id of Orleans, the better their cause
would seem. It was not as a prisoner of war that the English wanted her,
but as a victim, whose sorceries could only be punished by death. But
they could not try her and condemn her until they could get possession
of her; and they could not get possession of her unless they bought her.
The needy John of Luxemburg sold her to the English for ten thousand
livres, and the Duke of Burgundy received political favors.

The agent employed by the English in this nefarious business was
Couchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, who had been driven out of his city by
Joan,--an able and learned man, who aspired to the archbishopric of
Rouen. He set to work to inflame the University of Paris and the
Inquisition against her. The Duke of Bedford did not venture to bring
his prize to Paris, but determined to try her in Rouen; and the trial
was intrusted to the Bishop of Beauvais, who conducted it after the
forms of the Inquisition. It was simply a trial for heresy.

Joan tried for heresy! On that ground there was never a more innocent
person tried by the Inquisition. Her whole life was notoriously
virtuous. She had been obedient to the Church; she had advanced no
doctrines which were not orthodox. She was too ignorant to be a heretic;
she had accepted whatever her spiritual teacher had taught her; in fact,
she was a Catholic saint. She lived in the ecstasies of religious faith
like a Saint Theresa. She spent her time in prayer and religious
exercises; she regularly confessed, and partook of the sacraments of the
Church. She did not even have a single sceptical doubt; she simply
affirmed that she obeyed voices that came from God.

Nothing could be more cruel than the treatment of this heroic girl, and
all under the forms of ecclesiastical courts. It was the diabolical
design of her enemies to make it appear that she had acted under the
influence of the Devil; that she was a heretic and a sorceress. Nothing
could be more forlorn than her condition. No efforts had been made to
ransom her. She was alone, and unsupported by friends, having not a
single friendly counsellor. She was carried to the castle of Rouen and
put in an iron cage, and chained to its bars; she was guarded by brutal
soldiers, was mocked by those who came to see her, and finally was
summoned before her judges predetermined on her death. They went through
the forms of trial, hoping to extort from the Maid some damaging
confessions, or to enta