Joan of Arc.
When Joan of Arc was captured by John of Luxemburg in May, 1430, she was sold by him for 10,000 livres to the English, who desired to have her tried before the Inquisition. She was bitterly hated by them, and the University of Paris heartily joined in their ferocious pursuit of the heroic maid. Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, another of her opponents, presided at the trial, which opened in February, 1431; and, as it was assumed that the proceedings would be invalid without the presence of an Inquisitor, though Cauchon himself was nominally one, Jean le Maitre, Vicar for Rouen, acted (reluctantly, be it said to his credit) as representative of the Inquisitor for France. The trial was a monstrously unjust one; evidence in Joan’s favour was suppressed, and a number of skilled lawyers and theologians worked hard to entrap her into confession. It is one of the marvels of history that this untaught peasant girl time after time baffled her persecutors by her simple and truthful answers to their cunningly framed questions. Worn out at last by their tireless persistence, she abjured, and received the customary sentence of perpetual imprisonment. The English were furious, and made desperate efforts to secure her death. It was not easy to find a pretext, but one was discovered in her change of clothing. Joan was tempted by having her usual man’s dress placed within her reach. She donned it; advantage was taken of her imprudence to treat it as a formal relapse into heresy, and two days later the noble and innocent deliverer of her country was burnt alive in the market place of Rouen, to the everlasting shame of France and England.