abilitation trial, as to the last
sentiments and the last words of Joan, said that to the very latest
moment she had affirmed that her voices were heavenly, that they had not
deluded her, and that the revelations she had received came from God.
When she had ceased to live, two of her judges, John Alespie, canon of
Rouen, and Peter Maurice, doctor of theology, cried out, "Would that my
soul were where I believe the soul of that woman is!" And Tressart,
secretary to King Henry VI., said sorrowfully, on returning from the
place of execution, "We are all lost; we have burned a saint."

A saint indeed in faith and in destiny. Never was human creature more
heroically confident in, and devoted to, inspiration coming from God, a
commission received from God. Joan of Arc sought nothing of all that
happened to her and of all she did, nor exploit, nor power, nor glory.
"It was not her condition," as she used to say, to be a warrior, to get
her king crowned, and to deliver her country from the foreigner.
Everything came to her from on high, and she accepted everything without
hesitation, without discussion, without calculation, as we should say in
our times. She believed in God, and obeyed Him. God was not to her an
idea, a hope, a flash of human imagination, or a problem of human
science; He was the Creator of the world, the Saviour of mankind through
Jesus Christ, the Being of beings, ever present, ever in action, sole
legitimate sovereign of man whom He has made intelligent and free, the
real and true God whom we are painfully searching for in our own day, and
whom we shall never find again until we cease pretending to do without
Him and putting ourselves in His place. Meanwhile one fact may be
mentioned which does honor to our epoch and gives us hope for our future.
Four centuries have rolled by since Joan of Arc, that modest and heroic
servant of God, made a sacrifice of herself for France. For four and
twenty years after her death, France and the king appeared to think no
more of her. However, in 1455, remorse came upon Charles VII. and upon
France. Nearly all the provinces, all the towns, were freed from the
foreigner, and shame was felt that nothing was said, nothing done, for
the young girl who had saved everything. At Rouen, especially, where the
sacrifice was completed, a cry for reparation arose. It was timidly
demanded from the spiritual power which had sentenced and delivered over
Joan as a heretic to the st