table is strewn with pamphlets, papers, genealogies, essays; the
authors taking opposite sides as to the question, Was Jeanne d'Arc
burned at Rouen on May 30, 1431? Unluckily even the most exact
historians (yea, even M. Quicherat, the editor of the five volumes
of documents and notices about the Maid) (1841-1849) make slips in
dates, where dates are all important. It would add confusion if we
dwelt on these errors, or on the bias of the various disputants.

Not a word was said at the Trial of Rehabilitation in 1452-1456
about the supposed survival of the Maid. But there are indications
of the inevitable popular belief that she was not burned. Long
after the fall of Khartoum, rumours of the escape of Charles Gordon
were current; even in our own day people are loth to believe that
their hero has perished. Like Arthur he will come again, and from
Arthur to James IV. of Scotland, from James IV. to the Duke of
Monmouth, or the son of Louis XVI., the populace believes and hopes
that its darling has not perished. We destroyed the Mahdi's body to
nullify such a belief, or to prevent worship at his tomb. In the
same way, at Rouen, 'when the Maid was dead, as the English feared
that she might be said to have escaped, they bade the executioner
rake back the fire somewhat that the bystanders might see her
dead.'* An account of a similar precaution, the fire drawn back
after the Maid's robes were burned away, is given in brutal detail
by the contemporary diarist (who was not present), the Bourgeois de
Paris.**

*Quicherat, iii. p. 191. These lines are not in MS. 5970. M.
Save, in Jehanne des Armoises, Pucelle d'Orleans, p. 6 (Nancy,
1893), interpolates, in italics, words of his own into his
translation of this text, which improve the force of his argument!