wild confusion of frenzied men and horses—­and the artillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the English and Burgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter behind their prey.  Clear to the boulevard the French were washed in this enveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle formed by the flank of the boulevard and the slope of the causeway, they bravely fought a hopeless fight, and sank down one by one.

Flavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and the drawbridge raised.  This shut Joan out.

The little personal guard around her thinned swiftly.  Both of our good knights went down disabled; Joan’s two brothers fell wounded; then Noel Rainguesson—­all wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows aimed at her.  When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not give up, but stood their ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked and splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of the other, an enemy gasped and died.

And so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple souls, they came to their honorable end.  Peace to their memories! they were very dear to me.

Then there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still laying about her with her sword, was seized by her cape and dragged from her horse.  She was borne away a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy’s camp, and after her followed the victorious army roaring its joy.

The awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it flew; and wherever it came it struck the people as with a sort of paralysis; and they murmured over and over again, as if they were talking to themselves, or in their sleep, “The Maid of Orleans taken! . . .  Joan of Arc a prisoner! . . . the savior of France lost to us!”—­and would keep saying that over, as if they couldn’t understand how it could be, or how God could permit it, poor creatures!

You know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to pavement with rustling black?  Then you know what Rouse was like, and some other cities.  But can any man tell you what the mourning in the hearts of the peasantry of France was like?  No, nobody can tell you that, and, poor dumb things, they could not have told you themselves, but it was there—­indeed, yes.  Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with crape!

The 24th of May.  We will draw down the curtain now upon the most strange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has been played upon the stage of the world.  Joan of Arc will march no more.

BOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM

1 The Maid in Chains

I cannot bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of the summer and winter following the capture.  For a while I was not much troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan had been put to ransom, and that the King—­no, not the King, but grateful France—­had come eagerly forward to pay it.  By the laws of war she could not be denied the privilege of ransom.  She was not a rebel; she was a legitimately constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by her King’s appointment, and guilty of no crime known to military law; therefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were proffered.