Si*
 
 THE DAYS 
 OF JEANNE D'ARC
 
 By Permission of Braun. Clement & Co., New York and Paris. 
 
 JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 FROM THE STATUE BY PAUL DUBOIS
 
 THE DAYS 
 OF JEANNE DARC 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF DOLLARD " 
 "THE WHITE ISLANDER," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1897
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 By THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 THE DE VINNE PRESS.
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 TO A MUCH-LOVED FRENCH-AMERICAN WOMAN 
 MRS. CHARLES HENROTIN 
 
 i^' 
 S
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC
 
 LL France was lighted by an early rising 
 moon, and the village of Bury-la-C6te, 
 seated on a high ridge, seemed to glitter 
 just beneath the sky. There was frost on 
 the square, low church tower, on tight-shut windows, 
 and on the manure-heaps carefully raked into place 
 beside the doors, and held by stone barriers to mellow 
 for the spring fields. 
 
 It was a cold night even for January. Durand 
 Laxart decided, as he unchained his horse, to let the 
 cart stand outside the archway, and lead the poor 
 beast directly into its snug stable in the end of the 
 house. 
 
 He came out again into the moonlight and walked 
 around the muck-barrier to his own door. He was 
 proud of his new house. It had an ogival portal, and 
 above the little window was an ornament in stone 
 shaped like a clover-leaf. But no light shone through 
 i 1
 
 2 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 this window, for a long, dark passage led to the inner 
 room, where his wife and new-born child lay asleep in 
 their cupboard bed. Durand took off his wooden 
 shoes, and carrying them in his hand, tiptoed over 
 the hard, white earthen floor. The woman's brown 
 peasant face, strangely bleached and refined by mother- 
 hood, awed him by its contrast with the coarse wool of 
 her bed. The bed doors stood wide open, their clean 
 panels shining in the firelight. A whole bundle of 
 fagots blazed in the chimney. The white stone mantel, 
 shaped somewhat like a penthouse, and the scoured 
 hearth flags, brightened the dark room, for there was 
 only one window, looking toward the valley of the 
 Meuse. 
 
 He scented his supper in an iron pot on a tripod be- 
 fore the fire. The table stood near the hearth, holding 
 a large knife with which to cut his bread, a wooden 
 drinking-cup/and a flask of red wine ; for in this valley 
 of the Meuse contending armies had not trampled down 
 the vines. 
 
 The woman and the baby continued to sleep. Du- 
 rand slipped on his wooden shoes again, and opened 
 a back door into his garden. There was a steep flight 
 of stone steps, down which he thumped toward a tile- 
 roofed oven. The garden sloped downward, and 
 though it had the desolation of winter upon it, his 
 eye selected the very spot where he would soon begin 
 to dig and plant. Pausing, with his wooden shoes 
 wide apart on the slippery descent, he gazed down the 
 south-stretching valley, the loveliest valley of the 
 Vosges, streaked with ribbons of stubble left by the 
 scanty crops. Plowing and sowing had been irregular
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 3 
 
 work since the English began to trouble France. The 
 soil had a whiteness not given to it by winter rime ; 
 but in the next villages, hid from him by a shoulder 
 of the hill, Goussaincourt and Greux and Domremy, 
 there were black gaps made by raiding Burgundians. 
 The Meuse, in summer almost hid among its marshy 
 islands, now spread from bank to bank, showing a line 
 of ice along its edges. The course of the Meuse was 
 called the march of Lorraine and Champagne, and had 
 long been a place of contention between kings of 
 France and dukes of Burgundy, lying as it did between 
 the two portions of Burgundy. The people of this 
 march had no feudal lord between them and the king ; 
 they were vassals to the King of France alone. This 
 bred a serious and stubborn loyalty, which kept them 
 bound to their sovereign, though isolated from him. 
 For in that year of grace 1429 the kingdom of France 
 had receded before the invading English until its 
 northern line lay far below the ancient capital of Paris, 
 and included only the provinces of Dauphine, Langue- 
 doc, Bourbonnais, PAuvergne, Berri, Poitou, Sain- 
 tange, Touraine, and Orleans. And some of these 
 were crumbling before the incoming tide. All the 
 richest provinces and nearly all the seaports were held 
 by the English. To go into France from the march 
 of Lorraine at that day meant to traverse a wide coun- 
 try overrun by aliens. 
 
 The far ridge beyond the Meuse seemed to draw 
 near in moonlight. All at once there was a sweet 
 clamor of bells drifting from Greux and Domremy, 
 and the church of Bury-la-C6te joined in, chiming the 
 angelus. The man pulled at his cap with a gesture of
 
 4 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 reverence, and slouched into an attitude of devotion. 
 He felt constrained to pray, for at the sound of the 
 bells his wife's cousin, Jeanne d'Arc, came out of the 
 oven-shed with a huge ring of bread in her hands. 
 She slipped the ring upon her arm and joined her 
 palms, bending her forehead to them. While the 
 angelus rang no man could speak a word to little Je- 
 hannette. Though she was full of life, Durand some- 
 times thought her unnaturally religious for so young 
 a creature. But it made her very handy when one 
 had sickness in the house. He was better pleased to 
 have her take care of his wife than to have his own 
 loud-voiced mother continually about. 
 
 As the bells ceased, a faint wailing in the house 
 called them. Jeanne put her ring of bread on the 
 table, and took up the baby, while the mother, roused 
 from sleep, answered her husband with yawning re- 
 sponses : 
 
 " It is nothing but drowsiness that keeps me abed. 
 I shall be up at my spinning by to-morrow." 
 
 "Not to-morrow, Aveline. Isabel Romee says we 
 may keep Jehannette two weeks more. Let her spin 
 for thee. She can spin and sew as well as any maid 
 of her age in the Meuse valley." 
 
 "But if I am able to spin, why should n't I? A 
 man never thinks any woman can get tired of waiting 
 on him. Jehannette may like to stir from the house 
 while she stays." Aveline drew her hand down his 
 winter-reddened cheek. 
 
 " Lie still yet to-night," he insisted ; so she dozed 
 again, while he cut his black bread and emptied the 
 pot into his platter. Then he sat down comfortably to
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 5 
 
 his supper. The earthen floor, as hard as rock, had 
 been brushed speckless with a broom of soft river- 
 grasses. Small joists, crossed by large beams over- 
 head, so low that they almost touched his hair when 
 he stood up, were rich brown in the firelight. There 
 was no candle lighted. Threads of flame wove them- 
 selves among the fagot sticks and rushed up the chim- 
 ney-back. Jeanne sat with the child's swaddled feet 
 toward the blaze, and after blinking at the joists it sunk 
 into the stupid content of its kind. Her face was so 
 young that this maternal care was like the attitude of 
 a child nursing its painted doll. 
 
 Durand poured out his wine, and plunged his fingers 
 into his dish. He glanced at the girl, but her eyes 
 were on the fire, and suddenly he noticed under them 
 the hollows made by weeping. Her face was oval in 
 shape, and the outline of the cheek never changed, 
 but firelight showed the pallor of dejection. The laced 
 bodice of her red peasant dress did not cover the top 
 of her neck ; it was white and childlike compared with 
 the neck of her cousin in the bed. Her hair was 
 twisted into a long knot, but it flew out in halos. The 
 hollow between lower lip and chin was deeply indented, 
 and her chin was pointed rather than round. " 
 
 "What ails thee, Jehannette?" inquired Durand, 
 with quick sympathy and some dread that she had 
 grown tired of waiting on him. 
 
 Jeanne visibly repressed herself. Instead of an- 
 swering she inquired of him: 
 
 " Did you see my father in Domremy to-day ? " 
 
 " I saw him ; ho is well." 
 
 " And my mother ? "
 
 6 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 " Yes ; she is well." 
 
 "AndPierrelo?" 
 
 " Yes ; he sent a kiss for each cheek." 
 
 "Mengette and Jacquemine, you also saw them?" 
 
 "I saw them all, and they all asked when you 
 were coming home ; but Isabel hath promised you to 
 us a little longer. It is not so far from Domremy to 
 Bury-la-C6te," argued Durand; "not two leagues, 
 though they be slow leagues through stiff clay 
 across the prairie. Your foot-path along the hills is 
 quicker." 
 
 " But it is farther to Vaucouleurs," said Jeanne ; " I 
 must go to Vaucouleurs to-morrow." 
 
 "And what would you do at Vaucouleurs?" Du- 
 rand's eye twinkled. "Would you go to take back 
 what you said at Toul?" 
 
 Jeanne's hazel eyes reflected his image with simple 
 candor. 
 
 " No ; I will never take back what I said at Toul." 
 
 " But Bertrand de Poulengy is a fine young fellow. 
 I have heard if we knew more about him it would turn 
 out he was born in a chateau." 
 
 " He should have learned to speak the truth there. 
 He did a wicked thing to take a public oath I had 
 given him my word. I had to go to Toul to deny it 
 before the magistrate. It was very cruel of Bertrand 
 de Poulengy." 
 
 "He wanted thee," chuckled Durand. Nothing 
 amuses a man so much as another man's discomfiture 
 in courtship. " And thy father and mother, they were 
 willing." 
 
 " But I cannot cumber myself with marriage," said
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 7 
 
 Jeanne. Her repressed weeping broke out. "Com- 
 pere 1 Durand, I must go into France." 
 
 The man paused in his eating, holding the meat be- 
 tween his jaws. He had heard of this matter before ; 
 but it had not pierced his marrow with that sweetness 
 of voice and that cry of necessity. "I must go into 
 France ! " Jeanne's voice was spoken about in the 
 valley. When she called to one at a distance, the bell 
 notes expanded, filling the air ; but in talk she spoke 
 low. The woman in the cupboard bed was aware only 
 of the man's hoarser note. 
 
 " Jehannette, thy father has told me he would drown 
 thee with his own hands rather than have thee go away 
 with men-at-arms." 
 
 Jeanne put out one palm to stop him. The firelight 
 showed her long fingers and compact wrist. Tears 
 rushed down her face. 
 
 " My father my dear father ! I would rather be in 
 the fields with him, or by my mother's side spinning, 
 than anywhere in France. But I can no longer help 
 it. For three years I have been commanded, and now 
 I must go." 
 
 " Who commanded thee ? " asked her relative, hold- 
 ing a black bit of liver in his fingers. 
 
 " Attend," said Jeanne, in the manner of the peas- 
 ants of Domremy. Her childish face stiffened with 
 awe. " I was about thirteen when I had a voice from 
 God to help me rule myself. The first time I heard it 
 I was very much afraid. It was in my father's garden 
 at noon in the summer. I had fasted the day before. 
 The voice came from the right hand of the church, 
 1 Godfather, friend, or crony.
 
 8 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 and there was a great light with it. Afterward, if I 
 was in a wood I heard the voice coming to me. When 
 I had heard it three times I knew it was the voice of 
 an angel. It has always kept me well, and I under- 
 stand perfectly what it says." 
 
 "What does it say?" whispered the man. He 
 obeyed habit, and put the bite into his mouth, but 
 held it there with the other meat. Old Choux in 
 Domremy, Jeanne's nearest neighbor, who was so old 
 that people had forgotten his age, was claiming to have 
 a voice also. 
 
 "It says," she lifted both hands and threw them 
 out before her," 'Daughter of God, go, go ! I will 
 be thine aid.' " 
 
 The baby slept in its bands on her lap. The fagots 
 showed that her face was white. Durand ground his 
 food and swallowed it with a gulp; he leaned his 
 elbows on the table. 
 
 " Pucelle, 1 did you see anything in the light ? " 
 
 Jeanne's voice became a thread of sound, one chord, 
 on which she vibrated to him : 
 
 "I saw St. Michael; I saw St. Catherine and St. 
 Margaret." 
 
 " But how did you know it was St. Michael, or St. 
 Catherine and St. Margaret ? " 
 
 " At first I did not know, but St. Michael told me ; 
 he said : ' Go into France ; St. Catherine and St. Mar- 
 garet will aid thee.' I said on my knees : ' How can 
 I go? I know nothing of arms.' He answered: 
 ' Daughter of God, go, go ! I will be thine aid.' " 
 
 Though Durand Laxart had never seen visions, and 
 
 i Maid.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 9 
 
 his wife Aveline had never seen visions or heard voices, 
 he felt a surging of the blood which seemed to clear 
 his brain for new impressions. Jeanne saw that he 
 believed in her. The strained whiteness of her face 
 became a softer pallor, and she wiped her eyes. 
 
 " Compere, have you not always heard that a woman 
 would ruin France, and a maid from the march of 
 Lorraine would rise up and save it 1 n 
 
 Durand nodded his head. He had heard this pro- 
 phecy all his life, and it had already become a common 
 saying that Isabel of Bavaria, the queen, was that 
 woman. 
 
 " The Queen of France is that woman," said Jeanne ; 
 " she has denied her own son, and sold us all to the 
 English. Compere, myself I am that maid from the 
 march of Lorraine. I was born for this purpose. You 
 must take me to Vaucouleurs, to Robert de Baudri- 
 court, and ask him to send me into France. I have to 
 raise the siege of Orleans and take the Dauphin 
 Charles to be crowned at Rheims." 
 
 Durand sat staring at her without speaking. He 
 poured out a cupful of the thin, sour wine, and drank 
 it down. 
 
 She had to raise the siege of Orleans, and take the 
 Dauphin Charles to be crowned at Rheims ! 
 
 It was high time the dauphin was crowned at 
 Rheims, that ancient city of coronation, where nearly 
 every king of France since Clovis had been conse- 
 crated. No subject accepted a king until he had been 
 crowned at Rheims. The loyal people of Poitiers had 
 put a crown upon Charles's head, but his enemies 
 laughed at him, and called him the little King of
 
 10 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 Bourges. And it was high time some power raised 
 the siege of Orleans Orleans, the heart of France, 
 the key to the southern provinces, the last stronghold 
 of the loyal party. 
 
 News traveled slowly, but in those days political 
 facts were stamped on a peasant's mind by the horse- 
 hoofs of raiders. The Duke of Orleans was a prisoner 
 in England. His people, in their extremity, had ap- 
 pealed to his enemy and kinsman, the Duke of , Bur- 
 gundy, to stand betwixt them and the English, and 
 make their territory neutral. The Duke of Burgundy 
 attempted to do this, but his distrustful allies permitted 
 him to protect no French territory except his own. It 
 was hard to be the greatest peer of France, the one 
 whose right it was to place the king's crown on his 
 head and do him first homage, and yet to be con- 
 strained by personal revenge to join hands with he- 
 reditary foes and invaders. The Duke of Burgundy 
 was now sulking in his own domains, and the English 
 intrenchments were closing around Orleans. 
 
 " Compere," continued Jeanne, " when I found my 
 family would never consent, I started by myself one 
 day to go into France; but when I had gone some 
 leagues I knew it was no use. I must be sent by the 
 Captain of Vaucouleurs; St. Catherine and St. Mar- 
 garet have told me what to do." 
 
 " Do you ever see their faces ? " inquired Durand, 
 sinking his voice. 
 
 " I see their faces," spoke Jeanne ; " I see them al- 
 ways in the same form. I do not know if there is 
 anything in the shape of arms or other members 
 figured. They are crowned with beautiful crowns,
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE I?ARC 11 
 
 very rich and very precious. Of their raiment I can- 
 not speak. I know them by the sound of their voices. 
 They are sweet and humble. They speak very well 
 arid in beautiful language, and I understand them 
 perfectly." 
 
 It was an age in which supernatural things were 
 heard of on every side : but Durand had a well-com- 
 pacted body, and lived near the soil; he had never 
 troubled himself about spiritual mysteries. This new 
 attitude of his mind, when he noticed it, astonished 
 him. He did not know why he believed in Jeanne ; 
 he felt as if he were in church, and obliged to do what 
 he was told to do. The baby slept on her lap, with 
 the rapid breathing of infancy. He looked at his little 
 child with an emotional puckering of his face, and at 
 the larger child holding it. His wife had played with 
 Jeanne d'Arc about the spring behind Bermont chapel. 
 His wife was now a young matron ; but this other girl, 
 of unusual physical growth, had yet an innocence like 
 that of a babe. St. Michael, the terrible archangel of 
 battles ; St. Catherine, the martyr of Egypt ; and St. 
 Margaret, the Greek virgin, might have shown them- 
 selves to such a being. 
 
 " But if I take thee to Messire de Baudricourt, Je- 
 hannette," Durand objected, " what will Jacques d'Arc 
 and Isabel Rom6e say to me ? " 
 
 " They will forgive you." 
 
 " They will say I have made them a poor return for 
 the nursing of my wife and child," he continued. 
 
 " If you cannot take me, compere, I must set out by 
 myself on foot to-morrow," she responded. 
 
 " No ; that will never do. I must go along."
 
 12 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 Durand sat frowning over his folded arms while he 
 deliberated. He glanced toward the cupboard bed, 
 and leaned forward to speak between nearly closed 
 lips. 
 
 " Attend, Jehannette. When my mother comes in 
 to-morrow to help Aveline with the child, we will say 
 nothing about Vaucouleurs. They might send word 
 to Jacques and Isabel. I will say I go again to Dom- 
 remy. When you get into the cart they will think you 
 are going home." 
 
 Jeanne heard this proposed deceit without any an- 
 swering smile of caution. 
 
 " I must go, no matter who tries to prevent me. 
 They will forgive you, compere, and they will forgive 
 me when they understand that I was obliged to go." 
 
 " The horse and the cart and I, we will have to stay 
 in Vaucouleurs overnight. Attend, Jehannette," con- 
 tinued Durand, twitching the lid of one of his pleasant 
 eyes. " I will say that I may have to go even as far 
 as Neufchateau to-morrow. It is a bad time of the 
 year to travel, and I cannot get back the same night." 
 
 As he laid plans to hoodwink his family, Durand's 
 big finger traced a map on the table, with the villages 
 in their actual position, leaving out the intermediate 
 ones which had nothing to do with the matter : Vau- 
 couleurs first, in the north ; then Bury-la-C6te ; Dom- 
 remy farther down the valley of the Meuse; and 
 farthest south of all, Neufchateau. The cunning ex- 
 pression on the honest man's face made Jeanne laugh. 
 The tears were scarcely dry on her cheeks, but her 
 whole figure was elastic with relief. 
 
 " We must tell the truth, compere ; I think Aveline
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 13 
 
 and your mother ought to know that we go to Vau- 
 couleurs." 
 
 Duraiid regarded her attentively, and nodded his 
 head. "Eh, well; if you think it best, I will tell 
 Aveline and my mother. But the next thing to be 
 considered is, where will you stay at night in Vaticou- 
 leurs ? " 
 
 "I have thought about the wife of Henri Royer 
 the wheelwright," answered Jeanne. "She was my 
 mother's friend when they were both pucelles in 
 Vauthon." 
 
 " Her house will be the place for you. Have you 
 ever seen her ? " 
 
 " Only once, when she came to Domremy in a new 
 cart, before men-at-arms overran the country. It was 
 before our Catherine died. Aveline and I were not old 
 enough to tend the sheep. She gave us all a good wel- 
 come to her house." 
 
 " It will do," said Durand, with satisfaction ; " and 
 now go to bed, Jehannette, for we must get up early 
 to make this journey." 
 
 Drawing the child's clumsy cradle to its place beside 
 the cupboard bed, Jeanne tucked the little bundle in, 
 and put away the remains of Durand's supper on the 
 shelves of a closet beside the chimney. She then 
 washed the ware which he had used, and set the cup 
 back on the clean table beside the unfinished bottle. 
 
 To reach her bed she was obliged to go out of the 
 back door into the garden and enter another room. 
 She went without any light except the abundant 
 splendor of the moon. It was to a fireless best cham- 
 ber, as chill as the walls of a tomb ; but her face laughed
 
 14 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 in the closing doorway as she bade her kinsman and 
 helper good night. 
 
 "Good night, Jehannette," answered Durand, and 
 he poured out another cup of the thin wine, and leaned 
 over the dying fagots. " Oh, yes ; I will tell Aveline 
 and my mother," he said to himself, rubbing his knee, 
 and grinning ; " but I will tell them what I please, and 
 it will not be that I go in the direction of Vaucouleurs. 
 A man ought to have at least one lie on his conscience 
 when he goes to confession. I have recently been too 
 good myself." 
 
 It was not the lie which troubled him most all next 
 day. 
 
 VAUCOULEURS, valley of colors, built on a hillside 
 above the Meuse, was a walled town, one of the faith- 
 ful little citadels holding out for the Dauphin Charles. 
 The river-meadows below are wide, and clouds seem 
 always to be leaning on those Vosges hills, which roll 
 in undulating uplands against the sky. The early 
 blue twilight of winter had already begun to blur 
 leafless thickets on the islands and those ribbons and 
 squares of stubble which showed where the valley 
 crops had been and the plowman had not, when Du- 
 rand Laxart drove his horse between the southern 
 gate-towers. Flakes of stiffened mud fell from the 
 cart-wheels on the small paving-stones of the principal 
 street ; dirty water stood chilled in the stone gutters. 
 Vaucouleurs, like other towns, threw its worst out of 
 the front door, and saved its best for the garden at 
 the back. Crooked and winding streets, so narrow 
 that a cart filled them from wall to wall, ascended and
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 15 
 
 descended in every direction. The chateau of the 
 Captain of Vaucouleurs was up the height, and its 
 battlements and square towers could be seen far down 
 the valley. Jeanne had watched it while horse and 
 cart plodded over stretches of the white mire into 
 which those stony hills dissolved their dust. She still 
 looked upward, half muffling her face in her woolen 
 wrappings, as Durand stopped in an open square and 
 searched for Royer's house. 
 
 " They told us at the gate that it faced north a 
 high, narrow house with a yellow door. There it is," 
 said he, indicating a door with his whip. He turned 
 the horse's head. 
 
 " But I must go first to Messire Robert de Baudri- 
 court," said Jeanne. 
 
 " Not without a bite to eat or a fagot to warm by ? " 
 
 " I am too warm, compere ; I am full of blood. And 
 I cannot eat until Messire de Baudricourt has heard 
 what I have to tell him." 
 
 "Eh, well," grumbled Durand; "but consider the 
 horse. I say nothing ; fasting is good for my soul : 
 but the poor beast has no soul to be benefited, and he 
 needs stable and provender." 
 
 " Then, compere, let me stand here while you stable 
 the horse and take a message to Henri Royer's wife. 
 I cannot speak to any one before I have spoken to 
 Messire de Baudricourt." 
 
 Durand would have descended from the cart, but 
 Jeanne let herself lightly down by the iron step. Then 
 he rattled across the square, and she stood waiting. 
 
 Some children in wooden shoes made a great noise 
 in the street as they ran past with a dog. They looked
 
 16 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 at her, but felt too abashed to say good day to a 
 stranger who did not appear to see them. Few women 
 looked out of the closed windows. Candles began to 
 show. 
 
 EGBERT DE BAUDRICOURT, the Captain of Vaucou- 
 leurs, was sitting at his supper when a soldier came in 
 and made salutation. Enjoyment of his fire and cheer- 
 ful table never relaxed this portly captain of an isolated 
 and dangerous post. The Burgundians were more to 
 be dreaded than the English in his part of the kingdom, 
 but matters were growing so bad that everything was 
 to be dreaded. 
 
 " News, my man ? " he inquired, with an alert turn 
 of the head. 
 
 "There are two peasants at the gate, messire the 
 captain. The woman says she has an urgent message 
 for you." 
 
 " Troopers are probably out over the valley again. 
 Bring her in and let us hear what she has to say." 
 
 He went on hastily with his supper, for arming and 
 saddling might be the very next business. At the 
 sound of wooden shoes he looked up, and saw a bare- 
 headed peasant, abashed and reluctant, leading into the 
 room a young maid in a bodice and petticoat of the 
 coarse cloth spun and woven in the valley. Her bodice 
 was laced up toward her neck. Baudricourt noticed 
 that her face was white even to the lips. He expected 
 to hear of a house sacked and a family slaughtered. 
 
 " Good evening to both," said the captain ; " I hope 
 you bring no evil news." 
 
 "No, messire the captain," spoke Jeanne j "I bring
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 17 
 
 you good news. St. Michael and St. Catherine and St. 
 Margaret have sent me to you." 
 
 Baudricourt wheeled around in his chair. In all his 
 military experience he had never had any dealings 
 with saints. It was his opinion that the beneficent 
 powers, if any existed, had washed their hands of 
 France. There was not a more distressed kingdom on 
 the face of the earth. The very princes of the blood 
 had trampled it in their quarrels. For years a lunatic 
 king and a dissolute queen had represented its govern- 
 ment. And now that Charles VI was dead, his heir 
 the dauphin was disinherited by the treaty of Troyes, 
 which bound the queen and the Duke of Burgundy to 
 the party of young Henry of England. Paris was the 
 capital of invaders. The whole realm was desolated 
 by long-continued war. And now Orleans was about 
 to fall into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 " Who are you ? " inquired Baudricourt, bending his 
 eyebrows at Jeanne. Robert de Baudricourt never 
 seemed a clean-shaven man ; he bristled fresh from his 
 toilet. 
 
 " I am the maid sent from God." a 
 
 " What 's your name ? " 
 
 "Jeanne d'Arc; but in my country they call me 
 Jehannette." 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 " I want you, messire, to send me to the Dauphin 
 Charles. I have to raise the siege of Orleans, and take 
 him to be crowned at Rheims." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! " roared Baudricourt. " Why 
 do you come to me with such a tale as this? You 
 fellow with her, who are you ? "
 
 18 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 " I am her cousin, messire the captain." 
 
 "Her relative, are you? Has she no father and 
 mother?" 
 
 " Yes, messire the captain." 
 
 "Then take her home to them, and tell them to 
 give her a good whipping. St. Michael and St. Cathe- 
 rine and St. Margaret ! " repeated Baudricourt, cutting 
 his bread with a blow. " Go home and spin and mind 
 your sheep, and don't come to me with your archangels 
 and saints and coronations! Tell her father and 
 mother to give her a good whipping ! "
 
 II 
 
 HE winter air of the courtyard did not 
 cool Durand's burning chagrin at having 
 taken a step which brought a young pu- 
 celle to such treatment. The peasants of 
 the Meuse valley had never learned to cringe to a 
 feudal lord, but Robert de Baudricourt represented 
 the king among them. Durand took Jeanne by the 
 elbow to lead her away. Her father's resentment, 
 which had followed him all day, now approached and 
 hung over him. Domremy and Vaucouleurs were 
 almost the extreme boundaries of his world. He was 
 angry; yet nothing kills faith in the unseen like ridicule. 
 Durand could see the quaking of Jeanne's figure, 
 and hear the indrawing of her breath, as she wept in 
 her wrappings. Twilight lingered here when darkness 
 lay in the lap of the valley. The soldier who had led 
 them into the chateau could also see her going with 
 bowed head from Baudricourt's abuse. He looked 
 after her with a puzzled smile, but Durand's compas- 
 sion was like a woman's. 
 
 "Come home to Royer's house, pucelle; they are 
 ready to give thee good treatment there. I blame 
 
 19
 
 20 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 myself for this. Such a thing shall never happen to 
 thee again." 
 
 While he talked at her side, Jeanne turned to the 
 chapel which stood facing Baudricourt's quarters. 
 Durand followed her, his shoes clumping on the flags. 
 He was afraid Baudricourt would send some curt 
 envoy after the maid and hale her out, and was glad 
 that the open door showed little except a dusky in- 
 terior. But when Jeanne saw there was no light, she 
 turned and followed some steps which led down into 
 a crypt. Durand felt along the wall as he clumsily 
 kept on her track, and descended to a corridor which 
 ended beside an arched door. The crypt chapel had 
 floor and vaulted ceiling of white stone, and he could 
 distinguish small carved faces set like rosettes around 
 the supporting pillars. "Walls swam in dimness, but 
 there was a cup of crimson light on the altar between 
 the statues. Jeanne was kneeling before it. That 
 was always her way. Aveline had told him that 
 Jeanne used to leave her playmates dancing by Ber- 
 mont spring, or listening to some delicious tale like 
 " The Bed Children," as red as melted iron, and slip 
 up to Bermont chapel to pray. " And what was there 
 in Bermont chapel?" said Aveline. "Nothing but a 
 painted wooden image of the Virgin and Child, the 
 Child holding a bird in his hand." 
 
 Durand stood by the door and waited until his 
 charge was ready to rise up and come away. As for 
 himself, he felt more like swearing than praying. 
 
 They were both silent as they went down hill $ but 
 when they reached the square before Royer's house he 
 suggested :
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 21 
 
 " We must get up early in the morning to start to 
 Bury-la-C6te." 
 
 " Yes, you go back, compere ; Aveline expects you ; 
 but I have to stay here until Robert de Baudricourt 
 sends me into France." 
 
 " He will never do it, Jehannette." 
 
 " Yes, he will do it ; I must go to him until he does 
 do it." 
 
 "You shall not stay here among strangers, to be 
 railed at by the Captain of Vaucouleurs ; that I will 
 not myself allow." 
 
 "Compere, I have to go into France. Robert de 
 Baudricourt will be obliged to send me. St. Catherine 
 and St. Margaret have told me that." 
 
 "Jehannette, come home; I do not know how to 
 face Jacques and Isabel." 
 
 "You must let me be, compere; I cannot turn 
 back." 
 
 Merely walking in her company seemed to infect 
 him again with her visions; every step took him 
 farther from Baudricourt's contempt. 
 
 " Royer's wife has a good welcome ready for you ; 
 but Jacques d'Arc shall never say I brought his maid 
 here and left her to shift for herself. I am obliged to 
 go home, but I will come back again in a week." 
 
 "Tell my father," said Jeanne, quickly, "it will be 
 no use to follow me." 
 
 "I shall keep myself out of the way of Jacques 
 d'Arc till this business is settled." 
 
 " But if Aveline sends him word he will surely fol- 
 low me." 
 
 " I do not think she will send him word, Jehannette.
 
 22 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 My opinion is," added Durand, under his breath, " she 
 has no word to send." 
 
 IN a week Durand Laxart came back to Vaucouleurs, 
 and found Jeanne spinning by the side of Rover's wife. 
 The shadows were heavier under her eyes, and the 
 oval of her face had grown more wan. 
 
 " She is the best pucelle I ever saw," declared her 
 guardian to Durand, after taking him into another 
 room and setting food before him. "All day she is 
 either spinning with me or on her knees in the chapel." 
 
 " Has she been to messire the captain again ? " 
 
 " My faith, yes ! And I never thought to stand by 
 and hear such railing as he put upon her. But to-day 
 he came down here with the priest and a censer, and 
 they exorcised her for an evil spirit. Par examp' ! " 
 cried Beyer's wife ; " did you ever hear of such a thing 
 as exorcising a child like that for an evil spirit ! " 
 
 " She is no more under possession than is my bap- 
 tized infant," said Durand, with strong disapproval. 
 
 " And that messire the cure saw when he bade her 
 approach. She fell on her knees, and went so across 
 the stone floor, and she laughed in their faces, the dear 
 child, at their foolishness." 
 
 " Have you heard whether messire the captain will 
 send her into France ? " 
 
 " He says he will not, and he will have her punished 
 if she comes up to the chateau to trouble him again. 
 But my husband has told me a messenger went out 
 several days ago to the dauphin at Chinon, giving in- 
 formation about her, and asking what shall be done 
 with her."
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ABC 23 
 
 Durand felt his heart sink, for in every Christian 
 realm the fate of accused sorcerers was the stake. 
 
 He did not talk much with Jeanne, but sat and 
 looked at her silently. The week had changed her. 
 She noticed her surroundings less. She was waiting 
 with all her body and spirit. Durand felt hurt that 
 she did not inquire about the baby ; all the children 
 in Doinremy and Bury-la-C6te used to hang about her 
 petticoat, she took such pleasure in them. 
 
 Next morning he walked the streets of Vaucouleurs 
 instead of going to chat in Beyer's shop. Vaucouleurs 
 was his great capital. Ho never expected to see any- 
 thing finer. The gray-tiled roofs were more venerable 
 to him here than the same kind of roofs in Bury-la- 
 C6te. There was a white glare from the white soil 
 which smote on the eyes even when the sun did not 
 shine out. Beyond the western wall he could see the 
 Meuse in its meadows, and then the long ridge beyond, 
 bearing up sear vineyards which in a month would 
 begin to quicken with vines. 
 
 On the terrace of street where Durand clumped 
 aimlessly along some public theme fermented. The 
 air had a mild and springlike touch, and people came 
 out of their houses. He saw through an open window 
 half a dozen or more maids sitting close together with 
 their little wheels, and caught the names St. Catherine 
 and St. Margaret. 
 
 He saw two women with children in their arms meet 
 on a corner, and nod white caps, as one of them pointed 
 toward Royer's house. 
 
 The street was choked with huge wagons woven of 
 unpeeled boughs into the shape of enormous baskets,
 
 24 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 oblong and rounded, heaped with charred sticks. 
 Three horses with bells on their high yokes were 
 hitched in a line before each load. The charcoal- 
 burners were bringing in the product of their labor, 
 thankful to be within closed gates, safe from wanton 
 despoiling. They marched bareheaded beside their 
 horses, cracking their whips, each with a black smock 
 over his woolens descending almost to his wooden 
 shoes. The first man encountered a group in mid- 
 street that the touch of a horse's nose did not scatter. 
 He shouted warning, but the foremost horse was will- 
 ing to halt, and yoke after yoke ceased swaying and 
 filling the narrow track with melody. The drivers all 
 came up open-mouthed when they had rested a few 
 minutes ; for the talk was about raising the siege of 
 Orleans, and taking the dauphin to be crowned at 
 Rheims, and a maid who wanted to be sent into 
 France. 
 
 " She says she must go," declared a mercer, who had 
 his shears hanging to his neck by a cord. He also 
 was smocked for his labor behind the counter. "I 
 never, heard anything so strange as a young pucelle 
 wanting to leave her family to go where there is so 
 much bloodshed." 
 
 "There will be more bloodshed, and one will not 
 have to go far to see it," said a man who carried a 
 quill behind his ear, and wore instead of the blouse 
 or smock a short, close garment called a hardy-coat, 
 buttoned its entire length in front. " If the dauphin 
 could get soldiers from Scotland, what port is there 
 open to land them in?" He moved his large, light 
 eyes from face to face. \
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 25 
 
 "What pucelle wants to leave her family and go 
 into France ? " inquired one of the charcoal-burners. 
 
 " It is a young pucelle from Domremy," answered a 
 baker, pushing his white cap awry with the back of 
 his hand. " The women in Vaucouleurs say there is 
 nothing to be spoken against her. She pays no atten- 
 tion to anything but her prayers and her spinning. 
 She wants Messire de Baudricourt to send her to the 
 dauphin." 
 
 "Is there not an old saying," asked the charcoal- 
 burner, " that a maid from the march of Lorraine is 
 to save France ? " 
 
 The men all turned as if surprised by an echo. The 
 old saying had been many times repeated that week 
 in Vaucouleurs. The man in the hardy-coat took the 
 quill from behind his ear, and poised it as if about to 
 write his words on the faces of the others. He was a 
 distinguished person : he could both read and write. 
 Writing legal papers was his business; and though 
 among nobles his calling was despised, it gave him 
 some authority in a remote place like Vaucouleurs, 
 " I believe she is the maid. It will be as little as the 
 town of Vaucouleurs can do to fit her out for the 
 journey." 
 
 " En nom De ! n exclaimed a smith, " if the saints 
 send her into France, let her go ! Here is the fist that 
 will shoe her horse free of charge." 
 
 " It is Messire de Baudricourt who will decide that," 
 said the mercer ; " but I have good gray Flemish cloth 
 on my shelves." 
 
 " There she goes to the chapel crypt again to pray," 
 said the baker. Dough stuck to the nail of his point-
 
 26 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 ing finger. " They let her in at the fortress gate for 
 that. She goes three times every day." 
 
 They all stood silent, watching Jeanne ascend a 
 flight of stone stairs to the winding track by which 
 the chateau was reached. Her shrinking, muffled 
 figure had already taken on for them a kind of re- 
 ligious sanctity. 
 
 As she turned the wall she came face to face with 
 a middle-aged knight. He wore no armor except 
 a heart-shaped cuirass or breastplate buckled with 
 leather straps over the front of his close-fitting habit ; 
 a sword hung from his belt. Jeanne held her woolen 
 covering by one hand under her chin ; not a bit of her 
 hair showed. The face, with its clear eyebrows and 
 delicate, round-lipped mouth, was so sweet and deter- 
 mined that if he had not taken up its cause before he 
 must have been moved to do so now. 
 
 "Pardon, pucelle," said the knight. He put his 
 hand on his cap. "I am Jean de Metz, seignior of 
 Novelopont, one of Captain de Baudricourt's officers. 
 I know why you are here, and I would willingly help 
 you." 
 
 " Messire, everybody in Vaucouleurs knows why I 
 am here. I am waiting for Robert de Baudricourt to 
 send me into France. I must reach the dauphin before 
 Easter, if I wear off my legs to my knees." 
 
 Her low voice stirred De Metz like a call to arms. 
 He stood looking at her with his cap off. His hair, 
 betwixt black and gray in color, was cut straight 
 around below his ears, and being of a strong growth, 
 flared outward. The dazzling light of the uplands 
 printed benevolent wrinkles about his eyes. His chin
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 27 
 
 stood forward even when he lowered it toward his 
 breast, and it gave force to his smile and words. 
 
 " Pucelle, I will, on my own venture, take you to the 
 dauphin. Messire the captain will not forbid that." 
 
 "Messire de Metz, I thank you for your good will; 
 but I must be sent from the governor of my own 
 country. Bitterly have I learned that. My counsel 
 have bid me to wait."] 
 
 " And who are your counsel ? " 
 
 " St. Michael and St. Catherine and St. Margaret." 
 
 " Do you hear their actual voices, pucelle ? " 
 
 " Yes, many, many times. But it is when the church 
 bells ring that they speak to me clearest." 
 
 " But how can you hear voices through a clamor of 
 bells?" 
 
 The reticence of one whose dearest secret is touched 
 appeared in Jeanne's face. Her eyes pitied him for 
 not understanding. 
 
 " The voices are clearest then," she repeated. " They 
 often come among Christians who do not hear or see 
 them." 
 
 De Metz had never served in the dissolute rabble of 
 Southern soldiers and mercenaries. He thought it 
 was his own softness which melted before her. Yet 
 he realized all the enormous force carried by a person 
 with one idea. 
 
 " When you go to the dauphin," he offered, " I will 
 be your knight, and commander of your party." 
 
 " Messire knight, you have given me comfort ; but 
 I have no comfort to send to Robert de Baudricourt. 
 Tell him that my counsel have told me this day the 
 French have suffered a defeat near Orleans, and it
 
 28 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 might have been prevented. And worse will come 
 unless I am allowed to do what I am sent to do." 
 
