At this juncture Joan of Arc, a peasant girl of eighteen, came forward
to inspire her despairing countrymen with fresh courage. She believed
that Heaven had called her to drive the English from the land. The
troops rallied round her. Clad in white armor, mounted on a white war
horse, she saved Orleans; then she led the troops from victory to
victory, until she saw Prince Charles triumphantly crowned in the
Cathedral of Rheims. (See map facing p. 128.)
Her fortunes soon changed. Her own people basely abandoned her. The
unworthy King Charles made no attempt to protect the "Maid of
Orleans," and she fell into the hands of the infuriated English, who
believed she was in league with the devil. In accordance with this
belief Joan was tried for witchcraft and heresy at Rouen, and
sentenced to the flames. She died (1431) as bravely as she had
lived, saying in her last agonies that her celestial voices had not
deceived her, and that through them she had saved France.
"God forgive us," exclaimed one of Henry's courtiers who was present,
"we are lost! We have burned a saint!" It was the truth; and from the
martyred girl's ashes a new spirit seemed to go forth to bless her
ungrateful country. The heart of the French people was touched; they
rose and drove the English invaders from the soil of France.
Before Henry VI reached his thirtieth year the Hundred Years' War with
France, which Edward III had begun (S237), was ended (1453), and
England had lost all of her possessions on the Continent, except a
bare foothold at Calais, and that was destined to be lost a few
generations later (S373).