taken in a man's dress, which had
been left--to entrap her--in her prison, and which she put on, in her
solitude; perhaps, in remembrance of her past glories, perhaps, because
the imaginary Voices told her. For this relapse into the sorcery and
heresy and anything else you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to
death. And, in the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the
monks had invented for such spectacles; with priests and bishops sitting
in a gallery looking on, though some had the Christian grace to go away,
unable to endure the infamous scene; this shrieking girl--last seen
amidst the smoke and fire, holding a crucifix between her hands; last
heard, calling upon Christ--was burnt to ashes. They threw her ashes
into the river Seine; but they will rise against her murderers on the
last day.

From the moment of her capture, neither the French King nor one single
man in all his court raised a finger to save her. It is no defence of
them that they may have never really believed in her, or that they may
have won her victories by their skill and bravery. The more they
pretended to believe in her, the more they had caused her to believe in
herself; and she had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever nobly
devoted. But, it is no wonder, that they, who were in all things false
to themselves, false to one another, false to their country, false to
Heaven, false to Earth, should be monsters of ingratitude and treachery
to a helpless peasant girl.

In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and grass grow high on
the cathedral towers, and the venerable Norman streets are still warm in
the blessed sunlight though the monkish fires that once gleamed horribly
upon them have long grown cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the
scene of her last agony, the square to which she has given its present
name. I know some statues of modern times--even in the World's
metropolis, I think--which commemorate less constancy, less earnestness,
smaller claims upon the world's attention, and much greater impostors.

PART THE THIRD

Bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind; and the English cause
gained no advantage from the cruel death of Joan of Arc. For a long
time, the war went heavily on. The Duke of Bedford died; the alliance
with the Duke of Burgundy was broken; and Lord Talbot became a great
general on the English side in France. But, two of the consequences of
wars are, Famine--because the