 She made him a peasant's reverence, and went on 
 up the hill ; and he went down, resting his left hand 
 on his sword-hilt, and staring at the stony soil. The 
 walls made a sheltered reservoir in which air settled 
 warm from the sun. 
 
 De Metz passed the staircase which Jeanne had 
 ascended, and winding on, he came to a narrow turn 
 between houses. A young man whom the knight did 
 not know stepped before him there. The young man 
 pulled off his cap. If he had not been well dressed in 
 a close hardy-coat belted around his hips, and the 
 same kind of long cloth trunk-hose and leather shoes 
 as De Metz himself wore, the knight might have taken 
 him for a bold footpad. Yet at second glance he had 
 a handsome young face. He was well made and he 
 was blue-eyed, an unusual thing in rugged Lorraine. 
 
 "Messire, I want to speak a word with you," said 
 the young man. 
 
 " Speak," responded De Metz. He was at first not 
 inclined to stop, but he did stop. 
 
 " Messire, I know you to be the knight of Novelo- 
 pont. I am a free-born man. My father has a holding 
 of land in Neufchateau. Before my time we were 
 better than innkeepers. My name is Bertrand de 
 Poulengy. You were talking yonder with a young 
 pucelle." 
 
 De Metz glanced backward as if the shadows of 
 Jeanne and himself were still standing by the wall. 
 
 " Do you know her ? " he inquired. " I thought she 
 was from Domremy village, not Neufchateau."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 29 
 
 "She is from Domremy village, messire. I am 
 going to tell you the truth. I was a fool. When the 
 raiders came two years ago, and the people were driven 
 from Domremy to Neufchateau, her family lodged with 
 us. You may not know it, messire the knight, but 
 there is no one like her in the world. She helped my 
 mother when we were thronged, and she was so humble 
 and so kind that even before they went home again I 
 began to think I should die if I could not get her. 
 But we were both young, and my father obliged me to 
 wait awhile before he made the proposals. Messire, 
 her family were willing, but she would not marry at 
 all." He hung down his head. 
 
 "Never mind, my lad; never mind. There are 
 plenty of maids for wives in the world. This one has 
 set her heart on other things." 
 
 " That is not it, messire. I was like a crazy man. 
 Some said she was so timid and modest that if I took 
 oath she had given me her promise she would not dare 
 deny it, and everything would go well after we were 
 once married. I thought about it day and night. 
 Then I went to her mother, and her mother was so 
 terrified by the pucelle's talk about going into France 
 that we both thought such a sin might be forgiven. 
 So I went to Toul and took oath before a magistrate." 
 
 "My faith, you were a persistent man," said De 
 Metz, with contempt. 
 
 "Yes, you will find me that," answered Bertrand, 
 lifting his head. " Messire, she went to Toul herself, 
 and on her oath denied it. It was a hard thing for a 
 young pucelle to do. I put that mortification upon 
 her. There is no excuse for me. I was a fool to think
 
 30 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 I could get her. Messire, I want to be her squire or 
 servant if she is sent to Chinon to the dauphin." 
 
 " Do you think a man who has perjured himself is 
 a fit man to be squire and servant to a good maid ? " 
 
 The boy's appealing eyes took all the sternness out 
 of De Metz's question. 
 
 "Messire, if you had ever been that way, you 
 would not judge me at my worst." 
 
 "But if you were in her party you might grow 
 worse that way," suggested the knight. 
 
 " I can never think again, messire, that if she would 
 take a husband she would ever look at me. But even 
 my father and mother understand I have to go to the 
 wars. You are older than I am, messire, and perhaps 
 you have wife and children ? " 
 
 "No, I have none," said Jean de Metz. 
 
 " I have taken another oath," said Bertrand, " and 
 this oath is a true one. I will follow her if she goes 
 to the wars, and take all the care of her that a man 
 may. She is more than wife and children and friends 
 and home to me. Messire, she is religion to me now." 
 
 Though De Metz's experience extended little further 
 than Bertrand's, he dimly recognized the cry of that 
 age in the boy's declaration. It was the exalting of a 
 virgin, chivalry and religion strangely met. Political 
 divisions had resulted from it. Dominican friars, who 
 opposed the dogma of the immaculate conception, had 
 been expelled from the court of the late king ; while 
 Franciscans, who zealously upheld the dogma, became 
 identified with the loyal party. The Duke of Bur- 
 gundy protected the Dominicans, and they turned 
 with him to the English cause.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 31 
 
 "I mil do this much, my lad," said De Metz; "I 
 will recommend you to messire the captain. But a 
 man makes his own reputation in arms. Have you a 
 horse ? " 
 
 "Yes; I came here on a horse of my own. My 
 father gave me enough to fit me out. There is no 
 other child at home." 
 
 " That is hard for your father and mother." 
 
 " But they were willing to let me go." 
 
 " Did you hear of the maid so far down the valley f ' 
 
 " No ; I did not know she was here until I came to 
 Vaucouleurs. But her family have been afraid for 
 two years that she would go into France." 
 
 THE news was spreading, however, as far down the 
 valley as Domremy. Durand Laxart's wife got down 
 from a cart, and took her child from the hands of the 
 neighbor who had given her the lift. Her uncle, 
 Jacques d'Arc, came from the fagot-stack to meet her. 
 He had gentle, dark eyes and a face of lovable keen- 
 ness. The winter day was so mild that he had been 
 at work bareheaded, and his yellow-ivory skin showed 
 hundreds of little cross-lines enmeshing his small 
 mouth, which was like his daughter's, with a sweet 
 and wistful expression. This look changed to appre- 
 hension as he carried Aveline's baby in. 
 
 The house was a shed-shaped stone cottage with the 
 roof sloping from a height on one side half-way to the 
 ground on the other. At one corner of the low side 
 Jeanne's little window looked directly at the church. 
 Aveline noticed the church while she followed her 
 uncle. The door was partly charred, and there were
 
 32 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 patches in the roof. A new low tower replaced the 
 high square tower which had been there before the 
 Burgundians swept the valley. 
 
 Aveline's small forehead was drawn with puzzled 
 anxiety, and it tightened as Jacques d'Arc inquired : 
 
 " But where is Jehannette ? " 
 
 She hurried before him into the house, and looked 
 about as if she must find the answer there. The 
 earthen floor and the stone mantel were white. There 
 was a wrought-iron plate to keep the back of the fire- 
 place from crumbling with heat, and it glowed rosy 
 behind the fagots. Isabel Romee's andirons, which 
 were her pride and inheritance, three feet high, with 
 cups at the top for brewing posset, and hooks in front 
 for bars, held the fagots in place and some meat sus- 
 pended from a bar roasting for dinner. The father 
 had watched Jeanne's head rise year by year and over, 
 top these andirons. He remembered more than one 
 night when she had slept on the floor before the great 
 guardians of the hearth, giving up the daughter's 
 chamber to refugees made houseless by raiders. With 
 the self-control of habit, he stooped and turned the meat 
 before laying Aveline's precious bundle in her arms. 
 
 " Here is your child ; now where is mine ? " 
 
 " My uncle Jacques, is Jehannette not here at all ? " 
 persisted Aveline, turning her head like a hen. 
 
 " How could she be here and also in Bury-la-C6te ? 
 We lent her to you," accused Jacques. 
 
 " Did not my husband bring her home more than a 
 week ago ? " 
 
 " She has not been seen in this house since she went 
 to nurse you."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE IVAKC 33 
 
 Aveline began to cry. 
 
 " Then it is true that Durand Laxart went to Vaiu 
 couleurs the first time as well as the second time. I 
 heard them talking about Vaucouleurs while I was 
 asleep, but he told me he was going to Neufchateau 
 and would bring Jehannette home. She herself told 
 me nothing. I thought she wanted to see her mother." 
 
 Jacques set his hands in his thin hair. His face 
 bleached while she spoke, nostrils and jaw-lines show- 
 ing for a moment as in a death's-head. 
 
 " My child has gone into France ! Durand Laxart 
 has taken my child to Vaucouleurs, and let her go into 
 France ! " 
 
 He flung the door open, and ran toward the Meuse, 
 his wisp-like legs threatening to snap with the weight 
 of his wooden shoes. Aveline, rolling in her short 
 petticoat, ran after him, holding the baby, and making 
 audible noises as her tears increased and her breath 
 shortened. 
 
 The ice was gone from the edges of the Meuse, and 
 a practised eye might note reviving life in the flat 
 islands. Near the bridge was a deep pool, and two 
 women had set their box-shaped washing-tables, open 
 at one side, in the water's edge, and were kneeling at 
 their labor. The sound of their paddles could be 
 heard along the valley, as they beat and turned and 
 dipped and beat again the coarse, dark woolens of 
 their families. One was a large-framed woman ; she 
 wore a white cap on her auburn-and-gray head. The 
 other was a girl, and though the winter sun shone 
 directly in her face, she kneeled bareheaded. She had 
 a countenance which seemed to shine with rapturous
 
 34 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 contentment, and impressed the beholder as purely 
 blonde. It was afterward a surprise to see that her 
 hair was black and her skin really dark, and that it 
 was only a whiteness of expression. 
 
 "How do you get along, Mengette?" inquired the 
 woman. 
 
 " It is nearly clean now. I wish I could put Choux 
 in the river and wash him." 
 
 11 He grows fouler as he grows older," remarked the 
 woman. " This water, is it not cold for thee ? " 
 
 " No colder for me than for you, godmother Romee," 
 answered the girl. A woman kept her own name in 
 marriage, and the wife of Jacques d'Arc was always 
 called Isabel Romee of Vauthon. 
 
 "But I am hardy. I can cleanse woolens at the 
 river when most other women keep the house. I 
 would rather spread garments on the bushes when 
 snow flies than have them lying foul." 
 
 They heard a cart rolling over the bridge, and looked 
 up. It was a stranger's head passing along the para- 
 pet. Cart-wheels were not so startling as the sudden 
 clatter of horsemen. Every villager lived ready to 
 seize his goods and drive his flocks for safety up in 
 the hills. 
 
 " That was Jehannette's way also," said Mengette ; 
 "we have had many a good time bleaching clothes 
 together at the river. Her cousin keeps her too long, 
 godmother. Why don't you command her home 
 again ? " 
 
 "We foolishly promised Durand; but I am going 
 to-morrow to see her myself." 
 
 "Are you going in the cart?"
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 35 
 
 " No ; the lads must get more fagots in while this 
 weather holds good. I am going by the hill path." 
 
 " Then let me go with you, godmother. I can set 
 Choux's dinner for liim on the table, and we can reach 
 home by twilight." 
 
 " It will be very good to have you," said Isabel, and 
 their paddles brought echoes from the hills opposite. 
 
 " I will tell Aveline that when her little maid grows 
 up she will find how hard it is to lend her and doubly 
 lend her out of the house. Jehannette must come 
 home with us ; it will not do any longer." 
 
 She heard a noise in the alluvial hollow, and turned, 
 to face Aveline and Jacques and the calamity. 
 
 Isabel struggled to her feet. 
 
 " Where is Jehannette ? " she demanded. 
 
 " I am going to Vaucouleurs," answered Jacques. 
 
 Isabel flew at her husband, and caught his wrists, 
 falling, on her knees. She begged him not to tell her 
 that her child was gone. Her bare red arms and 
 hands, and her face burned by many a day in the 
 fields, lost their strength in a moment, and hung on 
 the slighter man. Jacques held her against him as 
 she kneeled, hushing her cries, and straightening her 
 cap, while he formed his lips piteously for an ungiven 
 kiss. 
 
 " I am going to Vaucouleurs," he repeated ; " I am 
 going to saddle the horse. Pierre and Jacquemine will 
 stay here with thce." 
 
 " Oh, Aveline, it is not true that my child has gone 
 into France ! You have not let her poison our old age 
 and kill us ! We lent her to you in a time of need. 
 Give me back my Jehannette ! "
 
 36 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Aveline, suffering for her husband's act, hid her face 
 from Isabel, and mourned aloud. Mengette helped 
 Isabel to stand up, and supported her on one side. 
 That serene look which had made Mengette Jeanne's 
 favorite did not pass from her face with the dripping 
 of tears. The quick and helpful little creature put her 
 nervous strength to the mother's sagging body, and 
 when the wretched procession was in the house Men- 
 gette returned to finish the clothes and carry them 
 away to spread. The blow was heavy upon her. 
 Mengette had not much in the world which she could 
 afford to lose. She was a stepchild of fortune, but 
 she had always cheated the sour dame by her own 
 temperament, and got the best out of everything. 
 
 Jeanne had slept with her in her own bed, and she 
 looked back now at their simple talks about life and 
 religion and angels. Neither girl knew that maids 
 usually talked more about men than about angels. It 
 made Mengette very comfortable to be with Jeanne. 
 But lately she knew her friend had gone beyond her. 
 She could not herself understand how any maid could 
 feel impelled toward war ; and as to being spoken to 
 by saints, Mengette prayed that such a thing might 
 never happen to her. She could take care of the house 
 and her geese, and sew and spin, and tend Choux as 
 long as it pleased Heaven to let him last ; but if a saint 
 had spoken to her out of the clouds she must have died 
 of fright. 
 
 Jacques d'Arc was on his horse galloping to Vau- 
 couleurs, and Isabel lay prostrate in the cupboard bed, 
 with Aveline to wait on her. The lonely little worker 
 kept to her double task at the river. At noon it was
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 37 
 
 growing colder, and her heart was heavy. The plea- 
 sure of washing in the villages was in the meeting of 
 many women, and chattering and laughter and news- 
 telling between the thump, thump of the clothes-beater. 
 
 When everything was wrung out she piled the large 
 pannier up until it towered over her head, then she 
 lifted it to her back, thrusting her arms into the plaited 
 handles. Mengette was obliged to steady herself care- 
 fully to keep from tipping backward. As she turned 
 her face to the ascent she saw Jeanne's two brothers 
 coming over the bridge with a cart-load of fagots. 
 Oxen drew the cart, moving almost silently between 
 parapets where it was impossible to run aside or rebel 
 against the head-yoke. The labors which belonged to 
 other seasons were done then as men had opportunity 
 to do them. Sowing and reaping, tying up vines, 
 burning charcoal, and bringing in fuel, had not the 
 old regularity. Though the valley of the Meuse was 
 remote from the track of the invaders, it was the direct 
 route between the two portions of Burgundy. And 
 there were armed bands gathering in all parts of the 
 kingdom, mercenaries who had shaken [off military 
 service and really taken to the trade of robbers. Some 
 of them yet wore the badge of the Armagnacs, as the 
 dauphin's party was called, and others wore the badge 
 of the English. These wolves of war penetrated every- 
 where. What Domremy had suffered from the Bur- 
 gundians was never forgotten. 
 
 Pierre walked ahead of Jacquemine, cracking the 
 whip. It was always Pierre and Jacquemine, never 
 Jacquemine and Pierre, though Jacquemine was the 
 eldest of the family. Jean, the second brother, was
 
 38 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 already married and settled in Ids mother's house at 
 Vauthon. He seemed no longer to be of the family, 
 for his wife's people had absorbed him; Pierre and 
 Jacquemine were the sons at home. Pierre was a 
 large fellow with rich, dark, rosy color, and gray eyes 
 that laughed inside their black lashes. He held his 
 head back, and his cap usually slipped to one side upon 
 it. The girls in Domremy liked him, but he was fonder 
 of his sister than of any of them. He was two years 
 older than Jeanne, and Jacquemine was four years 
 older than he was. Yet he could lift Jacquemine up 
 by the girdle and smock ; and though Mengette had 
 little to complain of in the world, it disturbed her to 
 have Pierre do this. The helpless, wrathful look on 
 Jacquemine's face as he struck and kicked against the 
 indignity aroused her. Jacquemine had always come 
 to her to talk about his troubles, which consisted of 
 slights put upon him. There seemed to be too little 
 of his darkly freckled, sandy, and wizened person. 
 He wept as easily as a girl, and this wrung Mengette's 
 heart and first attracted her protection. A betrothal 
 had been arranged between them by the two families 
 before her father and mother died, but it was under- 
 stood that they were not to marry while Choux lived. 
 They would not have enough to support a family with 
 Choux also to provide for, though by themselves they 
 might be fairly prosperous. Jacquemine's father was 
 to give him a field and some cattle. Mengette had a 
 house and garden and a flock of geese. She herded 
 the geese herself, and exchanged their feathers for 
 wool; and being a thrifty maid, gathered her own 
 fagots, for Choux would not work, aud weeded and
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 39 
 
 tied vines in vineyards whenever the chance offered. 
 Besides, Mengette had the caps and petticoats her 
 mother wore, waiting in a chest until she should need 
 them. She had carried them with her when the vil- 
 lagers fled to Neufchateau from the Burgundians. 
 
 Jacquemine sulked across the bridge without seeing 
 her until Pierre called down a good day. She made 
 a sign for them to halt, and ascended with her load, 
 dreading to speak her news, yet obliged to spare Isabel. 
 The oxen swayed to one side, the foremost one running 
 obstinately down the bank. Pierre had some trouble 
 to bring them to a stand beside a wall without up- 
 setting the load. Jacquemine waited at the end of the 
 bridge until Mengette struggled up to him. He did 
 not reach down his hand to her as Pierre would have 
 done : for Pierre was always quick to notice when a 
 pannier was heavy, and to help a maid, especially his 
 sister and Mengette ; but Jacquemine seldom noticed 
 anything except his own feelings. He was the kind 
 of man that women wait on ; masculine strength was 
 not expected in him. 
 
 Jacquemine was stung because she rested the bottom 
 of the pannier on the parapet and waited until Pierre 
 came back. If Mengette had anything to say, he was 
 the person to say it to. This individual resentment 
 entered his grief when he heard the news. 
 
 "I always knew Jehannette would disgrace the 
 family," he exclaimed, coloring darkly; "if you do 
 not want to marry me after this, Mengette, I shall say 
 nothing." 
 
 " She has not disgraced the family," retorted Meu- 
 gette, with heat. "She is better than I am. You
 
 40 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 ought to be ashamed of saying she has disgraced the 
 family." 
 
 Jacquemine's eyes filled with tears. " You can take 
 her part against me if you want to." And he turned 
 his back and sobbed. Mengette herself wept again, 
 understanding and pardoning his misery. But Pierre 
 stood without a sound. He did not hear them, or 
 Mengette knew he would have shaken Jacquemine over 
 the parapet. Rings of dark hair had been formed 
 about his forehead by the heat of walking. He held 
 the whip across his shoulder, and stood stunned, taking 
 the news into his mind. The long stretch of road and 
 meadow and hill rising toward Neufchateau was be- 
 hind him. The January sky was soft and gray with 
 gathering clouds. One could hear the wind begin to 
 sing up in the leafless oak woods where Jeanne used 
 to run about with him. 
 
 He spoke out huskily : 
 
 " Does anybody know that she has yet gone into 
 France ? " 
 
 " No ; but it is certain she has gone as far as Vau- 
 couleurs. Aveline says Durand Laxart is in Vaucou- 
 leurs now ; and she heard them talking about it. Your 
 father is already on the road," repeated Mengette. 
 
 " I am going with my sister," determined Pierre. 
 
 The habit of his life was first to assert itself. From 
 the time Jeanne was old enough to run in the fields, 
 Pierre had run after her and let her dictate the course. 
 
 " Your father told your mother that Jacquemine and 
 you would stay with her." 
 
 " Jacquemine can stay, but I am going with my sis- 
 ter."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D>ARC 41 
 
 " Go, go ! " said Jacquemine, showing an indignant 
 face over his shoulder in the act of wiping it with his 
 sleeve. " By the time all the family have run off but 
 me, my father and mother will find who is really a 
 child to them." 
 
 "But, Pierre," pleaded Mengette, "godmother Rome"e 
 is struck down in her bed. If you go now it may be 
 the death of her. She said to Aveline, ' You have let 
 my child poison our old age and kill us.' " 
 
 " Go, Pierre ! " repeated Jacquemine, fiercely ; " I 
 can do all the heavy labor, and take care of the family 
 and the cattle in case the Burgundians come again. 
 Run after the Annagnacs, you and Jehannette." 
 
 " We will," responded Pierre. 
 
 " But wait, Pierrelo, until your father comes back/ 
 still pleaded Mengette ; " he may find her and bring 
 her home." 
 
 " He will not find her ; he should have sent me." 
 
 " Yes ; he should have sent big Pierre," venomously 
 hissed Jacquemine. 
 
 He snatched the whip, and ran clattering on to start 
 the oxen. They were not used to his guidance, and 
 swayed in a zigzag course from wall to wall, while he 
 cracked the whip and let his trouble out in noisy abuse 
 of them. Mengette lifted her pannier and trudged 
 directly after him. She was a pucelle of spirit, but 
 Jacquemine's rages always woke her motherly com- 
 passion, like the helpless suffering of a child. She felt 
 it necessary to quiet him before he went into the house 
 and increased the disapproval which he had long re- 
 sented there. 
 
 Pierre sat down on the parapet of the bridge and
 
 42 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 stared at the washing-place, where open-sided box- 
 tables and paddles yet remained. The Meuse curled 
 about its islands and rippled among the naked bushes. 
 He was not sure that it was a calamity which had 
 fallen on the family, but it was certainly a grief. To 
 be entirely separated from his sister was out of nature 
 and not to be endured. He had a vague and careless 
 knowledge of Jeanne's visions and of what she intended 
 to do if she went into France. Pierre was not spirit- 
 ual-minded. He had almost to be flogged to his 
 prayers when he was younger. He enjoyed the world ; 
 but more than everything else he enjoyed loving. 
 Jeanne would draw him after her as certainly as the 
 bell-sheep drew the flock. But when he had thought 
 awhile he decided not to set out on foot along the hills 
 to Vaucouleurs without seeing his mother, as he would 
 be obliged to do if he went at once. He would not 
 forsake his mother while she lay prostrated by the 
 loss of Jeanne. But he had a conviction that his 
 father would never bring Jeanne back. 
 
 And when Jacques d'Arc reached Vaucouleurs he 
 did not find his daughter. He was the last man to 
 enter the gates that night, haggard and splashed with 
 hard riding ; but a strange experience met him there. 
 He had scarcely mentioned the maid he was seeking 
 when a lantern was lifted by a passer-by, and men 
 came together in a bunch like bees to hum about her. 
 She was as well known in Vaucouleurs as the captain 
 there. They escorted him like a guard of honor to 
 Beyer's house. 
 
 " Here is the father of the maid," they said to Beyer's 
 wife, when they had struck on the door and she opened
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 43 
 
 it. " We have told him that she has gone to Nancy 
 with her cousin and the knight of Novelopont, being 
 sent for by the sick Duke of Lorraine." 
 
 Jacques leaned his head on his hands and listened 
 to Beyer's wife when he was in the house. It was 
 plain that the people in this part of the country be- 
 lieved Jeanne ought to go into France. 
 
 " But she shall come home," said Jacques, feeling 
 the tightness at his heart relax, since she was gone in 
 the opposite direction, and he might yet intercept her. 
 "She is my little maid. As to raising sieges and 
 crowning the dauphin, we have a hearth for her in 
 Domremy, and she was always contented there until 
 these troubles grew so bad. Her mother is struck 
 down in bed on account of her. If the saints sent her 
 into France, I will say the saints have little regard for 
 family ties. We have no other maid : our Catherine 
 is dead. From the time Jehannette could clip her 
 little hand around one of my fingers, she would toddle 
 at one of my legs and Pierrelo at the other. I say she 
 shall not go ; and she was always obedient. What ! 
 would I let my innocent child go among men-at-arms, 
 and be spoken to by any vile follower of the camp? 
 I would kill her before she should suffer such things." 
 
 He waited several days in Vaucouleurs, wrenched 
 from his accustomed places, and divided between 
 Jeanne and Isabel. The journey was an education to 
 a peasant who had never stirred before, except from 
 his native village to Domremy, and afterward to Neuf- 
 chateau. He felt the pulse of the world, and realized 
 the growth of his child. But he was more than ever 
 determined not to give her up; and when the strain
 
 44 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 of his absence grew unendurable, he saddled his horse 
 in haste, and said to Boyer's wife : 
 
 " I ain going back to Isabel, and Pierre will come 
 in my place. Tell Jehannette I command her home 
 with her brother. Tell her that I forbid her to go into 
 France. The curse of the disobedient will fall on her 
 if she goes. My maid is a good maid, and I blame the 
 people of Vaucouleurs for encouraging her in this 
 strange desire. Her innocent dreams about angels 
 and saints, what would they avail her among bloody 
 men-at-arms ? Her place is at home with her mother 
 and me." 
 
 But before Pierre reached Vaucouleurs the dauphin's 
 messenger from Chinon had galloped in, and Jeanne 
 had gone. 
 
 Jacques's horse fell lame. He led it and walked, 
 stumping among the stones in his sabots, and reaching 
 Bury-la-C6te late in the night. There he slept in the 
 house of Aveline's mother, and borrowed another 
 horse. But the delay made Pierre too late. 
 
 It was a poor, powerless maid who threw herself 
 across a bench and cried aloud on her knees when she 
 returned from Nancy, and was told that her father 
 had been seeking her, and the messenger from Chinoii 
 was already there. 
 
 " Oh, my father, my dear father ! How can I en- 
 dure not to see my father and mother and [Pierrelo 
 again ! But I must go I must go ! " 
 
 Jeanne ran from the house up the stone stairs lead- 
 ing to the chapel crypt. It was her last heartbreak 
 before the altar, weeping to be sent, and weeping be- 
 cause she must be sent.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 45 
 
 There was excitement both in the chateau and the 
 town. Nobody in Vaucouleurs ^except Baudricourt 
 had doubted that the dauphin would send for the maid. 
 Candles burned all night in the shop where her outfit 
 was finished, and the people of Vaucouleurs, who bore 
 the expense of it, looked in crowds at the busy work- 
 men as a public spectacle. 
 
 " The maid is to ride forth in man's apparel/' said 
 women to one another, in consternation. " She says 
 she has been counseled so to do. Is that decent ? " = 
 
 "I call it decent myself," decided a dame in authority. 
 " What would she do with petticoats astride of a horse, 
 riding a hundred and fifty leagues, and having no 
 woman of her party ? Even messire the captain had 
 nothing to say against it when she begged for the 
 habit of a man." 
 
 "Messire de Baudricourt has changed his opinion 
 of her since the dauphin's messenger came in with 
 news of the defeat near Orleans." 
 
 "Yes; they say the maid knew it, and sent him 
 word the very day the battle was fought." 
 
 In Vaucouleurs Jeanne was the maid who out of the 
 march of Lorraine was to deliver France. She was to 
 have a knight and a squire, two common soldiers as 
 their servants, an archer, and the dauphin's messenger, 
 as her escort. Durand Laxart himself pledged pay- 
 ment for a horse. It would be a hard ride to Chinon 
 from this northeast corner of the ancient realm a 
 hundred and fifty leagues diagonally southwestward 
 across France. The party would have to avoid cities 
 held by the English, and slip between marauding bands. 
 They had five large rivers to cross. Wherever they
 
 46 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ABC 
 
 dared use the old Roman roads good speed could be 
 made ; but much of the journey lay across trackless 
 spaces full of the dangers of war. 
 
 It was the first Sunday in Lent, and people flocked 
 to the chateau early in the morning to see her start. 
 The maid had been brought there by Royer's wife and 
 other women, to be dressed for her undertaking. 
 
 Every citizen of Vaucouleurs raised his cap in the 
 air and cheered as she came out into the court, a sup- 
 ple, easily moving creature with a radiant face, in the 
 suit of a man-at-arms, the jacket and tunic of gray 
 cloth, the cuirass of leather thongs. Her long hose, 
 cut and shaped from the cloth, were laced over her 
 body-garment, and strong leather shoes were on her 
 feet. The women had cut her hair off about her ears, 
 and put the cap of a man-at-arms on her head. 
 
 The horses were standing ready. The men of her 
 party waited her mounting. There was nothing male 
 about her. Though she looked smaller than in her 
 maid's dress, no person said to another, " She is like a 
 boy." She was simply the maid dressed to ride like a 
 man. 
 
 "What have you there, pucelle?" inquired Baudri- 
 court, meeting her, and taking her packet to fasten 
 behind the saddle. 
 
 " My red peasant dress, messire the captain." 
 
 " What would you do with your peasant dress on a 
 journey to court ? " 
 
 " Unfold it and look at it sometimes, messire. I 
 love what I wore in my home." 
 
 "Let come what may come of this," said Baudri- 
 court, " Heaven knows I don't understand these things,
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 47 
 
 or how you should be able to tell me there was a battle 
 over some herrings and camp supplies near Orleans 
 the very day it was fought. But go your ways, pu- 
 celle my friend ; it is no longer my affair." 
 
 " Good-by, messire the captain ; have no fear for me. 
 I shall be taken care of." 
 
 " If you be not, God he knoweth it will be through 
 no fault of mine ; for every man in this party hath 
 sworn an oath to me to deliver you safely to the 
 dauphin." 
 
 Jeanne laughed as she put her hand on the bridle. 
 Her squire knelt to take her foot and lift her into the 
 saddle. 
 
 " I am a peasant," she said ; " I do not know any- 
 thing about mounting as grand dames mount. Let 
 me find a block of stone." Then she looked at the 
 squire with sudden scrutiny. 
 
 " Not this man, messire the captain. Has this man 
 also taken oath ? " 
 
 " I have," the young man answered, on his knees ; 
 " and this oath is a true one, maid of France." 
 
 Jeanne believed him. She had no grudge against 
 Bertrand de Poulengy. Her open, bright look ac- 
 cepted at once his atonement and their new relations. 
 She mounted the horse from the chateau steps. Her 
 eyes moved gratefully from face to face in the crowd. 
 She lifted her cap ; her forehead was white in the sun, 
 a girl's smooth forehead, with the hair blowing back 
 from it. Men and women felt their hearts swell. 
 This tender young being was going out to fight for 
 them. It was the strangest thing that had ever hap- 
 pened. For a hundred years France had given her
 
 48 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 sons to war, but now a daughter was demanded a 
 maid was necessary for sacrifice. Jeanne leaned down 
 and grasped hand after hand. Women kissed her 
 fingers, which had not yet touched anything more 
 deadly than needle or spindle. She was their dear 
 child, whom they were themselves giving up. 
 
 "Good-by," said Jeanne, looking into her cousin 
 Durand's faithful face ; " I am glad you christened the 
 baby Catherine. Give my love to them all my father, 
 my mother, my Pierrelo " 
 
 She touched the spurs to her horse, and the party 
 rode out through the gate, which is called to this day 
 the Gate of France.
 
 Ill 
 
 HOUGH Jacquemine gave Mengette trou- 
 ble, the burden of her life was Choux. 
 Since the death of her father, Auguste 
 Poulinet, and her mother, Marguerite Val- 
 las, she had lived in her house with this relative, whose 
 exact kinship could hardly be traced, yet who was 
 handed down as a charge. Choux was a humpbacked 
 creature, so old that age had given him up and de- 
 livered him again to the lithe activities of youth. He 
 seemed made of steel springs. His joints and muscles 
 did not sag when he walked. The skin was so tightly 
 stretched across the bones of his large features that it 
 scarcely wrinkled, but, deepening its brown, became 
 like mummy husk, with points of fire surviving in the 
 lively eyes. What few shreds of hair he had clung in 
 forgotten strands to the skull ; but these were seldom 
 seen, for Choux wore always a red woolen cap tied 
 under the chin like a woman's. This was as much a 
 part of him as the red sash girdling his clothes around 
 the middle. He wore it indoors and out, to mass and 
 to bed. When Mengette saw that the cap would have 
 to be renewed, she made another, and standing behind 
 * 49
 
 60 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 the bench, while he ate, put it over the one he wore. 
 Choux let the strings hang down unheeded until he was 
 alone. Whatever became of the first cap, whether he 
 secretly burned it or buried it in the earth, it was never 
 seen again. One pair of clean strings soon appeared 
 under his chin, and Mengette drew a breath of relief. 
 
 But it was not so easy to get his garments from his 
 body. Choux's instinct was that an animal's covering 
 ought to shed naturally. He exhaled a hyena-like 
 odor, and when on a February day he sat by the 
 chimney, Mengette was thankful for its wide throat. 
 Domremy was not too sensitive to smells. Chickens 
 and geese lived in the streets, and manure-heaps 
 ripened beside the front doors. But public comfort 
 sometimes demanded that Choux should change his 
 clothes ; and the cure", Father Fronte, was then obliged 
 to labor with him. In his heart Choux despised the 
 offices of the church, but he stood in terror of having 
 its final protection denied him. When exhortations 
 and threats had availed, Mengette flew to the river 
 with his cast-off things. She had once anchored them 
 and let them freeze, and as often as she could afford 
 it she gave him an entire new outfit. 
 
 Choux had nothing except a high regard for himself, 
 and he had not labored in her lifetime. He often sat 
 bragging by the hour in the Widow Davide's wine- 
 shop. The Widow Davide, when a customer grew 
 noisy, would take him by the ear and lead him to the 
 door, and it was his part to grin and submit. Choux, 
 for more reasons than his tongue, was of tener led out 
 than any other man ; yet he never suffered it without 
 indignation and astonishment.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 61 
 
 He danced before the wine-shop to show his con- 
 tempt for the Widow Davide, and made a tube of his 
 fists, trumpeting through it. His hump, as he tilted 
 and turned, gave him the high-shouldered appearance 
 of a hyena. He sang derisively about the wine she 
 sold. It was not fit for dogs dogs would die of it, in 
 fact. He could marry the Widow Davide if he wished, 
 but who would marry a woman that sold such bad 
 wine? 
 
 " Myself," proclaimed Choux, slapping his breast, " I 
 was brought up on the best. Nothing is too good for 
 me. When I was of an age to marry, all the maids 
 of my village wanted me for a husband. I picked the 
 handsomest and richest, and when I was married my 
 wife did nothing but wait on me. She sold the last 
 goose of her flock to provide me for travel. I have 
 seen the world in my lifetime. I have been eastward 
 as far as Nancj', and westward as far as Bar-le-Duc ; 
 and if my wife had lived to work for me I might have 
 gone farther." 
 
 " He never was married in his life," the listeners told 
 one another, laughing. "The Champenois are great 
 boasters," was one of the proverbs of Lorraine. Choux 
 came out of Champagne. 
 
 He trumpeted through his hands, and danced again, 
 making a clatter on the hard road with his wooden 
 shoes. " I can whip any man in the wine-shop. And 
 this will be the case with me until I am ten years older. 
 Come out, Widow Davide, and take me again by the 
 ear. Have a care; it will not be the Burgundians 
 who next time set fire to your house ; the people of 
 Domremy are fond of me. I do not lift a hand for
 
 52 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 myself. Everything is done for me. I am the flower 
 of the Meuse valley." 
 
 Through all his dancing and boasting the uncanny 
 creature carried the natural grace and airiness of the 
 Latin. An Anglo-Saxon boor, half tipsy before a 
 wine-shop, would have broken the door or the head of 
 its keeper. Choux's many words were to him what 
 action is to the more forceful race. As he capered in 
 the green winter twilight Mengette appeared at his 
 elbow, to drive him to shelter as she had already driven 
 her geese. He knew she had plenty of fagots in, and 
 the soup steaming before the fire. He enjoyed the life 
 he lived, and the homely night sound of dogs barking 
 in Greux. 
 
 "Regard me now, Widow Davide. My supper is 
 ready, with meat in the pot. Why do I ever come to 
 your wine-shop to be poisoned f It is because I pity 
 you. I am not above showing sympathy to a poor 
 woman without a man." 
 
 "Go home, Choux," said Mengette, pushing him. 
 " The Widow Davide may declare your sympathy costs 
 her more than I can pay with my spinning. There is 
 no meat in the pot. They laugh at you, but messire 
 the cure will not laugh if he sees you dancing longer 
 here." 
 
 He was harder to chase into the house than an ob- 
 durate gander, and no spoon could fill Choux's mouth 
 too full for talk. Mengette was glad when he turned 
 into his lair for the night. He slept in a room which 
 could be entered only from the garden ; and though 
 there was a chimney in it, he would not build himself 
 a fire or permit one to be lighted on his hearth. He
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 63 
 
 liked darkness, and had none of the craving of age 
 for heat. 
 
 But Mengette was glad of her own fagots when she 
 hooked the doors and opened her bed for the night. 
 The light seemed a protection from the voice which 
 talked with Choux in darkness, often alternating its 
 high boyish note with Choux's deliberate croak half 
 the night. Formerly when any neighbor came in 
 after nightfall Choux kept silent; but since this un- 
 seen person, whom he called Valentin, had begun to 
 visit him, he was so insolently noisy that Mengette 
 dared not forecast what suspicions of sorcery he might 
 bring upon himself. She felt the shame of an accom- 
 plice in trying to endure this invisible creature, who 
 doubtless ought to be proclaimed and put out of the 
 house ; but Mengette shrunk from meddling in any 
 way with the unusual. She wanted the natural things 
 of life to surround and protect her from visions and 
 voices. 
 
 A hand was on the door, and she unfastened it to 
 admit Isabel Romee and Jacquemine. 
 
 The strong features of Jeanne's mother were thinned 
 as by long illness. She did not cast her eye around 
 with the usual oversight of Mengette's housekeeping. 
 The pots were in a neat row, and the hearth was scoured 
 white, and Jacquemine felt satisfaction in sitting down 
 before blazing fagots in this house where he was to be 
 master. All three were silent, speechless trouble driv- 
 ing Choux and his voice out of Mengette'-s mind. 
 
 Isabel put both hands over her face an,$ leaue^ for- 
 ward sobbing. 
 
 " Pierrelo has come back from Vaucouleurs alone."
 
 54 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 " I know it, godmother. I saw him between Dom- 
 remy and Greux when I was driving in the geese." 
 
 " My child has gone into France ! I shall never see 
 her again." 
 
 " She will come home sometime, godmother." 
 
 " No ; she will come home no more. I was sure of 
 that from the first; but when I saw him riding by 
 himself, it seemed that I had never known it. Did 
 Pierre tell you he brought a letter from her ? " 
 
 " He showed me a folded paper." 
 
 "Her father sits by the hearth, and will not turn 
 his head. The letter has been in his hand since the 
 cure read it to us. She had it written by a clerk at 
 Vaucouleurs, and put her own cross-mark on it, ask- 
 ing forgiveness. My Jehannette is a good child. I 
 am myself to blame for urging her to marriage. In 
 Vaucouleurs they have a reverence for her. Pierre 
 says she rode out in man's clothes, and all the people 
 wept. He would have gone on her track, but Durand 
 Laxart did us this grace : he made Pierre come home. 
 Jacques told you the Duke of Lorraine sent from Nancy 
 for Jehannette to pray for his recovery." 
 
 " She is a good pucelle, godmother. When she told 
 me the saints spoke to her, I could not help believing 
 it." 
 
