good Christian; she had allowed common people to worship her; she had stolen a bishop's horse; she had pretended to work miracles. To men who do not believe in witchcraft, all this is a farrago of irrelevant nonsense, but, if an undoubting belief in witchcraft is assumed, then this easily credited mixture of truth and falsehood is quite suspicious enough to provoke judicial inquiry. During the trial one or two other causes of suspicion were found, and added to the charges.

About a month was spent in preparation. The first articles were revised and questions were prepared by the commissary, acting under the general direction of Cauchon, who was busy otherwise. On February 19 the articles were approved, and a formal summons was issued to Joan, but there was a hitch in the proceedings, apparently unexpected. From the beginning it had been intended that a representative of the Inquisition should sit in Cauchon's tribunal. The inquisitor-general of France, however, the Dominican John Graverent, was busy at the trial of a burgher of St. Lô, and could not attend Joan's trial himself. His vicar for the diocese of Rouen, the prior John Lemaître, was duly summoned by Cauchon, but hesitated at first, and then refused to sit with the bishop, alleging a want of jurisdiction. He was commissioned to act, as he said, only within the diocese of Rouen; geographically, Joan's trial was held in that diocese, but juridically it was held in the diocese of Beauvais, to which his authority did not extend. Probably he was unwilling to take part in the trial.

Cauchon did not assent to the vicar's opinion concerning the limits of his authority, but tried first to overrule him, and then by promising to write to the inquisitorgeneral for a broader commission sought to persuade him. to become a member of the court. Lemaître replied that for the clearing of his own conscience, and to insure the validity of the proceedings, he preferred not to meddle in any matter without due authority. So far as in him lay, he authorized Cauchon to proceed. Having excused himself in this cautious manner he withdrew. For the first time the bishop met with a passive opposition, afterwards shown by many others who were concerned in the trial.

With or without the inquisitor, Cauchon determined to go forward, and, in the royal chapel of the castle, on Wednesday, February 21, 1431, he held the first public session of the court. Forty-three assessors attended. The prosecuting attorney, Estivet, stood up and read the warrant summoning Joan to appear, and the certificate of the sergeant who had served the process upon her. This certificate stated that Joan would willingly appear before the bishop, but had begged that some of her judges might be taken from the French party, and also that she might be allowed to hear mass before she was brought into court. Thereupon Cauchon explained to his assessors that "considering the crimes of which the said woman was accused, and the impropriety of the dress which she persisted in wearing," he had forbidden her to hear mass. He had acted thus, as he said, by the counsel of notable doctors; but upon this question he did not ask the advice or consent of his assessors, perhaps because he feared to risk so important a matter to the vote of so large and so mixed a body. This denial of spiritual comfort, which had continued nearly three months, as well as Joan's bodily and mental distress, was relied upon to break her stubborn will.

After this introduction, Joan was brought into court, her irons having been removed for the occasion. For the first time in many weeks, probably, she saw the full light of day. Pale and shabby from her nine months' confinement, the girl of nineteen faced the abbots, priors, canons, doctors, and bachelors of law and theology, knowing that all were her natural enemies. By nature altogether truthful, wise enough or simple enough to tell the whole truth in answering all ordinary questions, she yet understood that she did not appear before these men in order to give a complete history of herself, but to stand for her life and the holiness of her mission. The questions put to her she considered shrewdly, and by adroitness, by good humor, by wit, or by sayings in which all these were combined in a perfect expression of faith in the God she served, she avoided many of the traps which her examiners laid for her. Considered merely as an intellectual exercise, her defense is wonderful, made, as it was, without help of an advocate. That it was made without help, Joan would have utterly denied. Many times a day she sought and received the counsel of her voices: at noontime while the court took a recess, at evening or waking in the morning, now and then even in the courtroom. Sometimes she had only the sense of their presence, sometimes they advised her what to say, often they told her to "answer boldly, and that God would help her."

