ner stepped in and seized
the victim.

It has been said that her stake was set so high, that there might be no
chance of a merciful blow, or of strangulation to spare the victim the
atrocities of the fire; perhaps, let us hope, it was rather that the
ascending smoke might suffocate her before the flame could reach her:
the fifteenth century would naturally accept the most cruel explanation.
There was a writing set over the little platform which gave footing to
the attendants below the stake, upon which were written the following
words:

JEANNE CALLED THE MAID, LIAR, ABUSER OF THE PEOPLE, SOOTHSAYER,
BLASPHEMER OF GOD, PERNICIOUS, SUPERSTITIOUS, IDOLATROUS, CRUEL,
DISSOLUTE, INVOKER OF DEVILS, APOSTATE, SCHISMATIC, HERETIC.

This was how her countrymen in the name of law and justice and religion
branded the Maid of France--one half of her countrymen: the other half,
silent, speaking no word, looking on.

Before she began to ascend the stake, Jeanne, rising from her knees,
asked for a cross. No place so fit for that emblem ever was: but no
cross was to be found. One of the English soldiers who kept the way
seized a stick from some one by, broke it across his knee in unequal
parts, and bound them hurriedly together; so, in the legend and in all
the pictures, when Mary of Nazareth was led to her espousals, one of her
disappointed suitors broke his wand. The cross was rough with its broken
edges which Jeanne accepted from her enemy, and carried, pressing it
against her bosom. One would rather have that rude cross to preserve as
a sacred thing, than the highest effort of art in gold and silver. This
was her ornament and consolation as she trod the few remaining steps and
mounted the pile of the faggots to her place high over all that sea of
heads. When she was bound securely to her stake, she asked again for a
cross, a cross blessed and sacred from a church, to be held before her
as long as her eyes could see. Frere Isambard and Massieu, following her
closely still, sent to the nearest church, and procured probably some
cross which was used for processional purposes on a long staff which
could be held up before her. The friar stood upon the faggots holding
it up, and calling out broken words of encouragement so long that Jeanne
bade him withdraw, lest the fire should catch his robes. And so at last,
as the flames began to rise, she was left alone, the good brother always
at the foot of the pile, painfully holding up with