 Isabel shook her head. The vigorous woman, who 
 had little bent toward the superstition of her time, still 
 denied Jeanne's visions. Saints certainly existed in 
 a far-off place called heaven, but it was not likely they 
 troubled themselves about anything in this world. 
 Isabel considered them vaguely benevolent, but much 
 taken up wih. tuning harps and singing. More than
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D>ARC C5 
 
 all, she felt it impossible that such holy beings should 
 stoop to members of her own family. In other ages 
 and countries heaven had communicated with blessed 
 martyrs : but St. Michael had never shown himself 
 in her garden behind the church; the child had 
 dreamed it. 
 
 She wiped her face, raising it to meet what was yet 
 in store for her. 
 
 "And now we must lose Pierrelo. In the spring, 
 when the hermit friar sets out for Tours, the cure will 
 ask him to take Pierrelo to Jehannette. The lad can 
 hardly wait our consent." 
 
 Jacquemine sat with his knees braced together and 
 both hands resting on them. He now spoke out with 
 virtuous determination : 
 
 " Myself, I will never forsake my father and mother 
 to go to the wars, even with their consent." 
 
 " You ! " flashed Isabel, unreasonably resenting on 
 him the pain inflicted by those she loved better. " Yes ; 
 Jacquemine will stay at home and be a daughter to us." 
 
 Jacquemine burned scarlet, the blood submerging 
 his freckles and mounting into his sandy hair. Men- 
 gette resolved that when he became her husband she 
 would never make his eyes fill so piteously. She said 
 to him, "Sit closer to the fire, Jacquemine," and he 
 did so, feeling that his part was taken and comfort 
 offered him. She understood a home-keeping nature. 
 Mengette would not have left Domremy for the crown 
 of France. She loved to do the things she was accus- 
 tomed to do, and sometimes thought of Choux's death 
 almost with grief because, though it would permit her 
 marriage, it must change her employment. The longer
 
 56 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 she was betrothed to Jacquemine the more satisfaction 
 she took in the arrangement, though there was little 
 chance for courtship, Isabel being watchful, and Men- 
 gette having that discretion which is given to some 
 girls instead of mothers. 
 
 Isabel scarcely noticed them. She stared into space, 
 wondering at the nature that had outgrown her gui- 
 dance. It had been her delight to train Jeanne, the 
 child was so docile and so responsive to good. Jeanne's 
 eyes would fill with tears at sight of any suffering. 
 No wonder the troubles in France had swept her away. 
 
 "But where is she now?" exclaimed Isabel. "My 
 child is somewhere out in the night, with only men 
 around her ! " The room again resounded with un- 
 restrained mourning. 
 
 " No one would hurt Jehannette," declared Mengette. 
 
 " It is true the men were all put under oath by the 
 Captain of Vaucouleurs to conduct her in safety, and 
 Pierrelo says they are very trusty men, and Bertrand 
 de Poulengy is of the party. But my heart has begun 
 to misgive me about Bertrand de Poulengy. One is 
 afraid of everything when one's child is no longer 
 under the roof. What is that?" demanded Isabel, 
 with sudden attention. " I hear a stranger in Choux's 
 room." 
 
 Mengette swallowed her voice, and knew that her 
 heart was beating audibly. A rapid, boyish treble 
 rose higher and higher in Choux's chamber, and ended 
 in shrill laughter. Jacquemine drew closer to the 
 hearth, fading to ghastliness in the increased light, 
 and seeking Mengette's eye for companionship. He 
 had heard Choux boast in the wine-shop of this nightly
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC * 67 
 
 visitor, and had laughed at it ; for then it was broad 
 daylight, and nobody believed a word Choux said. 
 
 Isabel turned to her goddaughter, who knew that 
 the moment for telling the truth had come. " What 
 stranger is staying in your house ? " 
 
 " It is no person at all, godmother. It is nothing 
 but a voice. Choux says it comes and talks to him 
 every night, and he calls it Valentin." 
 
 Choux's croak and Valentin's high note jangled rap- 
 idly together, stopping on Isabel's lips the accusation 
 of trickery. Her face became stupid with astonish- 
 ment, the blankness changing to a look of humiliation. 
 
 " How long has he had this voice ? " 
 
 " Not very long, godmother. Only a few months." 
 
 " Why have you not told me ? " 
 
 Mengette picked at her petticoat, and answered, " I 
 did not like to." 
 
 " These things put me out of patience," said Isabel, 
 fiercely. " I wonder what is abroad in the world, that 
 even old Choux hath taken to him a familiar spirit? 
 Run home, Jacquemine, if you have so much fear. As 
 for me, voices and visions have broken my heart. They 
 can no longer fright me." 
 
 " I was but thinking that the cure should come with 
 a censer," Jacquemine answered, shrinking against the 
 chimney. 
 
 " The cure* should come with a stout club. Did Je- 
 hannette ever hear this voice of Choux's ? " 
 
 "No; I am certain she never did. I alone have 
 heard it, for they were not so bold with their talking 
 before Jehannette went away." 
 
 The contrasted laughter of cackling age and shrill
 
 58 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 youth filled the next chamber. Jacquemine repeatedly 
 crossed himself against that unrestrained second pres- 
 ence, which grew more tangible to the imagination 
 than Choux's head in its red cap. 
 
 Isabel lost no time, but thumped on the partition 
 with her knuckles. It was a stone wall, but an open 
 cupboard was let into it, making a good conductor of 
 sound. 
 
 " Choux, stop that noise ! " 
 
 There was silence. Then the young voice in mimi- 
 cry repeated Isabel's command like an echo. 
 
 " Mengette shall not stay in the house with you, 
 and no one in this village will feed you, if this sorcery 
 be not stopped. If you must play your tricks with 
 Satan, go out in the fields, where Christian folks can- 
 not hear. I am [going to sleep here with Mengette, 
 and I will have you up before messire the cure' if that 
 limb of the fiend makes any more disturbance to- 
 night." 
 
 There was a flurry of whispering, and when it ceased 
 Choux lifted his husky voice to defy a woman he 
 dreaded, but who stood at the other side of a wall. 
 " Limb of the fiend be named thyself, Isabel Rome'e. 
 Valentin, whom thou hast frighted off, is as honest a 
 creature as any saint that ever went walking in thy 
 own garden. It would have been better to listen to 
 news from thy maid, who never stood in such peril as 
 she stands in this night." 
 
 "Such mock messengers bring no word for me. 
 And now, mind what I tell thee : whether thou hast 
 a familiar or art practising trickery, there shall be no 
 more of it in this house."
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 59 
 
 Isabel listened austerely ; but when she turned from 
 silencing Choux her face had many more haggard lines, 
 which were not the marks of fear. He had cunningly 
 reminded her that Jeanne was sleeping in the open 
 fields. The mother's thoughts tried to bridge darkness, 
 roaming indefinitely southwestward, and having no 
 means to come at the actual spot near the river 
 Aube. 
 
 BY bridle-paths and across country the riders from 
 Vaucouleurs had achieved more than nine leagues the 
 first day, and the same distance the second. The first 
 night they were received at the Abbey of St. Urbain, 
 in what is now the department of Haute-Marne, but 
 the next night brought them to more dangerous 
 ground. They descended into a valley near the little 
 town of Bar-sur-Aube, and, avoiding it, forded the 
 river some distance north of the walls. The place they 
 selected for their camp was a cove between two shoul- 
 ders of the winding hills. Some leafless trees sheltered 
 it. Already there were monitions of spring in the air, 
 and a faint green light, like the tender apple-green of 
 the Meuse, swam in motes between one's eyes and gray 
 slopes, until the world was blurred by night. Houses 
 on the walls began to shine like candles. Jeanne's 
 party lighted no fire, but ate cold bread and meat, and 
 drank their wine, she sitting a little apart from the 
 men, and the servants taking their portion to them- 
 selves. 
 
 The dauphin's messenger was a lean, light man in 
 the saddle, running over with jokes and songs, which 
 he could hardly suppress in the presence of the maid
 
 60 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 he was conducting ; but he was the first one to wrap 
 himself well in his cloak and lie down for the night. 
 It had been agreed that the maid was to be guarded 
 between Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. 
 These were Baudricourt's orders when camp was made 
 under the open sky. So she lay down betwixt knight 
 and squire, with her peasant dress under her head for 
 a pillow ; and the old soldier was soon asleep. But 
 the young one lay awake, with his face away from 
 the cloaked maid whom he had so desired for his 
 wife. 
 
 She slept with regular, low breathing, as unconscious 
 of his presence as when he rode behind her all day. 
 She had no armor. It was not necessary for him to 
 serve her as squire ; but he could watch unceasingly 
 her gay eagerness to get forward, her steadiness in 
 fording deep water, the curve of her back where waist 
 met hips, and even the blush of tan beginning to tint 
 ears and cheeks under her soldier's cap. He lay near 
 enough to put his hand upon her, yet he had never in 
 his life felt so remote from Jeanne d'Arc. 
 
 Tears swelled his eyeballs and choked his throat. 
 The boy ground his teeth with an oath between them, 
 changing his oath to a prayer, the anguish and unen- 
 durable contradictions of life filling him full to the 
 lips. In starting to the wars he had counted on a 
 sublime self that had been wearied out of his body, a 
 high, priestly fellow with no personal needs whatever ; 
 and here he was the same Bertrand de Poulengy, 
 heartsore, and full of fierce youth and desire. But 
 while he lay with his back toward Jeanne, and his fists 
 clenched, feeling like a dog, a faithful, worshiping
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 61 
 
 dog, yet one that was never to be rewarded by a pat, 
 some of the peace which enveloped her came over 
 him. His blood ceased its rapid beating, and ex- 
 ternal things seemed to approach in a new way to 
 divert and comfort him. He folded his arms and 
 turned his face toward the sky. Humid night air, 
 chill earth, and vapor-strewn stars became forces for 
 him to resist hardily, with patience, as a man, and 
 with a kind of toughening of the spirit. There was 
 not one bitter or unsound spot in the boy. 
 
 "By the time down has grown stiff on my lip," 
 thought Bertrand, "and I have seen something of 
 battle, I shall bear this without making a fool of my- 
 self." 
 
 Couvre-feu had already rung in Bar-sur-Aube ; the 
 lights were out ; no noises came from the town. The 
 full river whispered. Without knowing it, the voices 
 of the two sullen soldiers and Richard the archer, who 
 had ridden with the messenger from Chinon, en- 
 croached more and more upon the silence. Bertrand 
 knew they were sullen. He had seen them scowl 
 when they rubbed down the horses, and wink deri- 
 sively at one another when the maid went into a 
 thicket with her rosary in her hand. One under- 
 thought of his wakefulness was to watch these men. 
 The archer had been left on guard, to be followed by 
 his companions in turn ; but all three heads were yet 
 clustered together, as they had sat at their bread and 
 meat, with a bottle going round from mouth to mouth. 
 Peril enough attended this journey to Chinon without 
 seeking any in the camp. Peril in the camp, however, 
 will soon come seeking him who lets it be. Bertrand
 
 62 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 rested on his elbow and listened. He would have 
 crept toward the men, but the letter of his oath bound 
 him to his place by Jeanne's side during a night in the 
 fields. Three dim shapes against the darkness of the 
 hills, Richard the archer and the two soldiers pushed 
 their voices farther and farther into the cove. The 
 humid air carried cautious sounds in full volume to 
 the listener. 
 
 "If the lot fell to me I would do it," spoke the 
 archer. "We have had enough of this witch- work. 
 Let us be rid of her." 
 
 "Since it comes to sleeping on the ground," said 
 one soldier. 
 
 Bertrand's weapons, which hung from his belt when 
 it was clasped, now lay within a fold of his cloak. He 
 took the small ax and held it ready. 
 
 A murmur of urging and fragments of words 
 reached his ears. He caught, without distinctly hear- 
 ing, the men's determination to throw the maid into 
 the Aube, and then desert with the horses ; and reach- 
 ing cautiously over Jeanne, he prodded De Metz with 
 the ax-handle. De Metz slept on like an honest man. 
 Bertrand thought this movement of his was seen by 
 the soldier on whom the lot had evidently fallen ; for 
 the man paused in stealthy approach, and slunk back 
 to his fellows, being met by a low growl like reviling. 
 
 Richard the archer, standing a foot above his com- 
 panions, next stepped forward, and Bertrand held the 
 ax ready to split his head as he stooped. But two 
 lance-lengths beyond the reach of the guardian's arm 
 he seemed to find a barrier that he could not pass, and 
 collapsing backward as if he had already received a
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 63 
 
 blow, scrambled on hands and knees toward his mates, 
 who uttered a sound of panic. 
 
 Bertrand's blood was all alive, forgetting depression 
 and the chill of the earth. Jealous of his right to 
 protect the maid, he said to himself, " I will not wake 
 De Metz." His own part of secrecy and silence amused 
 him, and he tingled with laughter at the futile at- 
 tempts. 
 
 " The poor fools really have no harm in them ; they 
 are only discontented ; and when they have done eas- 
 ing full minds on one another they will go about their 
 business." 
 
 Yet he determined to sec that they went about their 
 business, and clasping on his weapons, he stood up to 
 follow them. A swift smiting of light on the eyeballs, 
 like that which flashes within the lid when sight 
 struggles in pitch darkness, showed him the archer 
 and both soldiers crouching a few feet away. 
 
 "What are you doing there?" he demanded; but 
 they did not hear him. They did not look at him. 
 A thinning of the dimness around, like the shadowed 
 edge of light, revealed their staring eyes and the sepa- 
 rate hairs bristling on their unshaven jaws. 
 
 Jeanne had risen to her knees betwixt De Metz and 
 Bertrand, her muffled figure bent forward, the fixed 
 curve of her body, the very threads of her cloak, whit- 
 ened strangely in the night. No visible hovering 
 presence poured glory on her, yet she shone. Her 
 squire, still holding the ax, crossed his hands on his 
 bosom, feeling drenched by some divine power. 
 
 Long after Jeanne lay down from her half-conscious 
 prayer, breathing like a healthy child, and long after
 
 64 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 archer and soldiers, separating in silence, had taken to 
 watch or to hiding, Bertrand stood with his hands 
 crossed on his breast. He knew that he should never 
 speak of this night except lightly, but he wondered 
 what terror there could be for ignorant men in that 
 instant's glow which had rested on the maid.
 
 IV 
 
 HINON CASTLE stood among clouds 
 above the compact walled town of Chinon, 
 huge and white, buttressed along the cliffs, 
 showing all its towers and battlements, 
 from the horologe portal to an ancient Roman round 
 fortress at its extremity, as the riders from Vaucou- 
 leurs approached it at sunset. The valley of the river 
 Vienne, like so many of the valleys of France, stretched 
 from the foot of sheer heights to far blue alluvial hills. 
 Touraine was a rich country even then, when large 
 tracts of the realm lay waste and unproductive year 
 after year. The forward spring made a blur like 
 green light over massed distances, showing, as no 
 single tree by the river could do, revival of life in 
 buds. 
 
 Some fishermen were in a boat, poling over the rocky 
 bottom of the Vienne. Its dark-green water in shady 
 places took the color of ale. As the party from Vau- 
 couleurs crossed the bridge, the town gates were 
 opened, and the dauphin's messenger came out to 
 meet them. 
 
 "You have made good speed to-day without me," 
 5 65
 
 66 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 he said, wheeling his horse to enter beside De Metz, 
 who led the company ; " but it is a plain journey from 
 St. Katherine de Fierbois to Chinon. How many 
 masses did the maid hear yesterday while she rested 
 in the church of St. Katherine ? " l 
 
 "Only three," answered De Metz. His smile was 
 indulgent, but the courtier's was mocking. "And 
 every man of us, constrained to rub his knees so long 
 on that stone floor, was fain to envy you riding for- 
 ward at ease, with a letter to the dauphin, and the 
 end of the journey in sight." 
 
 The horses neighed when the gates closed after them, 
 scenting shelter and provender. Nimble-footed, they 
 picked their way through lanes of overhanging houses 
 crowded to the hill beneath the castle buttresses, re- 
 membering no more their twelve days' beating across 
 varying soils of France. By way of Auxerre, Gien, 
 Salbris, Ramorantin, Selles, St. Aignan, Loches, and 
 the parish church of St. Katherine de Fierbois, they 
 had brought their riders without mishap to Chinon. 
 The horse which Durand Laxart had provided for 
 Jeanne stepped soberly behind De Metz's ; her squire 
 reined his, more spirited, a pace behind. Two or three 
 church towers seemed to hold the light of the March 
 sunset which ascending little streets so readily lost. 
 
 " Deputies from Orleans are now at the castle," said 
 the dauphin's messenger; "they have come to hasten 
 this business about the maid." 
 
 "I call that good news," answered the knight. 
 " And since the expense of this expedition has rested 
 
 1 St. Catherine's name is thus spelled in all records concern- 
 ing this parish church.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 67 
 
 on me, and the three troublesome knaves behind our 
 backs are certain to demand their pay at once, the 
 dauphin will doubtless soon put my mind at rest 
 about the scores." 
 
 " Oh, doubtless ; or Messire Alan Chartier will make 
 you a song which will give your mind great ease. We 
 will all share our tranquillity with you; but if you 
 expect to find any money at Chinon you will be disap- 
 pointed. Jacques Coeur of Bourges is the only man 
 in this poor kingdom that hath any gold ; and sage as 
 that generous goldsmith is, he will be stripped before 
 this business with England be finished. I myself am 
 used to eating sheep's legs at Chinon, where the king 
 hath not even a comfit-box to pass to the ladies. But 
 if I told other good fellows at court that you came 
 with a full pouch, you would not have pieces enough 
 to divide among the borrowers." 
 
 " In that case the dauphin might as well stand in- 
 debted to me. In truth, this is the first time I have 
 taken thought about my money, for the maid was 
 welcome for her own sake, and I must abide by the 
 good or bad that comes of this venture. But I hope 
 we shall have leave to go to Orleans soon." 
 
 "I think myself it promises well that the envoys 
 from Orleans are here. But a king is not the only 
 person that governs a realm, Messire de Metz." 
 
 A few dogs barked at the cavalcade, but the quiet 
 villagers paid little attention to it. There was much 
 coming and going betwixt court and distressed king- 
 dom. A man blind in his left eye and lame in his 
 right foot was dipping a two-handled jug in the public 
 fountain, and singing. The sweet, tremulous tenor
 
 68 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 spread through the valley, and followed Jeanne as she 
 ascended to the castle, like music sent to encourage 
 her. 
 
 The dauphin's messenger made his party dismount 
 at the inn, where the horses were to be left, and where 
 even the big cook, white as flour from head to foot, 
 came out to help hold bridles 5 and he then took the 
 most direct path, which was a paved gutter between 
 walls scarcely two arms' lengths apart. A door stood 
 open at one side, showing a dark interior, lighted only 
 by a red hearth with a child's head against the shine, 
 and Bertrand was startled to see that these continuous 
 walls were house-fronts. Voices of women were heard 
 talking within the stone. A thread of water moved 
 down the depressed center of the way. Winding, this 
 path led up to a broad track which turned upon itself 
 and faced the castle. Chinon had been a favorite seat 
 of English kings before it passed into the hands of the 
 French. A huge gray ruin, the ancient Abbey of St. 
 George extended along the height like a detached out- 
 work of the castle. Its thick walls had been burrowed 
 into by poor wretches who stood gaunt-faced at their 
 doors and looked at the arriving maid. Living so 
 near the royal gates, they had heard of her, and they 
 witnessed the insolence of a drunken soldier who came 
 down the slope and boldly stumbled against her. Ber- 
 trand de Poulengy struck him out of the way. 
 
 " Jarnedieu ! " the soldier snarled, using the common 
 oath of his class. 
 
 " Dost thou jarnedieu," said Jeanne, piteously, turn- 
 ing to follow him with her eyes "thou who art so 
 near death ? "
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 69 
 
 The warder lowered a long drawbridge across the 
 moat, and the clock struck high above their heads as 
 they passed through the tower of the horologe. From 
 this portal a sunken road guarded by masonry ascended 
 to a wide garden. The glow of sunset lingered on 
 winding paths, and masses of trees, and banks where 
 roses would be rankly abundant in their season. 
 Though birches, oaks, and shrubs were yet leafless, 
 they almost hid the royal chateau, to which it seemed 
 a far cry from the gate. Nothing was spoken until 
 the party came to this pile, buttressed along the cliff, 
 and looking with large stone-cased windows over val- 
 ley and height. 
 
 " This is the middle chateau, where the king rests," 
 said the royal messenger; and Jeanne would have 
 turned aside to the great entrance. 
 
 " You are not to be lodged here," he told her ; " you 
 go yonder to the tower of Coudray, beyond the inner 
 moat." 
 
 They passed the long palace side, seeing no face look 
 down in welcome, and crossed the bridge over the in- 
 ner moat. Instead of water a fleece of springing grass 
 covered the depths of this wide and sheltered moat. 
 A curtain of stone connected a high tower on the moat 
 bank with another battlemented tower built into the 
 buttressed cliff wall. There was an archway in the 
 curtain at the end of the bridge, through which they 
 passed to the tower of Coudray on the right hand. It 
 rose between two wings of masonry. The farther one 
 was expanded to a chapel, but the nearer one seemed 
 merely a sheltered entrance to a stone staircase built 
 up ^o the first floor of the tower. Joints of creepers
 
 70 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 clung about its corners and massed over its sashless 
 window. Wherever a rock had crumbled, little tufts 
 of green were coming generously out to meet the.Tou- 
 raine sun. 
 
 "Ascend here, pucelle," said the dauphin's mes- 
 senger ; " and wait until I see the king. Women will 
 be sent to attend you. Here is better footing than on 
 the inner stairs." 
 
 "But when shall I see the dauphin?" inquired 
 Jeanne. Her guide made a gesture which counseled 
 patience. 
 
 " It hath struck seven of the clock," ventured Ber- 
 trand. " Perhaps his Majesty is now at supper." 
 
 " The king dines at seven in Chinon," said the mes- 
 senger ; " and I have never seen him so bent on affairs 
 of state that he abated his natural habits." 
 
 " Messire Colet," said Jeanne, using her guide's name 
 with a power of entreaty which pierced a courtier's 
 indifference, " go you at once to the dauphin, and tell 
 him I am here and must see him." 
 
 " It shall be done, pucelle ; but you yourself need 
 food; and rest also you need after ten days in the 
 saddle, and no repose and comfort except what you 
 could take upon your knees on the stones of St. 
 Katherine de Fierbois." 
 
 Jeanne turned laughing from her ascent of the 
 stairs, and clapped her guide on the back with a sud- 
 den palm. 
 
 " I wish I had ten thousand such men as these, all 
 armed and equipped, and ready to march this minute. 
 We would make short work of the English in France." 
 
 The astonished messenger saw her shut the door
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 71 
 
 of the tower before he turned to De Metz and the 
 squire. 
 
 "Hath she not a strange effect on a man? You 
 would say she is a child driven by some power toward 
 bloody war; yet when you see her riding at speed, 
 with her throat swelled out and her shoulders back, 
 or when she rouses you with a stroke like that, you 
 want to unsheathe a sword and shout." 
 
 He led Jeanne's escort around to the front of the 
 tower, where a door let them into a dark circular in- 
 closure. 
 
 "I call this a beastly place," growled the archer. 
 " In Vaucouleurs we had better stables for cattle." 
 
 " This dungeon is only the guard-room of the tower," 
 said the messenger; "but over yonder, beyond St. 
 Martin's Chapel, we have some deep underground 
 cells, with irons in the walls, for such fellows as you, 
 my good bowman. If you bring a proud stomach to 
 Chinon, you will be let down out of daylight, as many 
 a better man hath been before your time." 
 
 "A soldier needs nothing but a bench and the 
 earthen floor," said De Metz; "but I would be glad 
 to know that the maid hath better accommodations 
 above." 
 
 " She has two commodious chambers, one over the 
 other, for herself and the ladies who will be sent to 
 bear her company. And now, messire knight, set 
 your guard, and I will show you and the squire where 
 you are to lodge." 
 
 " Let me stay with the guard until company is sent 
 to the pucelle," requested Bertrand ; and his forward- 
 ness was not rebuked. He sat down near the door,
 
 72 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Richard the archer being left as sentinel at the foot of 
 the inner stairs. Richard could see nothing but cross- 
 tracery of distant boughs or chapel walls through the 
 door, while his watcher could also see the Roman tower, 
 and much nearer something like a colossal chimney- 
 top standing half the length of a man above ground. 
 Wliile Bertrand sat there some serving-men descended 
 into it by means of a ladder, and he learned afterward 
 that it was an entrance to the subterranean storehouses 
 of the castle. 
 
 Ten days' resentment broke silence with the archer. 
 " I need no spy over me, messire innkeeper. I stood 
 at guard before thou wert born." 
 
 " Age never improves a knave," retorted Bertrand. 
 " Stand back, there ! I would as lief stick thee in the 
 ribs as not. I have scarce been able to keep my hands 
 off thee and thy two fellows since the night by Bar- 
 sur-Aube." 
 
 Though far from claiming social equality with the 
 squire, the bowman resented being ranked with ser- 
 vant-soldiers who had not yet risen to be men-at-arms. 
 In every body of troops the archers were most numer- 
 ous. A lifetime of practice went to the making of 
 their skill, while any varlet could soon learn the trade 
 of man-at-arms. Richard coarsely sneered and put his 
 knuckles on his hips at mention of his two fellows, 
 but his face changed at mention of the night by Bar- 
 sur-Aube. 
 
 " Come," said Bertrand, " tell me what you saw, and 
 I will never mention the matter to the dauphin. The 
 pucelle is now safe in Chinon, but he might clap you 
 in irons for conspiring to drown her, if he knew it.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 73 
 
 I will pledge you also the silence of Messire de Metz, 
 though we are both resolved you go no farther in our 
 company. What made you three knaves pick up your 
 heels every time you approached her ? " 
 
 "I do not know, messire." Richard's eyes were 
 uneasy and his figure was dejected. 
 
 "Did you see any apparition?" 
 
 "I will tell thee, Messire de Poulengy, I am glad 
 this business is done, and I wish to be no more about 
 the maid. While no man likes spying, I am well 
 enough pleased to have thee on that bench as twilight 
 falls, before torch be lighted in this vault." 
 
 "What did you see at Bar-sur-Aube ? " Bertrand 
 repeated with impatience. 
 
 "Nothing, messire nothing. It was the feeling. 
 We all had it. I would rather be scalded with boiling 
 oil, or take a shaft through my body, than ever have 
 it again. She may be a maid of God, but my flesh 
 creepeth on coming near her. Something hath guard 
 over her that an honest soldier cannot abide." 
 
 "You did not see the awful archangel St. Michael 
 hovering above her ? " 
 
 "No, messire." 
 
 " You did not see St. Margaret and St. Catherine, 
 one on each side of her, St. Margaret's dragon trailing 
 across De Metz, and St. Catherine resting her wheel 
 on a fold of my cloak ? " 
 
 "Xo, messire," the bowman answered, a shudder 
 going -with his words. 
 
 " It is well for you that you did not see them. The 
 sight of them slays men that have the intention to do 
 murder."
 
 74 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 " I pray God I may never see them," said Richard, 
 devoutly. 
 
 "Although you are a sinful man," observed Ber- 
 trand, " I think your prayer will be answered. And 
 see to it, you three, that you make early confession. 
 It is dangerous to be in the neighborhood of such a 
 maid with sin on your conscience." 
 
 "We are all agreed on that, messire. At first I 
 thought she was a witch ; but now, though I have such 
 terror of her as I never had of woman, I know she is 
 not holpen of the devil." 
 
 " You would be more at your ease in her company 
 if she were ? " 
 
 " Yes, messire ; whereas, after that feeling she gave 
 me, I am loath even to swear in her hearing." 
 
 " That must work you great discomfort. The knight 
 of Novelopont will get you placed where you can curse 
 in peace, and kill with more advantage to the dauphin." 
 
 The rush of women's clothes, rather than the sound 
 of footsteps, startled the squire from his bench. As 
 he hurried past the window of that extension which 
 sheltered the outer staircase, he saw two figures ascend- 
 ing. One was an elderly woman, servant or duenna, 
 and before her ran, light-footed, a creature of elegant 
 back, wearing a high conical head-dress from which 
 floated a cloud of gauze. 
 
 "These be the dames sent from court," thought 
 Bertrand. 
 
 But Jeanne, sitting in the upper chamber by a 
 window overlooking valley and middle chateau, turned 
 at the small pat of footsteps, and saw only a maid 
 entering from the stairs.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 75 
 
 It was a delicately fashioned, blue-eyed, white and 
 rose-red maid, with square brows and a full, oval face. 
 The hair was drawn up from her high forehead and 
 concealed under her head-dress. Though the face was 
 shown thus freely, and all of the well-set neck, its 
 sweet modesty was its first charm. Jeanne stood up 
 to receive her, but she made a gesture of greeting, and 
 drew a chair for herself near the window, measuring 
 Jeanne's male hose and cuirass with the swift and 
 critical inspection of youth. 
 
 " You are the maid from Vaucouleurs ? " 
 
 "Yes, demoiselle." 
 
 "I saw you pass under the chateau windows, and 
 slipped away directly to see you. My name is Agnes 
 Sorel. My aunt is lady in waiting to the Queen of 
 Sicily, his Majesty's mother-in-law." 
 
 She drew in her breath with pretty haste, and added : 
 " Let us have some talk before the old duennas come. 
 You are to have two of the most tiresome women at 
 court put in here to take care of you. By that ar- 
 rangement we get rid of them, and they feel their se- 
 lection a mark of royal favor." 
 
 " I did not come to women ; I came to see the dau- 
 phin," said Jeanne. 
 
 " Here we do not say the dauphin," observed Agnes. 
 "Charles is our king, having been consecrated at 
 Poitiers. That little beast Louis, the king's son, is 
 the dauphin; and if he lives which God forbid! 
 will some day be Louis XI of France, provided the 
 English leave us any France." 
 
 The eagerness of the one, so unlike the quiet power 
 of the other, seemed to work a sudden embarrassment
 
 76 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 between the two maids. Agnes, however, drew her 
 chair still nearer to Jeanne. In this high tower a 
 primrose daylight lingered, reflecting its glow upon 
 them from the circular stone walls. No tapestry was 
 hung here, but both bedchambers of Coudray were 
 provided with all that women then used in their 
 dressing- and sleeping-rooms. 
 
 " Do you like to wear the habit of a man ? " 
 
 " The habit matters nothing," answered Jeanne. " I 
 am obliged to wear it to do what I am sent to do." 
 
 " And will you really ask the king to send you to 
 war?" 
 
 " I will go to-morrow, demoiselle, if he but give me 
 men-at-arms." 
 
 Agnes rested her full, oval chin on a hand so sensi- 
 tively white and fine that Jeanne reflected that it could 
 never have twisted wool betwixt finger and thumb, or 
 washed at the river. 
 
 " One can see you are no fool. I have myself some- 
 times felt in a rage to go to war, or to do anything 
 which would stir this lazy Charles. He is the sweetest 
 king that ever drew breath. Do you see that great 
 stone shaft on the back of the middle chateau?" she 
 suddenly inquired. " That is an oubliette. The cour- 
 tiers say nothing about it, but every one knows it is 
 an oubliette, and is entered from the upper floor of 
 the chateau. There a trap drops one to the very 
 depths of this rock, and a sluice carries one's body into 
 the river, and no person the wiser, and all trace lost. 
 Oh, many a king has dropped his enemies down that 
 oubliette; but Charles has never used it in his life. 
 I should use it. Long since would that machinery
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 77 
 
 have been oiled and set in motion if I had been king, 
 and the first person sent down the shaft would have 
 been Georges la Tremouille." 
 
 " Who is Georges la Tremouille ? " 
 
 "Did you never hear of the king's favorite? If 
 France be altogether lost to the English, it will be his 
 fault. Indeed, there is not a soul near the king who 
 cares what becomes of France, unless it be the Queen 
 of Sicily, who has bestirred herself for all the troops 
 raised. I despise king's favorites," said the child 
 courtier, with fervor. " I am only poor Agnes Sorel 
 of Loches, but I can see through that La Tremouille. 
 He will not suffer any one to be near Charles except 
 himself, and hath even sent the queen away to tend 
 the nursery of the little beast of a dauphin. Yet he 
 loves neither the king nor the realm. He simply wishes 
 to be master at court. You will have to pass him be- 
 fore you get leave to face the English, pucelle. My 
 aunt has heard it said he is in league with them. He 
 has a chateau at Sully-sur-Loire, near Orleans; but 
 the English, however they go about meddling with 
 France, never trouble him." 
 
 Agnes lifted a finger to silence her own rapid talk, 
 and turned her head to listen as the woman who had 
 entered the tower with her repeated a call on the stairs. 
 
 " Your old cats are coming, pucelle. I am warned 
 to go." 
 
 "Will you carry a message for me to the dauphin, 
 demoiselle ? " 
 
 " Gladly would I ; but my aunt does not yet permit 
 me to have speech with the king. I am too young and 
 insignificant. I am not of the court, indeed, but only
 
 78 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 taking a peep at it from my convent at Loches, to be 
 sent directly back. But I can use my eyes and ears, 
 and they should be serviceable to you if my aunt per- 
 mitted me to stay at Chinon." 
 
 She had reached the stairs. She turned and faced 
 the tall maid standing in man's clothes against the 
 fading window. They looked at each other with a 
 long look. Agnes Sorel's face whitened with pas- 
 sionate earnestness, forecasting the power of her ma- 
 turity, when she should be called "belle des belles," 
 and reign like a queen for the good of the kingdom. 
 
 " Pucelle, I may never see you again. We are very 
 different, but we both love France. And I shall love 
 France better as long as I live because I have seen 
 you. Good day." 
 
 " Good day, demoiselle. Pray for me."
 
 TARS came out over Chinon, and the air 
 was warm, unlike the crisp March night 
 air of Domremy. Jeanne had eaten her 
 supper, but she remained by the upper 
 window of the tower thinking of her coming audience 
 with the dauphin. She could not sleep, as did the two 
 elderly ladies of the court in the chamber under her ; 
 but, sitting on the broad sill, she watched the lights of 
 the middle chateau, and harkened to sounds across 
 the moat. 
 
 There were delicious strains of music, sometimes a 
 roar of laughter, or a hint of women's voices rising and 
 falling in chorus. Jeanne heard the clock strike in its 
 high, distant place; but time was nothing to these 
 courtiers in the middle chateau, who, according to the 
 words of the young demoiselle, cared so little what be- 
 came of France. To a Lorraine peasant the sovereign 
 was more sacred than the nearest relation. She was 
 angry with his friends ; and when a flare of torch-light 
 came around the front of the palace, the maid leaned 
 out amazed. 
 Muffled ladies lifting their long mantles from the
 
 80 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 damp of the ground, and men in rich colors and 
 plumed hats picking their way with pointed shoes, 
 flocked toward her tower across the moat bridge. 
 Jeanne's heart pounded in her side. It could not be 
 that the dauphin was sending this gay train to bring 
 her into his presence. But she saw Charles himself in 
 the midst of it. Where was there a child in the Meuse 
 valley who did not know the traits of the house of 
 Valois ? Burgundy, the younger branch of this house, 
 brought forth strong, dark men ; Orleans, the kingly 
 branch, men of sanguine complexion and soft hair. 
 Yet all had the same aquiline features, marked chins, 
 and outward turning of the edges of the lips. Jeanne 
 needed no one to show her the dauphin, stepping be- 
 tween torch-bearers, in a long robe which covered him, 
 the smoke filming above his fair head, his laughing, 
 unconcerned eyes roving the little world about him. 
 
 With a patter like a flock of sheep the light footsteps 
 of the company wheeled to the left, and they went on 
 with their torches to the battlemented tower of Boissy, 
 followed by a long, gay fellow in black, carrying in 
 his arms an instrument on which he made tripping 
 melody as he went. Jeanne could see from her height 
 the flat top of the tower of Boissy, with its parapet of 
 stone. The curtain of masonry along the moat ran 
 like a path from one tower to the other. Torchmen 
 stepped outside the parapet, and stood on an open stone 
 platform supporting the battlements, and in the ring 
 of smoky light which they formed the lute struck up, 
 and Charles's little court, hilarious with its freak in the 
 mild March night, flung mufflers aside, and made the 
 pavement resound with their dancing.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 81 
 
 Orleans was nearly surrounded by the English, and 
 whole villages in France stood as empty as kennels. 
 In the Solange country there had been no plowing or 
 sowing for years, and women as gaunt as wolves tried 
 to nourish little living skeletons at their breasts. Rob- 
 bers were in every province. The infant king of Eng- 
 land was crowned in Paris, while the dauphin of 
 France had neither army nor crown ; his last hope 
 was slipping from him with Orleans : and he and his 
 people went merrily out in the night to dance on the 
 top of a tower ! 
 
 It was not until the next evening that the ladies who 
 attended Jeanne came to tell her that the king was 
 ready to give her audience. All day she had been tor- 
 mented by courtiers, who ran up the stairs to look at 
 her, or followed her into the chapel of St. Martin, 
 where she went to pray. One was a lean boy in a 
 page's dress, who craned his neck around a pillar of 
 the chapel ; the corners of his mouth turned upward 
 with the habit of laughter. She felt moved to put on 
 a calm front while she was watched, and to let none 
 of them catch her weeping ; so, with a quick pass of 
 her hands through her \ort hair, she said to those 
 prudent ladies whom Agnes Sorel called the old 
 cats: 
 
 "En nom De, if the dauphin be ready to see me, 
 take me before him at once." 
 
 They first took her, with the gentle hands of women 
 accustomed to robe royalty, to a long garment lying 
 ready upon a bench, and one of them began to un- 
 fasten her cuirass. 
 
 "What are you doing?" asked Jeanne.
 
 82 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 " Preparing you for audience with the king. One 
 must put on a court dress when one goes to court." 
 
 " I never in my life trailed cloth after me on the 
 ground. I cannot wear it," said Jeanne, eying the 
 folds doubtfully ; "let me be as I am." 
 
 "But thou art a maid," urged one of the dames. 
 " It is not fitting that a maid should go before the king 
 in man's tunic and hose." 
 
 " Then I will put on my short peasant dress, that I 
 brought behind my saddle from Vaucouleurs." 
 
 "But the king," suggested one of the ladies, for 
 neither of the two found her easy to command, " is a 
 nice observer of women's clothes. I remember hearing 
 him praise to the queen a hennin that had the front 
 bent down to make scallops along the brow." 
 
 "What have I to do with hennins?" exclaimed 
 Jeanne. "What are hennins?" 
 
 " Hennins are high, pointed head-coverings." 
 
 "The kind of hennin for me is a casque of steel. 
 You cannot make a court lady of me." Curious and 
 impatient, she examined the long dark robe edged with 
 white, unwilling to be rude to the two shadow-like at 
 tendants. Her young delight in colors and her sense 
 of what was fitting for Jeanne d'Arc rej ected it. " Give 
 me my cloak." 
 
