The Maid received the blessing of the Abbe, who, if not convinced of the sacredness of her mission, was yet impotent to prove aught against her.

It is strange to me, looking back at those days, how far less ready of heart the ecclesiastics were to receive her testimony and recognise in her the messenger of the Most High than were the soldiers, whether the generals whom she afterwards came to know, or the men who crowded to fight beneath her banner.

One would have thought that to priests and clergy a greater grace and power of understanding would have been vouchsafed; but so far from this, they always held her in doubt and suspicion, and were her secret foes from first to last.
I made it my task to see her safely home; and as we went, I asked: "Was it an offence to you, fair Maid, that he should thus seek to test and try you ?" "Not an offence to me, Seigneur," she answered gently, "but he should not have had need to do it.

For he did hear my confession on Friday.

Therefore he should have known better.