e hated "witch" from the hands of the clergy and
hurried her to her doom were hushed as she reached the stake. One indeed
passed to her a rough cross he had made from a stick he held, and she
clasped it to her bosom. As her eyes ranged over the city from the lofty
scaffold she was heard to murmur, "O Rouen, Rouen, I have great fear lest
you suffer for my death." "Yes! my voices were of God!" she suddenly cried
as the last moment came; "they have never deceived me!" Soon the flames
reached her, the girl's head sank on her breast, there was one cry of
"Jesus!"--"We are lost," an English soldier muttered as the crowd broke
up; "we have burned a Saint."

[Sidenote: Death of Bedford]

The English cause was indeed irretrievably lost. In spite of a pompous
coronation of the boy-king Henry at Paris at the close of 1431, Bedford
with the cool wisdom of his temper seems to have abandoned from this time
all hope of permanently retaining France and to have fallen back on his
brother's original plan of securing Normandy. Henry's Court was
established for a year at Rouen, a university founded at Caen, and
whatever rapine and disorder might be permitted elsewhere, justice, good
government, and security for trade were steadily maintained through the
favoured provinces. At home Bedford was resolutely backed by Cardinal
Beaufort, whose services to the state as well as his real powers had at
last succeeded in outweighing Duke Humphrey's opposition and in restoring
him to the head of the royal Council. Beaufort's diplomatic ability was
seen in the truces he wrung from Scotland, and in his personal efforts to
prevent the impending reconciliation of the Duke of Burgundy with the
French king. But the death of the duke's sister, who was the wife of
Bedford, severed the last link which bound Philip to the English cause. He
pressed for peace: and conferences for this purpose were held at Arras in
1435. Their failure only served him as a pretext for concluding a formal
treaty with Charles; and his desertion was followed by a yet more fatal
blow to the English cause in the death of Bedford. The loss of the Regent
was the signal for the loss of Paris. In the spring of 1436 the city rose
suddenly against its English garrison and declared for King Charles.
Henry's dominion shrank at once to Normandy and the outlying fortresses of
Picardy and Maine. But reduced as they were to a mere handful, and fronted
by a whole nation in arms, the English soldie