It made the Bishop's purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If
Joan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a mine under
this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop's schemes to the four winds
of heaven, and she didn't know it. She had made that speech by mere
instinct, not suspecting what tremendous forces were hidden in it, and
there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon knew;
and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the
knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and none was
allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat, once more
Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was miserably
worn and tired, by the long day's struggle and by illness, or she must
have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason of it.

She had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke. It was
an appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had persisted in it
Cauchon's plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of cards,
and he would have gone from that place the worst-beaten man of the
century. He was daring, but he was not daring enough to stand up against
that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor thing,
and did not know what a blow she had struck for life and liberty.

France was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the destruction of
this messenger of God.

Rome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her cause
needed. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and honored, and
blessed.

But it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other
matters and hurried the trial quickly to an end.