v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 73 her yielded to them. She was taken to Rouen, and there kept chained in an iron cage till she was tried by a tribunal of fifty doctors of theology, presided over by yohn Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, a partisan of the English, who had just been driven out of his diocese. All her simple truth, lofty piety, and blameless innocence failed to persuade her judges that her might did not come of evil. One strong presumption against her was her wearing male attire ; but she pleaded, not only that it guarded her from insolence, but that the voices which had called her had bidden her put it on. She was found guilty of heresy, liecause, when she appealed to our Lord and His Church, she was supposed to mean that she did not submit to the Church on earth. Not a letter was written, not an offer was made, on her behalf from the king whom she had crowned, and by whom she had been cast aside like a blunted tool. The choice was given her of death by fire or of abjuring her heresy, and in deadly terror she consented to own all that was put in her mouth. She was then clad in woman's dress and sent back to prison to the keeping of the rudest, coarsest men at arms. There was much discontent, for the soldiers fancied they should never prosper till the witch was burned ; but Cauchon whispered, " We know where to have her." While the Duke of Bedford was absent from Rouen, the judges were summoned to see Joan again in male apparel. Her guards had taken away her own clothes, had thrown these at her, and stood mocking her despair. There was no pity for her, and she was burned in the market-place at Rouen. The last cry heard from the tire was, " My voices have not deceived me," and then the name of her Saviour. 28. The A/^ar in Lorraine, 1432. — The Burgundians had been foremost in compassing her death, but they were slack in the English cause, being engaged in a -war of suc- cession in Lorraine. Philip supported Anto)iy, count of Vai(demont, the last Duke's brother, against his daughter Isabel, wife of Reni, second son of Lewis, duke of Anjou, who had been accepted by the states of Lorraine. In a great battle at Biilkgneville, in 1431, Ren^ was defeated and made prisoner. His wife went to seek the aid of Charles VII., who had married his sister Maty. To one of the ladies in her train, Agnes Sorel, French tradi- tion has always ascribed the awakening of the spirit of Charles ; and there is no doubt that the queen herself per- suaded Isabel to leave her at court as a counter-influence
