ned pilot! Yet in all probability Caesar
never made it.

Now for the evidence. Alexandria was captured by Armrou in 640. The
story of the burning of the library occurs for the first time in the
works of Abulpharagius, who flourished in 1264. Six hundred years had
elapsed. It is as if a story about the crusades of Louis IX. were to be
found for the first time in the writings of Mr. Bancroft. The Byzantine
historians were furiously angry with the Saracens; why did they, one
and all, neglect to mention such an outrageous piece of vandalism? Their
silence must be considered quite conclusive. Moreover we know "that the
caliphs had forbidden under severe penalties the destruction" of Jewish
and Christian books, a circumstance wholly inconsistent with this famous
story. And finally, what a mediaeval recklessness of dates is shown
in lugging into the story John the Grammarian, who was dead and in his
grave when Alexandria was taken by Amrou!

But the chief item of proof remains to be mentioned. The Saracens did
not burn the library, because there was no library there for them to
burn! It had been destroyed just two hundred and fifty years before by a
rabble of monks, incited by the patriarch Theophilus, who saw in such
a vast collection of pagan literature a perpetual insult and menace
to religion. In the year 390 this turbulent bigot sacked the temple of
Serapis, where the books were kept, and drove out the philosophers who
lodged there. Of this violent deed we have contemporary evidence, for
Orosius tells us that less than fifteen years afterwards, while passing
through Alexandria, he saw the empty shelves. This fact disposes of the
story.

Passing from Egypt to France, and from the seventh century to the
fifteenth, we meet with a much more difficult problem. That Jeanne d'Arc
was burnt at the stake, at Rouen, on the 30th of May, 1431, and her
bones and ashes thrown into the Seine, is generally supposed to be as
indisputable as any event in modern history. Such is, however, hardly
the case. Plausible evidence has been brought to prove that Jeanne d'Arc
was never burnt at the stake, but lived to a ripe age, and was even
happily married to a nobleman of high rank and reputation. We shall
abridge Mr. Delepierre's statement of this curious case.

In the archives of Metz, Father Vignier discovered the following
remarkable entry: "In the year 1436, Messire Phlin Marcou was Sheriff
of Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the afor