Autobiography of Mark Twain (45 page)

4. Although
she was
on trial for her life, she was the only witness called on either side; the only witness summoned to testify before a packed jury commissioned with a definite task—to find her guilty, whether she
was
_^
were
_^
guilty or not. She must be convicted out of her own mouth, there being no other way to accomplish it. Every advantage that learning has over ignorance, age over youth, experience over inexperience, chicane over artlessness
every trick and trap
and gin
devisable by malice and the cunning of sharp intellects practised in
_^
the
_^
setting
_^
of
_^
snares for the unwary
all these were employed against her without shame; and when these arts were one by one defeated by the marvellous intuitions of her alert and penetrating mind, Bishop Cauchon stooped to a final baseness which it degrades human speech to describe
:a
priest who pretended to come from the region of her own home and to be a pitying friend
and
anxious to help her in her sore need, was smuggled into her cell; he misused his sacred office to steal her confidence
; and
_^
so that
_^
she confided to him
the things
_^
facts
_^
sealed from revealment by her Voices which her prosecutors had tried so long in vain to trick her into betraying. A concealed confederate set it all down and delivered it to Cauchon, who used
Joan’s
_^
Jeanne’s
_^
secrets, thus obtained, for her ruin.

Throughout the Trial
,
whatever the
_^
the testimony of the
_^
foredoomed witness
said
was twisted from its true meaning, when possible, and made to tell against her;
and
whenever an
answer of hers was beyond the reach of
twisting
_^
garbling,
_^
it was not allowed to go upon the record.
It was upon
_^
On
_^
one of these latter occasions
that
she uttered that pathetic reproach
to Cauchon:
“Ah,
_^
“you set down everything that is against me, but
you will not set down what is for me.”
_^
nothing that is in my favour.”
_^

(
easier translation
)

5. That
this
_^
her
_^
untrained
young creature’s
genius for war was
wonderful
_^
marvelous
_^
,
and
that her generalship
suggested an old and educated
_^
was that of a tried and trained
_^
military experience, we have the sworn testimony of two of her veteran subordinates
one the Duc d’Alençon,
_^
brother to the King of France;
_^
the other the greatest of the French generals of the time, Dunois, Bastard of Orleans
;t
hat her
genius was as great
—
possibly even greater
—
_^
power was equally great
if not greater
_^
in the subtle
warfare
_^
strife
_^
of the forum, we have for witness the records of the Rouen Trial
, that protracted exhibition of intellectual fence maintained with credit against the masterminds of France
; t
hat her moral greatness was peer to her intellect we call the Rouen Trial
again to witness, with
their
_^
its
_^
testimony to a fortitude which patiently and steadfastly endured during twelve weeks the wasting forces of captivity, chains, loneliness, sickness, darkness, hunger, thirst, cold, shame, insult, abuse, broken sleep, treachery, ingratitude, exhausting sieges of cross-examination,
_^
and
_^
the threat of torture
with the rack
before
_^
facing
_^
her and the executioner standing ready: yet never surrendering, never asking quarter, the frail wreck of her as unconquerable the last day as was her invincible spirit the first.