This is the moment of Joan's glory,--and what is before her now? To stand in courts, a favored and flattered one? to revel in the soft luxuries and enervating pleasures of a princely life? Oh this was not for one like her. To return to obscurity and loneliness, and there to let the over-wrought mind sink back with nought to occupy and support it, till it feeds and drivels on the remembrance of the past--this is what she would do; but there is for her what is better far, even the glorious death of a martyr. Little does Joan deem, in her moment of triumph, that this is before her; but when she has seen her mission ended, and her king the anointed ruler of a liberated people, the sacred sword and standard are cast aside; and throwing herself at her monarch's feet, and watering them with tears of joy, she begs permission to return to her humble home.--She has now done all for which that power was bestowed; her work has been accomplished, and she claims no longer the special commission of an inspired leader. But Dunois says, No! The English are not yet entirely expelled the kingdom, and the French general would avail himself of that name, and that presence, which have infused new courage into his armies, and struck terror to their enemies. He knows that Joan will no longer be sustained by the belief that she is an agent of heaven; but she will be with them, and that alone must benefit their cause. He would have her again assume the standard, sword, and armor; he would have her still retain the title of "Messenger of God," though she believe that her mission goes no farther. It probably was not the first time, and it certainly was not the last, when woman's holiest feelings have been made the instruments of man's ambition, or agents for the completion of his designs. Joan is now but a woman, poor, weak, and yielding woman; and overpowered by their entreaties, she consents to try again her influence. But the power of that faith is gone, the light of inspiration is no more given, and she is attacked, conquered, and delivered to her enemies. They place her in low dungeons, then bring her before tribunals; they wring and torture that noble spirit, and endeavor to obtain from it a confession of imposture, or connivance with the "evil one;" but she still persists in the declaration that her claims to a heavenly guidance were true. Once only was she false to herself. Weary and dispirited; deserted by her friends, and tormented by her foes,--she yields to their assertions, and admits that she did deceive her countrymen. Perhaps in that hour of trial and darkness, when all hope of deliverance from without, or from above, had died away,--when she saw herself powerless in the merciless hands of her enemies, the conviction might steal upon her own mind, that she had been self-deceived; that phantasies of the brain had been received as visions from on high,--but though her confession was true in the abstract, yet Joan was surely untrue to herself.