According to Southey (v. 393, bk.
iii., in the original edition of his "Joan of Arc,") she "appalled the
doctors." It's not easy to do _that_: but they had some reason to
feel bothered, as that surgeon would assuredly feel bothered who, upon
proceeding to dissect a subject, should find the subject retaliating as
a dissector upon himself, especially if Joanna ever made the speech to
them which occupies v. 354-391, bk. iii. It is a double impossibility:
1st, because a piracy from Tindal's "Christianity as old as the
Creation"--a piracy _a parte ante_, and by three centuries; 2d, it
is quite contrary to the evidence on Joanna's trial. Southey's "Joan"
of A.D. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol) tells the doctors, among other secrets,
that she never in her life attended--1st, Mass; nor 2d, the Sacramental
Table; nor 3d, Confession. In the meantime, all this deistical
confession of Joanna's, besides being suicidal for the interest of her
cause, is opposed to the depositions upon _both_ trials. The very
best witness called from first to last deposes that Joanna attended
these rites of her Church even too often; was taxed with doing so; and,
by blushing, owned the charge as a fact, though certainly not as a
fault. Joanna was a girl of natural piety, that saw God in forests and
hills and fountains, but did not the less seek him in chapels and
consecrated oratories.
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