The raising of the siege was one part of the maid’s promise to Charles; the crowning him at Rheims was the other; and she now vehemently insisted that he should set out on that enterprise. Rheims lay in a distant quarter of the kingdom, and was then in the hands of a victorious enemy; the whole road which led to it was also occupied by their garrisons; and no man could be so sanguine as to imagine that such an attempt could so soon come within the bounds of possibility. Charles, however, resolved to follow the exhortations of his warlike prophetess, and to lead his army upon this promising adventure. He set out for Rheims at the head of twelve thousand men. Troyes opened its gates to him, Chalons imitated the example, Rheims sent him a deputation with its keys, and he scarcely perceived, as he passed along, that he was marching through an enemy’s country. The ceremony was performed with the holy oil, which a pigeon had brought to King Clovis from heaven on the first establishment of the French monarchy. The maid of Orleans stood by his side, in complete armour, displaying the sacred banner. The people shouted with the most unfeigned joy, on viewing such a complication of wonders. The inclinations of men swaying their belief, no one doubted of the inspirations and prophetic spirit of the maid; the real and undoubted facts brought credit to every exaggeration; for no fiction could be more wonderful than the events which were known to be true. The maid was soon after taken prisoner by the Burgundians, while she was heading a sally upon the quarters of John of Luxembourg. The service of _Te Deum_ was publicly celebrated, on this fortunate event, at Paris. The Duke of Bedford fancied that, by her captivity, he should again recover his former ascendency over France; and, to make the most of the present advantage, he purchased the captive from John of Luxembourg, and instituted a prosecution against her. The Bishop of Beauvais, a man wholly devoted to the English interests, presented a petition against Joan, and desired to have her tried by an ecclesiastical court, for sorcery, impiety, idolatry, and magic. The university of Paris was so mean as to join in the same request. In the issue, she was condemned for all the crimes of which she had been accused, aggravated by heresy; her revelations were declared to be inventions of the devil to delude the people; and she was sentenced to be delivered over to the secular arm. Her spirit gave way to the terrors of that punishment to which she was sentenced, and she publicly declared herself ready to recant; she acknowledged the illusion of those revelations which the church had rejected, and promised never more to maintain them. Her sentence was then mitigated; she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and to be fed during life on bread and water.