Note 118 — INTRODUCTION

We must not be too severe on a tutor's note-books. But Bossuet, who places the rehabilitation under the date 1431, does not tell us that it was only pronounced twenty-five years later. On the contrary, as far as he is concerned, we might conclude that it occurred before the deliverance of Compiègne. The following are his words: "In execution of this sentence, she was burned alive at Rouen in 1431. The English spread the rumour that at the last she had admitted the revelations which she had so loudly boasted to be false. But some time afterwards the Pope appointed commissioners. Her trial was solemnly revised and her conduct approved of by a final sentence which the Pope himself confirmed. The Burgundians were forced to raise the siege of Compiègne," loc. cit. p. 236. Mézeray is more credulous than Bossuet; he mentions "the Saints Catherine and Margaret, who purified her soul with heavenly conversations, wherefore she venerated them with a particular devotion." In relating the trial, he like Bossuet, ignores the Vice-Inquisitor (Histoire de France, vol. ii, 1746, in folio, pp. 11 et seq.)