THE TRIAL OF JEANNE DARC. 453 and yet, as it seems, almost any one who chose could enter her room, gaze upon her, and even converse with her. The little king saw her. The king's advocate visited her, and jested with her upon her condition, saving that she would not have come to Rouen if she had not been brought thither, and asking if she had known before- hand if she should be taken. ." I feared it," said she. " If you feared it," he asked, " why were you not upon your guard ? " She replied, " I did not know the day nor the hour." After preliminaries that threatened to be endless, the public part of the trial began on Wednesday, February 21, 1431, at eight in the morning, in the great chapel of the chateau. The Bishop of Beauvais presided, and of the sixty ecclesiastics summoned forty-four were present. Three authorized reporters were in their places, and there were some other clerks, concealed by a curtain, who took notes for the special use of the English regent. There was a crowd of spectators, " a great tumult " in the chapel, and very little order in the proceedings. At a time when lords took their, dogs and hawks into church with them, and merchants made their bargains in the naves of cathedrals, we need not look for a scrupulous decorum in a court convened to try a girl for the crime of being " vehemently suspected of heresy." That was the charge : vehementement suspecte cPheresie. And such a grand tumult was there in the chapel that day that the subsequent sessions were held in a smaller hall of the castle. The prisoner was brought in, freed from her chains, and was allowed to sit. No one of the many pens employed in recording the events of this day has given us any hint of her appearance. We have, indeed, the enumeration of the articles of her man's attire, which was made such a
