The common folk soon added their tale of signs and wonders to the simple and terrible truth. An English soldier, who greatly hated the Maid, had sworn to bring a faggot to her burning, and he threw it on the pile just as she gave that last cry. Suddenly he fell senseless to the earth, and when he recovered, he told how at that moment he had looked up, and had seen a white dove fly heavenward out of the fire. Others declared that they had seen the word Jesus--her dying word--written in the flames. The executioner rushed to a confessor crying that he feared to be damned, for he had burned a holy woman. But her heart would not burn, he told the priest; the rest of her body he had found consumed to ashes, but her heart was left whole and unharmed. Many, not of the populace, were moved by her death to recognise what she had been in life. "I would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman is!" exclaimed Jean Alespée, one of the judges. "We are all lost; we have burnt a saint!" cried Tressart, a secretary of the King of England. Winchester--determined that, though she might be called a saint, there should be no relics of her--had her ashes carefully collected and thrown into the Seine. The tidings of her death went speedily through France. They found Charles in his southern retirement, and nowise disturbed the ease of mind and body that was more to him than honour. They reached Domremy, and broke the heart of Joan's stern, loving father. Isabelle Romée lived to see her child's memory righted and her prophecies fulfilled. * * * * * In June, 1455, Pope Calixtus, named a commission to inquire into the trial of Joan of Arc. Joan's aged mother came before them, supported by her sons, and followed by a great procession of nobles, scholars, and honourable ladies. She presented the petition she had made to the Pope, and the letter whereby he granted it, and the commissioners took her aside, heard her testimony, and promised to do her justice. And now the dead heroine was confronted with her dead judges, to their shame and her enduring honour. Messengers were sent into her country to hear the story of her innocent childhood and pure, unselfish youth. Through her whole life went the inquiry, gathering testimony from people of all ranks. The peasants whom she had loved and tended in her early girlhood, the men who had fought by her side, the women who had known and honoured her, the officers of the trial, and many who had watched her sufferings and beheld her death--all were called to speak for her now. They testified to her goodness, her purity, her single-hearted love for France, her piety, her boldness in war, and her good sense in counsel. All were for her--not one voice was raised against her. Rouen, the place of her martyrdom, became the place of her triumph.