What means were employed to arrive at this end?
Did she really, and with full knowledge of what she was about, come round to the adjuration which there was so much anxiety to obtain from her?
It is difficult to solve this historical problem with exactness and certainty.

More than once, during the examinations and the conversations which took place at that time between Joan and her judges, she maintained her firm posture and her first statements.

One of those who were exhorting her to yield said to her one day, "Thy king is a heretic and a schismatic." Joan could not brook this insult to her king.

"By my faith," said she, "full well dare I both say and swear that he is the noblest Christian of all Christians, and the truest lover of the faith and the Church." "Make her hold her tongue," said the usher to the preacher, who was disconcerted at having provoked such language.

Another day, when Joan was being urged to submit to the Church, brother Isambard de la Pierre, a Dominican, who was interested in her, spoke to her about the council, at the same time explaining to her its province in the church.