ing straight to him,
said: "Gentle dauphin, I come to restore to you the crown of France.
Orleans shall be saved by me. And you, by the help of God and my Lady
St. Catharine, shall be crowned at Rheims."

On the 29th of April the maid did enter the fainting city. And she did
lead the dauphin to Rheims for his coronation. And then, kneeling at
his feet, asked the "Gentle King" to let her go back to her sheep at
Domremy. "For," she said, "they love me more than these thousands of
people I have seen."

Unhappily, she did not return to her sheep, but remained among those
wolves, and was captured and a prisoner of the English.

What should they do with this strange being, claiming supernatural
powers? The Regent Duke of Bedford denounced her as a rebel against
the infant king; and the Bishop of Beauvais as a blasphemer and child
of the devil. Nothing could be clearer than her guilt upon both of
these charges! And on the 13th of May, 1431, this mysteriously
inspired child was burnt by a slow fire in the market-place of Rouen.
And the "Gentle King," where was he while this was happening?

It must ever remain a mystery that a peasant girl, a child in years and
in experience, should have believed herself called to such a mission;
that conferring only with her heavenly guides, or "voices," she should
have sought the king, inspired him with faith in her, and in himself
and his cause, reanimated the courage of the army, and led it herself
to victory absolute and complete; and then, have compelled the
half-reluctant, half-doubting Charles to go with her to Rheims, there
to be anointed and consecrated; this simple child in that day bestowing
upon him a kingdom, and upon France a king!

Was there ever a stranger chapter in history! Alas, if it could have
ended here, and she could have gone back to her mother and her spinning
and her simple pleasures, as she was always longing to do when her work
should be done. But no! we see her falling into the hands of the
defeated and revengeful English--this child, who had wrested from them
a kingdom already in their grasp. She was turned over to the French
ecclesiastical court to be tried. A sorceress and a blasphemer they
pronounce her, and pass her on to the secular authorities, and her
sentence is--death.

We see the poor defenceless girl, bewildered, terrified, wringing her
hands and declaring her innocence as she rides to execution. God and
man had abandoned her. No heav