in August, and she had been in captivity more than two months
now. Here she was shut up in the top of a tower which was sixty
feet high. She ate her heart there for another long stretch–about
three months and a half. And she was aware, all these weary five
months of captivity, that the English, under cover of the Church,
were dickering for her as one would dicker for a horse or a slave,
and that France was silent, the King silent, all her friends the same.
Yes, it was pitiful.
And yet when she heard at last that CompiЉgne was being closely
besieged and likely to be captured, and that the enemy had
declared that no inhabitant of it should escape massacre, not even
children of seven years of age, she was in a fever at once to fly to
our rescue. So she tore her bedclothes to strips and tied them
together and descended this frail rope in the night, and it broke,
and she fell and was badly bruised, and remained three days
insensible, meantime neither eating nor drinking.
And now came relief to us, led by the Count of Vend“me, and
CompiЉgne was saved and the siege raised. This was a disaster to
the Duke of Burgundy. He had to save money now. It was a good
time for a new bid to be made for Joan of Arc. The English at once
sent a French bishop–that forever infamous Pierre Cauchon of
Beauvais. He was partly promised the Archbishopric of Rouen,
which was vacant, if he should succeed. He claimed the right to
preside over Joan’s ecclesiastical trial because the battle-ground
where she was taken was within his diocese. By the military usage
of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000 livres of gold,
which is 61,125 francs–a fixed sum, you see. It must be accepted
when offered; it could not be refused.
Cauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the English–a
royal prince’s ransom for the poor little peasant-girl of Domremy.
It shows in a striking way the English idea of her formidable
importance. It was accepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior
of France, was sold; sold to her enemies; to the enemies of her
country; enemies who had lashed and thrashed and thumped and
trounced France for a century and made holiday sport of it;
enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago, what a
Frenchman’s face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing but
his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed,
whom she had taught to respect French valor, new-born in her
nation by the breath of her spirit; enemies who hungered for her
life as being the only puissance able to stand between English
triumph and French degradation. Sold to a French priest by a
French prince, with the French King and the French nation
standing thankless by and saying nothing.
And she–what did she say? Nothing. Not a reproach passed her
lips. She was too great for that–she was Joan of Arc; and when
that is said, all is said.
As a soldier, her record was spotless. She could not be called to
account for anything under that head. A subterfuge must be found,
and, as we have seen, was found. She must be tried by priests for
crimes against religion. If none could be discovered, some must be
invented. Let the miscreant Cauchon alone to contrive those.
Rouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of
the English power; its population had been under English
dominion so many generations that they were hardly French now,
save in language. The place was strongly garrisoned. Joan was
taken there near the end of December, 1430, and flung into a
dungeon. Yes, and clothed in chains, that free spirit!
Still France made no move. How do I account for this? I think
there is only one way. You will remember that whenever Joan was
not at the front, the French held back and ventured nothing; that
whenever she led, they swept everything before them, so long as
they could see her white armor or her banner; that every time she