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THE TEIAL OF JEANNE DAEC. 449 most recent French authorities, seventeen years and two months. Fifteen months later, May 24, 1439, after a series of important victories followed by minor defeats, she was taken prisoner under the walls of Compiegne, which she was attempting to relieve. French troops, fighting on the side of the English, captured her and held her prisoner. French priests, in the metropolitan church of N6tre Dame at Paris, celebrated her capture by a " Te Deum." It is doubtful if her own king lamented her ; for this devoted, deluded girl belonged to the order of mortals whom the powers of this world often find it as convenient to be rid of as to use. It is proba- ble that she had expended her power to be of service and had become unmanageable. Small, needless failures, chargeable to her own rash impetuosity, had lessened her prestige. For the fair and wanton Agnes Sorel the idle King of France would have attempted much ; but he made no serious effort to ransom or to rescue the Maid to whom he owed his crown and kingdom. Politicians are much the same in every age, since the work they have to do is much the same in every age. Two parties as well as two kings were contending for the possession of France, and one of these, by the prompt and adroit use of the Maid of Orleans, had gained for their side the conquering force of a religious revival. Bedford, the regent of the kingdom, who had seen his conquests falling away from him before the banner of a rustic girl, felt the necessity of depriving his rival of this advantage. If there were two powers contending for the kingdom of France, were there not two powers contending for the kingdom of this world ? Loyal France had accepted the Maid as sent from God ; it now devolved upon the English regent to demonstrate that she was an agent of Satan. He bought her of her captors for ten thousand pounds — a vast sum for that period — and had her brought