 " But will you not put on the court dress ? " 
 
 " The high steward is waiting to conduct you," said 
 the other lady, " and time presses." 
 
 " En nom De, I will go to the dauphin as I am." 
 
 An ascent of broad steps gave entrance to the great 
 hall of the middle chateau. Sixty feet distant, at the 
 end of the vaulted room, was a chimney of white stone
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 83 
 
 with square pillars upholding its penthouse. A pair 
 of andirons with posset-cups stood nearly as high as 
 the chimney-breast. A noble fire blazed here, reflected 
 by the polished oak boards of the floor ; candles were 
 lighted, and fifty torches were fastened along the 
 walls, burning clearly, and showing the whiteness of 
 Chinon stone, which gave all masonry such a ghostly 
 look by night; for the only pieces of tapestry were 
 hung at the sides of the chimney, showing miracles 
 performed by St. Martin. Each window, recessetf in 
 the thick wall, had its two opposite splayed seats of 
 stone, worn by much lounging. 
 
 The court had gathered with full curiosity to see 
 the sorceress. Though Chinon was a secure place, 
 well removed from the seat of war, it was dull in the 
 month of March before Easter festivities came on. 
 Three hundred knights and nobles were in the hall, 
 each wearing the color of the lady he affected ; and 
 beautiful, spirited women, priests and court officers, 
 walked to and fro, carrying the light on their raiment. 
 Their talk came to Jeanne, as she ascended, like the 
 humming of bees. 
 
 Yolande, the dowager Queen of Sicily, stood kindly 
 near the entrance to greet and put at ease a poor maid 
 whom she had begged to have at Chinon. The young 
 man-at-arms brought in by the high steward, with 
 bare forehead and short hair flying about her delicate 
 ears, confused the queen, who had herself sent a fitting 
 court dress to the maid. "While she looked for a timid 
 peasant to follow this straight-limbed youth, Jeanne 
 walked up the hall toward the dauphin. 
 
 He stood in the midst of courtiers, least distin-
 
 84 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 guished of all by his dress ; but she who had carried 
 his image in mind from childhood could easily choose 
 him. Charles was not more than ten years older than 
 Jeanne. He had the beauty of young manhood, and 
 was of an imposing figure out of armor, which be- 
 trayed the weak outline of his legs. The sweetest 
 king who ever drew breath was languorous and gentle 
 in his manner, kindly toward the pleasant side of the 
 world, and most attractive to women. 
 
 The courtiers let Jeanne pass through the midst of 
 them, regarding her with the eyes of people accus- 
 tomed to laugh for pastime, until she reached the 
 middle of the hall, when one of them stepped back- 
 ward with continuous bowing, and directed her to a 
 person gorgeous with decorations. 
 
 " The king." 
 
 " But why do you tell me that ? " inquired Jeanne, 
 surprised that they should want to make game of her 
 serious business. Without pausing, she continued on 
 her way to Charles, and knelt, bending her body al- 
 most to the ground. 
 
 " God give you good life, fair dauphin." 
 
 " I am not the king," said Charles, his smiling lips 
 continuing the game. 
 
 " You are not yet the king, but you shall be. My 
 name is Jeanne the maid. The King of heaven sends 
 you word by me that you shall be anointed and 
 crowned in the city of Kheims, and it is his pleasure 
 that our enemies the English depart to their own 
 country." 
 
 " How am I to know this ? " Feeling the beauty of 
 her voice, he looked into familiar eyes around for the
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE I^AKC 85 
 
 answering smile which often helped him to take seri- 
 ous matters lightly. His queen and his mother-in-law 
 had urged him to seize any help, and the city of Or- 
 leans was wildly demanding this strange creature, 
 who affected him, not as woman should affect man, 
 but as some blameless and sexless knight dropped out 
 of God knew where for his reproach. It would be 
 said in every kingdom of Christendom that Charles of 
 France was come to a pretty pass when he was obliged 
 to take up with a peasant maid from the hills of Lor- 
 raine to lead his troops and fight his battles. 
 
 " My sign shall be the raising of the siege of Orleans." 
 
 The dauphin's eyes met the eyes of the deputies, and 
 all three men agreed silently that she might well be 
 used against the English if the people believed she 
 could raise the siege. 
 
 The Queen of Sicily whispered with awe to ladies in 
 waiting : " Not only did she know the king without ever 
 having seen him, but she kneels as if brought up in a 
 court." 
 
 "And I have a sign also for you alone, gentle 
 dauphin," said Jeanne, " that I may not tell to any 
 other ear." 
 
 " Come aside and tell it to mine alone, then," said 
 Charles. 
 
 They stepped into a window recess, and stood be- 
 tween the two splayed seats, Charles with his back to 
 the court. The cross of stone which parted the win- 
 dow into four oblongs of starlight was behind Jeanne. 
 And much farther behind her, in the distant valley of 
 the Meuse, was that past life from which she had come 
 to these strange uses.
 
 86 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 The courtiers talked among themselves, women's 
 pointed hennins towering above men's heads; but 
 every face,. even that of the court poet leaning against 
 a chimney pillar and noiselessly fingering his lute, 
 was turned toward the dauphin and the maid. 
 
 Charles entered the alcove as a man submits himself 
 to remedies unproved which he has half a mind to re- 
 ject. In the middle ages sorcery was the unpardon- 
 able sin. The folly of having to do with a peasant 
 would be nothing compared with the charge of helping 
 himself by witchcraft. Yet this humble presence be- 
 side him, in the dress of a soldier, scarcely conscious 
 of herself, was not like any creature who had in his 
 lifetime been sent to the stake accused of meddling 
 with devils. 
 
 Their talk in the window was so brief that the 
 change in the dauphin startled his court. He turned 
 about with a radiant face, and led the maid toward 
 them by the hand. Never in the seven years of his 
 uneasy reign and those who knew him longest said 
 never in his life before had he been so jubilant. 1 
 
 1 " One day, at the period of his greatest adversity, the prince, 
 vainly looking for a remedy against so many troubles, entered 
 in the morning, alone, into his oratory, and there, without utter- 
 ing a word aloud, made prayer to God from the depths of his 
 heart that if he were the true heir, issue of the house of France 
 (and a doubt was possible with such a queen as Isabel of Bava- 
 ria), and the kingdom ought justly to be his, God would be 
 pleased to keep and defend it for him ; if not, to give him grace 
 to escape without death or imprisonment and find safety in 
 Spain or Scotland, where he intended in the last resort to seek 
 a refuge. This prayer, known to God alone, the maid recalled 
 to the mind of Charles VII, and thus is explained the joy
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE I^ARC 87 
 
 " What hath she told him ? " whispered a lady to the 
 chancellor. 
 
 " Some remedy for the rot of sheep's feet," laughed 
 the favorite at her ear. " Charles is a gentle king to 
 please. But I will inquire, and bring you word of the 
 wonderful token." 
 
 "Who is that man with his mouth awry?" asked 
 Jeanne of the deputies from Orleans in the crowd that 
 the dauphin brought about her. 
 
 " That is the chancellor of France, La Tre'mouille." 
 
 "I would there were more of the royal blood 
 gathered here, for that would be the better for 
 France." 
 
 Undismayed, she reviewed the knights and nobles, 
 and in her mind estimated the value of each one. In 
 an age of hand-to-hand combat the large, well-boned 
 man promised best for fighting. Jeanne was a child 
 in expression. She could not talk so that people 
 would stand and listen to her from morning till night, 
 as it was said a friar at Paris was then doing, but she 
 had the sense of events. Insincerity was the life- 
 breath of this court, which the Queen of Sicily fre- 
 quented only for her daughter's sake. Its intrigues 
 and jealousies and secret histories could not lie plainly 
 open to the maid from Domremy ; but she felt those 
 tangles of human interests and petty spites, which 
 
 which, as the witnesses say, he testified whilst none at that 
 time knew the cause. Jeanne by this revelation not only caused 
 the king to believe in her ; she caused him to believe in himself 
 and his right and title : 'I tell thee on behalf of my Lord that 
 thou art the true heir of France and son of the king.' " Wallon, 
 tome i., p. 32.
 
 88 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 make the entire fabric of many lives, disturbing her 
 large scheme. 
 
 Because Charles showed that he believed in her, his 
 ladies came near and talked to her, looking less at her 
 man-at-arms shoes. The chancellor asked her how 
 she fared across country, and if she had heard on her 
 journey the secret she told the king. Alan Chartier, 
 the court poet, carrying his lute, and with his sugar- 
 loaf hat hanging at his back by ribbons, lounged at 
 her elbow, half insolent with the license of the court, 
 half fascinated by a face rapt with purpose as he had 
 never seen face before. Ashamed, Jeanne looked at 
 them all, and wished they would quit making witty 
 plays with words, and turn to the matter of Or- 
 leans; for, besides Charles and the deputies, there 
 was no man in hall who willingly spoke of that be- 
 sieged city. 
 
 Jeanne knew her brother Jacquemine could make 
 the family miserable by his f retf ulness. In a prince's 
 household the tyranny of small over great natures 
 was still the strange human law. Her first half-hour 
 at court showed her how an insignificant man, rising 
 by the power of his arrogance, could turn at will the 
 fate of a kingdom. The courtier who had presented 
 La Tremouille as her king jested less at her than at 
 France. 
 
 The audience ended, and Jeanne went back to the 
 tower of Coudray. Morning and noon and night grew 
 and brightened and darkened over the white stones of 
 Chinon, and morning came again. She knelt in the 
 chapel of St. Martin for hours at a time, while spring 
 mists approached from infinite depths of sky to
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE I^ARC 89 
 
 dampen the earth. The dampness became bold lines 
 of rain, and threshed trees, streaming down walls and 
 hissing against the buttressed heights. Almost before 
 a downpour could thin, the sun broke through and 
 printed a rainbow across the valley. The season con- 
 tinued to advance, though affairs in the kingdom stood 
 still. 
 
 Bertrand took shelter at the foot of the outer stair- 
 way, leaning against the open window where he could 
 watch these gathering and passing rains, with dull 
 interest in their frequency. The tall youth in page's 
 dress whom he had seen hanging about the chapel, 
 and disapproved of as a spy upon Jeanne, entered 
 boldly and made for the stairway. Bertrand took him 
 by the collar, but allowed him to wrench himself loose 
 and stand back. 
 
 " What business have you here, young messire ? " 
 
 " I am sent to the pucelle." 
 
 " What 's your message ? " 
 
 " I will even deliver that myself." 
 
 " I am her squire," said Bertrand. 
 
 " And I am sent to be her page," said the other. 
 
 "Who sent you?" 
 
 "The king." 
 
 " What is your name ? " 
 
 " Louis de Coutes." i 
 
 Bertrand de Poulengy and Louis] de Coutes eyed 
 eacli other without favor. 
 
 " I am bid to wait on her," further declared Louis. 
 
 1 Her page, Louis de Coutes, not Louis de Conte. (See 
 " Grand List," or " Livre d'Or de Jeanne d'Arc," Bibliotheque 
 Natiouale.)
 
 90 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 "Also, if she hath aught to set down in writing, I can 
 do that, for I have learned the clerk's trade." 
 
 " You have learned the clerk's trade, have you ? I 
 thank God, my trade is that of arms. I carry neither 
 quill nor train of lady's petticoat." 
 
 "No need to tell, messire squire, that you were not 
 bred to courts. Panniers on your back, and wooden 
 shoes on your feet these are what you have carried." 
 
 " Children are better taught in my country," retorted 
 Bertrand, flushing red. 
 
 " I am about four years younger than you are," cal- 
 culated Louis, noting the squire's height and the down 
 on his lip ; " but if you will go beyond the pit with 
 me, where no one is likely to see us, we will settle this 
 matter now." 
 
 "There is more to you than I thought," Bertrand 
 admitted. "I will not strike a man younger than 
 myself. Go in graciously, and do your errand with 
 the pucelle. If the dauphin sends her a page, it is 
 none of her squire's business. But I would we were 
 at Orleans, having some honest fighting, instead of 
 lounging here against walls." 
 
 "You are not like to go to Orleans soon. The 
 pucelle is to be sent farther south, direct to Poitiers." 
 
 Bertrand's solicitude, as keen as anguish, appeared 
 in his face. 
 
 "Why to Poitiers?" 
 
 " Has not Poitiers been the capital of the kingdom 
 since the loss of Paris ? " 
 
 " What has the pucelle to do with that ? " 
 
 " The king hath been advised to send her there to 
 be examined by bishops and learned doctors of the
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 91 
 
 law. He would have their opinion on so rash a busi- 
 ness as attempting to raise a siege by means of a maid. 
 She is to come herself to the council-chamber, and take 
 the word from his Majesty." 
 
 The dowager Queen of Sicily, who had been the first 
 person to accept Jeanne publicly in hall, was not the 
 last in council to see that the dauphin would lower 
 himself before Christendom if he hastened to make use 
 of this peasant without throwing the responsibility on 
 the church. Queen Yolande was an energetic woman 
 whose nervous hands did not often lie quietly in her 
 lap, but fluttered in front of her like butterfly wings, 
 bearing up and carrying abroad what she volubly said. 
 She wished her daughter, poor Marie of Anjou, firmly 
 seated in the kingdom of France. And, benevolent 
 though her nature was, she wished disgrace might 
 overtake La Tremouille, who stood leaning against the 
 chimney in Charles's council-chamber, meditating on 
 his own private intrigues, and on nothing else. The 
 deputies from Orleans were urgent to have the maid 
 at once. 
 
 " There are not at this time four pieces in the trea- 
 sury, Messire de Beaucaire," said Charles to one of 
 them. 
 
 " However, there is always Jacques Coaur of Bourges 
 to advance money," put in Queen Yolande, her fingers 
 fluttering down to withdraw the robe from her ankle, 
 which she warmed at the hearth-corner. Three fleurs- 
 de-lis on the huge tablet of iron which lined the chim- 
 ney-back glowed red-hot above the burning wood. 
 
 " Jacques Creur hath advanced much money already. 
 The honest goldsmith may well laugh at securities
 
 92 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 offered by this out-at-elbows court. We are not shot 
 at by the English here, Messire de Tilloy, but we aro 
 jeered at by all Christendom. We would we had ten 
 thousand men now on the inarch to Orleans ; but we 
 have not the means to equip a single man-at-arms. 
 And we would the doctors in Poitiers had already ap- 
 proved of this maid as we do. But nothing is settled, 
 and the affairs of this world cannot be hurried." 
 
 "The peasant's sign made good speed with your 
 Majesty," La Tremouille said. " I would be glad to 
 know that powerful sign myself." 
 
 Charles smiled at his favorite without replying, and 
 one of the deputies declared : " By St. Martin ! I would 
 we had that other sign she promised to show before 
 Orleans. Being sent in such haste, we are loath to 
 go twenty leagues farther to Poitiers, and wait the 
 slow deliberations of churchmen." 
 
 " If we were shod like you, Messire de Beaucaire," 
 said Charles, " we would ride to Poitiers with pleasure- 
 But when a king's shoes grow shabby and thin, he 
 has some shame about showing himself at his capital 
 in them." 
 
 "Has your Majesty pressingly commanded new 
 footwear on account of going to Poitiers?" inquired 
 the dowager. "I saw a man waiting in the ante- 
 chamber as I came in, having shoes in his hand." 
 
 " Let him present himself here at once, in Heaven's 
 name," said Charles, lounging over an arm of his 
 chair, and sticking his foot out lazily. "Is this fit 
 gear for a king to wear in council ? France is indeed 
 down at the heel. But we have yet resources when a 
 man who hath not been three times paid since the
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 93 
 
 treaty of Troyes brings his wares, and patiently waits 
 to have them tried on." 
 
 Being permitted to enter, the Chinon shoemaker 
 came to his knees before his sovereign with such 
 slovenly disregard of ceremony as would have got him 
 a beating in the court of Burgundy. It was the imper- 
 tinence of a humble creditor toward a debtor of high 
 station. Royalty had sat so long over the villagers of 
 Chinon that they regarded its luster a mere character- 
 istic of that region, like the whiteness of their stone. 
 
 The Orleans deputies were impatient at Charles's 
 dalliance over the fit of a shoe. He examined it well, 
 and set his foot down with satisfaction. 
 
 " Now put on the other, my man." 
 
 "Not without my money, your Majesty," said the 
 shoemaker. 
 
 La Tremouille laughed out loud at the crestfallen 
 look of the sovereign of France. 
 
 " Come, good fellow," argued Charles, " it is like to 
 make your fortune to be shoemaker to the king. Put 
 on my shoe." 
 
 " It hath come nearer to making me a beggar. And 
 I hold, your Majesty, that this shoe is mine until it be 
 paid for." 
 
 " But the king cannot be seen in one new shoe and 
 one old one." 
 
 " No, your Majesty j that would be unseemly. But 
 since you have no new one of your own, it may well 
 be avoided." 
 
 "You shall be paid, my friend. Go about your 
 business." 
 
 "Without doubt I shall be paid, your Majesty ; for
 
 94 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 I intend to go about my business hereafter only to the 
 buyer who hath money to his pouch." 
 
 Charles gave man and shoe a kick which sent them 
 both half across the room. He thrust his foot into 
 his old foot-gear, and his easy laugh followed the de- 
 parting craftsman. 
 
 " That settles the question of our going to Poitiers. 
 We must even continue to wear our old shoes. But 
 we crave to have them greased. In a realm so im- 
 poverished as this it is asking much ; but we do crave 
 to have our old shoes greased." 
 
 " The king is a fop," laughed his chancellor. " He 
 would even have his shoes greased when there is scarce 
 fat enough in the chateau to grease the chops of his 
 household." 
 
 "Not four pieces left in the treasury, and credit 
 gone. A king that hath no credit with his shoemaker, 
 what way can he turn ? " 
 
 Charles lolled his head against the back of his chair, 
 finding compensation in parading his poverty before 
 the Orleans deputies. 
 
 "Bring in that maid who declares we shall be 
 crowned at Rheims, and it is the will of Grod the 
 English be driven out of France. It hath been our 
 will seven long years, though that availed nothing. 
 How we are to be crowned at Rheims, across leagues 
 of hostile country, or even transported there with 
 suitable retinue, God he alone knoweth." 
 
 " Did your Majesty hear," inquired Queen Yolande, 
 " that the pucelle foretold the death of a soldier who 
 met her at the gates, and that very hour he fell into 
 the river and was drowned ? "
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 95 
 
 " We had not heard it ; but let her at once foretell 
 the death of Bedford and a few of our other English 
 friends." 
 
 "The story is quite true. She was heard by the 
 beggars in St. George's Abbey. ' Dost thou jarnedieu,' 
 saith the maid, ' when thou art so near death ? ' And 
 that same hour he fell in the river and was drowned." 
 
 " What a waste of the material needed at Orleans ! n 
 observed La Tremouille. "I call your maid a har- 
 binger of ill. It is only since she entered Chinon that 
 the shoemaker refused credit and soldiers began to 
 take to the river." 
 
 " If she be a harbinger of ill, she will take from the 
 chancellor of France his occupation," gently responded 
 the queen ; " for things have gone from bad to worse 
 ever since Messire la Tremouille came to dwell at 
 court." 
 
 " She is the only person in this realm that hath ever 
 brought a word of good news to Chinon. Let us have 
 her in, to speak comfortably to us and console us for 
 the shoemaker." 
 
 Jeanne was already waiting in the antechamber. 
 The guard let her pass, and her page threw open the 
 door. As at her first audience, she went directly to 
 the dauphin, and fell on her knees. He changed his 
 lounging attitude, sitting erect, and bringing his 
 shabby shoes together, unmindful of their shabbiness. 
 At his left hand La Tremouille leaned against the 
 chimney; at his right knelt the maid who had told 
 him the secret thought of his own heart. Her young 
 face was worn and exalted by much suspense and 
 prayer. Her innocent mouth and clear hazel eyes
 
 06 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 moved Charles's sluggish religious nature as his con- 
 fessor could not. 
 
 " Gentle dauphin, do not hesitate to take the help 
 sent from God by ine. My counsel have bid me tell 
 you that no other can do what I am sent to do, not 
 even the daughter of the King of Scotland. Go on 
 hardily. Charlemagne and St. Louis are continually 
 on their knees for France. God hath taken pity on 
 us. Be not dismayed." 
 
 Charles raised her to stand beside him, and the 
 envoys from Orleans drew nearer, feeling that attrac- 
 tion which even her enemies owned. The room was 
 filled with one presence. She was as guiltless of de- 
 siring to please men as a statue on an altar, but she 
 already transformed them by some indefinable power. 
 
 "Jeanne," said the dauphin, "we have just told 
 these friends thou hast brought us the only good news 
 we have had in years. "We have faith in thee ; but in 
 order that others may have the same faith it is neces- 
 sary to prove thee." 
 
 "Prove me before Orleans." 
 
 " But you ask for men-at-arms and equipments to 
 raise the siege of Orleans. There are people who 
 would say, ' If she be sent by God, what need hath she 
 of men-at-arms ? ' " 
 
 "The men-at-arms will fight," answered Jeanne, 
 " and God will give the victory." She laughed. " En 
 nom De, we must help ourselves if we would be 
 helped." 
 
 " Thou hast spoken truth there, pucelle," remarked 
 Queen Yolande. " Money and provisions and succors 
 are needed for Orleans. His Majesty should not ex-
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANJ7E D'ARC 07 
 
 pect to have miracles wrought for him, though I my- 
 self believe that, by the favor of the saints, miracles 
 are about to be done." 
 
 " Jeanne," said Charles, " the most learned men of 
 the kingdom will be called to Poitiers. We think it 
 wise to send thee there to be questioned by them." 
 
 "What use is there, gentle dauphin, in setting 
 learned men on to ask me questions ? I know neither 
 a nor 6. I am sent, and my counsel have bid me go 
 on."; 
 
 "Who are your counsel, Jeanne!" 
 
 " My voices." 
 
 " Do you hear them continually ? " 
 
 " One voice stays with me ; another comes and goes, 
 and visits me often ; and with the third both delib- 
 erate." 
 
 She stood reserved, and after her words the room 
 was full of silence. Turning her eyes from the royal 
 face, she could see through a window the sweep of 
 Chinon valley, and she saw it blurred by rain and 
 tears. The delay and languor and inquisitiveness 
 and timid wisdom which must call a conclave of 
 bookish men to examine a plain message from Heaven 
 astonished her. 
 
 " En nom De," said Jeanne, shaving tears from her 
 cheek with her finger, and flinging them aside, "I 
 shall have tough work there, but my Lord will help 
 me."
 
 VI 
 
 IVE weeks after Jeanne had been sent from 
 Chinon to Poitiers her brother Pierre and 
 a churchman were moving southwestward 
 through a wooded tract, with the inten- 
 tion of resting that night at Loches. Their horses 
 were jaded by a long day's march, and picked a way 
 slowly through the light woods. Here the growth 
 was not dense, but tall-stemmed and open. Long 
 before the travelers rode down to the meadow through 
 which the Indre flowed, they had glimpses of it, a 
 low-lying stream, full to its pretty green edges. 
 
 Pierre felt his blood stirred like sap by the April 
 air blowing in his face. All things are young in April. 
 He scarcely owned to being worn by the journey, 
 though it had been a haphazard one without guide. 
 Sometimes they wandered leagues out of their course. 
 There was not much food to be found through France, 
 and more than once they had slept in the open air. 
 The Augustine monk, whose hermit life had inured 
 him to hardships, bore these privations as well as 
 Pierre did. It was not by Pierre's own desire that he 
 was in such pious company. Jacques and Isabel had 
 
 98
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 99 
 
 put him in charge of a pilgrim to Tours. Where 
 Tours was they did not know, except that they had 
 heard it lay in the Touraine country, and the holy 
 St. Martin had once been its bishop. If it proved a 
 far cry from Tours to Chinon or Poitiers, they felt 
 they could better trust their youngest son to Heaven 
 alone at the end of the journey than to courtiers 
 through all the dangers. For messengers from Poitiers 
 came weeks before to Domremy, making inquiries 
 about Jeanne. The cure testified. Mengette was 
 questioned, and women came running from Greux to 
 speak a good word for her. Even the daughter of 
 "Widow Davide stood out and praised her early play- 
 mate. Jeanne was being examined at Poitiers by strict 
 and keen men ; but if they thought to find her in ill 
 repute in Domremy, where she was born, it was an 
 impossible thing to do. A clerk took everything 
 down in writing. Isabel and Jacques beheld this 
 procedure without disapproval; but when Pierre 
 would have set out with the returning company, they 
 were positive against it. The season was yet too 
 early. The envoys from Poitiers might be very grave 
 men ; but there was a graver, a hermit of the Vosges, 
 whom the cure knew to be about returning to Tours. 
 Pilgrimages were very common even at the most un- 
 settled times. Isabel herself owed her surname of 
 Rome'e to a godfather who had made a pilgrimage to 
 Rome. In the Lorraine country gray friars, or Fran- 
 ciscans, were more in favor, being bound to the royal 
 cause; but a black friar, especially one who had a 
 name for sanctity, was better company for a lad start- 
 ing to war than the best of courtiers.
 
 100 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Pierre had carefully gathered all he could concern- 
 ing the route to be followed ; and it had entered his 
 mind, if the friar gave consent, they might part at 
 Loches. For at Loehes one had only to follow the 
 course of the river Indre north until it turned west- 
 ward to be led a long way toward Tours. But Poitiers 
 was to be found in the south. 
 
 Moving as directly as they could through pathless 
 woods, the friar jogging behind Pierre, having the 
 hood of his black capote drawn over his head, and his 
 eyes dropped to the ancient bed of the forest, they 
 came where they could see freely, without passing 
 sight through a network of trees, the open land and 
 river, and cliffs beyond. A sweetness of leaf-mold 
 came up with a penetrating quality like incense. 
 
 Pierre knew nothing about Loches or the approach 
 to it, but he turned and spoke over his shoulder : " If 
 we have been directed right, Brother Pasquerel, that 
 must be the donjon of Loches, far off yonder against 
 the sky." 
 
 " It is Loches," agreed Brother Pasquerel ; " but it 
 is half a day's journey distant yet." 
 
 " We have some hours before nightfall. Let us go 
 down into the open fields, and find it by the nearest 
 way the horses can take." 
 
 " There may be some danger in leaving the cover 
 of the woods before we are near Loches," suggested 
 the friar ; but he followed his companion in the descent. 
 
 "We are in the dauphin's country," said Pierre j 
 "we are not on land overrun by the English." 
 
 Loches's square mass of donjon, and the round 
 points of its chateau towers, mounted higher in the
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEG 101 
 
 afternoon sky. A moist greensward lay under the 
 horses' hoofs in the valley, and the Indre lapped its 
 edges as if they were lips. Pierre was riding idly, 
 wondering how far they must ascend this right bank 
 to find a bridge into Loches, when the friar, who was 
 measuring distance behind, grasped his bridle. Pierre 
 turned, and saw more than rising forest and winding 
 stream-course. He saw a troop of men with glittering 
 lances, still so distant that they seemed cast in one 
 lump, with the particles moving, and the lances mere 
 points of silver. But Pierre had seen men-at-arms 
 ride in his own country. He could not tell if they 
 wore armor. There was no sheen playing over the 
 surface. During all his adventures with Brother Pas- 
 querel they had not once encountered any of those 
 freebooting companies which tormented France. It 
 was not an unusual thing for little companies of 
 French or English to ride far, on the chance of making 
 swift, perilous attacks and bringing away prisoners. 
 But Pierre could not believe that any English knights 
 would venture beyond Orleans through the dauphin's 
 country to Loches. He was for stopping his horse, 
 but Brother Pasquerel dragged the bridle forward. 
 Brother Pasquerel was a black friar, the robe most in 
 favor with Burgundy; but those coming might be 
 neither Burgundians nor Armagnacs, though wearing 
 the badge of both. 
 
 " Ride for your life, my son ! They are following 
 us." 
 
 " But who would hurt a friar, Brother Pasquerel ? " 
 
 " I have not the desire to know ; and neither have 
 
 you come into France to meet single-handed such a
 
 102 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 company as rides yonder. "We should not have left 
 the cover of trees until nearer Loches ; a monk and an 
 unarmed lad what can we do but flee ?" 
 
 Pierre had no dread of the danger, and he spurred 
 ahead, laughing. 
 
 " When I tell Jehannette I ran from the first lances 
 I saw, she may flout my coming to the wars as Jacque- 
 mine does." 
 
 Pierre's horse was the one his father had ridden to 
 Vaucouleurs, large and sturdy for cart-drawing, but 
 of little speed. The friar's was an aged beast lent him 
 by the cure of Domremy. Pilgrims traveled afoot. 
 Brother Pasquerel had taken to horseback on Pierre's 
 account. As they pounded along turf, both refugees 
 knew the pursuit was gaining, and that it would be 
 impossible to reach the gates of Loches. Warmed to 
 the race, Pierre gauged the brimming Indre. It was a 
 narrow stream ; of its depth he knew nothing. 
 
 " Draw up your robe, Brother Pasquerel," he cried, 
 and dashed into the water. His horse sank to its neck. 
 Pierre knelt on his saddle, with his wooden shoes clasp- 
 ing the raised back, and helped the floundering creature 
 swim by keeping its nose afloat. It shot across, and 
 set fore hoofs on the opposite grassy brim. With a 
 struggle and a shake they were out, and he pulled up 
 Brother Pasquerel's horse by the bit. The Indre was 
 no barrier, but they were now on the same side as 
 Loches. Pierre did not ask himself what a maraud- 
 ing band expected to strip from a friar, whose vow of 
 poverty and manual labor Avas proclaimed by a habit 
 which could be seen as far as the man, or from a peas- 
 ant, whose ancestry guaranteed him little. He looked
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 103 
 
 again, and this time could see the arms of the pur- 
 suers. They were after any game, and what yielded 
 little would be the worse used. 
 
 The calcareous ridge on which Loches was built ex- 
 tended miles northward, being the ancient barrier of 
 the Indre. In places the rock became as sheer as a 
 wall, with turf upon its roof, which rose terrace above 
 terrace to table-lands ; or it receded in tall coves where 
 caverns had been left by fallen masses. As Pierre and 
 Brother Pasquerel rushed by in flight, they saw slab 
 doors in the rock. Chimneys of stone protruded, and 
 steps were carved up the face of the cliff, ascending to 
 other doors and windows. The front end of a village 
 packed securely in a mountain looked down on the 
 passing world. The road here was printed with sheep- 
 tracks. These cliff-dwellers had flocks and hidden 
 folds. Pierre knew nothing about the rock-burrowing 
 peoples of this southern province. He had not a long 
 sight, like Jeanne, to distinguish doors and windows 
 from the break in the forest where he had first seen 
 the cliff ; but the strangeness of such habitations did 
 not touch him, for splash and yell in the direction of 
 the Indre testified that the pursuit was nearly up. On 
 his right hand a hole as large as a church widened its 
 gloom. Pierre took to the cavern as he had taken to 
 the river. Pieces of fallen rock lay before it. Under 
 its roof he leaped from his horse, and Brother Pas- 
 querel slipped from the saddle also. The opening had 
 doors. Pierre saw them folded back against the rock 
 strong slabs, riveted together with bolts of iron. 
 He clapped them shut, and lifting a bar of oak which 
 made him stagger, set it in sockets across both leaves.
 
 104 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 Daylight came over the top of this gate, but it was 
 high enough to form a good defense. Lance-butts 
 soon pounded it, and horses trampled outside. A 
 jargon of words proved what mongrel herd demanded 
 toll there. With oaths which made Brother Pasquerel 
 stop his ears and Pierre harken with astonishment, 
 they threatened fire and siege, and chopped the doors 
 with axes. The oak was like rock. Pierre felt secure 
 enough to glance behind him. A blacker gallery pen- 
 etrated under the hill, and the odor, so well known to 
 him, was that of a sheepfold. Above were jagged 
 rifts, and in one place the earth had parted, showing 
 a thread of sky. Brother Pasquerel sat down on a 
 stone, pushing the cowl off his head. Heat glowed 
 from his mild, dark face. Light above the barrier and 
 through the upper chink sunk by grades of shadow to 
 gloom along the rock floor and in hollows scooped by 
 the winter's action. The horses stood panting with 
 their heads down, steaming from their plunge in the 
 Indre. Pierre stroked the cart-horse's face. 
 
 " Poor old fellow ! If my father ever hears of this 
 ride, he will forgive thee for falling lame when Jehan- 
 nette went away. But if they break down the doors 
 and leave me here, do thou fall lame under them every 
 time they bestride thee." 
 
 The hard-breathing creature snorted, shaking froth 
 from its lips, and out of the hill gallery came an an- 
 swering whinny j the cavern was a stable as well as a 
 fold. Though ordinarily quick and resourceful on his 
 own hills, Pierre wondered what he should do hand to 
 hand with these troopers if the barriers gave way. 
 A closed door is a fearful thing when we do not know
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 105 
 
 the dread that lurks behind it, but much more fearful 
 when it is strained and shaken by recognized foes. 
 Neither he nor Brother Pasquerel understood half 
 that was said outside ; for it was the speech of mer- 
 cenaries gathered from all parts of Europe. As in 
 Paris a butcher had led mobs and ruled the city, so 
 among these roving bands the strongest and bloodiest 
 man became leader, whatever his nationality. 
 
 Breathlessly watching the gates with eyes still 
 blinded by daylight, neither of the two inside saw 
 steps that were hewed in the cavern at the left of the 
 entrance. Hearing a woman's voice, Pierre turned, 
 and saw a door at the top of steps ; and there was a 
 maid about Jeanne's age leaning out to look at the in- 
 truders. If the sky had opened, or the cleft overhead 
 parted wide, it would not have astonished him more. 
 He noticed with instant receptiveness her high 
 pointed head-gear, the like of which was unknown in 
 his country, the tight-fitting % robe, and her bright hair 
 shining where no sun glistened on it. Only the fair- 
 haired were considered beautiful in the middle ages. 
 This woman was as white as any saint, and Pierre 
 took off his cap to her. 
 
 " Who are you, and why have you come in here ? " 
 she demanded ; and he thought of Jehannette's voice, 
 though the tone was different. 
 
 " We be only Brother Pasquerel and Pierre d'Arc, 
 and robbers outside drove us in." 
 
 "Do you know they are threatening our lives and 
 trying to break the house door down ? " 
 
 " No, demoiselle j we knew nothing of that." 
 
 " Can't you hear their threats ? "
 
 106 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 " The speech of such people is strange to me, de- 
 moiselle. I come from the march of Lorraine. Let 
 me into the house, and I will keep the door." 
 
 "Why don't you come up, then?" she impatiently 
 cried. " You brought this danger at your heels, and 
 there is n't a man to stand before us." 
 
 Pierre mounted in haste, his wooden shoes bumping, 
 and the friar followed. They were close to knocking 
 their heads on the top of the room they entered, where 
 the natural curves of rock stooped low like a scroll- 
 work of clouds, but rose high in gray sweeps over the 
 center of the large place. The door behind them was 
 instantly barred by a peasant woman with a child on 
 one arm. It clung to her neck in terror of the sounds 
 at the front of the house, and she herself was wild-eyed. 
 Straggling locks of hair escaped from her cap. 
 
 " Oh, messires," she lamented, " if the good friar can 
 pardon me for saying it, why did you take hiding in 
 our sheepfold, when a little farther on is the cave of 
 Eochecarbon, and his door hath stronger timbers than 
 ours ! This comes of my husband not shutting the 
 gates when he leads the sheep out. The demoiselle 
 will be misused or carried off for ransom. Besides, 
 my children are in the field overhead with their father." 
 
 "Hush, Marguerite," said the demoiselle; "people 
 cannot choose caves in times like these. Joseph will 
 hide the children." 
 
 " He may come to the chimney to speak to me, and 
 the freebooters will drag him down." 
 
 She knelt on the hearth and looked up the wide flue, 
 her usual tube of communication with her husband at 
 his labors. The child on her arm strangled with
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE I^ARC 107 
 
 smoke, and she set it down, stretching her own lean 
 neck over the coals to see if there was a face at the top 
 of the stack. She called the man's name, and, failing 
 to get any reply, sat down on the rock floor and leaned 
 her head against the wall. 
 
 Benches were piled against the front door. It looked 
 as thick as the gate of a town, and was fastened by 
 double bars. Above it two square holes were cut in 
 the stone for air, and Pierre mounted the benches to 
 see what his assailants were doing. The active de- 
 fense fell on him, for Brother Pasquerel knelt in a 
 corner, not permitted to do violence on man. Pierre 
 had come into France weaponless, excepting a sheath- 
 knife at his belt. There was not even an ax on the 
 walls. In northern provinces when peasants were 
 attacked they took to flight, but here they merely shut 
 themselves in. Notwithstanding the noise, he felt the 
 woman's terror was groundless. The boldest riders in 
 the kingdom could not break through stone, and for 
 passing over oak they must use something more pow- 
 erful than lance-points and hatchets. Free-riders 
 could not cumber themselves with implements for a 
 siege. 
 
 Brother Pasquerel quieted the woman and child, for 
 both shrieked when an arrow, shot at random, passed 
 through the opening near their single defender's head, 
 struck the opposite rock, and fell to the floor. Hidden 
 by inner darkness, he could see swarming about, or 
 sitting on horseback and holding bridles below the long 
 slope of rock waste, red-headed Scots, thick-limbed 
 English, Burgundian spearmen, their rich trappings 
 tarnished by a freebooting life, and unknown black-
 
 108 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 faced foreigners wearing smocks or blouses stripped 
 from peasants, such a company as war and famine 
 and the license of the times drew readily together. 
 
 A horizontal storm of arrows swept into the sheep- 
 fold or against its oaken barriers. Near the house 
 door was an opening which Pierre took to be a well, 
 full curbed, and with a windlass and chain. While 
 archers wasted a few bolts on the place where their 
 quarry had disappeared, men-at-arms swarmed to 
 the well. 
 
 " They no longer throw themselves against the door. 
 Are they in retreat ? " the demoiselle inquired. 
 
 " No," answered Pierre ; " they are taking to the pit 
 of water. One turns the windlass. These are mad 
 fellows to drown themselves." 
 
 The demoiselle cried out, and turned toward the 
 inner room. 
 
 " It is not a pit of water ; it is the mouth of Joseph's 
 granary. They can come through the granary into the 
 fuel-chamber behind this room." 
 
 Pierre took no thought what he should do, but found 
 himself in the fuel-chamber at the head of a dismal 
 staircase, and his fist shooting like a battering-ram 
 into the hairy face of an ascending man. As the 
 body bumped down the stones he gathered up a log of 
 wood and clubbed it for a weapon. A knife showed 
 its livid blade in the dark, and he sent down another 
 man. At that moment a pointed battle-ax struck him, 
 and he heaved the log-butt forward at his next assail- 
 ant. The hatchet dropped, and he took it. How many 
 robbers were descending by chain and windlass to 
 flank the house could not be known. Pierre leaned
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 109 
 
 over the steps with the wide-edged ax ready, but no 
 more came up. 
 