After a seat had been given her, Cauchon rehearsed the story of her capture and warned her to speak the truth without wile or subterfuge. Having thus admonished her charitably, as he phrased it, he next directed that she be sworn on the Evangelists to answer truly the questions put to her. She hesitated, knowing that there were questions which she was not ready to answer, and fearing that if once she were sworn, she must tell everything. "I do not know what you wish to ask me about," she said. "You may ask me things that I will not tell you." Cauchon asked her if she would answer in all matters of religion. Regarding her father and mother, and her deeds since she came into France, Joan answered that she would swear to testify, but her revelations from. God she had told only to Charles her king. These things she would not reveal though they should out off her head, for her voices had forbidden her to speak; within a week, however, she might receive permission.

After some further parley and much confusion in the court, Cauchon yielded for the time, and Joan knelt down, laid both her hands upon a missal, and took the oath in the form she had chosen. Then she answered readily a number of questions about her birthplace, her age, her parents and godparents. Her religious teaching, she told her judges, had been given her by her mother, who had taught her the Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, and the Creed. Following the practice of the Inquisition, Cauchon bade her say the Lord's Prayer. Joan answered that she would gladly do so if the bishop would hear her in confession. Cauchon insisted that the prayer should be said at once, and Joan persistently refused. Possibly she objected to rattling off the sacred words merely to gratify what she considered her judge's whim, but she had a deeper reason for her refusal. By offering to say the Lord's Prayer in confession, she hoped to obtain a confessor, one of the spiritual privileges of which she had been deprived. She had triumphed, at least for the moment, in the matter of the oath, and as her voices had told her to answer boldly, she was ready to do so. The hearing had lasted for some time, and Cauchon adjourned it to the next day.

Before dismissing his prisoner, however, he formally warned her, under penalty of being taken for a convicted heretic, not to withdraw from the prison assigned to her without his leave. Joan answered that she would not be bound by his command, and she added that, if she should escape, no one could blame her for breaking her parole, inasmuch as she had never given it. She complained of being kept in chains. The bishop said that this was necessary for her safe-keeping, and that she had already tried to escape. "It is true that I wished to get away, and still wish it," she answered, "as any prisoner may rightfully do."

Ordinarily, a person tried before an ecclesiastical court was kept in an ecclesiastical prison, that is to say, in one controlled by the court before which the case was tried. The bishop of Beauvais had no prison in Rouen, and this may have been his excuse for keeping Joan in a secular prison; the real reason for her exceptional treatment, however, was quite different. In risking her trial before an ecclesiastical court, the English had done all they dared, and they had expressly reserved the right to deal with her as they chose, in case she should be acquitted. To trust her to a French ecclesiastical jailer was out of the question, and throughout the trial she was kept in the custody of English laymen. In an ecclesiastical prison, solitary confinement in chains would probably have been directed by Cauchon, but from a certain kind of outrage Joan would have been secure. To give his action the appearance of regularity, Cauchon went through the form of swearing the English jailers to keep her well and faithfully, without letting her speak to any one. She was then led back to her chamber.

There had been so much confusion in the chapel, and Joan had been interrupted so often and by so many people, that the notary Manchon refused to act further unless the proceedings were conducted in more orderly fashion. He was an honest and painstaking clerk, scrupulous in reporting Joan's answers correctly, and he disapproved of the unfair record made by certain clerks in the employ of the English council, who had written down what they pleased. Cauchon had not yet begun to doubt that Joan could be condemned oil a fair hearing, and the place of her trial was accordingly changed to a retiring-room near the great hall of the castle. Two English guards kept the door.

At about eight o'clock in the morning of February 22 Joan was brought to this place, fasting, for it was Lent. There was another wrangle over the form of the oath, with the same result as before. Then John Beaupère, a learned doctor of theology, sent from the University of Paris, took up Joan's examination, and began by exhorting her to tell the truth, in whatever form she had taken the oath. "You may well ask me one thing about which I will tell you the truth, and another thing about which I will not tell you at all," Joan answered. "If you were well informed about me, you ought to wish me out of your hands. I have done nothing except by revelation."

Beaupère asked about her life as a child, and she answered freely. In sewing and in spinning she was not afraid to match herself against any woman in Rouen. He asked her how often she had confessed and communicated; she answered as particularly as she could, and when he pressed her further, told him to pass to the next question. Then he came to her visions, and she told him the time and place of their first appearance.

