It took five hundred years for the Catholic Church to discover that the young woman burnt as a heretic was really a saint. But the church did not make this discovery until modern thought, benign and brave, had taken the outcast girl under its protection. The French nation had already made a national heroine of her, when the Vatican decided to enroll her name among the hallowed ones in its calendar. The beatification of Joan was brought about ostensibly by the report that certain sufferers from cancer, and other incurable maladies, had been completely cured by praying to Joan of Arc for help. The Maid had become a miracle worker, and hence worthy to receive a medal, as it were, from the pope. Joan is now a new income as well as a saint. Joan owes her Vindication to the Rationalists of France. The man in recent years whose books, position and influence did more than anything else to bring about a new attitude toward Joan of Arc, was Marcelin Berthelot, who now sleeps in the Pantheon as one of the glories of his country. A few years ago, I received an invitation to visit him at Bellevue near Paris. To give you an idea of the great man who did so much to rejuvenate Europe and throw its whole weight on the side of justice to the Martyr--woman of France. I shall reproduce in this connection what I said about him after my interview with him: "Who are the Rationalists?" is one of the questions frequently asked. Well, they are the intellectual leaders of the world, as what I learned about Berthelot clearly shows. He was the man upon whom two European sovereigns had conferred the highest decorations in their power for services rendered to human progress,--whom his own countrymen had honored by making him a senator for life; who twice had been appointed minister of foreign affairs; who had been elected an honorary member of all the scientific associations of the world; upon whom the Royal Scientific Society of London has bestowed its most coveted honors; who is the perpetual secretary of the Academy of Science of Paris; a member of the Academy Française, and, therefore, one of the immortals; and whose volumes, inventions, discoveries and contributions have placed modern civilization under inexpressible obligations to him. With all these dignities and titles, richly deserved, M. Berthelot is as gracious in his manners, as unassuming, as childlike and modest, as one could desire. He displays all the charms of the real man of worth--the man of genius. Though in his seventy-sixth year, the sage and diplomat still possessed the vigor of a man of fifty, pursuing his studies and interesting himself in the politics of his time, with the ardor and fervor of youth. The accumulation of his years and his indefatigable labors had by no means impaired the faculties of his mind, being still regarded by his countrymen as one of the most fertile brains and sanest intellects of modern Europe.