365 _et seq._ Le P.Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant l'Eglise de son temps_, pp.

31-52.] The great doctor Gerson, former Chancellor of the University, was then ending his days at Lyon in the monastery of Les Celestins, of which his brother was prior.

His life had been full of work and weariness.[1129] In 1408 he was priest of Saint-Jean-en-Greve in Paris.

In that year he delivered in his parish church the funeral oration of the Duke of Orleans, assassinated by order of the Duke of Burgundy; and he roused the passions of the mob to such a fury that he ran great danger of losing his life.

At the Council of Constance, possessed by a so-called "merciful cruelty"[1130] which goaded him to send a heretic to the stake, he urged the condemnation of John Huss, regardless of the safe-conduct which the latter had received from the Emperor; for in common with all the fathers there assembled he held that according to natural law both divine and human, no promise should be kept if it were prejudicial to the Catholic Faith.