Desiring to show that the spirits which had spoken to Joan were evil, Beaupère asked what they had taught her for her soul's sake. She answered that they had told her to conduct herself well and to go often to church. Beaupère wished to know the manner and form of their appearance, but for the time Joan refused to tell him. She told him at some length of her visits to Baudricourt and to the duke of Lorraine, and of her journey to Chinon. She was shown the letters she had written to the English captains before Orleans, and she acknowledged them, though she said that her language had been slightly changed. In fact, this had probably been done by the French scribes who wrote down her words.

She told Beaupère that at Chinon she had known the king by the help of her voices. At once he pressed her for details, asking whether there had been a miraculous light in the place or an angel over the king's head, and what sort of revelations Charles had had concerning her. Joan suggested that he should send to the king, from whom, doubtless, he could get an answer. This, naturally, did not satisfy Beaupère, and he urged her further. Provoked by his persistence, Joan told him that the men of her party knew well that the voice was sent from God, and that they had seen and heard the voice: the king and some others had seen the voice when it came, among them Charles of Bourbon and two or three more. Led on by the stupid unbelief of her questioners, Joan was beginning to play boldly upon words, and, in talking of her coming to Charles, to speak of herself as the angel and the voice. Beaupère took up another accusation, that of having attacked Paris on a feast day, but he had hardly opened the matter when the court adjourned.

After a day's notice, on Saturday, February 24, the court assembled at the usual hour, with a larger body of assessors than before. Again Cauchon tried to make Joan take the oath without reservation, and again she refused. "Look well to what you are saying, namely, that you are my judge," she warned him, "for in this you take a great burden on yourself, and you burden me too heavily." She told the judges that she was sent by God and had no business in Rouen, and she begged them to send her back to God, from whom she had come. At last she said that she was ready to tell the truth in whatever concerned the case, and in this manner she was sworn.

Beaupère began the examination by asking Joan when she had last eaten, hoping, apparently, to show that she had not kept Lent; but she told him that she had eaten nothing since the afternoon of the day before. Then he asked when she had last heard her voices. "Both yesterday and to-day," she answered. They had come to her many times a day, and on Friday morning had roused her from sleep. Trying to support his theory of an evil spirit, Beaupère asked if she had given thanks to the voice, and had gone down on her kness to it; he forgot that she was so chained that she could not kneel. Without noticing his mistake, Joan said simply that she had given thanks, sitting up in bed with joined hands; she had already asked for help, and she had been told to answer boldly. Beaupère tried to discover the precise language of the voices, but she would not, and, indeed, probably could not tell him. Suddenly she turned upon Cauchon: "You say that you are my judge. Have a care what you do, for truly I am sent from God, and you put yourself in great peril."

She had said that she feared she might displease her voices if she should answer all his questions, and Beaupère ingeniously inquired if God would be displeased with her for telling the truth. "My voices have told me to say some things to the king and not to you. This very night they have told me many things for his advantage, which I wish he knew even now, though I were to drink no wine for it until Easter." Beaupère suggested that she should command the voice to carry the message to the king. Joan answered that the voice would not obey her unless this were God's will. "If it pleased God, He himself could cause the revelation to be made to the king, whereat I should be much pleased." When asked why the voice did not speak to the king as it used to do when Joan was with him, she said that this might not be God's will; without His grace, she added, she should not know what to do. After another vain attempt to discover how the voices appeared to her, the wily doctor asked if she knew that she was in the grace of God. This may well have been a question ordinarily put to an obstinate heretic, for, if the accused answered yes, he manifested an unholy presumption, while, if he answered no, his guilt stood confessed. One of the assessors interrupted, saying it was not a fair question to put to a girl, but Cauchon told him he had better hold his tongue. "May God bring me into His grace if I am not in it; if I am in it, may He keep me there," Joan answered. "If I knew that I was not in God's grace, I should be the sorriest being in the world. If I were living in sin, I think the voice would not come to me, and I wish that every one understood it as well as I do."

Beaupère next inquired about her life at Domremy and the state of political parties in the neighborhood, and presently asked if her voices had told her to hate the Burgun dians. Joan perceived the trap he thus laid for her, but admitted that she had not loved the Burgundians after learning that her voices were on Charles's side. Had she a firm intention of attacking the Burgundians, the examiner inquired. "I had a firm desire that my king should have his kingdom," Joan replied. The doctor then passed to the fairy tree and to the fountain, and Joan answered all his questions readily. There was a fountain near the village, the waters of which sick people used to drink, but she did not know if they were cured. There was a tree, about which strange stories were told; whether they were true or not she could not pretend to say. She had hung garlands on its branches, like other girls; sometimes, perhaps, she had danced about it with the boys of the village, but usually she preferred singing to dancing. There was also a grove less than half a league from her father's house. The neighbors had said that she took up her mission in this grove, but they had been mistaken. As to the fairy stories told about the grove, she did not believe them.

