hree long months to do.

CHAPTER XVIII -- THE SACRIFICE. MAY 31, 1431.

It is not necessary to be a good man in order to divine what in certain
circumstances a good and pure spirit will do. The Bishop of Beauvais had
entertained no doubt as to what would happen. He knew exactly, with
a perspicuity creditable to his perceptions at least, that,
notwithstanding the effect which his theatrical _mise en scene_ had
produced upon the imagination of Jeanne, no power in heaven or earth
would induce that young soul to content itself with a lie. He knew it,
though lies were his daily bread; the children of this world are wiser
in their generation than the children of light. He had bidden his
English patrons to wait a little, and now his predictions were
triumphantly fulfilled. It is hard to believe of any man that on such
a certainty he could have calculated and laid his devilish plans; but
there would seem to have existed in the mediaeval churchman a certain
horrible thirst for the blood of a relapsed heretic which was peculiar
to their age and profession, and which no better principle in their own
minds could subdue. It was their appetite, their delight of sensation,
in distinction from the other appetites perhaps scarcely less cruel
which other men indulged with no such horrified denunciation from the
rest of the world. Others, it is evident, shared with Cauchon that sharp
sensation of dreadful pleasure in finding her out; young Courcelles, so
modest and unassuming and so learned, among the rest; not L'Oyseleur, it
appears by the sequel. That Judas, like the greater traitor, was
struck to the heart; but the less bad man who had only persecuted, not
betrayed, stood high in superior virtue, and only rejoiced that at last
the victim was ready to drop into the flames which had been so carefully
prepared.

The next morning, Tuesday after Trinity Sunday, the witnesses hurried
with their news to the quickly summoned assembly in the chapel of the
Archbishop's house; thirty-three of the judges, having been hastily
called together, were there to hear. Jeanne had relapsed; the sinner
escaped had been re-caught; and what was now to be done? One by one each
man rose again and gave his verdict. Once more Egidius, Abbot of Fecamp,
led the tide of opinion. There was but one thing to be done: to give
her up to the secular justice, "praying that she might be gently
dealt with." Man after man added his voice "to that of Abbot of Fecamp
afo