ere were
burnt, the more there were brought to be burnt.[66] In 1398 the
Sorbonne, at the chancellor's suggestion, published 27 articles
against all sorts of sorcery, pictures of demons, and waxen
figures. Six years later a synod was specially convened at
Langres, and the pressing evil was anxiously deliberated at the
Council of Constance.

[66] Michelet, whose poetic-prose may appear hardly suitable
to the philosophic dignity of history, relating the fate of
two knights accused with a monk of having 'sinned' with the
king's daughter-in-law 'even on the holiest days,' and who
were castrated and flayed alive, truly enough infers that
'the pious confidence of the middle age which did not
mistrust the immuring of a great lady along with her knights
in the precincts of a castle, of a narrow tower; the
vassalage which imposed on young men as a feudal duty the
sweetest cares, was a dangerous trial to human nature.'

Conspicuous about this period, by their importance and iniquity,
are the cases of the Pucelle d'Orleans and the catastrophe of
Arras. Incited (it is a modern conviction) by a noble enthusiasm,
by her own ardent imagination, the Pucelle divested herself of
the natural modesty of her sex for the dress and arms of a
warrior; and 'her inexperienced mind, working day and night on
the favourite object, mistook the impulses of passion for
heavenly inspiration.' Reviewing the last scenes in the life of
that patriotic shepherdess, we hesitate whether to stigmatise
more the unscrupulous policy of the English authorities or the
base subservience of the Parliament of Paris. The English Regent
and the Cardinal of Winchester, unable to allege against their
prisoner (the saviour of her country, taken prisoner in a sally
from a besieged town, had been handed over by her countrymen to
the foreigner) any civil crime, were forced to disguise a
violation of justice and humanity in the pretence of religion;
and the Bishop of Beauvais presented a petition against her, as
an ecclesiastical subject, demanding to have her tried by an
ecclesiastical court for sorcery, impiety, idolatry, and magic.
The University of Paris acquiesced. Before this tribunal the
accused was brought, loaded with chains, and clothed in her
military dress. It was alleged that she had carried about a
standard consecrated by magical enchantments; that she had been
in the habit of attending at the witches' sabbath at a fountain
near the oak