for its life through all the subtleties of thought and
fierce attacks of interrogation--or the mere love of inflicting torture,
misery, and death, which the Church was prevented from doing in the
common way, it is impossible to tell; but there is no doubt that a
thrill like the wings of vultures crowding to the prey, a sense of
horrible claws and beaks and greedy eyes is in the air, whenever such a
tribunal is thought of. The thrill, the stir, the eagerness among those
black birds of doom is more evident than usual in the headlong haste of
that demand. _Sous l'influence de l'Angleterre_, say the historians; the
more shame for them if it was so; but they were clearly under influence
wider and more infallible, the influence of that instinct, whatever it
may be, which makes a trial for heresy ten thousand times more cruel,
less restrained by any humanities of nature, than any other kind of
trial which history records.

That is what the Inquisitor demanded after a long description of Jeanne,
"called the Maid," as having "dogmatised, sown, published, and caused
to be published, many and diverse errors from which have ensued great
scandals against the divine honour and our holy faith." "Using the
rights of our office and the authority committed to us by the Holy See
of Rome we instantly command, and enjoin you in the name of the Catholic
faith, and under penalty of the law: and all other Catholic persons of
whatsoever condition, pre-eminence, authority, or estate, to send or to
bring as prisoner before us with all speed and surety the said Jeanne,
vehemently suspected of various crimes springing from heresy, that
proceedings may be taken against her before us in the name of the Holy
Inquisition, and with the favour and aid of the doctors and masters of
the University of Paris, and other notable counsellors present there."

It was the English who put it into the heads of the Inquisitor and the
University to do this, all the anxious Frenchmen cry. We can only reply
again, the more shame for the French doctors and priests! But there
was very little time to bring that influence to bear; and there is an
eagerness and precipitation in the demand which is far more like the
headlong natural rush for a much desired prize than any course of action
suggested by a third party. Nor is there anything to lead us to believe
that the movement was not spontaneous. It is little likely, indeed, that
the Sorbonne nowadays would concern itself abo