"Do you believe in God ?" he asked, ill-humoredly.

"More than you do," retorted Joan, offended.

"Well," rejoined the monk, "God forbids belief in you without some sign tending thereto: I shall not give the king advice to trust men-at-arms to you, and put them in peril on your simple word." "In the name of God," said Joan, "I am not come to Poitiers to show signs; take me to Orleans, and I will give you signs of what I am sent for.

Let me have ever so few men-at-arms given me, and I will go to Orleans;" then, addressing another of the examiners, Master Peter of Versailles, who was afterwards Bishop of Meaux, she said, "I know nor A nor B; but in our Lord's book there is more than in your books; I come on behalf of the King of Heaven to cause the siege of Orleans to be raised, and to take the king to Rheims, that he may be crowned and anointed there." The examination was prolonged for a fortnight, not without symptoms of impatience on the part of Joan.

At the end of it, she said to one of the doctors, John Erault, "Have you paper and ink?
Write what I shall say to you." And she dictated a form of letter which became, some weeks later, the manifesto addressed in a more developed shape by her from Orleans to the English, calling upon them to raise the siege and put a stop to the war.