in from Compiegne, all that was favourable to the Burgundians received with joy and thanksgiving by the ladies of Luxembourg, while the captive consumed her heart with vain indignation.  At last Jeanne would seem to have wrought herself up to the most desperate of expedients.  Whether her room was in the donjon, or whether she was allowed sufficient freedom in the house to mount to the battlements there, we are not informed—­probably the latter was the case:  for it was from the top of the tower that the rash girl at last flung herself down, carried away by what sudden frenzy of alarm or sting of evil tidings can never be known.  Probably she had hoped that a miracle would be wrought on her behalf, and that faith was all that was wanted, as on so many other occasions.  Perhaps she had heard of the negotiations to sell her to the English, which would give a keener urgency to her determination to get free; all that appears in the story, however, is her wild anxiety about Compiegne and her bons amis.  How she escaped destruction no one knows.  She was rescued for a more tremendous and harder fate.

The Maid was taken up as dead from the foot of the tower (the height is estimated at sixty feet); but she was not dead, nor even seriously hurt.  Her frame, so slight that she had been able to slip between the bars put up to secure her, had so little solidity that the shock would seem to have been all that ailed her.  She was stunned and unconscious and remained so far some time; and for three days neither ate nor drank.  But though she was so humbled by the effects of the fall, “she was comforted by St. Catherine, who bade her confess and implore the mercy of God” for her rash disobedience—­and repeated the promise that before Martinmas Compiegne should be relieved.  Jeanne did not perhaps in her rebellion deserve this encouragement; but the heavenly ladies were kind and pitiful and did not stand upon their dignity.  The wonderful thing was that Jeanne recovered perfectly from this tremendous leap.

The earthly ladies, though so completely on the other side, were scarcely less kind to the Maid.  They visited her daily, carried their news to her, were very friendly and sweet:  and no doubt other visitors came to make the acquaintance of a prisoner so wonderful.  There was one point on which they were very urgent, and this was about her dress.  It shamed and troubled them to see her in the costume of a man.  Jeanne had her good reasons for that, which perhaps she did not care to tell them, fearing to shock the ears of a demoiselle of Luxembourg with the suggestion of dangers of which she knew nothing.  No doubt it was true that while doing the serious work of war, as she said afterwards, it was best that she should be dressed as a man; but Jeanne had reason to know besides, that it was safer, among the rough comrades and gaolers who now surrounded her, to wear the tight-fitting and firmly fastened dress of a soldier.  She answered