The royal dead in France were generally treated with scant respect on their final journeys. Francis II. and Louis XV. were carted in old wagons by night to St. Denis, and even this English king owes his burial to a stranger. After the siege of Nantes, wounded to death, he retired to this priory of St. Gervais to die. Deserted by his sons and plundered by his servants when scarcely dead, his body lay naked and uncared for until in pity and charity, a neighbouring knight assumed the obligation of his funeral and escorted his body to the Church of St. Étienne in Caen. St. Gervais has suffered restoration, so let us move onward to where the Maid of Orleans is supposed to have ended her life at the stake. Which story are we to believe as to this maiden,--that given by history and with which every schoolboy is familiar, or that related by M. Lesigne, who terms the former "a beautiful legend?" He points out that it is incredible that people should seriously believe that the English were driven out by a peasant girl even though inspired and he shows that just then the power of the French was strengthened, while that of the English was weakened by dissensions at home; that Jeanne was taken up by the war party,--not to lead its armies but to instill religious fervour and courage into the hearts of its soldiers, that she was not even aware of the first action between the contending armies but was in fact in bed at the time; that Orleans fell because the English had been abandoned by their allies of Burgundy, and he gives credit for that to "the astute policy of Charles VII.," which, by the way, is the first move denoting any brains on the part of that monarch of which we have ever been made aware; that Jeanne's triumph came during the rejoicings at Orleans, and when Charles was crowned at Rheims. Taken by the Burgundians, she was transferred to the English, whose king, as a Christian monarch, was under obligations to hand her over to stand trial before the proper ecclesiastical court, but that court had no power to inflict punishment, death, or torture. The judgment of a secular court was necessary. On threat of being consigned to that court, Jeanne signed a recantation, which was accepted, provided she promised henceforth to wear woman's dress. Condemned to life imprisonment, she passed again into the hands of the English as a prisoner of war who represented a large ransom. Left to herself she soon assumed male attire and was again handed over to the Church for trial. Again recanting, she was recommended by that court to the mercy of the secular powers, the English, who had never pronounced judgment upon her. The legend of her burning was due to a desire to make her fulfil the whole prophecy of the ancient Merlin, who was supposed to have said that the islanders would put her to death, but she seems to have subsequently married Robert des Armoises, and we possess a document drawn up in the names of Robert des Armoises, Chevalier,