the eve of Ascension-day, she learned that Compiegne was being besieged, and she resolved to re-enter it.  She was reminded that her force was a very weak one to cut its way through the besiegers’ camp.  “By my martin,” said she, “we are enough; I will go see my friends in Compiegne.”  She arrived about daybreak without hinderance, and penetrated into the town; and repaired immediately to the parish church of St. Jacques to perform her devotions on the eve of so great a festival.  Many persons, attracted by her presence, and amongst others “from a hundred to six-score children,” thronged to the church.  After hearing mass, and herself taking the communion, Joan said to those who surrounded her, “My children and dear friends, I notify you that I am sold and betrayed, and that I shall shortly be delivered over to death; I beseech you, pray God for me.”  When evening came, she was not the less eager to take part in a sortie with her usual comrades and a troop of about five hundred men.  William de Flavy, commandant of the place, got ready some boats on the Oise to assist the return of the troops.  All the town-gates were closed, save the bridge-gate.  The sortie was unsuccessful.  Being severely repulsed and all but hemmed in, the majority of the soldiers shouted to Joan, “Try to quickly regain the town, or we are lost.”  “Silence,” said Joan; “it only rests with you to throw the enemy into confusion; think only of striking at them.”  Her words and her bravery were in vain; the infantry flung themselves into the boats, and regained the town, and Joan and her brave comrades covered their retreat.  The Burgundians were coming up in mass upon Compiegne, and Flavy gave orders to pull up the draw-bridge and let down the portcullis.  Joan and some of her following lingered outside, still fighting.  She wore a rich surcoat and a red sash, and all the efforts of the Burgundians were directed against her.  Twenty men thronged round her horse; and a Picard archer, “a tough fellow and mighty sour,” seized her by her dress, and flung her on the ground.  All, at once, called on her to surrender.  “Yield you to me,” said one of them; “pledge your faith to me; I am a gentleman.”  It was an archer of the bastard of Wandonne, one of the lieutenants of John of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny.  “I have pledged my faith to one other than you,” said Joan, “and to Him I will keep my oath.”  The archer took her and conducted her to Count John, whose prisoner she became.

Was she betrayed and delivered up, as she had predicted?  Did William de Flavy purposely have the drawbridge raised and the portcullis lowered before she could get back into Compiegne?  He was suspected of it at the time, and many historians have indorsed the suspicion.  But there is nothing to prove it.  That La Tremoille, prime minister of Charles VII., and Reginald de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, had an antipathy to Joan of Arc, and did all they could on every occasion to compromise her and destroy