The English purchased Jeanne from the Duke of Burgundy for ten thousand livres; and Henry VI. also settled an annuity of three hundred francs upon her captor. Through many weary months the Maid of Orleans dragged out a miserable existence in a dungeon. In place of being treated as a prisoner of war, she was handed over to ecclesiastical justice, charged with heresy and blasphemy. At the instigation of several Frenchmen a process was instituted by the Bishop of Beauvais, in whose diocese she had been captured. The process lasted three months and had sixteen sittings. Jeanne denied resolutely the accusations of sorcery and witchcraft, and named St. Michael, St. Margaret, and St. Catherine as the bearers of the heavenly messages. The Bishop's Court, representing the Church and the University of Paris, condemned Jeanne d'Arc as a sorceress and a heretic. Charles VII. made little or no efforts to save her; and after four months' imprisonment, the innocent enthusiast was sentenced to be burned alive at Rouen. She was cut off from the Church, and delivered to the secular judges. On the 24th of May, 1431, she was carried to the stake, which had been erected in the Vieux Marché of Rouen. At sight of the pile her courage deserted her. She submitted to the Church, and confessed that her visions were the work of Satan. Her punishment was commuted to imprisonment for life, but it was not considered expedient to let her live; so she was condemned as a relapsed heretic, and dragged to the stake, May 30th. She was dressed in female attire; and on her head was a mitre, covered with the words "Apostate," "Relapse," "Idolâtre," "Hérétique." She met her fate this time with terrible calmness. While they were putting the cap on her head, she said to one of the Dominican friars who stood by her side:-- "Maître, par la grâce de Dieu, je serai ce soir en paradis." Falling on her knees, she prayed fervently for a few moments, not for herself only, but for the ungrateful king who had so cruelly deserted her. The judges, even the stern Bishop of Beauvais, were moved to tears. She was burned by a slow fire, and the pile was so high that her agony lasted for a considerable time. Her ashes were gathered together and flung into the Seine. There is a legend that, as she expired, a white dove rose from the flames. Another tradition says that after her ashes were removed, the heart was found entire. The Rouen theatre now occupies that part of the public square on which the stake was erected. It was remarked as a curious coincidence that when Soumet's tragedy of "Jeanne d'Arc" was performed at Rouen, in the autumn of 1865, the last act, which represents the death of the Maid, was played on the identical spot where the real tragedy had been enacted in 1431.