pelled to examine the minutes of the original trial, when it appeared that the major part did not recognise the proceedings, from having been compelled to vote on the twelve articles containing assertions substituted in lieu of the real interrogatories. Charles VII. contented himself with re-establishing the reputation of La Pucelle, and pursued no measures to avenge her death on those who had contributed to bring her to the stake. It is probable that the general pardon, which he had granted by his edicts on the union of Normandy with the French crown, did not permit him to have recourse to rigorous measures. It has, however, been remarked by French writers, that nearly all those who took a leading part in the iniquitous judgment pronounced against La Pucelle, came to an untimely death. Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, died of apoplexy, while under the hands of a barber who was shaving him ; Estivet the proctor was discovered dead in a dove-cote; Nicolas Midy was seized with leprosy, of which he died; Guillaume de Flavy, accused of having betrayed La Pucelle, was strangled in bed by his wife; the regent duke of Bedford ex *The sudden death of Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, did not occur until the 18th of December, 1442; previous to which, in 1432, the year after Jeanne's execution, he had obtained the bishoprick of Lisieux through the interest of the English, but his reputation was never re-established, and he died loaded with universal hatred and disgrace. pired in 1435, in the very castle at Rouen which contained the dungeon wherein Jeanne d'Arc was immured; and Henry VI., in whose name she was sacrificed, after having been twice dethroned and doomed to pass a great portion of his life in captivity, was murdered in the Tower. Some authors, and Villaret among others, have stated, from authorities of dubious reputation, that Louis XI. was more severe than his father, in causing the authors of the death of Jeanne d'Arc to be arraigned; that two of her judges were in consequence arrested, and condemned to suffer the same. death they had inflicted upon the unfortunate girl; and that the bones of two others were disinterred, and cast into the flames that consumed them. Those who were charged with this new revisal of the process, ought to have commanded the confiscation of the goods of the condemned, and ordered that from the amount of the sale of such effects a church should be erected at Rouen, on the very spot where La Pucelle had been sacrificed; and, according to the custom of the times, a mass performed continually for the repose of her soul. M. de Laverdy submitted these statements to the consideration of a severe critic, who did not credit the assertion. To enter into a detail of the motives which prompted the above writer to hazard this opinion, would encroach too much upon the plan of the present undertaking. We must content ourselves with referring the reader to Vol. III. of the Notices and Extracts of the Royal Library at Paris. We conceive that the above supposition is well calculated to accompany the numerous popular tales that are current, and which, in all probability, owed their origin to the dissensions that existed between Louis XI. and his father Charles VII. According to some authors, Louis XII. commanded a further revisal of the case of Jeanne d'Arc; but this statement is not better established than the foregoing. The gratitude of the Orleanese towards the heroine who had preserved their city, has been displayed upon every occasion with the greatest enthusiasm. According to the unanimous wish of the inhabitants, a monument was erected to her memory on the bridge of Orleans. The magistrates of this faithful city were not content with this demonstration of their gratitude; they also granted a retreat to the mother of Jeanne d'Arc, and gave her a pension from the year 1438 until 1458, at which period she died at Orleans. This annuity was continued to Pierre d'Arc, called the Chevalier du Lis, third brother of La Pucelle, who had uniformly accompanied her in the wars, and continued to reside at Orleans from the period of his sister's death. It was this brother who obtained from the liberality of the duke of Orleans the grant for himself and his eldest son, during their natural lives, of an island situated in the vicinity of Orleans, on the river Loire, where the remains of a castle still stand, apparently coeval with that period. Upon every occasion when one of the family of Arc has visited the city, those honours have never been withheld which the citizens esteemed due to such as inherited the blood of their deliverer. The procession, celebrated on the 8th of May, the anniversary of the deliverance of Orleans, and of which a description will be found in the sequel of this volume, is one of the most striking marks of the gratitude of the Orleanese, having been perpetuated from age to age until the present day. The impulse of revolutionary fanaticism suspended for a few years this annual festival; but with the return of order under the imperial dynasty of Napoleon, it was restored according to ancient custom, while the old monument upon the bridge, which had been sacrificed at the shrine of Equality, was replaced by a bronze statue of the heroine which now adorns the public square of Martroy. In short, these grateful sentiments were not long since manifested in the most conspicuous and honourable manner. On the first invitation given by the prefect of the department of Vosges to the authorities of Loiret, claiming their assistance at the ceremony of inaugurating the monument erected at the birth-place of Jeanne d'Arc, a deputation, composed of the first magistrates of Loiret and the city of Orleans, repaired immediately to Domremy. They |