February 24th. Third Session

On the following Saturday, February 24th, we the said bishop repaired to the same room in the castle of Rouen where Jeanne appeared in judgment before us in the presence on many reverend fathers, doctors and masters, namely: Gilles, abbot of Ste. Trinité de Fécamp, Pierre, prior of Longueville-Giffard; Jean de Châtillon, Erard Emengart, Jean Beaupère, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Jean de Nibat, Jacques Guesdon, Maurice du Quesnay, Jean Le Fèvre, Guillaume Le Boucher, Pierre Houdenc, Pierre Maurice, Richard Prati, Jean Charpentier, Gerard Feuillet, and Denis de Sabrevois, doctor of sacred theology; Nicolas de Jumièges, Guillaume de Ste Catherine, Guillaume de Cormeilles, abbots; Jean Garin, doctor of canon law and Raoul Roussel, doctor of canon and civil law; Nicolas Couppequesne, William Haiton, Thomas de Courcelles, Jean Le Maistre, Nicolas Loiseleur, Raoul Le Sauvage, Guillaume de Baudribosc, Nicolas Lemire, Richard Le Gagneux, Jean Duval, Guillaume Le Maistre, and Guillaume l'Ermite, bachelors of sacred theology; the abbot of St. Ouen, of St. Georges, and of Préaux; the priors of St. Lô and of Sigy; also Robert Le Barbier, Denis Gastinel, and Jean Le Doulx, bachelors of canon and civil law; Nicolas de Venderès, Jean Pinchon, Jean de la Fontaine, Aubert Morel, Jean Duchemin, Jean Colombel, Laurent Du Busc, Raoul

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Anguy, Richard des Saulx, bachelors of canon law; André Marguerie, Jean Alespée, Geoffroy du Crotay, Gilles Deschamps, Nicolas Maulin, Pierre Carel, Bureau de Cormeilles, licentiates in civil law; Robert Morellet, and Jean Le Roy, canons of the cathedral of Rouen, and Nicolas de Foville.

We first of all required the aforementioned Jeanne to speak the simple and absolute truth on the questions put to her, and to make no reservation to her oath; and we thrice admonished her to do this. The said Jeanne answered: "Give me Leave to speak" and then said: "By my faith, you could ask me things such as I would not answer." She said also: "Perhaps I shall not answer you truly in many things that you ask me, concerning the revelations; for perhaps you would constrain me to tell things I have sworn not to utter, and so I should be perjured, and you would not want that." And she added, "I tell you, take good heed of what you say, that you are my judge, for you assume a great responsibility, and overburden me." She said also that she thought it should be enough to have twice taken the oath.

Moreover, asked if she would swear, simply and absolutely, she answered: "You may well do without it! I have sworn enough, twice"; adding that all the clergy of Rouen and Paris could not condemn her, but by law. She said that of her coming to France she would willingly speak the truth, but not the whole truth; and a week would not be enough for that.

But we, the aforementioned bishop, told her to take the advice of the assessors, whether or not she should swear. To that she replied that of her coming she would willingly speak the truth, and not otherwise; and that we must not speak of it to her any more.

We said that she lay herself open to suspicion if she would not swear to speak the truth. She replied in the same way as

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before. Again we required her to swear, precisely and absolutely. Then she answered that she would willingly say what she knew, but not all. She said also that she came from God, and that there is nothing for her to do here, and asked to be sent back to God, from whom she came.

Required and admonished to swear, under pain of being charged with what was imputed to her, she answered: "Continue."

A last time we required her to swear, and urgently admonished her to speak the truth in matters concerning the trial, telling her she exposed herself to great danger by her refusal. Then she answered: "I am ready to swear to speak the truth of what I know concerning the trial." And in this manner she took the oath.

Then, at our order, she was questioned by the distinguished doctor Jean Beaupère above-mentioned, who first asked her when she had last taken food and drink. She answered that since yesterday noon she had not taken either.

Asked when she had heard the voice come to her, she answered: "I heard it yesterday and today."

Asked at what hour yesterday she had heard this voice, she answered that she had heard it three times: once in the morning, once at vespers, and once when the Ave Maria was rung in the evening. And often she heard it more frequently than she said.

Asked what she was doing yesterday morning when the voice came to her, she said she was sleeping and the Voice awakened her.

Asked if the voice woke her by touching her on the arm, she answered that it was without touching her.

Asked if the voice was actually in the room, she said she did not know, but it was in the castle.

Asked if she did not thank it and kneel down, she answered

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that she thanked it, but she was sitting on the bed, and she put her hands together; and this was after she asked counsel of it. Whereupon the voice told her to answer boldly.

Asked what the voice had said when she was awakened, she answered that she asked the voice to counsel her in her replies, telling the voice to beseech therein the counsel of Our Lord. And the voice told her to answer boldly and God would comfort her.

Asked if it had not spoken certain words to her before she questioned it, she replied that the voice spoke certain words, but she did not understand them all. However, when she awakened from her sleep, the voice told her to answer boldly.

Then she said to us, the aforementioned bishop: "You say that you are my judge; take good heed of what you do, because, in truth, I am sent by God, and you put yourself in great peril," in French 'en grant dangier.' Asked if the voice sometimes varied in its counsel, she answered that she had never found it utter two contrary opinions. She said also that that night she had heard it tell her to answer boldly.

Asked whether the voice had forbidden her to answer everything she was asked, she said: I will not answer you that. I have revelations concerning the king which I shall not tell you.

Asked if the voice had forbidden her to tell of the revelations, she answered: "I have not been advised upon that. Give me a fortnight and I will answer you." And as she had again asked for a delay in her reply, she said: "If the voice forbade me, what would you say?"

