to end of
France not a finger was lifted for her rescue; the women wept over her,
the poor people still crowded around the prisoner wherever seen, but the
France of every public document, of every practical power, the living
nation, when it did not utter cries of hatred, kept silence. We in
England have over and over again acknowledged with shame our guilty part
in her murder; but still to this day the Frenchman tries to shield
his under cover of the English influence and terror. He cannot deny La
Tremoille, nor Cauchon, nor the University, nor the learned doctors
who did the deed; individually he is ready to give them all up to the
everlasting fires which one cannot but hope are kept alive for some
people in spite of all modern benevolences; but he skilfully turns back
to the English as a moving cause of everything. Nothing can be more
untrue. The English were not better than the French, but they had the
excuse at least of being the enemy. France saved by a happy chance her
_blanches mains_ from the actual blood of the pure and spotless Maid;
but with exultation she prepared the victim for the stake, sent her
thither, played with her like a cat with a mouse and condemned her to
the fire. This is not to free us from our share: but it is the height of
hypocrisy to lay the blood of Jeanne, entirely to our door.

Thus Jeanne's inspiration proved itself over again in blood and tears;
it had been proved already on battle-field and city wall, with loud
trumpets of joy and victory. But the "voices" had spoken again, sounding
another strain; not always of glory--it is not the way of God; but of
prison, downfall, distress. "Be not astonished at it," they said to
her; "God will be with you." From day to day they had spoken in the same
strain, with no joyful commands to go forth and conquer, but the one
refrain: "Before the St. Jean." Perhaps there was a certain relief in
her mind at first when the blow fell and the prophecy was accomplished.
All she had to do now was to suffer, not to be surprised, to trust in
God that He would support her. To Jeanne, no doubt, in the confidence
and inexperience of her youth, that meant that God would deliver her.
And so He did; but not as she expected. The sunshine of her life was
over, and now the long shadow, the bitter storm was to come.

Nothing could be more remarkable than the response of France in general
to this extraordinary event. In Paris there were bonfires lighted to
show their joy