burnt alive; her body to be reduced to
ashes, and the ashes to be cast to the winds;
her goods to be acquired and confiscated to
the king, or to whomsoever else they may
belong. Said goods to be charged with a
fine of ten livres to the king, in the event
of the confiscation not turning to the profit
of his Majesty.

"Required, additionally, that the said prisoner
shall be previously submitted to the
Ordinary and Extraordinary Torture, to
obtain information of her accomplices, and
notably of those who either sold to her or
gave to her the arsenic found in her possession.
Order hereby given for the printing
and placarding of this sentence, in such
places as shall be judged fit. Deliberated at
the bar, this seventeenth April, seventeen
hundred and eighty-two.

"(Signed) REVEL."

On the next day, the eighteenth, this
frightful sentence was formally confirmed.

The matter had now become public, and
no one could prevent the unfortunate prisoner
from claiming whatever rights the law still
allowed her. She had the privilege of appealing
against her sentence before the parliament
of Rouen. And she appealed
accordingly; being transferred, as directed
by the law in such cases, from the prison
at Caen to the prison at Rouen, to await the
decision of the higher tribunal.

On the seventeenth of May the Rouen
parliament delivered its judgment, and confirmed
the original sentence.

There was some difficulty, at first, in
making the unhappy girl understand that
her last chance for life had failed her. When
the fact that her sentence was ordered to
be carried out was at length impressed on
her mind, she sank down with her face on
the prison floor— then started up on her
knees, passionately shrieking to Heaven to
have pity on her, and to grant her the justice
and the protection which men denied. Her
agitation at the frightful prospect before her
was so violent, her screams of terror were so
shrill and piercing, that all the persons connected
with the management of the prison
hurried together to her cell. Among the
number were three priests, who were accustomed
to visit the prisoners and to administer
spiritual consolation to them. These
three men mercifully set themselves to soothe
the mental agony from which the poor creature
was suffering. When they had partially
quieted her, they soon found her willing and
anxious to answer their questions. They
inquired carefully into the main particulars
of her sad story; and all three came to the
same conclusion, that she was innocent.
Seeing the impression she had produced on
them, she caught, in her despair, at the idea
that they might be able to preserve her life;
and the dreadful duty devolved on them of
depriving her of this last hope. After the
confirmation of the sentence, all that they
could do was to prove their compassion by
preparing her for eternity.

On the twenty-sixth of May, the priests
spoke their last words of comfort to her soul.
She was taken back again, to await the
execution of her sentence in the prison of
Caen. The day was at last fixed for her
death by burning, and the morning came
when the Torture-Chamber was opened to
receive her.

HISTORIC DOUBT.

WE all have a lively knowledge of the
accepted story of the Maid of Arc. We
know how the lonely girl of thirteen followed
her father's flocks, or sat beneath the venerable
oak-tree, shunning the companionship
of her schoolmates. Righteous indignation
flashed from her eye as she walked over the
ashes of the once lovely church of Domremy
her happy village home, despoiled by the
Burgundian marauders. We can follow her
to Voucouleurs, and thence to Chinon,
where she at once selected the disguised
Charles from the crowd of courtiers, and confidently
announced her high mission. We
can trace her to Orleans, where she led the
van, and sent haughty summonses to the
English with the signature, "Jhesus Maria
et Jehanne la Pucelle;" at length driving
back the enemy from the beleaguered city,
and thus kindling anew in her countrymen
the light of patriotism, and beginning a new
era in French history. Then we remember her
reverses: how she was captured during the
siege of Compiègne, and handed over by her
captors to the English, who detained her at
Rouen: how the zeal of the Bishop of Beauvais
and the University of Paris procured her
trial on the charge of being " a disciple and
lymbe of the Fiend, that used false enchauntments
and sorcerie:" how her accusers, allowed
her neither counsel nor adviser of any
kind; and, during a trial of fifteen days'
duration, examined her with great virulence:
how they extorted her opinion of the revelations
made to her by certain heavenly
voices, and of the visions which she was permitted
to behold, and her declaration that she
would choose to obey those voices rather
than the ordinances of the Church.

For this she was condemned by the University
to be burnt at the stake. But her
courage failed her, more perhaps at the
thought that she was fighting single-handed
against the venerable wisdom of the Church
than at the peril of life, which she had
braved so lightly on the battle-field. She
signed a recantation, and her sentence was
commuted to perpetual imprisonment.

Two days and nights of solitude brought
back her old convictions, and dispersed her
new doubts. Her only feeling was one of
shame at having turned aside for a moment.

"What I resolved," she declared, " I