Asked again if that had been forbidden her [by the voice], she replied: "Believe me, it was not men who forbade me." She said that she would not answer that day; and that she does not know if she ought to reply, or not, until it has

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been revealed to her. She said she firmly believes, as firmly as she believes in the Christian faith and that the Lord redeemed us from the pains of hell, that this voice comes from God, and by His command.

Asked whether this voice, which she says appears to her, comes as an angel, or directly from God, or whether it is the voice of one of the saints, she answered: "This voice comes from God; I believe I do not tell you everything about it; and I am more afraid of failing the voices by saying what is displeasing to them, than of answering you. For this question, I beseech you to grant me a delay."

Asked if she believes it displeasing to God to speak the truth, she answered: "My voices told me to say certain things to the king, and not to you." She saw that that night the voice told her many things for the good of the king, which she wished he might know forthwith, even if she had to go without wine till Easter! For, as she said, he would eat the more happily for it.

Asked if she could not so influence the voice that it would obey her and take news to her king: she answered she did not know whether the voice would obey her, unless it were God's will, and God consented thereto. "And if it please God," she said, "He will be able to send revelations to the king; and with this I shall be well pleased."

Asked why this voice no longer speaks with the king, as it did when Jeanne was in his presence, she answered that she did not know, if it were not the will of God. And she added that but for the will of God she could do nothing.

Asked if her counsel revealed to her that she should escape from prison, she answered: "Must I tell you that?"

Asked whether that night the voice had not counseled and advised her upon what she should reply, she said that if the voice revealed such things she did not understand them.

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Asked whether, on the two last days that she heard the voices, she had seen a light, she answered that the light comes in the name of the voice.

Asked if she saw anything else with the voices, she answered: "I will not tell you everything, I have not leave, nor does my oath touch on that. This voice is good and worthy; and I am not bound to answer you." She asked that the points on which she did not straightway answer should be given her in writing.

Asked whether the voice, of which she asked counsel, had sight and eyes, she answered: "You will not learn that yet"; and said that there was a saying among little children, "Men are sometimes hanged for telling the truth."

Asked if she knows she is in God's grace, she answered: "If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace." She added, if she were in a state of sin, she did not think that the voice would come to her; and she wished every one could hear the voice as well as she did. She thought she was about thirteen when the voice came to her for the first time.

Asked whether in her youth she had played in the fields with the other children, she answered that she certainly went sometimes, but she did not know at what age.

Asked if the people of Domrémy sided with the Burgundians or the other party, she answered that she only knew one Burgundian; and she would have been quite willing for him to have his head cut off, that is if it had pleased God.

Asked if at Maxey the people were Burgundians or enemies of the Burgundians, she answered they were Burgundians.

Asked if the voice told her in her youth to hate the Burgundians, she answered that since she had known that the voices were for the king of France, she did not like the Burgundians

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She said the Burgundians will have war unless they do as they ought; she knows it from her voice. Asked if it was revealed to her in her early years that the English should come to France, she answered that the English were already in France when the voices began to come to her.

Asked if she was ever with the children who fought for her party, she answered no, as far as she remembered; but she sometimes saw certain children from Domrémy, who had fought against those from Maxey, returning wounded and bleeding.

Asked whether in her youth she had any great intention of defeating the Burgundians, she answered that she had a great desire and will for her king to have his kingdom.

Asked if she had wanted to be a man when it was necessary for her to come to France, she said she had answered elsewhere.

Asked if she took the animals to the fields, she said that she had answered elsewhere; and that since she had grown up, and had reached understanding, she did not generally look after the beasts, but helped to take them to the meadows and to a castle called the Island, for fear of the soldiers; but she does not recall whether or not she tended them in her youth.

Then she was questioned about a certain tree growing near her village. To which she answered that, fairly near Domrémy, there was a certain tree called the Ladies' Tree, and others called it the Fairies' Tree; and near by is a fountain. And she has heard that people sick of the fever drink of this fountain and seek its water to restore their health; that, she has seen herself; but she does not know whether they are cured or not. She said she has heard that the sick, when they can rise, go to the tree and walk about it. It is a big tree, a beech, from which they get the fair May, in French le beau may; and it

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belongs, it is said, to Pierre de Bourlemont, knight. She said sometimes she would go playing with the other young girls, making garlands for Our Lady of Domrémy there; and often she had heard the old folk say (not those of her family) that the fairies frequented it. And she heard a certain Jeanne, the wife of mayor Aubery of Domrémy, her godmother, say that she had seen the fairies; but she herself doesn't know whether it is true or not. As far as she knew, she said, she never saw the fairies at the tree. Asked if she saw them elsewhere, she does not know at all. She had seen the young girls putting garlands on the branches of the tree, and she herself sometimes hung them there with the other girls; sometimes they took them away, and sometimes they left them there.

She said that since she learned that she must come to France, she had taken as little part as possible in games or dancing; and did not know whether she had danced near the tree since she had grown to understanding. Although on occasions she may well have danced there with the children, she more often sang than danced. There is also a wood, called the oak-wood, in French le Bois-chesnu, which can be seen from her father's door; not more than half a league away. She does not know, nor has she ever heard, that the fairies repair there; but she has heard from her brother that in the country around it is said she received her message at the tree; but she says she did not, and she told him quite the contrary. Further, she says, when she came to the king, several people asked her if there were not in her part of the country a wood called the oak-wood; for there was a prophecy which said that out of this wood would come a maid who should work miracles; but Jeanne said that she put no faith in that.

Asked if she wanted a woman's dress, she answered: "Give me one. I will take it and go: otherwise I will not have it, and am content with this, since it pleases God that I wear it."

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Whereupon we put an end to all interrogation for this day, and assigned for the next session the following Tuesday, so that at the same hour and in the same place the whole convocation should assemble and proceed to the subsequent interrogations.

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