always present in her room whether she was asleep or awake, and
that the male dress was a better parotection for her modesty than
the other.
The court knew that one of Joan’s purposes had been the
deliverance of the exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious
to know how she had intended to manage it. Her plan was
characteristically businesslike, and her statement of it as
characteristically simple and straightforward:
“I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his
ransom; and failing that, I would have invaded England and
brought him out by force.”
That was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first,
and hammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between.
She added with a little sigh:
“If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him.”
“Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison
whenever you can?”
“I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it.”
I think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death,
and within the prison walls, before the three months should expire.
“Would you escape if you saw the doors open?”
She spoke up frankly and said:
“Yes–for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God
helps who help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought
I had permission, I would not go.”
Now, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me,
every time I think of it–and it struck me so at the time–that for a
moment, at least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her
mind the same notion about her deliverance which No‰l and I had
settled upon–a rescue by her old soldiers. I think the idea of the
rescue did occur to her, but only as a passing thought, and that it
quickly passed away.
Some remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him
once more that he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside
there, and that he was putting himself in great danger.
“What danger?” he asked.
“I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not
know the form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered
from this prison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there
will happen a trouble by which I shall be set free. Without much
thought as to this matter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or
the other.” After a pause she added these words, memorable
forever–words whose meaning she may have miscaught,
misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she
may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never know;
but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago
and revealed their meaning to all the world:
“But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered
by a great victory.” She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to
me that great victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old
soldiers with the war-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and
the carrying off of Joan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought
had such a short life! For now she raised her head and finished,
with those solemn words which men still so often quote and dwell
upon–words which filled me with fear, they sounded so like a
prediction. “And always they say ‘Submit to whatever comes; do
not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will ascend into the
Kingdom of Paradise.”
Was she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it
myself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel
martyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom
was the right name for it.
It was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was
silling to make the most he could out of what she had said:
“As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel
certain that that will happen and that you will not be damned in