n the year 1456 at Rouen, he then and there gave his evidence.
He had known Joan of Arc's family, and Joan too in her childhood; of
all of them he spoke most highly.

Next comes 'honnete et prude femme demoiselle Marguerite la
Tournelle,' the widow of Rene de Bouligny. It was at her house at
Bourges that Joan lodged after the coronation at Rheims.

We now pass to an entirely different category of witnesses. These are
the men who sat in the trial of the heroine. One can well understand
the embarrassment shown by such folk in their replies to the questions
they had to answer, and their wish if it were possible to turn the
responsibility of their previous judgment on the heads of those who
were no longer in this world to answer the charges made against them.

The first of these men is 'venerable et savante personne Maitre Thomas
de Courcelles.' De Courcelles was only fifty-six in 1456, when called
on to make his deposition as to the part he had played in the
heroine's trial at Rouen, five-and-twenty years before. His evidence
is full of the feeblest argument, and his memory appears to have been
a very convenient one, as he repeatedly evades an answer by the plea
of having forgotten all about the incident alluded to.

Next follows that 'venerable et circonspecte personne, Maitre Jean
Beaupere'--a doctor of theology, and canon of Rouen, Paris, and
Besancon. This circumspect person was now in his seventieth year. He
laid most of the blame of Joan of Arc's death upon the English, and
the rest on Cauchon. The English being away, and Cauchon dead, the
circumspection of this doctor's evidence is evident.

We next have that of the Bishop of Noyon, John de Mailly. This bishop
had been in the service of the English King, but had, when Charles
became prosperous, returned to him. In 1456 he was aged sixty. An
intimate of the Prince Cardinal of Winchester, and one of the foremost
of the judges who condemned Joan of Arc to death, his deposition in
1456 is quite a study in the art of trying to convince people that
black is white. He had shown some kind of feeling of humanity at the
time of the martyrdom of the Maid, and had left that scene of horror
early. To the memory of his old friend and colleague, Cauchon, he
gives a parting kick by saying at the close of his examination that of
one thing he was quite certain, and that was that Cauchon received
money for the conduct of the trial from his friends, the English. But
he might have