call aloud for a real vindication of the character of the man of the French Revolution, and, forsooth, it may be that a terrible retribution is gathering in the distance.  Who knows?  Waterloo and St. Helena may yet be the nemesis of the enemies of the great Emperor.  Obviously, he had visions, as had his compatriot Joan of Arc, who suffered even a crueller fate than he at the hands of a few bloodthirsty English noblemen, who disgraced the name of soldier by not only allowing her to be burnt, but selling her to the parasitical Bishops with that object in view.  It is not strange that the Maid of Orleans, who suffered martyrdom for the supernatural part she took in fighting for her King and country, should, on April 18, 1909, become a saint of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world, nor that the Pope should perform the ceremony.  The English sold her.  An ecclesiastical court, headed by the infamous Bishop of Beauvais, condemned her to be burnt as a witch, and when the flames were consuming her a cry of “Jesus” was heard.  An English soldier standing by was so overcome by the awful wickedness that was being perpetrated by the Anglo-French ecclesiastical alliance, that he called out, “We are lost!  We have burnt a saint!”

The soldier saw at once that the child of the Domremy labourer was a “saint,” but it has taken five centuries for the Church to which she belonged, and whose representatives burnt her as a witch, to officially beatify her.  True, this stage has been gradually worked up to by the erection of monuments to her honour and glory.  Chinon distinguished itself by this, presumably because it was there that Joan interviewed the then uncrowned Charles, and startled him into taking her into his service by the story she told of hearing the heavenly voices at Domremy farm demanding that she should go forth as the liberator of France.

The recognition of Napoleon’s claim, not to “sanctity,” but as a benefactor of mankind, will also surely come, but in his case the demand will come from no Church, but with the irresistible voice of all Humanity.

Joan’s country had been at war for one hundred years.  Ravaged by foreign invaders and depopulated by plague, it was foaming with civil strife and treason to the national cause, many of the most powerful men and women, both openly and in secret, taking sides with the enemy.  The crisis had reached a point when this modest, uneducated, clear-witted, fearless maiden was launched by her “voices” to the scene of battle, there to inspire hope and enthusiasm in the hearts of her people.  In a few weeks she had established confidence, smashed the invader, and crowned the unworthy Charles VII. as King.  Twenty years after they had burnt her, there was scarcely a foreign foot to be found on French soil.