"Would you examine me as a witness
against myself?" was the question by which many times she defied their
arts. Continually she showed that their interrogations were irrelevant
to any business before the court, or that entered into the ridiculous
charges against her. General questions were proposed to her on points
of casuistical divinity; two-edged questions, which not one of
themselves could have answered, without, on the one side, landing
himself in heresy (as then interpreted), or, on the other, in some
presumptuous expression of self-esteem. Next came a wretched Dominican,
that pressed her with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible,
would tax every one of its miracles with unsoundness. The monk had the
excuse of never having read the Bible. M. Michelet has no such excuse;
and it makes one blush for him, as a philosopher, to find him
describing such an argument as "weighty," whereas it is but a varied
expression of rude Mahometan metaphysics. Her answer to this, if there
were room to place the whole in a clear light, was as shattering as it
was rapid. Another thought to entrap her by asking what language the
angelic visitors of her solitude had talked--as though heavenly
counsels could want polyglot interpreters for every word, or that God
needed language at all in whispering thoughts to a human heart.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140