Still France made no move.  How do I account for this?  I think there is only one way.  You will remember that whenever Joan was not at the front, the French held back and ventured nothing; that whenever she led, they swept everything before them, so long as they could see her white armor or her banner; that every time she fell wounded or was reported killed—­as at Compiegne—­they broke in panic and fled like sheep.  I argue from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet; that at bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of generations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and in their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of treacheries of all sorts—­for their kings had been treacherous to their great vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous to the head of the state and to each other.  The soldiery found that they could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone.  With her gone, everything was gone.  She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and set them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army and all France became what they had been before, mere dead corpses—­that and nothing more; incapable of thought, hope, ambition, or motion.

  2 Joan Sold to the English

My wound gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of October; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength.  All this time there were reports drifting about that the King was going to ransom Joan.  I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the littleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself so much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.

In October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the second one, on the 23d, I was wounded again.  My luck had turned, you see.  On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the disorder and confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into Compiegne, and hobble into my room as pallid and pathetic an object as you would wish to see.

“What?  Alive?  Noel Rainguesson!”

It was indeed he.  It was a most joyful meeting, that you will easily know; and also as sad as it was joyful.  We could not speak Joan’s name.  One’s voice would have broken down.  We knew who was meant when she was mentioned; we could say “she” and “her,” but we could not speak the name.

We talked of the personal staff.  Old D’Aulon, wounded and a prisoner, was still with Joan and serving her, by permission of the Duke of Burgundy.  Joan was being treated with respect due to her rank and to her character as a prisoner of war taken in honorable conflict.  And this was continued—­as we learned later—­until she fell into the hands of that bastard of Satan, Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais.

Noel was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreciations of our old boastful big Standard-Bearer, now gone silent forever, his real and imaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life honorably closed and completed.