No innocence could escape _that_. Now, had
she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have
argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrinking
from the instant approach of torment. And those will often pity that
weakness most who, in their own persons, would yield to it least.
Meantime, there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from
the recorded circumstances. It rests upon no _positive_ testimony,
and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem. And yet,
strange to say, M, Michelet, who at times seems to admire the Maid of
Arc as much as I do, is the one sole writer among her _friends_ who
lends some countenance to this odious slander. His words are that, if
she did not utter this word _recant_ with her lips, she uttered it
in her heart. "Whether she _said_ the word is uncertain; but I
affirm that she _thought_ it."
Now, I affirm that she did not; not in any sense of the word
"_thought_" applicable to the case. Here is France calumniating La
Pucelle; here is England defending her. M. Michelet can only mean that,
on _a priori_ principles, every woman must be presumed liable to
such a weakness; that Joanna was a woman; _ergo_, that she was
liable to such a weakness. That is, he only supposes her to have
uttered the word by an argument which presumes it impossible for
anybody to have done otherwise.
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