Church and “our lord the Pope,” while claiming for France absolute national independence. Herein she stands alone. Dante’s two swords (wielded by Pope and Emperor) were lethal to national life. To the spiritual sword Jeanne bowed, but to no Emperor or King other than the anointed King of France could the loyalty of a French heart be due. The winter of 1429 was spent in controversies of which the opposing principles of imperialism and nationality are the true keys. In the early spring, Jeanne, who had bravely stood by the national cause, and heartened all who withstood the party of compromise and surrender, saw only too clearly that for the time the French hopes of success had given way. That brave night ride to relieve Compiègne was in many respects a meeting of fate half way. No doubt, she defied augury, but signs of impending disaster multiplied; and when she fell into the hands of the Burgundians, she must have felt that while her own agony began, the cause of France might well gather more strength from her example as a sufferer, than from her futile struggle against cowardice and treason. Into one short year her whole astounding public career is crowded; Orleans, Patay, Troyes, Rheims, Paris, Compiègne; glory, exaltation, wreckage, and captivity. But France was at the end of it a conscious nation with an anointed King, and the work of deliverance was assured. _The Trial and Rehabilitation._ The English had felt sorely the humiliations of the year 1429. In Bedford’s report to the King’s Council in London he told of those who were struck with fear by the incantations of this “limb of the fiend” who had startled them from their security; and proclamations were issued against those who in terror of the Maid deserted the army. Now that she, who had worked such mischief to them, was in their hands, betrayed by her own countrymen,[1] they wreaked vengeance upon her without stint. The story of her prison life is a record of shame to her gaolers. Chained, mocked at, threatened, and insulted, her serenity never failed. She was in God’s hand, and she bowed to His will. Months of suffering and anxiety passed over her before her captors made up their minds as to the course they would take to bring about her death under the semblance of legal execution. If she could be convicted by an ecclesiastical court of crimes against the faith, her condemnation would redound to the fair fame of England and the pious[2] House of Lancaster, while covering the French and their sovereign with confusion as the allies and associates of a minister of hell. Pliant churchmen were at hand to give countenance and help in this undertaking—bishops full of zeal and loyalty for our sovereign lord Henry VI., by the grace of God King of France and England.