 It was not because houses farther .along the village 
 had sent succor, for every door was barred by terrified 
 women, and laborers hid themselves in the fields over- 
 head. The demoiselle mounted the benches, and put 
 her foot on a bar to look out. For some reason known 
 to their own wild minds, the freebooters were drawing 
 off and galloping on toward Loches. They might 
 catch some unwary citizen outside the walls and pluck 
 him before turning to other fields. It was not worth 
 their while to dig or smoke out or take by assault 
 through a cavern a friar and a few peasants. By 
 squads, riding wildly, they trooped along the grass- 
 lined road, and stragglers ran to mount. She saw the 
 venturesome ones whom Pierre had knocked down 
 drawn out of the pit by the men at the windlass, con- 
 soling themselves with little sacks of grain which they 
 dragged after them. Bloody and limping, they also 
 took last to horse. The sound of hoofs diminished 
 and died away along the hill toward Loches. 
 
 She dropped down, declaring their flight. Pierre 
 changed the ax to his left hand, and grasped that 
 stinging place in his shoulder, which turned him sick. 
 He braced himself by the side of the door, and the 
 demoiselle saw red prints on the rock. 
 
 The cave shimmered and went to darkness before 
 his eyes. His first conscious sensation was maiden 
 shame, because his shoulder was stripped naked before 
 the demoiselle, and two thin scarlet lips from arm-pit 
 to nipple poured their thin stream of blood. Some- 
 body supported him on a bench, and it was the friar
 
 110 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 who leaned over him oiling and bandaging. Soldiers 
 wounded in battle had money distributed to them, and 
 in one house or another they might seek surgery and 
 tendance, paying each for his own hospital, for there 
 were no military hospitals. Pierre knew none of the 
 customs of war. He thought he smelt the flowers of 
 the lime-tree in his mother's garden, and Jehannette 
 was telling him she saw a vision through the pale 
 yellow bunches. His ears hummed. He was glad to 
 lie down with his head on a cushion and some covering 
 over him. 
 
 A long time afterward something touched his lips, 
 and he roused to find it was bread soaked in water and 
 wine. That was the food Jehannette liked best. The 
 demoiselle sat on a stool in front of him, and picked 
 pieces from a cup to feed him. Such kindness brought 
 the blood into his face as if the fever had rushed from 
 his wound, and he took the bites with great humility, 
 keeping his eyes cast down. Joseph, the peasant, and 
 all the children had come in from the fields on the roof, 
 and they gathered behind the demoiselle, admiring 
 everything she did. The oven-hole at the side of the 
 chimney was open. Marguerite held on one hip the 
 loaf she had taken from the oven, and on the other the 
 baby, while she watched also. 
 
 The elegant, slight shape of the demoiselle and her 
 small hands were brought so close to Pierre's notice 
 that he lay thinking how much clumsier was the make 
 of a man. Women of his own country had not taught 
 him this. Without speaking a word, but like a 
 mother, she fed him, and he accepted it as his sweet 
 nature accepted every good. He had been born with-
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 111 
 
 out anxieties. When he lay at night facing the open 
 sky and thinking about his sister, it was the expectancy 
 of youth which stirred in him, not the anticipation of 
 calamity. 
 
 Pierre dared scarcely look at the demoiselle, but he 
 contrasted her in his mind with the Widow Davide's 
 Haumette, who was very broad-featured and black- 
 eyed, a maid fierce at dancing, flaming in her red 
 petticoats, and more reluctant to go to mass than 
 Pierre himself. Haumette used to kiss him when they 
 were growing, for she was in love with young man- 
 hood. But before Pierre left home she had gone to 
 Goussaincourt to stay with her aunt ; for there were 
 stories in Domremy about a Burgundian soldier whom 
 the Widow Davide had led out with practised thumb 
 and finger, and not because of any noise he made. In 
 Greux the villagers held to Burgundy. Pierre had 
 often headed the boys of Domremy against the boys 
 of Greux. They fought on a strip of land between the 
 two villages, and Jehannette cried over him when he 
 went home bloody. 
 
 " Now I think you had better go to sleep," said the 
 demoiselle, after his last sop was eaten. Pierre will- 
 ingly shut his eyes, not to let her or the present mo- 
 ment slip from him, but to hide his weakness, of which 
 he felt ashamed. 
 
 Yet when a cow lowed down the chimney and waked 
 him it was late in the night. The fire had sunk to pink 
 ashes. Those blocks of open night over the door were 
 lost in the cave's obliteration. He could hear the un- 
 seen family snoring. The bench felt hard, and all the 
 springs of the hills trickled tantalizingly in his memory
 
 112 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 while he thirsted. How sweet was the forest-shaded 
 water at Bermont! Did these cave-dwelling people, 
 who turned a pit into a granary, have a drop to cool 
 their tongues with, except what flowed in the Indre? 
 He sat up, wincing at the angry beating of his wound, 
 and groped with one foot for his wooden shoes, which 
 the friar had drawn off, intending to unbar the door 
 and go down to the river. But Brother Pasquerel rose 
 from the darkness and put a jug of water to his 
 mouth. The jerking stream descended his throat until 
 it was forcibly taken away. Then he began to shiver. 
 His nurse raked open the ashes, and brought wood 
 from the fuel-room, and drew the bench to the 
 hearth. 
 
 They both sat upon it, the old man holding the 
 young one half reclining against his shoulder for sup- 
 port and heat. 
 
 " Where is the demoiselle f " inquired Pierre, in a 
 whisper, loath to have her in that room with so many 
 sleeping peasants, yet alarmed at losing sight of her. 
 
 " The man and his wife took her on her horse to 
 Loches before nightfall." 
 
 " Why did you let them put her to such risks ? " 
 
 " She herself commanded it, and the thing was very 
 safely done." 
 
 " Who is she, Brother Pasquerel ? " 
 
 "I know nothing of her, except that she is lately 
 come from Scotland, and this woman asleep in bed 
 was once her mother's servant." 
 
 " She is the whitest-favored maid I ever saw," said 
 Pierre. 
 
 " White or black, no woman hath favor of God who
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 113 
 
 doth carry that cursed horn called the hennin perched 
 on her head." 
 
 " Was that a hennin, Brother Pasquerel f " 
 
 " A hennin it was ; and when I behold one with my 
 own eyes I cannot marvel that a friar has risen up to 
 preach against the evil thing in Paris." 
 
 Pierre had lost too much blood to be enlisted in the 
 crusade against hennins. In the flickering room be- 
 hind the friar and him the peasant's entire family 
 were stretched in one bed, which extended a dozen 
 feet beside the wall. There were green mineral stains 
 up the throat of the chimney, which tongues of flame 
 showed forth. Wind rumbled overhead. This was a 
 strange shelter, yet Pierre felt better housed than he 
 had been since leaving Domremy. He knew, what- 
 ever lay before him, he would be homesick for the 
 cave in time to come. He did not want to leave it, 
 and said to himself it must have been the fight that so 
 bound him ; for he did love that strip of land between 
 Greux and Domremy on account of the honest giving 
 and taking of blows there. "I have got my first 
 wound in this house," reflected Pierre. 
 
 "Have you seen the horses?" he inquired reluc- 
 tantly. 
 
 "Yes, and they are well fed and stabled. These 
 people have a little grain to sell. The valley of the 
 Indre is not a desert like the Solange." 
 
 " It will be best for you to leave me here and push 
 up the valley of the Indre toward Tours," suggested 
 Pierre. "As for me, I must keep my face set direct 
 toward Jehannette. I cannot carry this wound out 
 of my way."
 
 114 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 " Neither will I leave you, nor will you leave me," 
 overruled Brother Pasquerel. " Since it seems best to 
 push on your way, we will go together. Can you ride 
 to-morrow 1 n 
 
 " As well to-morrow as next day." 
 
 " But you are weak from the blood-letting, and the 
 wound will be sore." 
 
 " A wound that hath cut through no bones will soon 
 heal; and my mother says miracles are wrought on 
 Jehannette's flesh and mine : no sore stays." 
 
 "We will, then, make what speed we can toward 
 Chinon," said the friar; "and shorten the way by 
 putting these hills behind our backs without going 
 into Loches." 
 
 It was easy to find a path through the ridge where 
 the land dipped low, but nothing could shorten the 
 day's journey for Pierre. They started at daybreak, 
 with a sack of bread and a bottle of wine behind the 
 saddle of each. Pierre's face was leaden in color. At 
 noon the friar dressed his wound in fresh oil and 
 bands of serge. The rough cloth hurt him. He was 
 glad the air blew cool, for the hot blood bit his shoul- 
 der all day, and oftener than they found springs he 
 found a mighty thirst to quench. 
 
 Man is such a little creature creeping so near the 
 ground in the largeness of hills and woods and valleys, 
 and his vision diminishes so soon to the vanishing- 
 point, no wonder he loses his way. But the friar 
 steered their course as nearly westward as he could by 
 such landmarks as he had gathered from the un traveled 
 cave-dwellers. Clouds came up behind the ground. 
 The sky seemed to be driving and hurrying overhead,
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 115 
 
 marshaling its vapors out of space, and sifting them 
 from shape to shape to hurl along a low level ; yet if 
 one did not look up, it was nothing but the ordinary 
 shadow of cloudy weather. Late in the afternoon a 
 yellow storm appeared in the west, sulphurous and 
 windy. It threatened much, but at first the rain which 
 met the travelers was a fine mist in the face, so imper- 
 ceptible that neither said, " It rains." Then long cur- 
 tains hanging far down the sky and pendulous at the 
 horizon swept upon them, beating fiercely. Water ran 
 down their bodies and dripped from their stirrups. 
 Pierre felt his wound washed through jacket and 
 body-garment and bandages. When the two were 
 wettest the sun broke out, drenching the open land 
 with prismatic radiance, and triple rainbows arched 
 behind them. Their direct route had taken them past 
 few inhabited spots, and these were remote to right 
 or left. Brother Pasquerel began to turn his cowled 
 face anxiously toward Pierre, for whom he desired 
 night shelter. Wet grass and swarming vapors, and 
 the head on the saddle under some bush, would be 
 bad lodging for a wounded man. 
 
 The sun went down, shining through a single tree, 
 and seeming to cut it in two with fire. They rode on, 
 making haste over unbroken land. Though spontane- 
 ous growths were rank all about their horses' feet, the 
 soil was so white that it showed pallid in far-stretching 
 distances, and kept daylight lingering upon it as 
 marble might have done. 
 
 In front of the riders appeared a figure with hands 
 and face like an old peasant, almost covered by the 
 pannier heaped high with lucerne which he carried on
 
 116 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 his back. He stood still. The fodder revealed a 
 tender greenness through the dusk. 
 
 " "We will ask that old man for lodging," suggested 
 the friar. 
 
 "But he carries a miraculous load," said Pierre; 
 " there is no such green food for cattle at this time of 
 the year." 
 
 He changed before them, as they rode closer, into a 
 dwarfed tree, strangely marked on the stem, its 
 bunched top of switches thick set with tender leaves. 
 But behind this poor apparition and beyond a fringe 
 of trees, they saw for the first time something like a 
 needle-point against the sky, and guessed it to be the 
 spire of a church. Wherever there were churches 
 there were men ; or if this proved to be a broken-down 
 sanctuary, and there were many such in the kingdom, 
 the travelers might find some gable or crypt still in 
 condition to give shelter. 
 
 Pierre felt indifferent to the landscape. He sickened 
 with a growing faiutness, and one spot of the dark 
 world was the same as another. He wanted to lie 
 down in the wet sward, and the friar had prevented it 
 an indefinite time when they stopped close by a but- 
 tressed wall. Pierre braced himself with one hand on 
 the moss of a down-sloping window-sill. It was a 
 shame to leave a friar to tie the horses ; but when he 
 had slid to the ground Brother Pasquerel helped him 
 past buttresses and around a corner. A large portal 
 let them directly into a white church, of which night 
 seemed unable to take complete possession. 
 
 Pierre lay down by himself on one of the rough, 
 movable benches near the door. The massive stone
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 117 
 
 font supported on a low pillar was near his head, and 
 he stretched out his right hand for holy water, cross- 
 ing himself with an exhausted effort. A little light 
 shone out of one transept, but the body of the church 
 was dim. He could see, however, the arms of some 
 noble family painted on the wall opposite him, and 
 also blots of green damp high up near the arches. 
 Through tall, leaded windows the outside world seemed 
 to affect this isolated church. Pierre could imagine 
 the brightness of a sunny afternoon here. Wind 
 rolled in the vault above with a swell like the incoming 
 ocean tide; but to him, who had never heard that 
 sound, it was the voice of the woods over Domremy. 
 If Jehannette had sat on the bench beside him, or 
 kneeled on the lower bench to which it was attached 
 at the foot, he could scarcely have felt her nearer. 
 Perhaps she had rested in this church ; some part of 
 her remained there. And Pierre noticed by shadows 
 made in the whiteness of the stones what hollows were 
 worn along the center of the floor. Generations of 
 lads' feet, in wooden shoes like his, had stumped by 
 that path to confession or prayer. They and their 
 sisters came here every Sunday. As his eyes grew 
 used to the inclosure, and he rested from the pain of 
 motion, the cold, high altar at the end of the church 
 and the light in the transept were both forgotten. 
 He saw a small altar diagonally opposite him, near 
 the angle of the transept, standing dragged out from 
 the wall as if its displacement were temporary. On a 
 pedestal over the altar, so high that it caught the last 
 glimmers of light through stone-framed glass above 
 the portal, was a painted image as antique and simple
 
 118 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 as the Virgin at Bermont, a gilded, round-eyed St. 
 Catherine holding a book, and having the broken 
 wheel of her martyrdom leaning against her. The 
 royal maid of Egypt wore a crown, and smiled in- 
 sipidly. But under the figure was a dark gap left by 
 the removal of two stones from the wall. The place 
 was about breast-high to Pierre. 
 
 The unstopped hole, left perhaps by workmen be- 
 cause daylight failed, proclaimed that man was a near 
 neighbor of this church. And presently he heard 
 strange voices talking with the friar outside the door. 
 
 " The houses from which you come, are they not the 
 village of Fierbois ? " inquired the friar. 
 
 " That is the village of Fierbois," was answered. 
 
 "We have, then, reached St. Katherine de Fier- 
 bois." 
 
 " This is the church of St. Katherine. Is my brother 
 a pilgrim to the venerable shrine ? " 
 
 " Only a passer-by, for I return from a winter's re- 
 treat in the mountains of the Vosges. A young man 
 with me is lying wounded in the church; we met 
 free-riders near Loches. Can we have shelter with 
 you ? " 
 
 "Assuredly," answered the other; then a louder 
 voice spoke up : 
 
 "This monk is of the convent in Tours. I know 
 him by his habit, though the brethren have little to 
 do with men of my craft." 
 
 " Are you from Tours ? " inquired the priest, holding 
 the door open for Brother Pasquerel to enter. " We 
 have strange news from Tours." 
 
 " The armorer has spoken the truth ; I am a brother
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE I^ARC 119 
 
 of the convent of our order there. What news have 
 you from Tours ? " 
 
 The priest forgot the wounded man as he shut the 
 last yellowness of daylight out, and a sudden accession 
 of night entered the church with the three. A rustic 
 acolyte came from the transept where the light burned, 
 and set flame to the tips of two candles on the altar 
 of St. Katherine. These white points in a hollow of 
 gloom surrounded by white walls made visible a small 
 space where peasants would kneel for evening prayers, 
 and showed the eagerness of two of the three figures 
 now occupying that space. Their lower parts were in 
 a stratum of dimness, churchmen's cassocks and ar- 
 morer's legs being lost beneath the starlike height of 
 the candles. The priest pointed to the hollow behind 
 the altar. His low voice made echoes in remote 
 corners. 
 
 "There, this day, a miraculous sword was found. 
 We are leaving the altar removed from its place and 
 the stones yet on the floor, that people may see where 
 the sword was embedded. There it has lain, tradition 
 saith, since Charles Martel drove the heathen back 
 from Tours." 
 
 "Where is it now?" inquired Brother Pasquerel; 
 and the waiting acolyte, obeying a sign from the 
 priest, went into the transept, and returned with a 
 slim, large-handled blade. It lay upon cloth of gold, 
 which covered his hands, and the three heads bent 
 over it. 
 
 " There be no such swords as this in the world to- 
 day," said the armorer. "That blade is no longer 
 forged. I wish I knew the man who made it ; I would
 
 120 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 give him plenty of employment. Mark you, here are 
 five crosses below the handle, just as the maid said 
 there would be." 
 
 " He speaks of the maid who sent him here to take 
 this sword from the wall," explained the priest. " It 
 has been guarded on the altar of our Lady while a 
 suitable scabbard was made. When we took it from 
 the hollow it was crusted with rust ; but that fell away 
 as a scale, and left it shining as you see." 
 
 "What maid sent for it?" inquired Brother Pas- 
 querel ; and Pierre listened, feeling his breath come 
 and go like the swell and ebb up in the arches. 
 
 "She is called Jeanne the pucelle," answered the 
 armorer. " All Tours is astir about her, and an army 
 is gathering to march with her to Orleans." 
 
 " It is the maid who passed St. Katherine de Fier- 
 bois on her way to the king, and heard three masses 
 in this church," answered the priest. "That is the 
 news we have from Tours a maid is to lead the armies 
 of France. And she had miraculous knowledge where 
 to find the sword of Fierbois; for we might have 
 leveled the walls in the search, but for her exact mes- 
 sage. No living person knew where that sword was 
 buried." 
 
 " I had my orders from the king to make her a com- 
 plete suit of mail and furnish her in all needful arms," 
 declared the armorer; "but no sword would do ex- 
 cept this. 'You will find it in the wall,' saith she, 
 'under the feet of the statue above the altar at the 
 angle of the transept.' And I thought to have my 
 journey for my pains, for she hath a soft, innocent 
 face. But, mark you, her unlettered tongue could
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 121 
 
 answer better than the great doctors at Poitiers could 
 propound. They say it was a fine sight to see her 
 sitting alone before so many, and bearing their strait 
 examination with such sense and patience. The doc- 
 tors have sent abroad a letter to all parts of France, 
 commending her employment by the king ; and during 
 my whole life my trade hath never been so brisk as 
 she hath made it within a week." 
 
 " Have you not heard of this maid among the hills 
 of the Vosges ? " inquired the priest. 
 
 " Yes ; I have heard of her. We were on her track 
 to Chinon or Poitiers, not knowing she was already 
 in Tours. It is her brother who sits there wounded 
 beside the holy-water font."
 
 VII 
 
 ERTRAND DE POULENGY grasped the 
 handle of a chain which hung beside the 
 closed gates of the Augustine convent to 
 ring for admission, when one gate-leaf 
 opened, and Pierre d'Arc came out. Made resplendent 
 by the dauphin as one of the household of the pucelle, 
 in hose and tunic of new cloth, burnished cuirass, 
 with hat and plume, with leather shoes so light that 
 his feet seemed winged, with hatchet in girdle and 
 sword hung at his side, Pierre's handsome figure was 
 conspicuous on the street. The narrow Rue des Halles 
 had received its fullness of morning light, and every 
 round small stone of the paving shone warm and dry. 
 There was a bright grayness about Tours even in 
 cloudy weather, but when the sun shone out it was a 
 dazzling city full of joyful stir. 
 
 " Eh ! I was about to demand you of the friars," said 
 Bertrand ; " everything is so forward that the troops 
 will move to-morrow instead of next day. The pucelle 
 is about to ride out and review them. The horses are at 
 the door, and officers are waiting to escort her. Make 
 haste, sluggard ! You fare too soft with the churchmen. ' 
 
 122
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ABC 123 
 
 " I have some excuse in this half -healed cut that I 
 still carry ; but I stopped also to confession this morn- 
 ing," said Pierre. " Since Brother Pasquerel has been 
 appointed my sister's confessor and glad I am it is 
 that good man one can love instead of some others I 
 have seen in this convent he has fixed his eyes on 
 me in a way I cannot bear. It does go against me to 
 be righteous, Bertrand. I cannot stand up to it. How 
 do you stand it yourself?" 
 
 " I ought to be a friar," responded Bertrand, with 
 irony ; " a monastic life would bring out virtues that 
 are now hid in me." 
 
 Pierre rested his arm on his friend's shoulder as they 
 walked. " You are not the man you were, lad ; your 
 cheek has thinned and your eye has grown deep. 
 Sometimes I have qualms myself in this strange 
 country. If it were not for the fighting ahead, I could 
 wish we were all children again, watching the cattle 
 hid in the island." 
 
 "It is the new squire that saps my cheek. By St. 
 Martin ! I am tired of these multitudes of men. At 
 Chinon we must have a page one of these fellows 
 with a quill behind his ear, but quick with his sword 
 and his cursed tongue you have seen the varlet ; and 
 now we have the equipage of a noble added two 
 heralds, two servants, a steward, a confessor, and an- 
 other squire. The heralds, the servants, the steward, 
 and the confessor I am, by prayer and fasting, able to 
 embrace," said Bertrand, speaking with bitter delibera- 
 tion ; " but damn the other squire ! " 
 
 Pierre turned his laughing gray eyes affectionately 
 on his friend's bunch of light hair. Bertrand's hair
 
 124 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 jutted heavily forward, breaking into a curled mass at 
 the front. From crown to nape he was shorter than 
 from forehead to chin. It was the habit of his hat to 
 creep backward, uplifting its edge like a halo. 
 
 "Lad, I do love thee, and I invoke the saints that 
 my sister may not reform thee as well as the troops. 
 Concerning the following they give her, she has no 
 desire for it. The dauphin does it to show her honor, 
 Brother Pasquerel tells me. It is the customary suite 
 of a person of dignity in arms. Soldiers and merce- 
 naries might hold her in slight regard if she had less." 
 
 " From a good knight like De Metz of Novelopont I 
 can take commands," pursued Bertrand; "but this 
 squire, who is put over me because he is older, he is 
 my chief trouble ; I have no other." 
 
 Pierre tightened his arm on Bertrand. They were 
 not the only pair moving linked in a half-embrace. 
 Tours was alive with roaring fellows, even at that 
 morning hour inviting everybody to go where drinking 
 was good, for pure joy that the troops were to march 
 so soon. They walked in the center of the paved 
 street, giving way to companies of horsemen, who 
 forced them often to the doors of overhanging house- 
 fronts. Shouts and the clink of armor and the rattle 
 of bits filled the town. From the direction of the 
 river- wall came that tinkle of hammers on metal which 
 told that all the armorers of Tours were working all 
 hours of the day until late spring twilight, and the 
 credit of Charles of France among their craft was un- 
 limited. The miraculous maid was now security 
 enough for her sovereign. She had all the strength 
 of heaven behind her. Men ran out of their shops,
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 125 
 
 and women leaned out of their windows, to see her 
 ride by in steel armor so burnished that it was as white 
 as light, her spirited horse, which had been given her 
 by one of the nobles that now flocked to court, con- 
 trolled by a skilled hand. Every day she practised 
 arms and tilted at quintain, a figure so balanced that 
 it must be struck fairly or overthrow the rider. And 
 there was also money to pay now for the equipment 
 of an army. Troops were gathering at Blois, the next 
 important town between Tours and Orleans. Yolande 
 of Sicily had found the open hand of Jacques Coeur of 
 Bourges more generous than ever on account of the 
 maid's fame. 
 
 At the western end of the street stood St. Martin's 
 great church, flanked on one corner by a square gray 
 pile called the tower of Charlemagne. Its flying but- 
 tresses framed segments of a gauzy sky. Bertrand 
 and Pierre threaded their way around its side and be- 
 yond the western portal. Within sight was the town 
 house of Jehan Dupuy, the seignior of Roche-Saint- 
 Quentin, 1 whose wife had guardianship of the maid in 
 Tours. The seignior of Roche-Saint-Quentin was 
 Queen Yolande's man of affairs. His wife had been 
 the playmate and friend of Marie of Anjou. The 
 dauphin thought of no better place for his approved 
 agent while the troops were gathering than the house 
 of this faithful vassal. 
 
 Horses and varlets waited about the large portal. 
 Before ascending the stairs to the upper room where 
 Jeanne received people who came to see her, Pierre 
 had formed what he wished to say to his friend. He 
 
 1 M. Henri Destr6guil, Tours.
 
 126 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 had a large unconsciousness of self. Two or three 
 days had accustomed him to military dress. His good 
 will extended to all the human race, and the curious 
 stare of the waiting servants passed over him without 
 his feeling it. He bent his head closer to the other's 
 ear ; his dark-lashed eyes were serious. 
 
 "Bertrand, if you had not been with Jehannette 
 when she left Vaucouleurs, nothing could have kept 
 me from following her directly. I did not know the 
 other men; but I knew you, and it made my mind 
 quite easy. Let the dauphin put an army of squires, 
 pages, and servants about her; who can ever be 
 trusted as you are?" 
 
 The shorter man looked up at Pierre, his face flush- 
 ing almost to tears, and whitening instantly until the 
 skin looked drawn on his features. 
 
 "My spirit is breaking, Pierrelo. It grows worse 
 and worse with me. I 'm glad you Ve come to put 
 some manhood into me again. When we were in 
 Poitiers, and people yet doubted her, and she had to 
 sit and answer all kinds of puzzling questions put by 
 learned men, and there was a chance of her being 
 turned back from the dauphin's service, I thought my 
 heart would break if they refused her ; but now that 
 she has been accepted, and everybody is crowding 
 after the pucelle, I cannot endure that. Take me to 
 some convenient place, and knock me on the head with 
 your ax, Pierrelo. I am a poor creature." 
 
 "You are the best fellow I ever knew," declared 
 Pierre ; " and when we have something to do besides 
 waiting in lodgings for the march upon Orleans, it 
 will be better with you."
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 127 
 
 They entered with the freedom of attendants the 
 large upper chamber where Jeanne was busy with 
 officers, and the lady of Roche-Saint-Quentin sat by 
 with her embroidery. Pierre's figure fell into the at- 
 titude of waiting. He folded his arms, and watched 
 his sister's back and the short hair flying above her 
 tunic. He had noticed that her language was softened, 
 but there was change in her which life among the 
 courtly and learned could not make in a few weeks. 
 She was now tho strangely commissioned virgin of 
 war, whose business was larger than he could yet 
 comprehend. Yet when he had come into Tours, 
 sick and sore, beside Brother Pasquerel, and met her 
 riding with the young Duke d'Alenc.on on a prancing 
 horse which that nobleman had given her, shining in 
 her burnished armor through the midst of a company 
 like a pageant, she cried to her brother, " Oh, Pierrelo ! " 
 and spurred up close to throw her mailed arms around 
 his neck. She was his same dear maid, but with every 
 motion of this new spirit showing in her face. Pierre 
 had no traffic with heaven himself, except in the 
 heartiest and most animal way, and he felt astounded 
 by the solid results of visions. For he had expected, 
 at the best, little more than permission to march on 
 foot with his sister to Orleans, and indulgence to break 
 the head of any man who insulted a maid-at-arms ; 
 but he found her the autocrat of an army, dictating 
 with the power of the church to old soldiers. 
 
 One of the two with whom she conferred was a 
 courtier, a tall, thin-nosed man, who said little, but 
 examined her with constant scrutiny. He leaned 
 against the wall, holding his plumed cap at his side, and
 
 128 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 crossing his feet, with one long shoe resting on its point. 
 It was his friend who talked a short and bristling man, 
 whose person seemed compressed lengthwise to enor- 
 mous strength. This was fitienne de Vignolles, who 
 always spoke of himself as La Hire, and never claimed 
 his particular body and soul with the pronoun I. The 
 two men were inseparable. In all their experience of 
 war, it was the first time they had been moved by the 
 thrill of a young voice declaring in their ears : 
 
 " We must clear the camps of sin. If we are to be 
 terrible to the enemy, it must be through religion. 
 Can God go before an army that continually blas- 
 phemes his name? When I rode among the troops 
 yesterday, and forbade their cursing, they said, 'If 
 Messire La Hire will stop it, we will stop it also.' " 
 
 " The varlets felt safe in promising that," remarked 
 La Hire, winking aside at his tall friend. " La Hire 
 hath the best name in France for a plump oath that 
 fills the mouth from jowl to jowl and tongue to roof ; 
 and it doth taste as sweet as meat, pucelle." 
 
 " La Hire would burst if he could not swear," said 
 the tall knight. 
 
 " Yea ; Poton knows La Hire well. Reform Poton 
 de Xantrailles. He is a mannerly man, and would 
 repay the labor it cost to make him a Christian." 
 
 " I often curse the bad habits I learn of La Hire," 
 said the tall knight. 
 
 " But he is a bride to me," declared La Hire. "La 
 Hire would be glad to curse for Poton and himself 
 both, and save Poton the sin." 
 
 " You must not swear." Jeanne's voice was silver, 
 but it went through hearers like iron.
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 129 
 
 " Oh, pucelle, do let La Hire swear ! It is impos- 
 sible" the stout warrior threw his hands from side to 
 side. "La Hire was born swearing, as other babes 
 were born squalling, and he must swear." 
 
 "You can say 'En nom De/" suggested Jeanne, 
 "which is the same as a prayer in my country." 
 
 " Oh, if La Hire began with the name of God, he 
 would never stop while there was a saint left in the 
 calendar. Let him swear, pucelle. He can jarnedieu 
 an Englishman speechless, though with their poor 
 rough language the English do swear as well as they 
 can." 
 
 " No ; you shall not have leave even to jarnedieu in 
 the army of God. If swear you must, swear by this 
 rod I hold in my hand. No harm can come of swear- 
 ing by a baton carried by a maid." 
 
 " Swear by nothing but a stick when heaven is full 
 of good, mouth-filling stuff ! Oh, pucelle ! " groaned 
 the culprit. " La Hire would not lay a stick in thy way, 
 but thou hast put one in his. Oh, by my baton ! " 
 
 He turned like a bull in distress toward the two 
 young men, grinning in wrinkles of sun-hardened 
 flesh; and Jeanne turned also, laughing, but with a 
 rainbow laugh made partly of tears. The entreaty 
 swimming in her eyes, and the swelling of her inno- 
 cent throat, brought La Hire to the baton as no fanatic 
 command could have done. In his heart he did revere 
 her as a saintly child. She moved before the troops, 
 a mysterious presence lent for a purpose. There was 
 at that time such brutal license in the camps of Europe 
 as gentler races are now incapable of. " Men-at-arms," 
 says a chronicler, " resembled mercenaries badly paid
 
 130 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 by the king. Bape, incendiarism, assassination, cost 
 them little ; blasphemy cost them nothing." Yet such 
 men had their adorations. The habits of the pucelle's 
 life were talked of among them. She would not re- 
 ceive or have speech with anybody after sunset, and 
 a woman always slept in the same chamber with her. 
 The lady of Koche-Saint-Quentin remained beside her, 
 except when she rode out to practise horsemanship in 
 the sight of the troops. 
 
 Jeanne's armor lay piled ready upon a table, where 
 the sun struck it, making bosses of fire, and turning 
 the many diminishing plates of the fingers into 
 gauntlets of sparkles. She put herself directly in the 
 hands of her squire to be armed, but Bertrand had 
 not taken up a piece when she remembered to summon 
 the men after her through a door at the end of the 
 room. It led into one of the carved cabinets of that 
 period, a narrow place, with one entire side of leaded 
 glass, containing a long bench or table. On this was 
 stretched a banner of the white linen then so uncom- 
 mon in France that garments of it were considered 
 treasures of royalty. On the surface lying uppermost 
 was painted a figure like our Lord's, seated on a rain- 
 bow, with clouds underfoot, holding the globe in his 
 hands. The name " Jhesus " was emblazoned in letters 
 of gold. Jeanne lifted the banner in both hands and 
 displayed the other side, where two kneeling angels 
 each offered the Virgin a lily. Golden fleurs-de-lis 
 sprinkled the white ground, and the name "Maria" 
 shone there. It was to be supported half its length 
 by a rod along the top fitted into a spear. 
 
 " Here is my standard," said Jeanne ; " it has been
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE IVAEC 131 
 
 painted exactly as it was commanded. And the 
 daughter of Messire Paure, 1 the painter, has helped 
 me with the needlework." 
 
 De Xantrailles examined the work with his mocking 
 courtier's smile, and said to her : 
 
 " It is a pity to lose hands from the tapestry that 
 can set stitches like these." 
 
 " There are enough women left in France to sew and 
 spin," answered Jeanne, seriously. " Though I thank 
 God my mother taught me to handle needle and dis- 
 taff as well as any maid in our valley." 
 
 La Hire took between finger and thumb the sacred 
 fringe edging the banner, which Bertrand looked at 
 without touching; but Pierre's eyes went past it to a 
 maid sitting at the end of the room stitching a white 
 pennon. She was the demoiselle he had seen in the 
 cave house at Loches. 
 
 Pierre was not bold enough to claim her notice, and 
 she sat without lifting a glance from her needlework, 
 small hairs above her ears stirring in the air which 
 came through an open pane. Hid like something 
 precious in this inner room, she held herself aloof from 
 all the men alike ; but when Jeanne approached her, 
 the pair talked eagerly together in familiar tenderness 
 that warmed Pierre's imagination. He was able to 
 picture to himself their hours of stitching and talking 
 in this nest of carved wood and glass overlooking an 
 old garden, while the lady of Roche-Saint-Quentin sat 
 guarding them in the outer room. How a painter 
 who had accepted from the dauphin twenty-five livres 
 
 1 " Her standard was executed after her instructions by a 
 Scotch painter, James Power, resident in Tours." MAKIUS SEPT.
 
 132 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 tournois for painting this standard could be the father 
 of a demoiselle puzzled Jeanne's brother less than it 
 would have puzzled a courtier. For Pierre neither 
 poverty nor rank existed. Enough to eat and to 
 wear, hills, valleys, and cattle for a possession, and 
 vineyards as well, had been the rule of his life. There 
 was no superior to bow to except the cure, and one 
 bowed to the cure for religion's sake only. The divine 
 right of kings was then part of every man's creed, and 
 if the dauphin had crossed his path, he would have 
 dropped to his knees before that earthly deity; but 
 Pierre knew his sovereign only by hearsay. 
 
 "This is Pierrelo," said Jeanne, showing him to 
 her friend; "he is almost cured of the wound he got 
 in Loches." 
 
 It seemed to Pierre like a story of fairy work that 
 he should meet this demoiselle in Tours, and it gave 
 him a sense of greater things to come ; for towns even 
 in the same kingdom were then as remote from one 
 another as continents now are. He thought about her 
 all that day, and the few words she spoke to him as if 
 she had forgotten feeding him bread and watered 
 wine at Loches. The Scots were a cold people ; but 
 when he took opportunity to ask his sister more about 
 her, riding through the camp, he found that the Scot's 
 daughter was also French. 
 
 The Loire, the longest river in France, was then 
 Charles's northern boundary, and Tours is on the south 
 bank. The troops were to march along the north 
 shore and join the main army at Blois. They had 
 camped in the vineyard country, a good league on 
 their way. Provisions and cattle, which Touraine was
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE IXAEC 133 
 
 sending for the revictualing of Orleans, streamed all 
 day along the road leading to camp ; for the convoy 
 was to move next daybreak. 
 
 Pierre loved the Loire better than any other sight 
 in Tours. It was a stream of promise coming down 
 from Orleans, the city of battle. The full volume of 
 spring rolled in its bed. Scarcely a shallow was left 
 in the wide expanse, though no river inclined more to 
 shy around rocks, or pay its transparent silver pieces 
 over shelves of gravel. There were meadows within 
 its ancient barriers. An embankment along its 
 northern shore from Blois past Tours to Angers had 
 existed since Carlovingian times, and the mighty river 
 was further girdled in by a range of tower-like cliffs, 
 where house-doors, seen from the city, showed as dark 
 rabbit-holes; for in this calcareous rock people had 
 burrowed when the Romans entered Gaul. 
 
 Pierre galloped back from the camp toward Tours 
 about sunset, having been left by the pucelle to bring 
 her a last word from the troops before the gates 
 closed. The Loire was then a pink-and-yellow glory 
 at its western disappearance. Shifting islands in the 
 channel, gigantic compared with the channel of the 
 Meuse, looked warm in the dispersing glow. Women 
 in the cave houses yet appeared at their open doors, 
 and the heads of peasants in the fields on the cliff-top 
 sometimes showed against the sky. Nearly all the 
 convoy had reached its destination for the night, 
 though a few belated carts were yet to be seen, and 
 the last straggling men were hastening on foot from 
 Tours. As cliffs darkened and river dimmed, the cave 
 houses closed, and became by means of their air-holes
 
 134 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 a long constellation of little stars. Ahead of him, 
 Pierre saw two men seizing a woman a small crea- 
 ture carrying a basket on her arm, and wearing a 
 peasant's cloak and petticoat and shoes, and eouvre- 
 chef over her head. She screamed when the men 
 made their onset, but struggled against them without 
 a word, a solitary creature between inhabited bluffs 
 and lonesome river. Pierre spurred at them in such 
 rage that he felt he should split them to the breast- 
 bone. Something about the timid figure reminded 
 him of Mengette. But they dropped her cloak and 
 took to their heels in dismay, for men of the camp al- 
 ready began to know him. 
 
 " It is the brother of the pucelle ! " 
 
 He wheeled to chase them, but thought better of it, 
 and reined in his horse and leaped off. The woman 
 had picked up her cloak. She threw it over her 
 tumbled bright hair and head-cover, shuddering away 
 from Pierre's side, while he had not a word to say, 
 for the fading sky showed him that she was the de- 
 moiselle Power. At that moment she was the safest 
 woman in Touraine. 
 
 The demoiselle tried to laugh, her under lip still 
 quivering. Pierre saw how young she was. The 
 hennin and feminine hardy-coat had given her dignity 
 which she lacked in peasant clothes. These garments 
 brought her close to him, as if there had been old ac- 
 quaintance. His passion for this half -foreigner began 
 then, with the Loire and the twinkling cliffs and 
 evening sky as its witnesses. 
 
 " I am much beholden to the brother of the pucelle," 
 she said when she could command her breath.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 135 
 
 "Let me lift you to the saddle," Pierre urged; 
 " there be other varlets on the road drunker than the 
 last." 
 
 " No ; they will note me more on the saddle than on 
 the ground." 
 
 "But I will walk beside the horse's head, demoi- 
 selle." 
 
 " In that case they will pelt me with words worse 
 than stones." 
 
 " En nom De, demoiselle, what shall I do ? " 
 
 " The road was never so bad before, and I was never 
 so late. If you can come with me to St. Martin's well, 
 and then let me walk near the horse while you ride 
 back to Tours, I shall be safe." 
 