Having failed to prove that Joan had practiced magic in her youth, the examiner came to the wearing of men's clothes, an offense which she certainly had committed. "Are you willing to wear a woman's dress?" he asked. "Give me one," Joan answered, "I will take it and go away; unless I may go away I will not take it. I am content with this dress, since it pleases God that I should use it."

The strain to which Joan was subjected by these examinations we do not fully comprehend, unless we bear constantly in mind the life which the young girl was leading outside the court-room. She kept faithfully the fasts of the church, and, throughout Lent, from the afternoon of one day until the afternoon of the next she ate nothing. During these examinations, therefore, she was faint with hunger; indeed, her ques tioners themselves were often worn out. If one became tired, however, another was ready to take his place, and several substitutes were provided for Beaupère. Many times, in spite of the notary's protest, these deputies did not wait for Beaupère's withdrawal, but hurled at Joan half a dozen questions at once, until she was obliged to say with a smile, "My good lords, one of you at a time." After she had undergone this exercise for three or four hours, she was taken back to her prison, her chains, and her brutal keepers. In walking between her cell and the court-room, she passed in front of the chapel of the castle, and the sergeant used to let her stop a moment in sight of the altar, and say a prayer. When the prosecuting attorney learned this, he was furious, and threatened the officer: "How dare you let that cursed wench go near a church? If you do it again, I will put you in a tower where for a month you shall see neither sun nor moon." Despite his orders, Joan could still glance in passing at the place where the host was kept, and Estivet would therefore block up the door with his body so that she could see nothing. No one came to her chamber, except those who had permission from Cauchon or the English. Now and then some burgher got a peep at her to gratify his curiosity, or some noble was admitted to stare at her or to tease her. One day John of Luxemburg, who happened to be in Rouen, went to visit her, along with his brother the bishop, the English earls of Warwick and Stafford, and the squire Haimond of Macy.

"Joan, I am come to ransom you, if you will promise not to fight against us any more," said the count in rather cruel jest."In God's name, you are only laughing at me," Joan answered, "for I know well that you have neither the will nor the power." Luxemburg insisted, and at last Joan said," I know well that these English will kill me, thinking to get the kingdom of France after my death, but, though they were a hundred thousand goddams more than they now are, they shall not have the kingdom." Stafford was so angry at Joan's words that he drew his dagger to stab her, but Warwick checked him.

Though she was harassed in this fashion, Joan's answers still gave Cauchon little satisfaction. "Let no one approach the heretic," so read a handbook of the Inquisition, "unless it be from time to time two faithful and skillful persons, who shall act as if they had pity on him, and shall warn him to save himself by confessing his errors, promising him, if he does so, that he shall not be burned; for fear of death and hope of life sometimes soften a heart which cannot otherwise be touched." A faithful and skillful person of the sort required was found in Nicholas Loiseleur, a canon of Chartres and of Rouen, and an intimate friend of Cauchon. Dressed as a layman, and acting under the directions of Cauchon and Warwick, he went into Joan's cell and represented himself to be a man from Lorraine, friendly to the girl and to the cause of France. On some excuse the warders withdrew, and left them together. There was no real privacy. Seated in a closet near by, which was built for the purpose, the notary Manchon was ordered to take down Joan's words, for use against her in the trial. Though commanded by the bishop and the earl, the notary refused to obey, saying that he would record only the testimony given in court. For this reason or for some other, the part of the plan which depended upon him was given up, but Loiseleur continued to visit Joan, and to express his sympathy for her troubles. For months she had not heard a kind word, and her shrewdness was deceived. To Loiseleur she said much that she never would have told her judges. When the examiners wished to question Joan on any matter, Loiseleur would talk it over with her in the afternoon or evening, and upon what she said to him Beaupère would frame the questions to be asked on the next morning.