Not a word was said at the Trial of Rehabilitation in 1452-1456 about the supposed survival of the Maid. But there are indications of the inevitable popular belief that she was not burned. Long after the fall of Khartoum, rumours of the escape of Charles Gordon were current; even in our own day people are loth to believe that their hero has perished. Like Arthur he will come again, and from Arthur to James IV. of Scotland, from James IV. to the Duke of Monmouth, or the son of Louis XVI., the populace believes and hopes that its darling has not perished. We destroyed the Mahdi’s body to nullify such a belief, or to prevent worship at his tomb. In the same way, at Rouen, ‘when the Maid was dead, as the English feared that she might be said to have escaped, they bade the executioner rake back the fire somewhat that the bystanders might see her dead.’* An account of a similar precaution, the fire drawn back after the Maid’s robes were burned away, is given in brutal detail by the contemporary diarist (who was not present), the Bourgeois de Paris.** *Quicherat, iii. p. 191. These lines are not in MS. 5970. M. Save, in Jehanne des Armoises, Pucelle d’Orleans, p. 6 (Nancy, 1893), interpolates, in italics, words of his own into his translation of this text, which improve the force of his argument! **Quicherat, iv. p. 471. In spite of all this, the populace, as reflected in several chronicles, was uncertain that Jeanne had died. A ‘manuscript in the British Museum’ says: ‘At last they burned her, or another woman like her, on which point many persons are, and have been, of different opinions.’* *Save, p. 7, citing Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Chartes, ii., Second Series. This hopeful rumour of the Maid’s escape was certain to arise, populus vult decipi.