 " Let you walk while I ride ? I cannot." 
 
 " Then I shall have to beg some woman in one of 
 these cave houses to take me in until morning, as I 
 had already thought of doing, for the gates of Tours 
 will be closed ; but to-morrow I may meet other varlets 
 on the road, and you will be gone with the troops." 
 
 Pierre felt the fact shock through him he would be 
 gone with the troops. 
 
 " I will do your bidding, demoiselle." 
 
 " Then let us make haste to St. Martin's fountain." 
 
 The necessity of human company kept her not far 
 before him as they turned their backs on fields and 
 banks of sand which made the ancient beach of the 
 Loire. Down a lane burrowing along the cliff-side, 
 with trees and rocks betwixt it and the highway, Pierre 
 and his horse followed the demoiselle. She came to 
 an oblong of darkness in the mountain base, which 
 could be entered by descending many rude steps.
 
 136 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Pierre tied his horse, and descended the steps with 
 her. She took out a key and unlocked a gate at the 
 bottom. There was a cold pavement of rock under 
 their feet. 
 
 When she had unlocked the gate, some perception 
 of her own unusual conduct made her turn upon him. 
 
 " Do not enter here with me." 
 
 " I thought you wished me to enter with you, demoi- 
 selle." 
 
 Bareheaded, Pierre ascended the steps to wait ; but 
 she called him, a child's fear of the dark in her voice. 
 
 " I cannot go in there with you, and it is so dreadful 
 to go into the dark alone." 
 
 " Let me go in for you, while you remain outside." 
 
 " No ; you do not know the place, and you would 
 walk headlong into the well. It is sheer rock, and 
 though the pebbled bottom be white as milk and the 
 water like crystal, it would close in darkness over your 
 head." 
 
 " Then it is no safe place for a young maid to ven- 
 ture after nightfall." 
 
 " This is the first time I have so ventured. I have 
 been all the afternoon hiding from noisy villains along 
 the road from Tours. The woman who keeps the key 
 of this gate, and opens to pilgrims, had gone up to 
 labor in the fields over the houses, and I was obliged 
 to follow her." 
 
 " Why did she not come with you ? " 
 
 " I do not pay her. She is kind to let me have the 
 key, and risk its lying under a stone after I have again 
 locked the gate." 
 
 The demoiselle took her basket from her arm and
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 137 
 
 gave it to Pierre to hold. He had not meddled with 
 it before, and he hardly allowed himself to see what 
 it contained. She took out four wine-flasks, all fas- 
 tened by their necks to a long loop of cord, and bade 
 him set the pannier on a step. Above them in the 
 zenith was yellow twilight, deepening its shadows to 
 the dusk rocks about them. Her eyes, he saw, being 
 near them, were black ; her skin had a white pallor as 
 she faced him. 
 
 " I do not know how to govern myself ; my mother 
 is dead. On one side is my mother's noble family, 
 who are not dear to me ; on the other side is my father, 
 who loves me. When we were in Scotland we lived 
 simply like peasants, but when we come back to France 
 everything I did there seems wrong. It is very puz- 
 zling. Did you ever try to obey two laws of con- 
 duct?" 
 
 Pierre shook his head. " One law of conduct hath 
 been more than I could master, demoiselle." 
 
 " Yet I think," she reflected, " that my father and 
 my grandmother and aunt De Beuil would agree in 
 this matter, that the pucelle's brother might lay hold 
 on my hand to keep me from falling into the holy 
 well of St. Martin." 
 
 " They would certainly be agreed," affirmed Pierre. 
 
 She relaxed, and drew a long breath of relief. 
 
 "We must therefore enter the cavern together. 
 Please hold my hand." 
 
 In that primal blank of darkness safety became the 
 first human instinct. She slid her feet obliquely for- 
 ward, holding his fingers with her left hand. Pierre 
 had taken off his mailed glove. He felt with joy her
 
 138 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 reliant clutch as the small nails set themselves into his 
 flesh. The demoiselle paused. 
 
 " I am glad you came in here with me," she breathed, 
 and her low voice woke sounds in the blackness. 
 " Pilgrims have walked on this cold stone barefoot to 
 holy St. Martin's well ; but even at midday, when the 
 place is only a chamber of gloom, I dread it. The 
 peasants say there are seven martyrs, who all perished 
 in one day, lying far back in this cave. They call that 
 portion the Grotto of Seven Sleepers. But I am afraid 
 of hearing bones rattle." 
 
 She recoiled, and Pierre steadied her with both 
 hands. 
 
 "I was standing on the brink." 
 
 "Let me draw the water," he urged; "I see the 
 fountain." 
 
 He was answered by the splash of the bottles, which 
 she had already lowered. The jerking gurgle of their 
 drinking necks could be heard until they sank, and all 
 the time the cavern was dawning to sight, from its sky 
 of rock to the mouth of the fountain beside the left 
 wall. Beyond there was nothing but black negation, 
 a huge place choked as with thick substance of night. 
 
 "They are full," said the demoiselle, bringing her 
 dripping bottles to hand. "Will you taste of St. 
 Martin's well?" 
 
 " I will drink after you." 
 
 She touched a bottle to her lips, and gave it to him. 
 "Make haste! It is almost night, and the gates of 
 Tours will be closed; but you will be blessed for 
 making this pilgrimage and drinking in the cave." 
 
 " I am blessed already," said Pierre. " In my whole
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 139 
 
 life I shall never again drink such water. If we came 
 here every day it might make a good Christian of me." 
 
 She stopped the bottles, and put them in her pannier, 
 and locked the gate, hiding the key under a stone by 
 the top step. Pierre was for carrying the pannier, 
 but she commanded him; 
 
 "Mount, and leave the pannier to me. It is my 
 safeguard. Ride a few steps behind me. I shall be 
 safe if you ride near me through the city gates. They 
 will be closed, and I may have trouble there." 
 
 " It is a long walk." 
 
 "The journey is nothing to me. I come twice a 
 week, because my father is not able to make the pil- 
 grimage, and he requires the water for a malady of 
 the stomach." 
 
 "Does he send you thus?" 
 
 " He does not send me at all. He thinks I pay one 
 of these peasants to carry it to him ; but we are too 
 poor, and it is too hard for my father to get money 
 for me to give it foolishly to peasants when I can come 
 here myself. I have been here four or five times, and 
 there was never danger for a woman in these clothes 
 until the troops began to gather. My old nurse in 
 Loches gave my father these shoes and petticoat, and 
 I often put them on when he wished to make pictures 
 of peasants, and so thought of wearing them to this 
 fountain. I never had anything to wear in my life," 
 confided the demoiselle, " except what belonged to my 
 mother; and grandeur is not as fit for me as these 
 things of Marguerite's." 
 
 In the wide dusk and among broken rocks her small 
 figure looked very small, and her miniature face too
 
 140 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 fine for lowly carriage along the flinty road. Pierre 
 felt that he could not mount, but she set off briskly. 
 He noticed her sabots did not squeak as they would 
 have done under the tread of a heavy peasant. The 
 right one flew off, and skated along the indistinct 
 track. He ran, and brought it to her. The demoiselle 
 stood on one foot like a bird. She stepped into it as 
 he placed it before her, wriggling a small inmate in a 
 large house. " The wool is out of the toe, but do not 
 search for it. I am so late already my father will be 
 terrified. 
 
 " Do not speak to. me," she added, looking back from 
 the highway ; " if I need you I will call." 
 
 Pierre's horse was one of mettle, such as Charles 
 had provided for all the pucelle's train. He had sold 
 the cart-horse in Tours, and had the pieces of money 
 sewed up in a fragment of cloth in a pouch which 
 hung from his belt, for there might be a chance of 
 returning it to his father. The horse strained eagerly 
 to dash forward. He held it curveting, while the 
 small figure ahead of him, hiding terror under dark- 
 ness, flew along the level way, or dipped into hollows, 
 or turned spurs of the hill. In all his shepherd life 
 he had never driven to the fold so sweet a lamb. His 
 face burned with the shame of sitting a saddle while 
 she waded the night on a peasant's footing. The Loire, 
 gathering all the light that remained, lay, a steel- 
 smooth sheet, where the sun would have shown its 
 million variations of surface. In the distance across 
 its channel twinkled Tours, St. Martin's great basilica 
 and towers standing up against the void. 
 
 He did not know she was running back until his
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 141 
 
 heart gave a great plunge with the horse. She called 
 him by the name she had heard his sister call him : 
 
 " Pierrelo ! " 
 
 Afterward, in hand-to-hand fights, in ditches, while 
 scaling walls, Pierre remembered her voice calling to 
 him through the night, and it stirred him to the ut- 
 most. He was on the ground and answering her 
 before she reached him. 
 
 " There is something in the road that struggles and 
 groans. Perhaps a man has been wounded, and left 
 to die." 
 
 "Stay here until I go forward and see what it 
 is." 
 
 She lingered close at his elbow. He could hear the 
 terrified beating of a maid's pulses. " Oh, if I were 
 home with my father ! I am ashamed," she breathed. 
 
 Pierre jerked down the rearing horse. Any man 
 who lay dying in the road deserved to die for shocking 
 her with the fact that she was out of her place. But 
 the object of which the horse was so afraid was noth- 
 ing but a fallen ox. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Pierre ; " he is doubtless only 
 left until his master brings help." 
 
 After that they met two or three horsemen, and so 
 entered the long bridge which spanned the Loire to 
 the walls of Tours. It was covered, like many of the 
 bridges of that period, and threatened them, an end- 
 less tunnel of darkness starred by a few torches burn- 
 ing in sockets at long intervals. Pierre put his arm 
 through the bridle, and walked close behind the dem- 
 oiselle. When night was heaviest upon them she 
 felt his grasp helping her with the basket, this visible
 
 142 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 protection being removed whenever they reached the 
 dazzle of one of the smoky torches. Such places were 
 the favorite haunts of cutthroats. But the bridge was 
 fortunately cleared by the many passers who had 
 stirred its dust that day, and sentinels at the city gates 
 let in a belated peasant and the brother of the pucelle 
 without question. 
 
 Candles shone through leaded panes, and a moving 
 lantern or two could be seen, but the city had lost its 
 day brightness. 
 
 " Good-by," said the demoiselle, in the open space to 
 which the street here expanded ; " I have but a step to 
 go beyond St. Julien's church." Pierre, leading his 
 horse, still walked behind her. 
 
 Her swift sabots drew him in silence past the sunken 
 portal of St. Julien, and through a street which turned 
 to the left beyond it. Here houses seemed to huddle 
 against them as they passed, and windows were barred. 
 It was dark and winding. They came to a house-front 
 overhanging the street, and Pierre could see against 
 blacker walls the head and shoulders of a man thrust 
 past an open sash, listening to the noise they made 
 upon the stones below. 
 
 "Madeleine?" the man spoke, his voice betraying 
 all he had suffered ; and the demoiselle answered joy- 
 fully, "Yes, father." 
 
 " Now he has found who carries the water from St. 
 Martin's well," she said with regret. They stood under 
 the overhanging front, and she felt in her basket for 
 a key. Pierre took from his pouch the money the 
 plow-horse had brought, and as she sought the lock he 
 hid it in her pannier.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ABC 143 
 
 " Your father will never let you go to that fountain 
 again," said Pierre, with a breath of relief. 
 
 " No ; he will sit with his hands in his hair, as he 
 did when my grandmother's people were obliged to 
 journey back with me from Loehes. But those who 
 will not countenance him shall not have me." 
 
 " You love your father." 
 
 "As I love none other, except the pucelle. She 
 chose him to paint her standard. The cruel people of 
 the cathedral would not accept his picture; but she 
 chose him when she might have had another painter. 
 For that I love her." 
 
 The door opened from within, and, dark as the place 
 was, Pierre could see the womanish, nervous hands 
 which seized a belated daughter. He turned with the 
 horse, and drew away from touching more closely the 
 sacred family life existing there. He mounted and 
 spurred out of the street, knowing that he was for- 
 gotten because her father's kiss was on her cheek.
 
 VIII 
 
 HE last days of April were chilly in the 
 Vosges. Old ridges of snow yet lay along 
 the bleak hilltops, though a driving rain 
 washed the white roads and carried yel- 
 low rivulets from the village manure-heaps. When 
 Durand Laxart came home from the fields he no 
 longer took pleasure in his house. His wife was in 
 her fourth day of mourning for their dead child, and 
 her face was relaxed and sodden with the tears which 
 had flowed over it. His mother and the neighbors 
 and the priest had been able to quiet her first clamors ; 
 but she did not eat, and wept in silence through the 
 nights. Durand himself missed the baby, and felt 
 shorn of a future by its death, having little heart to 
 work among his sheep or sow his grain, though the 
 country had never been so free from fear of Burgun- 
 dians. But fathers seldom miss very young children 
 as mothers miss them. With male impatience at the 
 pain he could not relieve, he thought of beating it out 
 of her with a stick ; but, being a tender soul too easily 
 pulled about by women, still postponed the task. 
 April rain stung the sashes and swept northward 
 
 144
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 145 
 
 up the Meuse. The man, hearing it, was thankful for 
 shelter; but the woman, dropping her face in her 
 hands, mourned: 
 
 " It doth beat on our little Catherine's grave." 
 
 " In God's name," said Durand, " is not the child in 
 paradise ? I have been thinking in the fields that they 
 are the happiest who have no children in days like 
 these. See the widow Davide at Domremy; her 
 Haumette hath become a scandal." 
 
 " See my aunt Isabel Romee at Domremy," retorted 
 Aveline, " robbed of both her children. Nothing has 
 gone well with us since you took it on yourself to carry 
 Jehannette to Vaucouleurs." 
 
 Durand looked at her without defense, for the result 
 of his deed was yet hidden from him. No word had 
 come to Domremy or Bury-la-C6te since the envoys 
 from Poitiers departed. That remote march, sepa- 
 rated from France by so much hostile country, would 
 be the last to feel the movements of armies. Durand 
 was sore with his responsibility. 
 
 " And if Jehannette raises sieges," taunted Aveline, 
 " what profit will it be to thee ? " 
 
 " We be all profited, should the English be driven 
 out." 
 
 " But who pays for the horse she rode to Chinon ? " 
 
 " Jacques hath paid for that." 
 
 "France is nothing to me," wailed the bereaved 
 woman, twisting her hands, and wandering around the 
 earthen floor. " I want the body of my child, that I 
 may feel it in my arms ; and I will have it this night," 
 she cried, "to hold on my breast till morning. My 
 mind is made up. Get your shovel," commanded Ave- 
 10
 
 146 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ABC 
 
 line, having no longer the terror of man or priest or 
 death before her eyes. "You must come and take 
 Catherine out of the ground." 
 
 Durand sat still with his mouth open. It was Ave- 
 line who went and brought the shovel from another 
 chamber. Her dumpy figure startled him to his feet 
 with a momentum which appalled him. 
 
 " But a man is not permitted to break open a grave 
 in consecrated ground." 
 
 " A woman is permitted, even by heathen people, to 
 have her own child." 
 
 " Let me bring my mother in," coaxed Durand ; " she 
 will give thee a posset, Aveline." 
 
 His wife, weeping distractedly, put a covering over 
 her head, and challenged him to slight her appeal. " I 
 will with my own hands tear the child out of the 
 ground. Is it so far to the churchyard ? It was far- 
 ther to Vaucouleurs. Oh, it is easier for a man to rob 
 a mother than to give her back her child." 
 
 Yielding again to the unheard-of demands made on 
 him by the women of his family, Durand followed her 
 out of the door. Southward, above the village, where 
 the road turned toward the backbone of the hill, there 
 was a cross where passers might kneel ; and he vowed 
 never to pass it again without a prayer if his patron 
 saint would help him in this strait. He hoped the 
 cure, going to see some sick person, would meet them, 
 and inquire their errand, and forbid it. Yet his wife's 
 passionate motherhood so stirred him that he rubbed 
 moisture from his eyes with his hard knuckles. 
 
 The pair had only to cross the street in pouring 
 rain, for the cover of great horse-chestnut-trees shel-
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 147 
 
 tered them quite into the churchyard. Houses in 
 Bury-la-C6te were built in any place which suited the 
 convenience of dwellers. Blank house-sides walled 
 the corners of this inclosure, and here weeds of the 
 previous summer, bent by manj'- winds, lay half pros- 
 trate. It was not a dark night, for a moon drove 
 somewhere overhead. When Durand turned to look 
 behind, he could see the thatch and the brown-ridged 
 tile of roofs showing sleek in the rain. The square- 
 towered, low-built church stood in the center of its 
 allotted ground. Aveline hurried along a stony walk, 
 past wooden crosses, and the moss-grown stone cross 
 of the crusader with carved swords overlapped on its 
 arms. Durand followed like a thief. He now turned 
 his mind to hoping she would be satisfied by looking at 
 the little bed, without robbing herself of the comfort 
 of praying there. It was close to the west wall of the 
 church, outlined with river pebbles set by the mother's 
 hand, and marked by a small cross of unhewed branches. 
 
 The dead then menaced a peasant's mind. They 
 walked about him in darkness, near and familiar 
 friends becoming silent and terrible visitors ; and he 
 dreaded them as he dreaded spells cast by witchcraft. 
 Besides, Durand did not know what punishment he 
 might bring upon himself by meddling with conse- 
 crated ground. 
 
 "Dig," commanded Aveline, raking the pebbles 
 away. She felt the brine of her own tears, but not 
 the rushing wetness of the night. 
 
 "Attend!" cautioned Durand, listening, with his 
 foot on the shovel. The woman listened, and beat 
 her hands together in a spasm of haste.
 
 148 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 "It is my child crying under the ground ! " She 
 pierced and scooped the earth with her fingers in such 
 fierce animal frenzy as set Durand to shoveling with 
 all his might. 
 
 " Attend ! " he spoke again, his senses returning. 
 " The cry is in the church." 
 
 Aveline, her hands weighted with loam, unwillingly 
 harkened also, the tone of authority in her husband's 
 voice startling her into obedience. The cry did come 
 from the church. She sat down, relaxing her body 
 on the wet ground, and rolled up her eyes at Durand. 
 Stone walls and the roar of falling rain muffled a very 
 young child's wail. Aveline scrambled on her feet, 
 and ran to the sunken walk at the front. The church 
 of Bury-la-C6te faced southward. Shivering with 
 superstitious dread, and considering what she would 
 make him do if the door were locked, for couvre-feu 
 had rung, Durand followed her a few steps. The 
 huge latch clanked and the hinges creaked. He held 
 his breath. Again the latch clanked, and Aveline 
 passed him, running from the church. He ran also, 
 leaving the shovel behind, and paused only at his own 
 hearth, abashed and puzzled by such a sight as has 
 puzzled many a man. His wife sat with an infant on 
 her knees, picking daintily at its wrappings with her 
 mud-stained fingers, plainly appeased, and ready to 
 turn from the earthen bed which held the body of her 
 own child to accept some other woman's cast-off bur- 
 den. All her sagging muscles lifted with satisfaction, 
 and she bade him look at the creature's black eyes. 
 
 " We have our maid Catherine back," Aveline said, 
 wagging her head aggressively. " Her good saint hath
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE IVAEC 149 
 
 taken pity on me this night, for I was beside myself 
 that thou knowest." She lifted the child in her 
 arms, and kissed its broad features with devouring 
 passion. 
 
 " It hath the look of Haumette Davide," pronounced 
 Durand, with disgust. 
 
 Aveline faced him down. " Never name Haumette 
 Davide to me again. In my lifetime she hath not set 
 foot in the church of Bury-la-C6te. The child looks 
 like our Catherine." 
 
 " But it is too young ; our Catherine was three mouths 
 old ; and this, though lusty, is but a new-born babe." 
 
 " What does a man know of the age of young chil- 
 dren? They are all lumps of wax alike to him. I 
 found it close by the holy- water font. A miracle hath 
 been wrought. Oh, you can believe that blessed St. 
 Catherine would show herself to Jehannette, but you 
 laugh at her taking pity and restoring a child to a 
 poor, broken-hearted mother. Jehannette herself 
 would not laugh." 
 
 " You do not believe that this is Catherine, or that 
 any miracle hath been done, Aveline ? " 
 
 She wavered, and cried out, "Will you take this 
 comfort from me ? " 
 
 And Durand put his arm around her neck, and swore 
 to the self-deception also, before returning to mend 
 Catherine's disturbed grave. " You shall keep it and 
 bring it up ; and if any man says it was not laid in the 
 church by saints, he shall feel the smack of my fist ; 
 though, on my soul, its bands and wrappings do have 
 a look of Domremy, and the tongues of the women 
 I cannot control."
 
 150 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 There was, however, only one Durand Laxart in the 
 whole Meuse valley. Bury-la-C6te, being informed 
 by Goussaincourt, timed the appearance of the child 
 with the disappearance of Haumette Davide from the 
 country. The infant's adoption might not have 
 reached Domremy until midsummer if the story had 
 not been winged by the miracle ; but Goussaincourt 
 promptly passed it on to Greux, and Greux could tell 
 it to Domremy without stirring from the door-steps. 
 
 " Aveline is like a hen," said Isabel Romee. " Give 
 her anything to hover, and she is satisfied. They will 
 never make me believe the blessed St. Catherine, or 
 any other saint, would stoop to handle Haumette 
 Davide's bastard. Durand himself must be running 
 daft ; it is no wonder, in times like these, when mir- 
 acles or mysterious voices or witches are in every town. 
 It might be better for my children if more than one of 
 them lay under a cross in this consecrated earth." 
 
 Isabel stood with her hand over her eyes between 
 Jeanne's little window and the churchyard; and far 
 southwestward that same hour of the morning Jeanne 
 waited on the south bank of the Loire, looking across 
 at Orleans. The army of a few thousand men had 
 marched from Tours in less than three days, crossing 
 the bridge at Blois, where gathered forces and provi- 
 sions were united. It was a religious procession, led 
 by chanting priests. Jeanne knew nothing of the 
 country, but her plan had been to enter Orleans by 
 the west gate, past the English fortifications. She 
 saw that the captains who directed the march, and who 
 knew the approaches to Orleans, had purposely 
 brought the army to the wrong side of the river.
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D>AKC 151 
 
 Making a detour to avoid posts near the bridge, which 
 the English occupied on the south side, they, halted 
 opposite a channel betwixt two islands in the Loire. 
 She would have attacked the bridge, but the captains 
 would not. Besides, arches next the Orleans shore 
 had been broken down by the besieged themselves. 
 
 The city had drawn a wide belt of ruin around itself 
 outside the walls. Its faubourgs, or suburbs, which 
 would certainly have been used by the enemy, had 
 been torn down and burned by the people, who took 
 refuge within the gates. West of this desolate strip 
 some of the English works could be seen ; but on the 
 east side of Orleans, directly opposite the halting 
 army, was one large bastile threatening the convoy. 
 Trooping out against this came the citizens themselves. 
 Their desperate attack held it on the defensive for 
 hours, while boats carried the provisions, the promised 
 maid, and two hundred men across the river. It was 
 not so easy to transport the main body of the troops. 
 Concerted action under the leadership of one mind 
 was not yet possible to a fragmentary army with 
 many captains. They turned and marched back to 
 Blois, to cross the bridge there, and return to Orleans 
 on the right bank of the Loire. 
 
 " En nom De ! " said Jeanne to -the Bastard of 
 Orleans, who ruled the city for his kinsman, long a 
 prisoner in England, as that young noble met her in 
 the boats ; " my counsel are safer and wiser than the 
 counsel of men afraid to pass the English. I was 
 told to go in boldly, and I bring you the best succor 
 that ever knight, town, or city had the help of the 
 King of heaven."
 
 152 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 " However you may enter, you are most welcome," 
 he answered ; " the provisions would be nothing with- 
 out the maid"; and he brought her the colors of 
 Orleans to put on over her armor a huque, or blouse, 
 of dark green, and above this a long-sleeved levite of 
 crimson Brussels cloth lined with white satin, em- 
 broidered with the livery of Orleans, the nettle. 
 
 At eight o'clock in the evening, the convoy being 
 safely received within the walls, Jeanne entered the 
 Burgundy gate on the east side of the city. The Bas- 
 tard of Orleans rode at her left hand. He was young, 
 with a face not unlike his kinsman the dauphin, but 
 warlike and full of action. The English made no at- 
 tempt to cut off her entrance, a cautious policy of 
 saving themselves from sorties having controlled the 
 eight months' siege. 
 
 To Bertrand de Poulengy the pageant was like a 
 dream of trampling among clouds. Wan from hav- 
 ing slept in her armor in the fields, her bare head 
 showing sweet and maid-like above the rich levite 
 which hung over the plates of her leg-armor and 
 covered her to the throat, Jeanne rode through seas of 
 people. All the bells of Orleans rang, and thousands 
 of faces wept and laughed for joy ; thousands of voices 
 shouted. The delivering maid, the mysterious, Grod- 
 sent maid, had come. Women and children pressed 
 close enough to touch her stirrup or her mailed fin- 
 gers. Her eyes and voice caressed them. "Be of 
 good cheer," she said ; " God hath sent you succor." 
 
 Trumpeters went before her, and her little pennon, 
 on which was displayed a dove ; for her banner had 
 been sent back in charge of Brother Pasquerel with
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 153 
 
 the army to Blois. Torches streamed in the night 
 wind. La Hire and De Xantrailles rode behind her ; 
 her brother and her squires, her household and the 
 two hundred lances, followed. From far-off streets, 
 where crowds were hemmed in, came an impetus of 
 sound like the wind through the oak woods , and all 
 this mad enthusiasm rose at sight of a mere pucelle 
 in armor, who had yet done nothing to prove that she 
 was a deliverer, except make a religious march with 
 troops her name had helped to collect. Bertrand could 
 see her profile as she turned from side to side. It 
 mothered her dear French, and said without speech, 
 " These are my children." The fact lifted him in his 
 saddle, that Jeanne had the kind of dominion which 
 is greater than royalty. She was king of men's minds, 
 and the accident of sex affected this power only by 
 adding to it the maternal instinct. He felt strangely 
 grown from his old provincial life, and joined to all 
 his race, marching with the great of the world, as he 
 rode in the third rank behind her. But to have no 
 personal rights in her became infinitely more a loss. 
 In the cathedral of St. Croix, where the cavalcade, and 
 as many of the people as could crowd in, returned 
 thanks, Bertrand knelt with his face in his hands ; and 
 forever afterward the odor of incense was to him the 
 veritable breath of sacrifice. 
 
 Jeanne was taken across the city to lodge in the 
 treasurer's house near the west gate. 
 
 Late in the night Bertrand woke to the crash of 
 thunder. A wild storm raged over the town. The 
 treasurer of the Duke of Orleans had received all of 
 Jeanne's retinue into his house, her superior followers
 
 154 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 being laid in one room along the width of a huge bed 
 extending fifteen feet beside the wall. Pierre slept 
 deeply, as did also the new squire; but Louis de 
 Coutes, her page, rose up after Bertrand, and stood 
 beside him looking out of a window. Jeanne was 
 lodged in a secluded room on a high ground floor 
 within the court, but this general guest-chamber over- 
 looked the street. Sidewalks almost too narrow for 
 the footing of one person, and tiny paving-stones, 
 showed their minutest lines in the passing glare ; and 
 faces carved on protruding timber-ends and oak cross- 
 pieces in the cemented house-fronts opposite smote 
 the watchers' eyes, leaving an effect of sudden blind- 
 ness. Bertrand could see the bold young features 
 beside him with vividness surpassing daylight, for 
 lightning surprises that which hides itself from the 
 sun. 
 
 " I cannot sleep," said Louis de Coutes ; " my con- 
 science troubles me." 
 
 "No wonder it broke your rest," responded the 
 squire ; " such a thing hath not happened before in 
 your lifetime." 
 
 "God wot it hath not. Messire de Poulengy, I 
 have been insolent to you." 
 
 "And do you get up in the night to repent it? 
 Truly the pucelle hath reformed the troops. Have no 
 regard for my humors, Messire Louis. I have been 
 quarrelsome two years. There will always be people 
 who feel themselves badly used." 
 
 " But I did use you badly, for I wished myself to 
 be squire instead of page." 
 
 " We are never satisfied," said Bertrand, openly ; " I
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D>ARC 155 
 
 am one of the pucelle's squires, but I wish to be all 
 France to her." 
 
 The lightning flung out its blinding scroll, showing 
 Louis de Coutes's eyes full of tears. The stirring of 
 their fellows on the gigantic bed, and the crash of the 
 storm, drove them to speak nearer each other's faces. 
 Bertrand put his hand on the page's shoulder, but 
 Louis shook it off with a shrug. " Messire, pages do 
 not fight. I am of good family, and the King and La 
 Tremouille both favor me ; yet I am nothing but a 
 page. The pucelle looks on me as a boy. You can 
 fight, on the contrary, under her very eye." 
 
 " His conscience will yet drive him to prayer," re- 
 marked Bertrand, gently. 
 
 "I said pages could not fight," retorted Louis de 
 Coutes, laughing ; " but there is one page who intends 
 to fight with the pucelle or for her." 
 
 " You will not fight me. I never had a word of 
 love from her in my life. See Him draw His sword," 
 said Bertrand, as the lightning blazed wide through 
 Orleans, " who fills the mind of the pucelle." 
 
 But outside the city that vivid glory was considered 
 anything but the sword of God. In barracks built of 
 saplings and " covered with thatch its search-light 
 passed over hundreds of blanched faces and fixed eyes. 
 The soldier, in all ages a simple creature easily touched 
 in his superstitions, was in that year of grace 1429 
 the result of much religious hysteria. He would joy- 
 fully scale a wall with his ladder, and take boiling oil 
 or lead in the face ; but the apprehension of unseen 
 powers threw him at once into physical frenzy. 
 " That cursed witch," was whispered in the English
 
 156 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 camp from ear to ear, "hath stirred up this storm. 
 The French have brought hell to their aid." 
 
 When morning dawned clean and fair, they saw 
 this creature of their terrors, little more than a bow- 
 shot away, ride boldly out of Porte Renart, the west- 
 ern gate, with a rabble of citizens at her heels those 
 very Orleanais who had been afraid to show a head 
 from this part of the city, where the wall was lowest. 
 The English watched without drawing bow or training 
 bombard upon them. She rode entirely around 
 Orleans, as if to draw a line of invisible defense, with 
 a few mounted followers and the trudging common 
 people. Necks were craned over the English breast- 
 works, and starting eyes received the impression of 
 her vigorous young presence. She was like an ap- 
 parition mounted on a white horse, her armor shining 
 as mirrors reflect the sun. Her course being north- 
 ward, a crimson scabbard was displayed at her left 
 side ; and every man in every boulevard knew it con- 
 tained the awful sword of Fierbois, the sword of Mar- 
 tel, which once drove back the heathen, the sword which 
 had leaped out of a church wall for the new salvation 
 of France. " It is a sword of the devil," muttered the 
 English ; " she put it in the church wall by magic." 
 
 And, having never seen a woman in mail, they tried 
 to discern her curious armor, with its swell of bust and 
 hip, and that inward tapering between, where her 
 girdle was clasped for the support of weapons. In- 
 stead of a vizored helmet she wore on her head a blue 
 hat turned up with gold lacings, and the soft woman 
 hair, cut short, flew about her ears, framing her face, 
 for she looked at the English.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 157 
 
 Orleans at that time was almost a parallelogram, 
 though the northwest corner formed an acute angle, 
 and the west wall rounded into an outward curve. 
 There were five gates : two on the north, Berniere and 
 Parisis ; one, Burgundy, or St. Aignan, on the east ; 
 St. Catherine at the entry of the bridge on the south ; 
 and, on the west side, Porte Renart. 
 
 Jeanne had never seen any fortifications except 
 those permanent defenses drawn around old cities. 
 The walls of Orleans were from seven to nine feet 
 thick, and from twenty-two to thirty feet high, set 
 with thirty-nine towers. No parapet guarded the top, 
 but a temporary barrier of wood had been carried 
 around. The towers were from two to three hundred 
 feet apart, except at the gates, which were flanked by 
 them. They were built three stories high, garnished 
 with dormer openings and machicolations, a kind of 
 jutting galleried top with open spaces below for shoot- 
 ing missiles or pouring down boiling lead on assail- 
 ants. The walls of Orleans were in good condition. 
 What Jeanne tried to comprehend with prehensile 
 reach and grasp of mind was the blockade the English 
 had drawn around them. And so swift were her 
 military impressions that she has been called a tacti- 
 cian of the first order. 
 
 The English had one bastile and four great boule- 
 vards extending from the faubourg opposite the north- 
 west gate to the Loire. In midstream, on a little 
 island, was another boulevard, and on the south shore 
 another. The Tournelles, a fort with a drawbridge, 
 guarded the south end of the bridge, and on the bank 
 fronting that was a boulevard which was itself pro-
 
 158 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 tected by a bastile. One more bastile was planted 
 eastward on the south shore ; and on the north shore, 
 east of the city, built around the ruin of a church, was 
 that large bastile, called St. Loup, which the citizens 
 had held at bay when the maid entered Orleans. 
 This commanded the road to Jargeau, from which the 
 English drew many of their supplies, and was one of 
 their strongest forts. The five works on the west 
 side were connected by covered trenches. Jeanne 
 learned that a bastile was a fortress of wood or stone 
 with double ditches or moats, while boulevards were 
 earthworks consisting of single moats drawn around 
 an inclosure. 1 Isolated, or placed before a gate or 
 around a bastile, the boulevards bristled over the crest 
 with a ruff of iron-tipped spikes called chevaux-de- 
 frise. Both kinds of English fortifications were 
 rectangular, with a belt of moats at the four corners. 
 The principal English camp was west of the city. 
 
 When Jeanne had made the entire circuit outside 
 the walls, and returned to the Renart gate, she called 
 to the English, with her mailed hands around her 
 mouth: "Attend! Here is news"; and a bowman 
 beside her shot an arrow to which was bound a piece 
 of parchment. Her voice, reaching out in a prolonged 
 tone, fell on the invaders' ears before the arrow stopped 
 short of their intrenchments. The parchment carried 
 her second letter to the English, bidding them leave 
 the country and avoid bloodshed. One had been 
 written for her in Poitiers, and she had despatched it 
 from Tours. A soldier in hose and tunic and long, 
 pointed footwear ran out and picked up the weighted 
 1 Barth61emy de Beauregard.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 159 
 
 arrow. He shouted insulting words at the maid, and 
 his mates howled in chorus. They would hoot the 
 devil to his face. 
 
 "Now God help them," said Jeanne, as she turned 
 in at the gate. " If they will not be gone, I will make 
 them such a ha-hu as will never be forgotten." 
 
 In these days of enormous populations the armies 
 that fought battles of far-reaching consequences in 
 the past seem incredibly small. 1 Existing rolls of the 
 English soldiery prove that less than six thousand 
 men were camped around Orleans; and the army 
 gathered to Jeanne's standard, including the garrison, 
 amounted to about the same number. There were, 
 however, many pages, bow- and arrow-makers, and 
 laborers, as well as camp-followers and parasites, 
 which always infest troops, on both sides. And 
 Orleans lacked even this small army until four days 
 after the maid's entrance. The Bastard set out 
 secretly in the night, and went to Blois to hasten the 
 return of the troops by the north shore of the Loire. 
 He found all the captains quarreling, and about to 
 disband. La Tre"mouille, the dauphin's favorite, had 
 come to Blois, and openly ridiculed a campaign under 
 a woman. The Bastard of Orleans, desperate with 
 the needs of his city, rallied the men, and led them 
 himself on the road. 
 
 1 "Abundance of precious metals, the facilities of transpor- 
 tation, the accumulated works of generations, knowledge of 
 how to utilize the resources of nature, and increase of popu- 
 lations, have given to great states to-day an assemblage of 
 forces out of all proportion with former times." "L'Arm^e 
 Anglaise vaincu par Jeanne d'Arc," MM. De Molandon et Baron 
 de Beaucorps.
 
 160 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 When they were distantly seen from the walls of 
 Orleans, and Jeanne rode out to meet them with five 
 hundred of the garrison moimted to attend her, the 
 strangest thing happened that has ever been recorded 
 against the courage of a great nation. It seems that 
 the English might have made a sortie, and taken her 
 as she passed betwixt their silent boulevards ; but not 
 a soldier stirred. As they saw her near at hand they 
 cowered below the earthworks great-limbed Britons, 
 whose name has been a terror in the earth for a thou- 
 sand years, whose stubborn valor has passed into a 
 proverb of our time. Some of the maid's followers 
 eyed this silent and motionless panic with distrust 5 
 but Bertrand de Poulengy remembered the dumb 
 terror that held numb and unable to move the men 
 who wanted to throw her into the river at Bar-sur- 
 Aube. 
 
 The English commander Talbot had borne part in 
 many campaigns. He had pushed the line of fortifi- 
 cations around Orleans. No more sagacious soldier 
 had been sent across the Channel ; and the Duke of 
 Bedford, Regent of England and general of this inva- 
 sion of France, had then his headquarters not far 
 away at Chartres. Neither martial skill nor awe of 
 regal power moved the soldiers from their trenches. 
 A reinforcement was expected under Sir John Fastolf ; 
 but what could increase of numbers do for men who 
 felt themselves unable to move while the maid led her 
 troops into Orleans? 
 
 Artillery as it is now understood was then a power 
 unknown. Orleans had mounted upon its walls, or 
 on wheeled platforms which could be pushed outside
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 161 
 
 the gates, seventy-one mouths of fire, all made of cop- 
 per, as a chronicler has told us, some of the cannon 
 being lent by a neighboring town. The English for- 
 tifications were armed with better artillery. Gun- 
 powder, though a factor of war since the battle of 
 Cre"cy, was not used at all as an explosive. This siege 
 was not made a subterranean war, yet the English 
 had miners with them, and large vases of water were 
 kept filled within the walls, and men watched for the 
 wrinkles which would betray any displacement of 
 earth underneath. The western part of the city, on 
 account of its low wall, was most exposed to bombard- 
 ment ; but nobody fled from it, and the pucelle had 
 been lodged there. 
 
 Knowledge of many things was crushed into 
 Jeanne's mind at once. These days were one colossal 
 dream, in which she grasped to herself, swift minute 
 after swift minute, the facts and utensils of war. She 
 had heard of ballistic and catapults, ponderous ma- 
 chinery for throwing stones, great beams of which yet 
 cumbered the walls ; but gunpowder artillery delighted 
 her. There were bombards on wheels, and stationary 
 cannon, both loaded with balls of stone through the 
 mouth, and smaller culverins discharging bullets of 
 lead. Fusees and fire-lances were also projected to 
 set in a blaze the enemy's works. Some of the stone 
 cannon-balls weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. 
 The noise of this powder warfare was great, but it 
 had not the force to breach walls, though, like all the 
 fighting of the middle ages, it was destructive to hu- 
 man life. 
 
