drooping courage of the French, and
inspired them with the hope of once more freeing their country. The
English vulgar regarded her as a sorceress--the French as an inspired
heroine; while the wise on both sides considered her as neither the one
nor the other, but a tool used by the celebrated Dunois to play the part
which he assigned her. The Duke of Bedford, when the ill-starred Jeanne
fell into his hands, took away her life in order to stigmatize her
memory with sorcery and to destroy the reputation she had acquired among
the French. The mean recurrence to such a charge against such a person
had no more success than it deserved, although Jeanne was condemned both
by the Parliament of Bordeux and the University of Paris. Her indictment
accused her of having frequented an ancient oak-tree, and a fountain
arising under it, called the Fated or Fairy Oak of Bourlemont. Here she
was stated to have repaired during the hours of divine service, dancing,
skipping, and making gestures, around the tree and fountain, and hanging
on the branches chaplets and garlands of flowers, gathered for the
purpose, reviving, doubtless, the obsolete idolatry which in ancient
times had been rendered on the same spot to the _Genius Loci_. The
charmed sword and blessed banner, which she had represented as signs of
her celestial mission, were in this hostile charge against her described
as enchanted implements, designed by the fiends and fairies whom she
worshipped to accomplish her temporary success. The death of the
innocent, high-minded, and perhaps amiable enthusiast, was not, we are
sorry to say, a sacrifice to a superstitious fear of witchcraft, but a
cruel instance of wicked policy mingled with national jealousy and
hatred.

To the same cause, about the same period, we may impute the trial of the
Duchess of Gloucester, wife of the good Duke Humphrey, accused of
consulting witches concerning the mode of compassing the death of her
husband's nephew, Henry VI. The Duchess was condemned to do penance, and
thereafter banished to the Isle of Man, while several of her accomplices
died in prison or were executed. But in this instance also the alleged
witchcraft was only the ostensible cause of a procedure which had its
real source in the deep hatred between the Duke of Gloucester and
Cardinal Beaufort, his half-brother. The same pretext was used by
Richard III. when he brought the charge of sorcery against the Queen
Dowager, Jane Shore, and the q