Among the countless women burnt as witches was also Jeanette d’Arc, who to-day is glorified by the French nation as =Jeanne d’Arc=, the Maid of Orleans, and who has been lately canonized. Born about 1411 at Dom-Remy, a small village in the Champagne, she witnessed the conquest of Northern France by the English. While brooding over this mishap, it became fixed in her mind that she was destined to deliver France from these invaders. This impression was strengthened by a number of visions, in which she believed to see St. Michael, the archangel of judgments and of battles, who commanded her to take up arms and hurry to the assistance of the king. In February, 1429, she set out on her perilous journey to the court of the Dauphin at Chinon. Here she succeeded in convincing the king of the divinity of her mission, so that she was permitted to start with an army of 5000 men for the relief of Orleans. Clothed like a man in a coat of mail, and carrying a white standard of her own design, embroidered with lilies and the image of God, she inspired her followers with a religious enthusiasm. Favored by good luck she entered the besieged city on the 29th of April, 1429, and by incessant attacks so discouraged the enemy that they withdrew on the 8th of May. However, in several other enterprises her luck failed, and on the 24th of May, after an unsuccessful sortie, she was taken prisoner through treachery, because, being pursued by the enemy, some Frenchmen shut the gates of the fortress into which she should have escaped. With her capture the halo of supernatural power that had surrounded her, vanished. Accused of being a heretic and a witch, she was turned over to the Inquisition for trial. Her examination lasted six days. Among other insidious and indelicate questions on the subject of her visions she was asked whether, when St. Michael appeared to her, he was naked, and if she had entertained sexual intercourse with the devil. But no point seemed graver to the judges than the sin of having assumed male attire. The judges told her that according to the canons, those who thus change the habit of their sex, are abominable in the sight of God. The decision to which the inquisitors finally came, was that the girl was wholly the devil’s; was impious in regard to her parents; had thirsted for Christian blood, adhered to a king who was a heretic and schismatic, and was herself a heretic, apostate and idolator. For all these crimes she was sentenced to death, and burnt alive on the market place of Rouen, May 30th, 1431.—