 In the warm May afternoon of the day the troops 
 11
 
 162 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ABC 
 
 entered, Bertrand stood in the courtyard polishing 
 Jeanne's armor. 
 
 " They shall call it white as long as I am her squire," 
 he said to Pierre, who sat on a bench watching him ; 
 " this new D'Aulon hopes to be knighted sooner than 
 I do. I will say this for Messire d'Aulon he can 
 buckle the parts together with speed, and he will 
 make a fair knight, but never lead retinue like De 
 Metz of Novelopont." 
 
 "I wish we had more knights among us like De 
 Metz," said Pierre, letting his eyes move to the stables 
 on the opposite side of the court. Pierre was yet 
 armed, and Bertrand had removed only his gauntlets 
 to handle the steel plates. " A council has just been 
 held without my sister, and my lord the Bastard had 
 much trouble to pacify one knight, who was for giv- 
 ing up his standard and withdrawing. 'I will fight 
 with your maid/ saith he; 'but I will never fight 
 under her. What doth a peasant wench know of war ? 
 Let her go home and milk her cows.' " 
 
 The little curtains of chain-mail which hung below 
 Jeanne's body-armor swept with a clank against the 
 bench as Bertrand shifted the leg on which he rested 
 it. His blue eyes spoke for him to Pierre.
 
 IX 
 
 HERE was silence in the town following 
 the morning's excitement. Gunners were 
 resting in the English camp, and no stone 
 burst over the tile roofs. The lull of that 
 booming made stillness quiver in the ears, and no- 
 body trod past the gates. White clouds moved lumi- 
 nous across the blue. The low sky of France, unswept 
 by wind, tempering its sunshine by a divinely bright 
 grayness, lay brooding growths over that whole coun- 
 try, from the great plain of the Beauce north of Or- 
 leans, the granary of France in good times, where 
 many horizons cannot contain the sheaves, to the long 
 waste of the Sologne southward. Both were then un- 
 plowed and unplanted, trampled by hoofs, and turn- 
 ing green only with the irrepressible moist verdure of 
 spring. 
 
 Jeanne lay asleep in a paneled room, which she 
 shared nightly with the treasurer's little daughter, 
 under a vaulted ceiling of blue-stone with many weird 
 white griffins cut on its arch. The sashes of three 
 round-topped windows were opened inward. No 
 sound came from the court, for Bertrand polished the 
 
 163
 
 164 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 armor with a piece of soft leather, and the joints of 
 his own harness moved silently on rivets. When he 
 spoke again, his voice did not mount to the sloping 
 window-sills. 
 
 " Some of these knights complain that since Francis- 
 can monks began to roam about the country, teaching 
 people their doctrine, we have nothing but mysteries 
 and revelations. In God's name, how can they ill- 
 treat a pucelle who led them to-day past a cowed foe, 
 that they have been running from ever since you and 
 I were born ? " 
 
 Pierre shook his head, and so freed himself of 
 anxiety. 
 
 "I know nothing of these Southern humors. The 
 best thing I have seen in France is that good well of 
 St. Martin at Tours. I have been thirsting for it," 
 said Pierre, lowering his narrowed eyes to the basking 
 ground, " ever since we came away." 
 
 The two young men were startled by a cry through 
 the open sashes : 
 
 " My arms ! my arms ! Quick ! quick ! my arms ! 
 The blood of Frenchmen is running on the ground ! " 
 
 Bertrand gathered up the pieces of armor, and ran 
 with Pierre through a long, narrow passage which led 
 to Jeanne's chamber. She was standing in the middle 
 of the floor, where she had leaped from the bed. Her 
 eyes had the rapt look left in them by her visions. 
 Her squire with swift fingers, and her brother with 
 clumsier efforts, buckled on breastplate and backpiece. 
 Thigh- and- front-plates were adjusted, leaving the back 
 of the leg free to press the horse ; the feet covered 
 with mailed shoes ; the armpieces and gauntlets made
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 165 
 
 fast ; the helmet, the belt and sword. She flew to the 
 courtyard. No Louis de Coutes was in sight with 
 her horse. Pierre brought it, bitting its mouth and 
 strapping on the high-backed saddle while Bertrand 
 fastened the mailed housings. They helped her mount 
 from the bench, and her squire flew back for her 
 standard. There was no time to bring it forth; he 
 passed it to her through the window. 
 
 " Follow ! " she cried to them, as Pierre opened the 
 gate ; and both flung themselves on their horses. They 
 began to hear a tumult and shouts of disaster eastward. 
 They swerved behind her across one street, and flying 
 horse-hoofs struck fire from stones paving that billowy, 
 rising and falling, slightly bent thoroughfare to the 
 old Roman road called Rue Burgundy. Bloody- 
 headed citizens passed carrying wounded men. Ber- 
 trand shouted to Pierre through his teeth, as they rode 
 knee to knee : 
 
 '' The fools went out to take the bastile of St. Loup 
 without her." 
 
 A third of a league and three minutes brought them 
 to the Burgundy gate, which was already open to let 
 in a rabble of retreating French. On these came 
 archers and men-at-arms, captains, citizens, and cross- 
 bowmen, those mounted pressing in first, those on 
 foot flying wild-eyed. And after them, in full career, 
 were the pursuing English. 
 
 Jeanne rose in her stirrups with the lift of an eagle, 
 and raised her banner high above the panic-driven 
 mob. Now was heard a woman's voice, a leader's 
 voice, an angel's voice, bell-like, spreading its tones 
 wave upon wave, until they seemed to reach the hori-
 
 166 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 zon, to ripple over the Beauce, to die away in the 
 Sologne, to drive eastward far across the bastile of 
 St. Loup: 
 
 " Amys ! Amys ! ayez bon courage ! Sus ! Sus ! 
 Us sont tons nostres ! " 1 
 
 Like an arrow, the maid and the white banner shot 
 through the Burgundy gate at the English, and they 
 paused and wavered. The foremost pursuers shrank 
 down bodily, and moved backward, facing her. At 
 her sweet and terrible cry they turned, howling in 
 English or Franco-Norman : 
 
 " The witch ! The witch ! To cover the witch is 
 let loose ! " 
 
 The rallied French followed her. Those who had 
 fled farthest ran wild with courage on her track. It 
 had been their custom so many years to scatter before 
 the English that the sight of English backs frenzied 
 them. All the knights roused in the city joined in 
 the pursuit ; the Bastard of Orleans, with his retinue, 
 came flying from the ducal house by St. Catherine's 
 gate; the young Due d'Alenc.on, La Hire, De Xan- 
 trailles, De Metz, each with his men shouting to the 
 rescue, flew over the Roman road, crossed the double 
 moats, and scaled the works of St. Loup. 
 
 They drove, they slew, they swept the enemy. The 
 maid was in the church around which the bastile was 
 built, pulling refugees from the belfry, sending back 
 prisoners. Everywhere St. Catherine's sword was seen 
 as lightning. Shouts rang beyond Orleans and the 
 English camp. Before the camp, roused by '.trumpets, 
 could hurry reinforcements around the walls, St. Loup 
 1 Her actual battle-cry.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 167 
 
 was taken, sacked, riddled, destroyed. The eastern 
 stronghold of the English was gone. 
 
 When it was finished, the sweating soldiers, flushed 
 and roaring with success, abated the noise of their 
 joy over France's first victory in years, for the pucelle 
 was down on her knees protecting a dying English- 
 man. 
 
 " Let him alone ! " she cried, striking a lance from 
 his breast. " Do not hurt him any more ! Why will 
 they not go back to their homes ? I cannot bear to 
 see them die ! " 
 
 This was the witch this tender face, like the face 
 of some dear maid at home, dropping tears under a 
 lifted vizor. Her enemy died with this image upon 
 his eyeballs. 
 
 But in the city all the bells rang, and people ran 
 laughing through the streets. *Now had their maid 
 given proof that she was sent. St. Loup was taken, 
 and the English were cut off from Jargeau. The sol- 
 diers would have lain upon the pavement and let her 
 ride over their bodies. They were for going out to 
 attack the Tourelles next morning, but became reli- 
 gious as soon as it was known that the maid desired to 
 keep that day holy, it being Ascension day. " She is 
 forever taking the bon Dieu," 1 they said to one an- 
 other ; " her common food is nothing but bread and 
 watered wine." 
 
 Both besieged and besiegers knew the most impor- 
 tant English fortress was that called the Tourelles, on 
 the end of the bridge. The English, by spreading 
 their forces from boulevard to boulevard over a space 
 
 1 Sacrament.
 
 168 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 of nearly two leagues, diminished their strength ; but 
 the fort on the bridge was well manned. 
 
 The bridge, a stone structure of the twelfth century, 
 had nineteen arches, and from the city gate of St. 
 Catherine to the south shore was more than a thousand 
 feet long. Beyond the fifth arch it rested on and 
 crossed a narrow island, where a chapel, a hospital, 
 and a few houses remained. Here some houses were 
 built also upon the bridge, and they had been con- 
 verted into a small bastile. Above the twelfth arch 
 was a venerable cross, and at the end of the bridge 
 was the strong fort of the Tourelles, separated from 
 the Sologne side by a drawbridge, and guarded on 
 land by both a bastile and a boulevard. The French 
 fortified these towers for their own safety. The Eng- 
 lish had assaulted and carried the place in October. 
 That same day their commander, Salisbury, was killed 
 in it by a stone cannon-ball. The retreating French 
 broke down those arches giving entrance to St. Cath- 
 erine's gate, and their enemies barricaded the broken 
 end. To retake the Tourelles would not only clear the 
 blockade half-way around Orleans : it would cut the 
 English off from the object of their siege, which was 
 invasion south of the Loire. 
 
 " I shall be wounded to-day betwixt my neck and 
 my breast," said Jeanne, as her squire armed her the 
 second morning after Ascension day. Bertrand's lips 
 whitened and stiffened. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 
 " The counsel have told me." 
 
 She seldom noticed him when he was girding her 
 buckles, but this time she put her hands affectionately 
 on his shoulders. As he stood level with her own eyes
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 169 
 
 he trembled with unsteadiness, which the maid could 
 not understand, and he breathed with the rise and fall 
 of her own breast in its steel cuirass. 
 
 "Bertrand, I am growing to love you almost as 
 well as I do Pierrelo," she said, with large and open 
 natural affection. " You have been a man since you 
 came into France. You have seen I was born for this 
 labor. And what if blood must go out of me this 
 day ? I have told the dauphin I cannot last above a 
 year or two, and he had best make use of me. Have 
 you ever thought it a good to die ? " 
 
 "Yes, I have so thought it," he answered, facing 
 her steadily, his eyes swimming in rapture stolen from 
 her touch. Jeanne had not a woman's sense of this 
 great passion. She would as freely and honestly have 
 laid her hands on the knight of Novelopont, who had 
 just received back from the dauphin the moneys he 
 had expended on her journey into France, or the Due 
 d'Alenc.on, whom she had promised to keep safe for 
 his young wife. She was a comrade to every man 
 whose strength went with hers against the invader. 
 
 "I will tell you," said Jeanne, in a whisper; "since 
 these voices have come to me, there is such anguish of 
 homesickness to be gone with them when they leave 
 me that my spirit leaps at thought of death. Oh, 
 think of being through well through with what we 
 are obliged to undertake ! Yet I am so alive," laughed 
 the maid. " I enjoy my body ; I love my family, and 
 my home, and this world; but more than anything 
 else under the sky I love sacred France. Bertrand, if 
 you could hear my heart beat, the sound would be 
 nothing but 'France France France France ! ' 
 
 " The battle this day will go hard with us," said
 
 170 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 Jeanne, removing her hands from her squire, and 
 letting him put on her helmet. She pushed up the 
 grotesque pointed vizor, and her voice, coming from 
 the case of steel, was weirdly prophetic. 
 
 " It will not "be until my standard touches the steep 
 side of the boulevard that we can go in. I do not 
 know when the moment will be, but I shall be told. 
 Bertrand, I want you to bear my standard in the as- 
 sault of the Tourelles ; but do not press into the f oss 
 and let the banner float against the works until I tell 
 you; it will do no good until the English are given 
 into our hands." 
 
 Early as it was, the bombarding had begun, though 
 gunpowder was used in such insufficient quantities, 
 and the cannon around Orleans were trained at such 
 angles, that projectiles tumbled perpendicularly from 
 the height to which they were thrown over the city. 
 Orleans answered with the mouths of its pieces through 
 embrasures in the walls. Like other towns, Orleans 
 could make its own gunpowder, mixing the parts, 
 however, so that minimum force was generated in the 
 burning. But there were no firearms to be carried 
 by the marching soldiers. Archers and arbaletriers 
 formed the most considerable portion of any body of 
 troops. The rule throughout Christendom was to 
 support any number of men-at-arms with three times 
 as many archers. 
 
 Cavalry, as the word is now understood, did not 
 exist. Men-at-arms and archers both went mounted 
 or afoot, as their undertakings required, and in action 
 they were necessarily separated and independent of 
 each other. Soldiers who hewed with guisarmes and
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 171 
 
 pole-axes, or drove with lances, hammers, and swords, 
 could not be embarrassed by archers, over whose 
 pickets and bodies they must ride or run from behind, 
 and whose bolts they must risk after passing if both 
 advanced together, for battle was then a mighty clus- 
 ter of hand-to-hand duels. Knights, nobles, princes, 
 and even kings, threw themselves at the head of their 
 followers into these combats. No man stood in his 
 place to be shot at; but he picked him out a lusty 
 opponent, and if he had the good fortune, progressed 
 foot by foot over fallen bodies into the enemy's 
 ground. 
 
 At dawn that seventh day of May nearly every sol- 
 dier in Orleans, obeying the maid, had gone shriven 
 to mass. No lewd women had been allowed to join 
 the march from Tours or Blois. The barracks were 
 indeed like monks' cells, and every profane word was 
 punished by discipline, at her orders, and herein the 
 captains regarded their sovereign's command to sub- 
 mit themselves to her direction better than in matters 
 of war. 
 
 One commander neglected the duty of confession, 
 remembering it only as he galloped past the misty 
 cathedral front with his retinue. He struck his mailed 
 hip and swore, and Poton de Xantrailles, riding near 
 him, laughed aloud. 
 
 " Hug thy holy bones and chuckle, Poton," retorted 
 La Hire. "A man that hath nothing but a clean 
 conscience inside his armor, and gives his mind to 
 handling a shield as thou dost, is safe anywhere." 
 
 There was a glut of men at the Burgundy gate. 
 Horses could scarcely move in the crowd. Jeanne's
 
 172 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 standard showed near the portal, and behind it, over 
 the Bastard, was displayed the great red banner of 
 Orleans, covered with needlework. The governor of 
 the city, having received conflicting orders from that 
 council held the day the troops entered, refused to 
 open the Burgundy gate. He had been told that the 
 attack on the English camp was to be made through 
 Porte Renart, and he was not the man to give way, 
 even though both pucelle and Bastard commanded 
 him. 
 
 " Break his head with his keys, and throw him over 
 the wall ! " shouted La Hire, who, sputtering with the 
 effort to keep back words unfit for the pucelle's ears, 
 swore with tremendous zeal by the baton/ 
 
 Orleans was surrounded by a f oss which, under the 
 gates, expanded to deep paved courts. As the Porte 
 Burgundy was forced from within, the drawbridge fell 
 with a clang, and the crowd burst out, gentler riders 
 and less aggressive foot-soldiers being thrown back- 
 ward by the recoil. Each captain sought to put in 
 order again his retinue of twenty-five or thirty lances 
 and seventy-five archers. Jeanne's confessor, who 
 always rode with her as both priest and surgeon, was 
 pushed on his palfrey, which replaced the jaded 
 Domremy beast, across the front of La Hire's great 
 horse. 
 
 "Behold the reward of swearing by the baton," 
 shouted De Xantrailles over the general discomfort. 
 " La Hire hath not confessed himself, but he is per- 
 mitted to go out with the broad side of a friar for a 
 breastplate." 
 
 "La Hire will confess himself now," retorted
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 173 
 
 Jeanne's convert. "Turn thee, Brother Pasquerel, 
 for when we pass yon portal, adieu, religion. La 
 Hire hath committed the usual sins of a man-at-arms, 
 as well as he could behind the pucelle's back, who 
 gives a man no chance even to wash his mouth with 
 a good sweet oath, and he begs for absolution." 
 
 The friar, reining alongside that squat, broad suit 
 of armor, murmured at the casque which was inclined 
 toward him. Whether he spoke forgiveness or re- 
 proof to the sinner," La Hire accepted it with a hearty 
 " Amen." He set spurs to his horse and shot through 
 the gate. 
 
 "Now, God," said he aloud and free-hearted, "be 
 pleased to do for La Hire this day what La Hire would 
 do for thee if he were God and thou wert La Hire." 
 
 There was no longer a bastile of St. Loup to pre- 
 vent the easy transportation of troops across the river. 
 Boats landed the army on the south shore, where they 
 had first halted. The English camp on the west side 
 took no part in the action of this day, except continu- 
 ing to bombard the city. 
 
 The little bastile called St. Jean le Blanc had been 
 taken by the French in a sortie on the day after As- 
 cension, its garrison retreating to the bridge boulevard. 
 This was the first time that Jeanne had seen chausse- 
 trappes small pieces of iron which, falling in any 
 position, turned a foot-piercing point uppermost. 
 The English threw chausse-trappes behind themselves, 
 and every lance, English or French, had them as part 
 of his equipment. 
 
 The French archers advanced within shot of the 
 Tourelles, each carrying with him a tough, sharp picket
 
 174 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 to drive into the ground if such bristling defense 
 should be needed against horses. With arrows laid 
 in a row under his feet, ready to the grasp, he sent 
 his feathered shots into the bodies of the enemy. 
 A horizontal snow-storm thus swept the Tourelles. 
 Long practice was required to make an expert archer, 
 while lances had only to drive and dare, to hew with 
 guisarme or strike with hammer, protecting them- 
 selves with their pavas, or shields. Crossbowmen 
 also, setting their weapons point downward on the 
 ground, and holding them with foot in stirrup and 
 bow across their knees, while they whirled double 
 handles to adjust arrows in grooves, shot bolts by a 
 trigger which exceeded the strength of the human hand 
 on a bowstring. The range of crossbowmen was much 
 greater than the range attained by archers, though 
 the English were said to excel them with good single 
 yew bows and yard-long shafts. 
 
 Five hundred men fought in the Tourelles, and they 
 were made a host by William Gladsdal, a mere squire, 
 who, though far below other captains in social rank, 
 had merited and received entire command of the south 
 shore. He drew his force into the outwork or bastile 
 on the bank, which was unusually steep from the 
 bottom of the moat to the top of the earthen crest. 
 Boiling oil, molten lead, stones, arrows, lances, axes, 
 maces, or clubs fought down the ascending French. 
 Carrying St. Loup by assault was a light feat of arms 
 compared with driving a man like Gladsdal from his 
 position. His men shouted insulting words at the 
 witch of the Armagnacs. The noise of attack and 
 repulse was terrific. Huge pincers dragged timbers
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 176 
 
 from the bastile. The French, stooping forward with 
 their shields slung over their backs for defense, ran 
 up scaling-ladders to seize their [enemies at the top ; 
 and again and again were the ladders flung down, 
 with stones, molten lead, and boiling oil on the heads of 
 the climbers. Shouts, " England and St. George!" 
 " France and St. Denis ! " " Remember Agincourt ! " 
 the cries of captains, the clang of axes on armor, 
 the crack of oak when split, the twang of bowstrings, 
 and the steady singing of arrows all this confusion 
 of battle was heard by Jeanne with swooning ears. 
 From the first ladder planted she had fallen, with an 
 arrow piercing that joint of her armor where the 
 shoulder moved on the neckpiece. 
 
 A knight lifted her out of the ditch. She felt the 
 jarring as he dragged her back from the press. 
 
 " You are hurt, pucelle ; here, take my horse." 
 
 " Who are you, messire ? " 
 
 He threw up his vizor and showed his face. "De 
 Gamaches, who flouted you in council. But I was 
 mistaken in you, pucelle. Bear me no malice, and 
 take my horse." 
 
 " I bear no one malice, Messire de Gamaches, and I 
 will gladly take your horse." 
 
 Bertrand's arm steadied her in the saddle. She saw 
 her banner half furled in his hand. She swooned in 
 a vineyard beyond the ruined faubourg, the bolt of 
 anguish still piercing her. Brother Pasquerel, and 
 Pierre, and many more drew around her, hesitating 
 to pull it out, though they took her armor off and 
 bathed her face. The point stuck out behind her the 
 length of her finger. She herself sat up and laughed,
 
 176 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 to take the anguish from their faces, and jerked it out, 
 drenching her breast with blood . Pierre held her stead- 
 ily, but Bertrand doubled forward on his knees and hid 
 his eyes from that blood and from the sacred baring of 
 her shoulder, which the friar oiled and bound up. 
 
 She prayed voicelessly, lying on the earth among 
 the vines ; and when the first f aintness was past she 
 rose to her knees. 
 
 The attack on the Tourelles had not begun until 
 ten o'clock, all the troops being first conveyed across 
 the river. It was afternoon when Jeanne noticed the 
 decreasing noise of battle. Discouraged assailants, led 
 vainly by the Bastard, D'AlenQon, La Hire, and De 
 Xantrailles, were drawing back from the Tourelles out 
 of bow-shot, and in spite of their captains making for 
 the boats. 
 
 " En nom De ! " besought the maid, " run bear word 
 to the Bastard ! Tell him to let them eat and drink 
 and rest. The men are faint. When their strength 
 comes again we will go in, for the place is ours." 
 
 Noise of cannonading continued on the north shore, 
 and smoke spread there like a stratum of tinted mist. 
 The cannon in the Tourelles and the boulevard, which 
 had done little execution in a hand-to-hand struggle, 
 now threw stones into the fields across the ruined 
 faubourg. Perhaps the French, while they ate and 
 drank such food as had been brought from the town, 
 with missiles like small globes dropping about them, 
 remembered, and cursed their leaders in remembering, 
 that it was not the pucelle's counsel to attempt these 
 works. She had wished first to attack the English 
 camp, but, with good sense as strong as genius, made 
 herself subservient to the captains.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 177 
 
 All the western plain and river turned rosy as the 
 sun slipped low. There was an old path winding into 
 the trampled vineyard, and it became pink under the 
 pink sky. The two towers of the Tourelles, one round, 
 the other many-angled, swam aloft in a sea of yellow- 
 ing light. That embankment by the river, where an 
 unprotected battery had been taken the day before, 
 betwixt St. Jean le Blanc and the bridge, stood up 
 clean-cut in the magnifying air. 
 
 GladsdaPs garrison, serving their guns, and less 
 troubled by the scattered French than by marksmen 
 on the city walls, saw with astonishment that their 
 assailants were again massing. More than that, they 
 saw the white armor of the witch who had been killed 
 rise up in the weird horizontal sunset light. 
 
 " There are white birds fluttering about her head ! " 
 some of them gasped to others ; " do you see the white 
 birds?" 
 
 " She was carried off with an arrow through her 
 body, and here she comes at mad gallop ! " 
 
 The maid dashed breakneck into the ditch, her ban- 
 ner carried by a squire racing beside her. It touched, 
 it swept the earthen wall. Again that sweet bell-voice, 
 which carried the soul of France to certain victory, 
 rolled over the doomed Tourelles : 
 
 " Ayez bon courage ! Us sont tous nostres ! " 
 
 Men-at-arms flung their shields over their t backs, 
 and plunged from ladder-tops into the bastile arch- 
 ers, knights, captains, nobles. 
 
 They carried it; they forced the boulevard behind 
 
 it. The English ran to the drawbridge to retreat into 
 
 the Tourelles. At the Orleans end of the bridge the 
 
 pucelle's voice was answered by rejoicing cries. St. 
 
 12
 
 178 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 Catherine's gate flew open, the garrison and citizens 
 of Orleans running with timbers to cover the broken 
 arches and assault G-ladsdal on their side. Old Jehan 
 of Lorraine, the master cannoneer, who had once fallen 
 into English hands and lost his piece when it was 
 trundled on its movable table outside the gates, danced 
 in rapture on the wall ; for the ball that he sent from 
 his battery, as the boulevard was carried, cut away 
 the Tourelles drawbridge under the English, and 
 Gladsdal and his men were dashed into the river. On 
 went the shouting French, casting across the gap 
 planks torn from outworks. The Tourelles, the pris- 
 oners therein, the bridge, the battle, were theirs, and 
 they marched with the maid through St. Catherine's 
 gate into Orleans. 
 
 " She drives the English, and then she weeps over 
 them as they die," exulted the soldiers. It had been 
 indeed a great waste of life. " More prisoners should 
 have been taken and held to ransom," declared La 
 Hire ; " men who receive but eight deniers a day for 
 military service need all the Englishmen they can 
 catch." 
 
 This often-described battle, which turned the tide 
 of invasion and changed the history of the world, was 
 ended ; for next morning the English raised the siege, 
 and setting fire to their line of remaining works, drew 
 away. A blockade which had lasted eight months, 
 and worn out all the military resources of the king- 
 dom, was broken by the maid in three days. Te Deum 
 was chanted in the cathedral, and people ran shouting 
 in the streets all night long, for the bells rang with- 
 out ceasing in Orleans.
 
 N a warm afternoon late in July, when the 
 sun was getting low behind the Domremy 
 hills, Mengette watched skylarks rise from 
 the ground. She had two flocks of geese 
 on the uplands, her own and Isabel Romee's, and kept 
 them apart, nipping grass, and from wandering into 
 the young vines below, for all the vineyards were 
 weighted with green grapes bunched near the earth. 
 The vines were like bushes tied to stakes with wisps 
 of straw. Wide, open fields spread along the ridge 
 to an oak jungle southward. Once, when the young 
 maids were racing on this ridge, Jehannette had seemed 
 to blow like a leaf, outstripping them all, and they 
 looked at her as at one who had died and come to life 
 again. Mengette remembered that this had caused 
 her to feel her first pang of separateness from her play- 
 mate. And now Jehannette, parted from Domremy 
 but six months, was at Rheims making the dauphin 
 to be crowned ! 
 
 Jean Morel and Gerardin d'fipinal had brought the 
 news from Chalons, where they saw her and the march- 
 ing army. The siege of Orleans was raised, and the 
 
 179
 
 180 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 English had been driven from Jargeau, from Meung 
 and Beaugency, and had been beaten in the battle of 
 Patay. Where these places were Mengette did not 
 know, but she had the words by heart. Jargeau, 
 Meung, Beaugency, and Patay all taken in ten days ! 
 Jean Morel and Gerardin d'Epinal said that Jehan- 
 nette was leading a host which increased every hour ; 
 for whoever had a horse clapped saddle on it and joined 
 the cavalcade, bearing his own expenses. Troyes had 
 opened its gates and surrendered to the dauphin and 
 the maid Troyes, where the treaty disinheriting him 
 had been made by his mother and the English ! Town 
 after town delivered up its' keys and returned to its 
 natural allegiance. The pucelle, without a battle, was 
 sweeping all the North into her sovereign's hands ! 
 
 " i The pucelle ' is the name they give her," said 
 Gerardin, proud that Jehannette had held his child at 
 the baptismal font ; " and she goes like a great gen- 
 eral, in cloth of gold, on magnificent horses, changing 
 them so that they are never jaded. The soldiers have 
 an awe of her as of something divine. In the field 
 she sleeps in her armor, and the life of her body is 
 hidden from them ; yet she flung herself off her horse, 
 and shook Jean and me both by our hands, as soon as 
 she saw us. They say the dauphin would have kissed 
 her when she came to him after raising the siege of 
 Orleans, but not even he hath the effrontery to handle 
 her. And how high is the look of her countenance ! 
 She laughs like little Jehannette yet, but I would as 
 lief have St. Margaret's or St. Catherine's eyes on me 
 as hers. She wears burnished mail so white that it 
 shines dazzling, and has squires and servants to wait
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 181 
 
 on her. We saw Pierre and Bertrand de Poulengy, 
 and for confessor she hath the friar who set forth to 
 the wars with Pierre. And everybody in Chalons 
 looked once at the Dauphin Charles and his retinue 
 of nobles, and all the time thereafter at the pucelle." 
 
 Jacques and Isabel had gone to Rheims, to see the 
 dauphin crowned and to bring home their children. 
 They had been absent more than a week. The cure 
 and Jacquemine and Durand Laxart went with them, 
 but Mengette felt quietly sure they would not return 
 with Jehannette in their company; and if not with 
 Jehannette, neither with Pierre. She endured vicari- 
 ous pangs for her dear playmate uprooted from home, 
 though how much worse it would be for Jehannette 
 to come home and find Domremy so changed ! 
 
 The cure and Jacques being both without horses, 
 Durand Laxart took the priest in his cart, while 
 Jacques had been obliged to borrow the Widow 
 Davide's beast, which was grudgingly lent, though 
 she would receive for the loan a measure of wine at 
 the vintage. The journey from Domremy to Rheims 
 was over sunny country, where the mud of spring was 
 long dried up. But Jacques d'Arc was going to see 
 a glorified daughter, and the Widow Davide did not 
 know where her Haumette was. Human bitterness 
 grew in the woman at such raising up and pulling 
 down. Mengette knew the Widow Davide's tongue 
 began to work the very day Jean Morel and Gerardin 
 d'fipinal brought their wonderful story. She was 
 cross in her wine-shop when Domremy rang its church 
 bell, and crosser when Greux, though Burgundian in 
 its preferences, rang also for the maid of Lorraine.
 
 182 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 A rider spurred up the long ascent to Bury-la-C6te ; 
 and there Durand Laxart danced wildly in the street, 
 and Bury-la-C6te rang its bell also. Thus from town 
 to town up the Meuse valley sped news of the maid ; 
 and from Domremy to Vaucouleurs, where the people 
 made a public procession of thanks, the bells, through 
 which she heard her voices best, the bells which were 
 like her own pealing cry, rang her victories. 
 
 As soon as the priest, excused from his offices, and 
 Jacques and Isabel were on the road to Rheims, jeal- 
 ousy of the D'Arc family spread over Domremy like 
 fog from the river. Its sinuous twistings were in 
 every house, and Mengette saw the women turn their 
 heads when she went toward Greux with her geese, 
 instead of giving her a " good day." The pucelle's 
 closed, shed-shaped home seemed to rouse antagonism. 
 Mengette saw her neighbors pointing at it and laugh- 
 ing. They had once talked about Jehannette's visions, 
 and all knew her long waiting and sorrow. Did it 
 amuse them that she had burst from her years of 
 preparation into swift, miraculous action, gaining for 
 the French five great battles in two weeks, and lead- 
 ing the dauphin in victorious progress through a hos- 
 tile country to his coronation ? Mengette had no envy, 
 and did not understand that the pucelle's sudden rise 
 before all Christendom might affect her neighbors like 
 their own downfall. 
 
 The wine-shop door was shut in Choux's face, his 
 cronies sitting with the cool garden under their eyes 
 at the back of the house. Unused to being banished 
 from the wine-shop without having his ear pinched, 
 Choux waited in the street, hunched on the stone coping
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 183 
 
 which surrounded the manure-heap ; and the Widow 
 Davide came out, and denounced him openly as a 
 sorcerer with a voice from the devil, a consorter with 
 people who did things by witchcraft. His own foul- 
 ness made more wholesome by the stable odor in which 
 he sat, he thrust his face at her, and called boldly on 
 Valentin to torment her at night, which sent the 
 Widow Davide clattering into the church for holy 
 water and a cautious prayer or two against the evil 
 eye. 
 
 Choux's face projected more and more like a beast's 
 in front of his ears. Mengette's abhorrence of him in 
 ebb and flow tossed her clean virgin spirit, but she 
 held on to duty, and made regular confession of it. 
 Father Fronte laid no penance on her, even when she 
 owned to wondering if Choux would never die ; for 
 when his hissing grew unendurable, the old order of 
 things lost their charm, and she reached the state of 
 constantly desiring to have him under ground, tied in 
 his last clean cap and deaf to voices. After Isabel's 
 reproof he and Valentin had shrieked no more aloud, 
 but they took to whispering; and Mengette's skin 
 prickled all over when she heard them filling darkness 
 with fierce sibilations, like a pair of colossal ganders. 
 She knew there was a Valentin, though Isabel had 
 scarcely believed in his existence and soon forgot him. 
 Nightly, month after month, his invisible company op- 
 pressed the house and gave it an uncanny name. The 
 priest privately exorcised him, and punished Choux 
 by withdrawing the church's consolations for a time ; 
 but that old sinner no longer cared for the bon Dieu. 
 Father Fronte began to regard him as a poor idiot,
 
 184 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 the sport of fiends, more to be pitied and endured than 
 corrected. 
 
 Jacquemine now had much of Pierre's work to do, 
 and sulked continually, being far from strong; and 
 when Mengette gladly helped him, he could talk of 
 nothing but his troubles. Yet, in spite of these things, 
 Mengette never came on a day when she did not live 
 with zest. The July afternoon put Domremy out of 
 her head. Creamy air, smooth and soft upon the 
 cheeks, strewed wisps of gray or opal color against 
 green hills. The Meuse was nearly hid in bushes. She 
 could see Jean Morel and Gerardin d'fipinal at work in 
 their vineyards below the oak woods. These travelers, 
 who had gone as far as fifteen leagues to Chalons, 
 were behind in tying up the vines ; but they worked 
 with the stir of the world in their blood. They knew 
 the vintage was going to be good, and declared the 
 last Burgundian riders had trampled the march of 
 Lorraine. As for that wicked Queen Isabel, she now 
 sat in Paris quaking from morning till night, though 
 the sun was there so hot that dunghills reeked ; and 
 what would she do when her crowned son turned from 
 Rheims to march with the pucelle on Paris I 
 
 A skylark rose from a wide level between the flocks 
 of geese, wheeling and singing, sweet and lilting, until 
 he was out of sight, though his voice seemed as near 
 as ever. Mengette stood with her face turned upward, 
 searching for his dot of body against dazzling light ; 
 motes swam before her eyes in the upper air ; then the 
 lark appeared, wheeling downward. His rejoicing did 
 not cease an instant. When higher than a hundred 
 feet, he dropped like a stone, head downward, de-
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 185 
 
 scribed one more circle, and alighted in the grass. All 
 the time his singing was so joyful that it made Men- 
 gette laugh. He did not mind her near approach, but 
 was up again, for pure gladness, and out of sight 
 again, his voice bubbling in every direction over the 
 sky ; then down he wheeled and dropped, circled once 
 more, and hid himself in the grass. So he kept it up 
 until the sun was almost gone. Mengette's neck ached 
 with supporting her back-tilted head while he was 
 aloft, and her lips were stretched with the laughter 
 of delight. She loved him, and had loved his fathers 
 before him all her summers. Her dazzled eyes could 
 hardly see the stony land mottled with specks of 
 white. 
 
 Therefore when an outcry broke from Domremy 
 street, in front of the church, she looked down the 
 long hill shoulder, blind to its cause. Her own house 
 and the garden behind it, crowded with growing things, 
 were a blur till her eyes were fitted to the lower light. 
 The black wheat, or buckwheat, which made her winter 
 bread, was all in flower, a gray smear within the wall. 
 
 Mengette could hear Choux screaming her name, 
 and her first startled thought was that the devil might 
 be carrying him off. She felt her whole body blanch 
 with fright. Then she began to see people running, 
 and a man and a woman dragging Choux by the 
 shoulders, his hump and heels scraping the ground. 
 Domremy had risen against sorcery. 
 
 It was a sin, but Mengette's next thought was fear 
 that the two flocks of geese might mix or stray or 
 damage vines if she left them, so strong is the hold 
 of small cares on poverty. But compassion, unready
 
 186 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 in her brain, was swifter in her muscles. Directly 
 another flying figure added itself to the village mob. 
 Mengette, breathless, dragged at Choux to liberate him 
 from the mob's hands. Her neighbors, who knelt in 
 church with her, were like wild beasts. 
 
 " Let go this sorcerer ! " screamed Widow Davide ; 
 " we have had enough of voices and visions and witch- 
 craft. Let them believe who will that Jehannette 
 d'Arc doth her great miracles of siege-raising by the 
 help of the saints. We know this old beast hath long 
 communicated with devils. He ought to be burned ; 
 but fagots are too good to waste on him we will 
 drown him in the Meuse." 
 
 Mengette put herself in front of Choux, who shrilled 
 like a chicken with something in its neck. This spas- 
 modic shriek, and his odor, and his prehensile, suck- 
 ing grip, from which there was no escape, made her 
 turn faint. With the ferocious self-preservation of 
 age, he held her before him ; and she felt his thumbs, 
 which curved sharply backward with a claw at the end, 
 sink their joints into her hips. His thick, bestial lower 
 lip blubbered first at one side of her waist and then 
 at the other, as he watched his antagonists. Mengette 
 trembled. 
 
 " You have never been well liked yourself for har- 
 boring the old wretch," warned the Widow Davide's 
 nephew, who had helped drag Choux. 
 
 " It matters not," answered Mengette. 
 
 " People despise you," declared the Widow Davide, 
 hands on hips, and nose thrust into the maid's ghastly 
 face. 
 
 " It matters not," answered Mengette.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 187 
 
 "Let us have him, or we will throw you into the 
 river with him." 
 
 " It matters not," answered Mengette, her tongue 
 bound to one phrase; for she could not argue with 
 them, or threaten them with the cure, or think of any 
 good thing which might turn their minds. And there 
 was old Simone of Greux, who could barely totter 
 on two canes, licking his sunken mouth with fierce 
 desire to slay, and shrilling, "Put them both in the 
 Meuse ! " 
 
 And there were the children who loved to stroke 
 Mengette's milk-white gander, staring at her as at a 
 cursed thing. She had early learned what is so hard 
 for the young to learn, that many things must be en- 
 dured alone. But there is no loneliness like isolation 
 as the protector of an abhorrent object. Some of the 
 excited villagers drew back, touched to their souls by 
 her hunted eyes. The rest, provoked by resistance, with 
 frenzied clamor dragged both Mengette and Choux 
 to the deep washing-pool. 
 
 Choux's throat closed to sound, and his face ex- 
 tended long and horse-like in front of his ears. Men- 
 gette could see it, though his hold on her back was 
 not broken, as she struggled against the hands of her 
 executioners until her petticoat and bodice were torn 
 to shreds. Her lithe body twisting and her arms beat- 
 ing in the midst of a crowd were seen by Jean Morel 
 and Gerardin d'fipinal in their vineyards. They ran 
 shouting at the top of their voices. 
 
 Men who had been farther than Chalons might not 
 have prevailed at that time to stop unjust violence, 
 but two dreadful things helped them the sight of a
 
 188 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 maid's naked, scratched arms and breast and dropping 
 petticoat, and news from Greux that the priest had 
 already passed Bermont chapel on the Bury-la-C6te 
 road which led from Rheims. 
 
