In 1869 Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans presented at the Vatican his petition and claims for the beatification of Joan of Arc. The trial proceeded slowly, but on April 11, 1909, Pius X., the present reigning pontiff, pronounced the decree which raised Joan to the first step in the process of canonization. She was solemnly declared Blessed. “A Mass and Office of Blessed Joan taken from the _Commune Virginum_ with ‘proper’ prayers have been approved of by the Holy See for use in the diocese of Orleans.” Joan’s canonization is now under active consideration. CHAPTER X. LEPANTO Cross or Crescent! We of the present time can form no adequate idea of the import couched in those words in mediæval time. Strange that rivers of blood should flow in the interests of the cause of the Prince of Peace! Would the Christ,--who, dying upon the Cross prayed for his murderers,--have it so? Perhaps over his friends even more pitifully than over his erring inimical world the sublime impetration unceasingly ascends _Father, forgive them for they know not what they do_. And Allah “the mild, the merciful, the compassionate”--where was he that tragic Sunday morning October 7, 1571, when one hundred thousand of his followers, singularly lacking in his characteristic qualities, stood red-hand in slaughter! Alas for the ideal when fitted to the real: it is shattered; its shimmering iridescence dies down gray and dead. TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT. The Ottoman empire, flushed by a long series of successes under Solyman the Magnificent, had grown insolently aggressive. The memory of Tours and of Belgrade no longer acted as a deterrent to the fierce victors of Constantinople; their eyes were ever turned longingly toward western Europe, and their dreams were of bloodshed and victory.