f piety. "This counsel do we give the King that every day he do such
things as are well pleasing in the sight of the Lord and that he
confer with the Maid concerning them. When he shall have received her
advice let him practise it piously and devoutly; then shall not the
Lord withdraw His hand from Him but continue His loving kindness unto
him."[1128]

[Footnote 1128: Bibl. Nat. Latin Collection, no. 6199, folio 36.
_Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 395-410. Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et
consultations_, pp. 365 _et seq._ Le P. Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant
l'Eglise de son temps_, pp. 31-52.]

The great doctor Gerson, former Chancellor of the University, was then
ending his days at Lyon in the monastery of Les Celestins, of which
his brother was prior. His life had been full of work and
weariness.[1129] In 1408 he was priest of Saint-Jean-en-Greve in
Paris. In that year he delivered in his parish church the funeral
oration of the Duke of Orleans, assassinated by order of the Duke of
Burgundy; and he roused the passions of the mob to such a fury that he
ran great danger of losing his life. At the Council of Constance,
possessed by a so-called "merciful cruelty"[1130] which goaded him to
send a heretic to the stake, he urged the condemnation of John Huss,
regardless of the safe-conduct which the latter had received from the
Emperor; for in common with all the fathers there assembled he held
that according to natural law both divine and human, no promise should
be kept if it were prejudicial to the Catholic Faith. With a like
ardour he prosecuted in the Council the condemnation of the thesis of
Jean Petit concerning the lawfulness of tyrannicide. In things
temporal as well as spiritual he advocated uniform obedience and the
respect of established authority. In one of his sermons he likens the
kingdom of France to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, making the
merchants and artisans the legs of the statue, "which are partly iron,
partly clay, because of their labour and humility in serving and
obeying...." Iron signifies labour, and clay humility. All the evil
has arisen from the King and the great citizens being held in
subjection by those of low estate.[1131]

[Footnote 1129: Launoy, _Historia Navarrici Gymasii_, book iv, ch. v.
J.B. Lecuy, _Essai sur la vie de Jean Gerson, chancelier de l'eglise
et de l'universite de Paris, sur sa doctrine, sur ses ecrits...._
Paris, 1832, 2 vols. in 8vo. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles
VII_, vol