she would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege of hearing
mass. She spoke out with spirit and said:

"I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God."

She was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus deserting
the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch of
soldierly disdain:

"As to the matter of women's work, there's plenty to do it."

It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her.
While that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able to look
trouble and fate in the face.

"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God,
was to make war and pour out human blood."

Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war
was not her first move, but her second:

"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused,
then I would fight."

The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the
enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made
a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being
Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the
English. She said: