None the less we endured, despite the murmuring of the commons, so strong are men’s hearts; moreover, all France lay staked on this one cast of the dice, no less than at Orleans in the year before.

Somewhat we were kept in heart by tidings otherwise bitter.  For word came that the Maid, being in ward at Beaurevoir, a strong place of Jean de Luxembourg, had leaped in the night from the top of the tower, and had, next morning, been taken up all unhurt, as by, miracle, but astounded and bereft of her senses.  For this there was much sorrow, but would to God that He had taken her to Himself in that hour!

Nevertheless, when she was come to herself again, she declared, by inspiration of the Saints, that Compiegne should be delivered before the season of Martinmas.  Whence I, for one, drew great comfort, nor ever again despaired, and many were filled with courage when this tidings came to our ears, hoping for some miracle, as at Orleans.

Now, too, God began to take pity upon us; for, on August the fifteenth, the eighty-fifth day of the siege, came news to the Duke of Burgundy that Philip, Duke of Brabant, was dead, and he must go to make sure of that great heritage.  The Duke having departed, the English Earls had far less heart for the leaguer; I know not well wherefore, but now, at least, was seen the truth of that proverb concerning the “eye of the master.”  The bastille, too, which our enemies had made to prevent us from going out by our Pierrefonds Gate on the landward side, was negligently built, and of no great strength.  All this gave us some heart, so much that my hosts, the good Jacobins, and the holy sisters of the Convent of St. John, stripped the lead from their roofs, and bestowed it on the town, for munition of war.  And when I was in case to walk upon the walls, and above the river, I might see men and boys diving in the water and searching for English cannon-balls, which we shot back at the English.

It chanced, one day, that I was sitting and sunning myself in the warm September weather, on a settle in a secure place hard by the Chapel Gate.  With me was Barthelemy Barrette, for it was the day of Our Lady’s Feast, that very day whereon we had failed before Paris last year, and there was truce for the sacred season.  We fell to devising of what had befallen that day year, and without thought I told Barthelemy of my escape from prison, and so, little by little, I opened my heart to him concerning Brother Thomas and all his treasons.

Never was man more astounded than Barthelemy; and he bade me swear by the Blessed Trinity that all this tale was true.

“Mayhap you were fevered,” he said, “when you lay in the casement seat, and saw the Maid taken by device of the cordelier.”

“I was no more fevered than I am now, and I swear, by what oath you will, and by the bones of St. Andrew, which these sinful hands have handled, that Flavy’s face was set the other way when that cry came, ’Down portcullis, up drawbridge, close gates!’ And now that I have told you the very truth, what should I do?”