During the first six months of her captivity Joan was treated humanely; but the defeat of the English at Compiegne awoke anew the superstitions of the English, who believed that, though a prisoner, she exercised her spell upon the army; and she was taken to Le Crotoy, and cast into an iron cage with chains upon her wrists and ankles. After being starved, insulted, and treated with the most hellish brutality in prison for nearly ten months, the saviour of France was brought before a tribunal of men, all of them her enemies. There were three days of this shameful pretence of a trial, and the holy maid, deserted by those whom she had crowned with glory and benefits, was trapped into signing a paper which she supposed only a form of abjuration, but which proved to be a confession of all the crimes with which she was charged; and after she was returned to her dungeon this was exhibited to the people to convince them of her guilt and turn the tide of public sympathy. The Bishop of Beauvais then sentenced her to prison for the rest of her life, on condition that she resume woman's apparel; yet one morning she woke to find no dress in her prison but the clothes she had worn in battle. No sooner had she donned these than the bishop appeared, and accused her of disobedience to the orders of the Church, and he fixed her execution for the next day. When the horrible fact was made known to her that she was to be burned at the stake in the market-place of Rouen, before a multitude of people, she burst into piercing cries of agony. Her physical strength, courage, and brain-power were all impaired by the months of abuse she had endured, and her very soul was torn by the neglect and indifference which the base king manifested toward her. Up to the very last hour she had believed deliverance would come, but it came only through death. Never since that spectacle of the bleeding Nazarene upon the Cross of Calvary, has the world beheld so terrible a picture of crucified innocence and purity as that of Joan of Arc, the saviour of France, burning in the market-place of Rouen. With her dying breath she cried out that the Voices were real, and that she had obeyed God in listening to their counsels. Her last word was the name of--Jesus. [Signature: Ella Wheeler Wilcox.] HANS GUTENBERG By ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE (1400-1468) Hans Gensfleisch Gutenberg von Sorgeloch was a young patrician--born at Mainz, a free and wealthy city on the banks of the Rhine, in the year 1400. His father, Friel Gensfleisch, married Else von Gutenberg, who gave her name to her second son John.