e army, and a slave to the French court. It does not appear that she
was even placed upon the payroll, or that she received reward of any
kind for her services--and there were no "Victoria crosses" in those
days. She fought on without pay; rendered all her services for
nothing--perhaps for the love of the thing. During the defence of
Compiegne in May, 1430, she fell into the hands of one Vendome, who sold
her to the Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy sold her to the English--her
remuneration for her self-sacrificing, voluntarily-given services.

And now comes the tragic part of a most pathetic story enacted out at a
time when the name civilization, applied to the French and English, is a
mockery. "In December she was carried to Rouen, the headquarters of the
English, heavily fettered, and flung into a gloomy prison, and at
length, arraigned before the spiritual tribunal of the Bishop of
Beauvais, a wretched creature of the English, as a sorceress and a
heretic, while the dastard she had crowned king left her to die." She
was not even granted a legal, judicial trial.

Some say that her sentence was at one time commuted to perpetual
imprisonment, which proves that there was a glimmer of humanity hid away
in some corner of the world, knocking hysterically in its imprisonment
for admission. "But the English found a pretext to treat her as a
criminal and condemned her to be burned." And at this juncture it may be
well to say that we have good reason to be proud of ourselves to-day,
and ashamed of our ancestors.

"She was brought to the stake on May 30th, 1431. The woman's tears dried
upon her cheeks, and she faced her doom with the triumphant courage of
the martyr." During her last awful moments, as she left this world with
the torture of the flames slowly consuming her body, what were the last
impressions of this girl of nineteen who left home and happiness to free
a people who allowed her to be thus tormented to death? "A court was
constituted by Pope Calixtus III., in 1455, which declared her innocent
and pronounced her trial unjust. And through the whole civilized world
her memory is fittingly commemorated in statuary and literature." But
this is poor consolation and does not undo the mischief. So far as Joan
of Arc is concerned, she is still burning, scorching, suffering at that
stake, and the world and the English are her torturers, still tormenting
her, while the man she made king stands looking on indifferently,
heartlessl