insult; the poetry of a cynic was devoted to the task of diverting a licentious public at the expense of the saint whom, three centuries before, fanatical hatred had brought to the stake. In 1792 the council of the commune of Orleans, “considering that the monument in bronze did not represent the heroine’s services, and did not by any sign call to mind the struggle against the English,” ordered it to be melted down and cast into cannons, of which “one should bear the name of Joan of Arc.” It is in our time that the city of Orleans and its distinguished bishop, Mgr. Dupanloup, have at last paid Joan homage worthy of her, not only by erecting to her a new statue, but by recalling her again to the memory of France with her true features, and in her grand character. Neither French nor any other history offers a like example of a modest little soul, with a faith so pure and efficacious, resting on divine inspiration and patriotic hope. During the trial of Joan of Arc the war between France and England, without being discontinued, had been somewhat slack: the curiosity and the passions of men were concentrated upon the scenes at Rouen. After the execution of Joan the war resumed its course, though without any great events. By way of a step towards solution, the Duke of Bedford, in November, 1431, escorted to Paris King Henry VI., scarcely ten years old, and had him crowned at Notre-Dame. The ceremony was distinguished for pomp, but not for warmth. The Duke of Burgundy was not present; it was an Englishman, the Cardinal-bishop of Winchester, who anointed the young Englander King of France; the Bishop of Paris complained of it as a violation of his rights; the parliament, the university, and the municipal body had not even seats reserved at the royal banquet; Paris was melancholy, and day by day more deserted by the native inhabitants; grass was growing in the court-yards of the great mansions; the students were leaving the great school of Paris, to which the Duke of Bedford at Caen, and Charles VII. himself at Poitiers, were attempting to raise up rivals; and silence reigned in the Latin quarter. The child-king was considered unintelligent, and ungraceful, and ungracious. When, on the day after Christmas, he started on his way back to Rouen, and from Rouen to England, he did not confer on Paris “any of the boons expected, either by releasing prisoners or by putting an end to black-mails, gabels, and wicked imposts.” The burgesses were astonished, and grumbled; and the old queen, Isabel of Bavaria, who was still living at the hostel of St. Paul, wept, it is said, for vexation, at seeing from one of her windows her grandson’s royal procession go by.