resaid"--that she might be gently dealt with! Not one of them could
be under any doubt what gentle meaning would be in the execution;
but apparently the words were of some strange use in salving their
consciences.

The decree was pronounced at once without further formalities. In point
of view of the law, there should have followed another trial, more
evidence, pleadings, and admonitions. We may be thankful to Monseigneur
de Beauvais that he now defied law, and no longer prolonged the useless
ceremonials of that mockery of justice. It is said that in coming out of
the prison, through the courtyard full of Englishmen, where Warwick
was in waiting to hear what news, the Bishop greeted them with all the
satisfaction of success, laughing and bidding them "Make good cheer, the
thing is done." In the same spirit of satisfaction was the rapid action
of the further proceedings. On Tuesday she was condemned, summoned on
Wednesday morning at eight 'clock to the Old Market of Rouen to hear
her sentence, and there, without even that formality, the penalty was at
once carried out. No time, certainly, was lost in this last stage.

All the interest of the heart-rending tragedy now turns to the prison
where Jeanne woke in the early morning without, as yet, any knowledge
of her fate. It must be remembered that the details of this wonderful
scene, which we have in abundance, are taken from reports made twenty
years after by eye-witnesses indeed, but men to whom by that time it had
become the only policy to represent Jeanne in the brightest colours,
and themselves as her sympathetic friends. There is no doubt that
so remarkable an occurrence as her martyrdom must have made a deep
impression on the minds of all those who were in any way actors in
or spectators of that wonderful scene. And every word of all these
different reports is on oath; but notwithstanding, a touch of
unconscious colour, a more favourable sentiment, influenced by the
feeling of later days, may well have crept in. With this warning we
may yet accept these depositions as trustworthy, all the more for the
atmosphere of truth, perfectly realistic, and in no way idealised,
which is in every description of the great catastrophe; in which Jeanne
figures as no supernatural heroine, but as a terrified, tormented, and
often trembling girl.

On the fatal morning very early, Brother Martin l'Advenu appeared in the
cell of the Maid. He had a mingled tale to tell--first "to annou