480 THE TRIAL OF JEANNE DARC. read a long sentence, of which a few words are given at the beginning of this article, which he ended by handing her over to the secular arm. The members of the court departed, and then, without any other legal formality, she was bound to the stake and burned. Tradition gives us many particulars of her last moments, but as they were not gathered till 1456, twenty-five years after her ashes were thrown into the Seine, we must receive them with caution. It is credible enough that she died embracing a cross, and with her eyes fixed upon another cross held up before her by a sympathizing priest. In 1456, the period of her " rehabilitation," that man was accounted happy who had something pleasing or glorious to tell of the Maid whom France then revered as a deliverer. It is difficult for us to conceive the importance attached to this trial at the time. The English government, by a long circular letter, notified all the sovereigns of Europe of the result of the trial, and gave them an outline of the proceedings. The University at Paris sent a par- ticular account of the trial to the Pope, to the cardinals, and to the chief prelates of Christendom. But five years later Paris surrendered to the King of France, and twenty-five years later Normandy itself owned allegiance to Charles VII.