 The crowd fell apart. Every woman was ready to 
 cover poor Mengette and take her home. They began 
 to blame one another, and those who had only stood 
 and looked on went into their houses with a virtuous 
 air, determined that the priest should know they had 
 nothing to do with it. Choux and sorcery were for- 
 gotten. They all wished to be standing by their doors, 
 or driving in the cows, or to be bringing great inno- 
 cent panniers of lucerne on their backs, or gathering 
 home the children and the geese, when they welcomed 
 the priest as he returned along Domremy street. 
 
 But before the angelus rang, nearly every soul, 
 warned out by Father Fronte's command, gathered in 
 the church. Choux was not there. He crouched in 
 his chamber ; and Valentin was not heard to whisper 
 all that night. Mengette was not there. She lay in 
 her cupboard bed, and though it was July, the serge- 
 covered down sack lay over her feet, for twilight 
 brought in the coolness of the hills. Isabel Romee sat 
 beside her, too exalted to feel that bitterness against 
 her neighbors for their behavior which she must have 
 felt if she had not been to Rheims. 
 
 But Jacques and Jacquemine were in the dark 
 church, where almost invisible sinners cowered on the 
 prayer-benches. The terrors of that religion whose 
 rights of trial and punishment they had usurped hung 
 over a pastoral people unused to public ferment. The
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 189 
 
 Widow Davide knelt on the stone floor ; she was often 
 mourning her daughter there, and sank lower and 
 lower in a contrite heap. 
 
 Two candles only lighted the altar. The cure came 
 out of the sacristy, and taking one of them, ascended 
 a pulpit near the center of the church, and set it on 
 the reading-desk before him. White groins and arches 
 were half discernible overhead. In one transept was 
 an image of St. Catherine, and there Jehannette d'Arc 
 used to pray. The priest led his people through a 
 short benediction service, and then he said: 
 
 " I have heard all that you attempted to do this day 
 to Choux, who is a sinner, and to Mengette, who would 
 have perished a martyr. And why were you moved 
 to it ? I know your hearts, full of jealousy and envy. 
 You were not mad against sorcery: you were mad 
 against royal favor that hath not been shown to you. 
 None of you have complained of any damage done to 
 you by Choux ; but when my back is turned you rise 
 up to put him to death, and shamefully misuse an in- 
 nocent maid, because of your spite and malice." 
 
 The church was very still. Jacquemine, in his place, 
 felt fierce to punish these peasants who had not been 
 to Rheims. 
 
 " I have been to Rheims," said Father Fronte. " I 
 have seen our dauphin crowned a king; I have seen 
 the pucelle, who grew up among us with holy visions 
 in this valley, where some of you run to violence, stand 
 before her sovereign to be questioned what she desired 
 for all her services. She asked but one thing : ' Take 
 the tax forever off Domremy and Greux.' The king
 
 190 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 takes the burden of tax off Domremy and Greux. 
 Your priest and Jacques d'Arc bring you the news. 
 I have no more to say. Go home." 
 
 The congregation did not stir. Father Fronte also 
 stood still in the little circle of candle-light. He could 
 hear their labored breath. They all, like one great 
 sorrowful child, burst into weeping, and wept aloud.
 
 XI 
 
 SABEL could hear that contrite noise in 
 the church through Mengette's open door 
 and windows. Both women understood 
 it, but they continued their talk about 
 Bheims. Isabel had brought home all the geese from 
 the uplands, and given evening bread and drink to 
 this prostrate family as well as her own. The hill 
 twilight of home filled her heart to the brim. Men- 
 gette's slight outline was stretched in exhaustion 
 under the down sack, which she drew to her armpits 
 as the air grew cooler, her face shining white above it. 
 The pot-hanger dangling from the back of her fireless 
 chimney was lost in the dark, and both door and win- 
 dows framed nothingness. She forgot her trouble in 
 the splendor of a realized vision, which Isabel could 
 not keep from painting on the Domremy night. 
 
 "So all hath been fulfilled. While we spun or 
 sewed or worked in the vineyards, the months have 
 changed Jehannette like many years. At first I did 
 not know her in her armor. We all stood to see the 
 king and his troops enter Rheims on Saturday even- 
 ing, for he received his worthy anointing on Sunday ; 
 
 191
 
 192 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 and there was my child riding at his side with a white 
 banner, so glorious a creature, the people so adoring 
 her with cries and weeping, that I hid my face against 
 a wall, and shook with a kind of palsy, and saw not 
 her brother ; he rode behind her. But when she came 
 flying to the inn where we slept, for she was lodged 
 with the king's company at the archbishop's chateau, 
 and with her head bare cast herself into our arms, 
 Jacques fainted down upon the floor. She kissed him 
 and tended him. I could see she was our same Jehan- 
 nette. She inquired for you, and named everybody in 
 Domremy. Her heart was set on coming home with 
 us, since her task was fulfilled at Rheims; but the 
 king and all the army held to her with pleadings, and 
 reproached her for desiring to turn back while the 
 English are still in France." 
 
 " And Pierrelo, also he was well ? " put in Mengette. 
 
 "Well and ruddy, and all a soldier. Pierrelo hath 
 become wasteful, living among nobles ; but he paid 
 into Jacques's hand the money which our horse brought 
 in Tours, and more besides, from spoils and ransoms 
 of the English. Jehannette will not take either spoils 
 or ransoms, or money from the king, except to pay 
 her household. The king would have given honors 
 to both Jacques and Durand Laxart ; but they would 
 have nothing, so he made our Jacquemine bailiff of 
 Vaucouleurs. Messire de Baudricourt hath joined the 
 army with his retinue, and he and Durand were made 
 to teD. over and again the story of her setting out for 
 France. Durand Laxart boasted a thousand times, 
 1 And I carried her to Vaucouleurs ! ' wandering around 
 the fair streets, beside himself and laughing aloud.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 193 
 
 Jehannette gave him her old bodice and petticoat that 
 she hath carried with her on all her journeys, having 
 no longer hope of wearing them again. And he sat 
 with the things across his knees, and looked at her in 
 her mail, the tears running down his face, the king 
 himself having said that no man had done more for 
 France than Durand Laxart. 
 
 " The king hath a pleasing, fair presence, and he is 
 but four years older than Jacquemine. He kept his 
 vigil in the cathedral all Saturday night, as the custom 
 hath ever been on a sovereign's last night before cor- 
 onation ; and outside in the great square were crowds 
 rejoicing. All night long, also, the workmen hung 
 banners and tapestries and cloth of gold, and there 
 were chimes like thousands of bells ringing together." 
 
 "Does that great cathedral where the kings are 
 crowned seem to be more than a church ? " 
 
 " Outwardly it is like a carven cliff of stone, and 
 took my breath from my throat at the first sight. 
 Within, when a few voices chant, the sound swells 
 until an army seems chanting ; but when an army doth 
 chant, the mighty rolling volume is like nothing I shall 
 hear again on this earth. Also, there were wheels in 
 wheels of tinted light shedding glory. The pillars 
 are set up as they would support the sky, and all our 
 family could sit on the base of one. Besides these 
 seats around the pillars, three rows of stone benches are 
 formed by the rise of the walls above the pavement. 
 
 " Then there was the procession of the Sainte Am- 
 poule containing the holy oil, which an angel brought 
 from heaven for anointing our kings. Priests carried 
 it under a canopy a little round flask the size of my 
 
 13
 
 194 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 thumb, but larger about the bottom and shoulders, 
 and smaller about the middle and top, all crusted with 
 red and green gems, with a stopper of gold. Out of 
 this did the archbishop anoint the king on his head, 
 his shoulders, within the joints of his arms and the 
 palms of his hands, slits being cut and embroidered 
 in his robe to this use. It was all done according to 
 ancient custom. And then did two nobles lift the 
 crowned king in his chair, and show him to the people. 
 He was proclaimed, and chimes and voices and music 
 of instruments rolled in the arches ; and I, being with 
 Jacques within the choir, could see my child stand on 
 the lowest step of the high altar with her banner. Oh, 
 Mengette, I am the happiest woman in France, what- 
 ever comes of all this, for it is clear I am the mother 
 of a deliverer ; but it was at first hard for me to believe 
 that St. Michael stooped to our garden, and St. Cath- 
 erine and St. Margaret continually instructed her." 
 
 " You believe it now, godmother ? " 
 
 " Have I not seen with my own eyes the things re- 
 sulting therefrom ? They are more wonderful to me 
 than the coming of saints." 
 
 Before next dawn Mengette was crossing the moist, 
 dark lane to milk her godmother's cows, knowing that 
 Isabel would be weary from the journey. It was not 
 light enough to see artichokes standing stiff like huge 
 green dahlias in the village gardens, or even to dis- 
 tinguish poppies thick in little squares of wheat, their 
 crimson heads embroidering the yellow mass ; but all 
 hidden sweetness was on the air, and the smell of the 
 yellow linden flowers was a complete delight. Thus 
 the sleeping Domremy, the dew-reeking, half-seen,
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 195 
 
 natural Domremy, made up to Mengette for the cruelty 
 of its inhabitants. She did not wish to meet a living 
 soul, and was seeking her work in the end of the night 
 to avoid the earliest risers; for Mengette had wild 
 instincts, and felt the scratches on her outraged breast 
 branding her with disgrace. That her neighbors had 
 been called to public rebuke and public repentance 
 made no difference to her. She hated no one, but she 
 desired to make a retreat from the world, and it was 
 fortunate that Gerardin d'Epinal had hired her to 
 work in his vineyard that day. 
 
 The D'Ai'c house was not built to shelter its own 
 cattle, like other cottages, but had a thatched stone 
 stable beyond its garden. Oxen and cows, brought 
 carefully in to repose for the night under shelter, 
 sighed their content in the darkness; and Mengette, 
 as she entered, made haste to say, "God and St. 
 Bridget bless you ! " so the cows would not kick over 
 the milk. 
 
 She shivered with the lonesome chilliness of early 
 morning ; but at mid-forenoon the warm land glowed 
 about her, a fervid breath rising from the earth. 
 When Mengette had employment, her geese were 
 obliged to remain shut up in their own end of the 
 house, quavering as if their nostril-holes scented the de- 
 licious summer landscape outside ; for Choux avoided 
 that common employment of old people and children, 
 and would not lead a goose out to graze. 
 
 When all laborers paused for the mid-forenoon meal, 
 Jacquemine d'Arc came among the low vines search- 
 ing for Mengette. She did not stand up until he de- 
 tected her bare head above her strange clothes ; for,
 
 196 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 her every-day wear being shredded to rags, she was 
 obliged to fall back on her mother's chest. 
 
 Jacquemine was in his best, and he chose his way 
 like a magistrate, so that Gerardin d'Epinal at the 
 other side of the vineyard, whose experience as a 
 traveler was considerable, might feel his new dignity. 
 Gerardin chuckled in his piece of loaf as he crunched 
 it with hard teeth, and silently prophesied about the 
 people of Vaucouleurs, and their submission to a bailiff 
 like Jacquemine d'Arc. " He will go in with a strut 
 and a bellow, like a little bull of the Vosges," laughed 
 Gerardin; "and come out over the wall, tossed by 
 bigger horns than his own. Bertrand de Poulengy is 
 of no greater stature than Jacquemine, yet he doth fill 
 the eye like a man, while this creature might as well 
 be a bush, so little regard have people to his humors. 
 Doubtless the king laughed in his royal sleeve at his 
 new bailiff; but Vaucouleurs will count it an un- 
 gracious return for sending him the pueelle." 
 
 Some regret for the hard-working maid who was 
 bound by contract to Jacquemine also glanced through 
 the peasant's mind. " She could make a better mar- 
 riage," he reflected, " particularly now, while such in- 
 dignation is felt for her ; but even the pucelle cannot 
 turn this poor brother into a husband to be desired 
 of any maid." 
 
 "I am going to Vaucouleurs," was Jacquemine's 
 greeting. 
 
 Mengette remembered when his father had spoken 
 the same words, and he had afterward accused Jehan- 
 nette of disgracing the family. She looked up quickly
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 197 
 
 from the knife and lump of bread in her hands, and 
 he was shrewd to perceive her thoughts. 
 
 " Because the king made me bailiff of Vaucouleurs 
 when I was in Rheims," he said, coloring helplessly, 
 " I did not on that account stint speaking the truth 
 to my sister. I told her plainly the people here in 
 Domremy said she raised sieges by witchcraft." 
 
 Mengette's sunburnt cheeks whitened, and she looked 
 down. She had no spirit left. His words did not 
 dispraise the people of Domremy, but she blamed him 
 little ; he was himself happy. The elfish naughtiness 
 of this lad whom she had helped to rear, his spites 
 and frank self-love and jealousies, had always touched 
 her pity ; but the shock which her traditions had re- 
 ceived unsettled her even toward Jacquemine. She 
 wished she had hid herself at Bermont spring instead 
 of coming to work in the vineyard. 
 
 " Will you stay in Vaucouleurs ? " 
 
 " I shall live there. A bailiff is not like a captain 
 of a town, who may live where he pleases ; but he must 
 set up his house among the people he governs. I am 
 no fool," said Jacquemine, with a twist of his foxy 
 head. "This great ha-hu of Jehannette's may not 
 last. My brother Jean will get wind of it at Vauthon, 
 and his wife's family will urge him to make his profit 
 out of it ; but I am the eldest, and the first honor is by 
 right offered to me. Bailiffs are not bailiffs merely to 
 amuse themselves. I intend to squeeze Vaucouleurs." 
 
 " What was done for Pierrelo ? " 
 
 " Oh Pierre he hath everything like a great noble. 
 You should see him caracole on a horse. And he
 
 198 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 hath put on clothes and armor that swell his person 
 to increased bigness. * La ! I am the brother of the 
 pucelle ! 'that is all his thought. Doubtless he told 
 the dukes and captains she had no elder brother, for 
 they knew nothing about me." 
 
 " I would I could see him and Jehannette." 
 
 Jacquemine's sandy eyebrows drew together with 
 resentment. 
 
 " It is plain you are not glad to see me, and Durand 
 Laxart's horse stands saddled ready for me while I 
 climb up hither to set a day for our marriage. The 
 bailiff of Vaucouleurs can marry when he pleases. 
 We are no longer obliged to wait until Choux's 
 death." 
 
 To Mengette, whose world was scarcely a league 
 square, such a translation to new spheres was blinding. 
 
 " Oh, Jacquemine," she cried out with a rush of joy, 
 " I now want to leave Domremy." 
 
 "It is soon arranged. There is Henri Royer in 
 Vaucouleurs, who is well disposed toward us, and will 
 help me to seek a suitable house. A bailiff is not to 
 be lodged as common peasants lodge. I saw in Kheims 
 in what excellent regard the citizens of the three es- 
 tates are held. There are in this realm three ranks 
 called the three estates, Mengette the clergy, the 
 barons and knights, and the citizens." 
 
 " But what will your father do for help in his fields ? " 
 
 " He will be obliged to hire a laborer. When he 
 loses me he will lose a son indeed ; but both my father 
 and mother have spoken of the marriage. They see 
 it will be necessary, and I have remained the last of 
 their children."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 199 
 
 " How will Choux be received in Vaucouleurs, Jac- 
 quemine ? " 
 
 " Choux will stay where he is. He can still sleep in 
 your house, and my mother can feed him." 
 
 Mengette thought about it. The lifting of her life- 
 long burden brought a deep breath of relief from her 
 bosom; but the old custom, the old discomfort, the 
 old duty, which her father had told her death alone 
 could free her from, were drawn back with her next 
 inhalation. 
 
 " No ; I must not throw the care of him upon any 
 one else." 
 
 "He shall not go to Vaucouleurs I will tell you 
 that." 
 
 " Then I must stay in Domremy, and still feed and 
 shelter him." 
 
 " Do you love old Choux ? " 
 
 Mengette covered her face with one arm, and shud- 
 dered. 
 
 "Why, then, do you hold by him?" 
 
 Her eyes, as she opposed her lover, took again the 
 hunted look. 
 
 " There is a pitying, Jacquemine, which is like reli- 
 gion. I cannot disregard it ; happiness would turn to 
 a curse." 
 
 " Do you choose to stay here with him, working in 
 the fields, rather than to go with me 1 " 
 
 " I cannot choose, Jacquemine ; it was all settled 
 without my choosing." 
 
 He flung his nervous body a few steps from her, and 
 looked back. " Then it is adieu between us." 
 
 "Jacquemine, you came up here to quarrel with
 
 200 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 me. You scarce gave me a good day or a kiss on the 
 cheek, and there was only Gerardin, who knows how 
 long we have been betrothed. You were not like this 
 before the king made you bailiff of Vaucouleurs ; but 
 it is true, I am not fit for your wife." 
 
 She turned to her work, and he came back. They 
 faced each other for more words, when Choux appeared, 
 carrying his hump less lightly than before its bruising, 
 to take his share of the forenoon meal from his feeder. 
 The stealthy odor of him crept within the vine fra- 
 grance, and Jacquemine looked at him over one shoul- 
 der, and gave him the field. 
 
 Mengette yielded her knife and lump of bread to 
 the old creature. The chief member of her foster 
 family, the one through whom she had hoped for rel- 
 atives and happiness, stalked on down hill, without 
 again looking back, to claim for himself dignities and 
 honors, and left her for life to this degraded company. 
 Choux made little noises of satisfaction over his food, 
 grunts and smacks of the palate, bestial, unlike the 
 honest grinding and hearty human enjoyment of a 
 peasant. 
 
 Mengette hid herself among the vines as far as she 
 could from him, and knelt there, doubling her body 
 forward, and weeping upon her knees.
 
 XII 
 
 OTON DE XANTRAILLES is love-lorn," 
 said La Hire, with a wink at his friend's 
 back; for the tall knight mounted and 
 rode off to St. Denis without waiting for 
 him. La Hire's own courser was held ready by a page, 
 but he lingered, spreading himself and his cloak upon a 
 chair, and holding a cup in his fist on the table where 
 he had been drinking. He sat before the door of his 
 quarters in the crowded lane of La Chapelle, which 
 was then a small faubourg outside the ramparts of 
 Paris. There was a stretch of fields to the city walls 
 on the southern horizon. 
 
 "Since Poton hath been appointed governor of 
 Coucy his mind runs to serious things, mass and 
 confession, so that he hath no longer any stomach 
 for good company. Take warning by Poton, Messire 
 d'Arc, and let thoughts of women alone. La Hire 
 never looks at a woman," said the old sinner, rolling 
 his eyes behind his chair, where Pierre could see a red 
 petticoat half concealed by his wide cloak. 
 
 "What have we in La Chapelle or St. Denis to 
 make a man love-lorn, Messire La Hire ? " the pucelle's 
 
 201
 
 202 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 brother asked, laughing. He knew well whose black 
 eyes snapped near the knight's broad shoulder. 
 Though women of her class were forbidden the camp, 
 he had many times seen Haumette Davide, gorgeous 
 from a summer among Burgundians, slip about be- 
 hind his sister's back. And he had talked with her, 
 half in contempt and half in pity, loving the familiar 
 sound of the whistling Domremy " oui," which is like 
 " whist ! " 
 
 Pierre sat his horse with drawn rein for the pastime 
 of enjoying La Hire's embarrassment. But he added 
 in seriousness : 
 
 " Messire de Xantrailles is only cast down like the 
 rest of us because we are kept idle in camp." 
 
 The knight struck the table until his wine-flask 
 staggered. 
 
 " "We ought to take Paris to-morrow. By my baton, 
 La Hire is tired of this. The king and La Tremouille 
 have sat in St. Denis a week, holding the piicelle in 
 leash, bemoaning the expenses of an army they keep 
 idle ; while the Duke of Bedford in Paris laughs at 
 them, having a hundred and twenty thousand livres 
 tournois a month to his revenue drawn from France." 
 
 In his excitement La Hire raised and shook his arm, 
 twitching the cloak farther off Haumette. Her re- 
 minder caused his face to fall into sudden distortion, 
 and he arranged his draperies in haste ; but in serious 
 conference with the soldier Pierre forgot to be amused 
 by the bacchanal. He looked through a passage left 
 between houses at meadows sweeping away to the 
 Seine, which, after cleaving Paris, makes a bend north- 
 ward. He could not see the distant river, but all the
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 203 
 
 fields were spread with September glory of pale-pink 
 and pale-blue crocuses, star-cloth, a prodigal carpet 
 for mailed feet and trundling artillery and the chafing 
 of coursers' hoofs. Pierre could smell, above the barn- 
 yard odors of this stone village crowded with many 
 horses, a piece of wild mignonette he had stuck in his 
 corselet because it reminded him of Domremy. There 
 the little brownish-yellow blossom twinkled all sum- 
 mer, overclothing the sward in every direction. 
 
 " Messire La Hire, is La Tremouille part English ? " 
 
 " No ; but he is wholly bad French. Hark ye, my 
 lad, who was Georges La Tremouille before the king 
 took him up ? Nothing but a dependent of the Due 
 de Richemont, and for being placed at court by that 
 noble he hath bred enmity betwixt his patron and the 
 king. He had a sister married to a low Scot little 
 better than a stable-boy. You remember," cried La 
 Hire, with pleasure in bringing the facts to Pierre's 
 own experience, "the little maid that embroidered the 
 pucelle's standard in Tours ? " 
 
 Pierre did remember her, to the roots of his hair. 
 He sat his horse, helplessly detected in a feeling which 
 La Hire had not the eyes to see. 
 
 " That was the Scotchman's daughter, the child of 
 La Tremouille's sister. She hath been left on his 
 hands by the Scotch painter's death since we marched 
 from Rheims." 
 
 " Who brought news of the Scotch painter's death, 
 messire ? " 
 
 "A messenger from the queen to the king, that I 
 myself saw in St. Denis yesterday. His name" 
 
 " But where now is the demoiselle ? "
 
 204 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 " Oh, she is with her grandmother in Loches ; and 
 the favorite's elder sister, De Beuil's wife, hath already 
 stirred herself to tie the young calf to the royal crib. 
 The Scotch demoiselle is now our queen's new maid 
 of honor. Bring in all nations," blustered La Hire. 
 "France is meat for every crow on earth. By my 
 baton, if God Almighty came down to France in these 
 days, he would turn robber like the rest ! " 
 
 Pierre felt strong need to slap La Hire's red face, 
 where unshaven hairs bristled with general aggres- 
 siveness ; but taking up the glove for the La Tjemouille 
 family against his friend was such madness that he 
 put himself beyond another word by spurring off sud- 
 denly for St. Denis. Charles had appointed a council 
 to consider an attack on Paris, the king was not 
 slack in holding councils, and Pierre's duty was to 
 attend the pucelle. 
 
 "It is time La Hire himself took to horse," declared 
 the knight, in a flurry of haste, bouncing around on 
 his chair. " Come out now, minion ; drink your wine, 
 and begone. Do you want to give a godly fellow a 
 bad name in the camp? The pucelle herself might 
 ride by if it were not for the council in St. Denis." 
 
 " What care I for the pucelle ? " scoffed Haumette, 
 resuming her seat on the table, and filling the cup she 
 had carried into hiding. "Did I not know her in 
 Domremy? She is no better than I am. Must I lie 
 perdu whenever the D'Arc family make a procession ? 
 No, by my faith ! The Davides are as good as they are." 
 
 " Ho ! " cried the knight, starting up and seizing her 
 by the shoulders. " Down again, Haumette ! Squat, 
 toad ! yonder comes the pucelle."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 205 
 
 " Let her squat before me," retorted Haumette, hold- 
 ing stubbornly to the table. 
 
 " But it is the pucelle." 
 
 " I also," said Haumette, defiantly" I am a pucelle 
 of Domremy. There be two of us, Messire Broadback." 
 
 La Hire's face became dinted all over, as if every 
 fat pore opened its mouth in consternation. "Oh, 
 get thee behind me, Sathan ! By all the batons in 
 Christendom, see the minion flaunt ! " 
 
 He snatched his cloak and bolted into the house 
 out of sight. Haumette sprang upon the table. Her 
 wide-featured, snapping-eyed beauty took on unspeak- 
 able insolence. "Bring here the horse," she com- 
 manded La Hire's page ; and not being hindered by 
 his master, he led it to the table, and Haumette be- 
 strode it. The courser reared, but the page still held 
 its huge iron bit, restraining its power, while she with 
 the bridle directed its course. 
 
 Jeanne came riding beside the king from the direc- 
 tion of Paris, where they had been inspecting the 
 ramparts, with a small escort. Her face was marked 
 by weariness and discouragement. She wore instead 
 of her helmet a hat with turned-up brim cut in battle- 
 ments which encircled her forehead like a crown. 
 Wind and sun had taken away some of her whiteness, 
 and anguish was growing in the hazel eyes from royal 
 inertia; but she was a divine sight, which men re- 
 membered, and afterward described according to their 
 diverse spirits. 
 
 The triumphal, march of that glorious summer 
 which had given back to their king Soissons, Chateau- 
 Thierry, Compiegne, and many another town, with
 
 206 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 wide stretches of northern country, which had terrified 
 the Duke of Bedford from Paris to Normandy, and 
 back again to Paris, and had drained new levies of 
 men from England, was now to be wholly lost or wholly 
 consummated by its ending at Paris. The regent had 
 been cautious about risking decisive battle, but Charles 
 had outdone his invaders, so that English and French 
 armies only touched in a skirmish near Baron, by 
 Senlis. "Paris," said the Duke of Bedford, "is the 
 key of France." And Charles seemed loath to stretch 
 out his hand and seize the key of his realm. He could 
 not advantageously use what was in loyalty given to 
 him, while the Regent of England, in order to carry 
 on war, was strong-handed enough to lay a tax even 
 on the small pay of his soldiers. 
 
 All the hopelessness of Jeanne's colossal task took 
 physical shape in a woman of the camp shocking 
 against her with an ill-guided and struggling courser. 
 She looked up from her saddle-bow at an impudent 
 face defying her even to cleanse the troops. Her eye- 
 brows drew together, her nostrils quivered, her hand 
 brought up the sword of Fierbois like a flash, and 
 smote it flat across Haumette Davide's back. The 
 blade parted in two. One piece fell under the feet of 
 La Hire's horse, and Jeanne stared silently at what 
 remained on the hilt in her hand. 
 
 " By my faith ! " said Charles, reddening with dis- 
 pleasure, " you have broken the sword of Fierbois on a 
 camp-follower. Are there no cudgels in La Chapelle ? " 
 
 She heard whispers behind her and outcries in the 
 houses. The maid had broken her miraculous sword ; 
 it was a bad omen ! La Hire's page picked up the
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 207 
 
 fragment, still holding the snorting courser on which 
 Haumette Davide clung and cowered ; and Jeanne tried 
 to fit the parts together. The camp armorer came 
 running, but he shook his head at the sight. Those 
 old blades which could be bent around the body the 
 making of them was a lost art, and the mending of 
 them was an art yet undiscovered. 
 
 Jeanne left the sword in his hands without a second 
 look. Her eyes dwelt on the creature she had struck. 
 It was not her instant recognition or piteous repen- 
 tance which pierced Haumette Davide. Nor was it 
 her blinding greatness that made the depraved one 
 crouch before her. It was some nameless power, some 
 revealing of light from another world. 
 
 When Jeanne d'Arc had passed on, Haumette 
 slipped from the horse and crept to a secluded place 
 where she could sit on one of the cylindrical stones 
 bestowed at wall sides to keep wheels from chafing. 
 
 " I wish she had run me through with her sword," 
 said Haumette ; " it would be too good for such as I 
 am, but her sword would not be hurt." 
 
 Next day Paris was assaulted. At night the maid 
 was brought by a rabble of troops wounded into La 
 Chapelle, having met her first defeat. It was like a 
 rout, where no knight could collect his retinue, and 
 horses clashed harness with one another in the low 
 evening light coming across level plains. The young 
 Due d'Alenc.on was beside her. She rode with her 
 head on her breast, unconscious that one mailed foot 
 occasionally dripped blood through the clumsy iron 
 stirrup. 
 
 Jeanne's victories had been culminations of effort.
 
 208 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ABC 
 
 When the French flagged after long fighting, and their 
 enemies also relaxed effort, then the spirit seemed to 
 come mightily upon her. At early morning assault 
 was made on the Porte St. Honore, and lasted until 
 evening. Straining with all her might, Jeanne yet 
 waited for that certain sign that Paris was given to 
 her, when the king and La Tremouille sounded a re- 
 treat. It was then twilight. Jeanne, without heed- 
 ing the trumpet, led on in the midst of din and crash. 
 Two knights, being sent for the purpose, seized her 
 and forced her upon her horse. " En nom De, we are 
 about to go in," pleaded the struggling pucelle. But 
 the tide of retreat had set out, and it carried her 
 along. 
 
 " Take this not to heart," urged D'Alenc.on, leaning 
 toward her. "We will try Paris on another side. 
 What do you think of the bridge of boats across the 
 Seine at St. Denis ? You shall see Paris nearer than 
 you have yet seen it, and by the left bank, though we 
 ride far to strike where a stroke is least expected." 
 
 " The bridge of boats was well planned ; but, fair 
 duke," said Jeanne, throwing up her vizor, and show- 
 ing the deep lights of her eyes to this companion in 
 arms, " the city was ours this night. We should have 
 gone in through the breach we had made. It was 
 almost taken." 
 
 " A night's rest and comforting of the bolt- wound 
 in your foot will not come amiss. Without waiting 
 on councils, we will take our people and dash across 
 to a new attack at dawn. If your wound proves too 
 sore, send me instant word by your page, pucelle." 
 
 " The wound shall not hinder me j I scarce knew I
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 209 
 
 had it until they pulled me from the breach. We will 
 ride early, fair duke, and that must be a loud trumpet 
 that recalls us to-morrow." 
 
 She was ready to laugh, with the prospect of di- 
 rectly renewing the assault. And the La Chapelle 
 woman in whose house and bedchamber she slept rose 
 astonished, in the dark of the morning, to bring her 
 the bread and watered wine on which she broke her 
 fast. A young maid with a pierced foot in bandages 
 and oil, she dressed in haste like joy itself, to go out 
 through fog across a bridge of boats, to be shot at again 
 by all the archers of Paris ! 
 
 Bertrand de Poulengy came with her armor, and as 
 he drew the straps with practised fingers she promised 
 him relief. 
 
 "We will take Paris to-day, Bertrand; and after- 
 ward, by exchange of prisoners, we must get poor 
 D'Aulon back. You have had double labor since he 
 fell into the hands of the English at Baron. I grieve 
 for poor D'Aulon." 
 
 " I also," said Bertrand, with gentle irony " I grieve 
 for poor D'Aulon." 
 
 " I do esteem him, Bertrand." 
 
 " I also," said Bertrand. " As soon as the English 
 had him my esteem rose. If they will only keep him, 
 I shall in time love him like a brother." 
 
 Jeanne glanced over her shoulder at her squire, who 
 was diligent with her buckles. 
 
 "Indeed, D'Aulon never grieved me. But I have 
 done myself more discomfort than any other has ever 
 done me, by breaking the sword of Fierbois. It can 
 never be mended. Oh, Bertrand, I did not come to the 
 
 14
 
 210 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 wars to break the sword of Fierbois on poor Haumette 
 Davide ! " 
 
 " Let it go, and heed it not," said the squire, bring- 
 ing her belt with a strong sword which she had taken 
 the day before at the Porte St. Honore. " Here is one 
 that answers as well to give good blows and clouts 
 with." 
 
 She had herself thrown the long-sleeved levite over 
 her mail, and as he knelt with her girdle, her unusually 
 piteous face broke him down in his vow. He seized 
 her hands and kissed them, and trembled with uncon- 
 trollable passion. The touch of her was so sweet to 
 him, and ease from his long self-restraint was so 
 blessed, that he held her with strength until she 
 wrenched herself loose, throwing him forward upon 
 his palms. 
 
 The squire stood up and faced her, his blue eyes 
 dauntless with the rage of his love. Jeanne turned 
 her back on him. 
 
 "I will go to Haumette Davide," spoke Bertrand. 
 " She is at least a woman. She will speak a word of 
 pity to a wretch that has not had his torment eased in 
 three long years. My faith, as well as the sword of 
 Fierbois, shall be broken on Haumette Davide ! " 
 
 He flung himself into the humid dawn, where fog 
 trailed like wet threads in La Chapelle street between 
 his face and the face of Louis de Coutes, who held 
 Jeanne's courser. 
 
 The page gave little heed to the squire. Holding 
 the bridles of war-horse and palfrey, he waited in hag- 
 gard excitement to deliver news to the maid. Jeanne 
 brought out her casque, which Bertrand had left un-
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ABC 211 
 
 laced, for Louis de Coutes to cany behind her on his 
 saddle-bow. The squire was nowhere to be seen, and 
 even Pierre failed to attend her. The low sky trailed 
 on roofs, and drops of humidity began at once to dim 
 her mail like an overcoating of minute beads. 
 
 " The Due d' Alenc.on and Messire Pierre d'Arc have 
 both gone to St. Denis," said the page, without wait- 
 ing for her inquiry. 
 
 " They are in haste, but by hard riding we shall 
 overtake them. Are the troops all stirring ? " 
 
 Louis stood bareheaded before her. The hair curled 
 around his neck. "Pucelle, they went to the king. 
 They bade me tell you the bridge of boats is cut adrift. 
 No one can now cross to attack Paris." 
 
 " When was this thing done ? " 
 
 " Last night." 
 
 " By whose command ? " 
 
 " The king's." 
 
 Jeanne's face stiffened ; but she said directly : " The 
 bridge of boats en nom De, let it go ; we can enter 
 elsewhere than by the bridge of boats. "We shall go 
 in by the breach made yesterday at Porte St. Honore. 
 Why has the duke gone to the king ? He should be 
 riding down hither with his troops. Mount, and after 
 him ! I think the men are all mad this morning. 
 We have no time for councils and visits of ceremony." 
 
 " But, pucelle," disclosed the page, " King Charles 
 has ordered a retreat from Paris." 
 
 The stern maid put her attendant on his defense. 
 
 " Am I to believe this story ? Who left St. Denis in 
 the night with such commands from the king ? " 
 
 " His Majesty's own herald. And there was haste ;
 
 212 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 but you were not to be roused from sleep. The Due 
 d'Alengon rode off to St. Denis to inquire into the 
 matter, and he himself sent you word that the bridge 
 of boats is cut adrift." 
 
 " The king has ordered a retreat from Paris?" 
 
 " It is the truth, pucelle." 
 
 Jeanne put her arm on her courser's neck, and leaned 
 with all the weight of her mail. She gasped as if 
 some one had struck her in the breast ; and Louis de 
 Coutes, forced to be purveyor of this cruelty, was ready 
 to curse his sovereign. Yet the courtier's instinct to 
 make his own advantage out of another's discomfiture 
 was boldly alert in his look. He was sorry for the 
 military leader, but he was fiercely glad the woman 
 had met a rebuff which might make her kind. The 
 boy's eyes filled with honest tears, and he slid to his 
 knees, holding the bridles in his arm. 
 
 " Oh, my great mistress, I am of good family. Look 
 not on me as your horse-boy. By our Lady, I can 
 hold back no longer ! I shall soon be knighted, and 
 no woman need then despise me as a husband." 
 
 " Stand up ! " said Jeanne. " Have you no regard 
 for your hose, furnished by a poor king who has just 
 been forced to throw away Paris ? " 
 
 " If I stand up at no kinder bidding, it will be to 
 lay your squire low." 
 
 " Go to the king, Louis de Coutes, and tell him I 
 now have no need of a page. Ask him any favor he 
 can do you for my sake. We shall part at St. Denis." 
 
 The enraged boy followed her as she took her own 
 bridle from him to mount. " I will not be turned off 
 like a varlet ! " His large, light eyes and loose lips
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE IXAKC 213 
 
 and the thick tip of his nose seemed distended by 
 aggressiveness. 
 
 But he knew he had banished himself from the maid, 
 and her reserve, as she looked down from the saddle, 
 chilled him and sealed his mouth. She thanked him 
 for his service, commended him again to the king, and 
 rode off. Louis de Coutes struck the earth-stains on 
 his shins, and glanced at neighboring windows. La 
 Chapelle was stirring in the sullen dawn. He could 
 do nothing but mount his palfrey and follow at a dis- 
 tance, debarred from his page's duties. 
 
 Early as it was, the abbey of St. Denis, where 
 the king lodged, showed preparations for departure. 
 Charles carried with him such luxuries as he could, 
 and he never for any military consideration omitted a 
 dinner or a night's rest. But he was as near eager- 
 ness as his phlegmatic nature ever approached to be 
 done with the campaign and on the southward road. 
 
 To retreat from the capital without taking it at that 
 time meant to disband the army. Officers and their 
 retinues signed indentures of service for a specified 
 number of months, and without reenlistment they 
 could not even go into winter quarters to be at the 
 disposal of the sovereign, though many knights and 
 nobles, among them La Hire, De Xantrailles, and the 
 Due d'Alengon, would retire into the north to hold 
 towns and fortresses. 
 
 Seldom had so much been done by loyal subjects 
 for an impoverished monarch. The pucelle herself 
 had acted as his treasurer, husbanding his means to 
 the utmost, and holding the retinues of his captains so 
 devoted to her that they would have served for noth-
 
 214 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 ing but their bread. Those northern cities that had 
 returned to their allegiance needed the protection of 
 the capital. Charles left them to shift for themselves. 
 Master of Paris, where the Duke of Burgundy was 
 the most popular man in the kingdom, he might have 
 treated successfully with that alienated vassal. 
 
 The west door of the cathedral of St. Denis opened 
 from a mean street crowded with many little shops. 
 Jeanne entered it lame-footed, coming from her inter- 
 view with the king, about the middle of the forenoon. 
 Within she sat down on the steps which form a short 
 terrace to a vast expanse of floor. Opposite, far away, 
 stood the great altar bearing up a gold Christ between 
 two tall candles. Echoes resounded in the Gothic 
 arches from a service in one of the chapels. Jeanne 
 set her helmet, which she still carried, on the floor be- 
 side her, a polished head-piece, like the top of a knight 
 embedded in stone. 
 
 The king had commanded her to follow him to 
 Bourges. Already the retreat from Paris was begun, 
 though it would have to be covered by troops, and La 
 Chapelle and St. Denis would not be entirely evacu- 
 ated for several days. She leaned her face on her 
 hands, too sore in body and spirit to creep down for 
 a prayer before the nearest altar. A tardy sun was 
 beginning to make glimmers through the clerestory 
 windows high above. 
 
 Her enemies, of whom she had scarcely thought in the 
 ardor of war and fatigue of many marches, now pressed 
 her in defeat, and seemed to follow her under the 
 arches of St. Denis. The Regent of England and the 
 Duke of Burgundy Jeanne left out of account. They
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 215 
 
 were to be met in open field. But there was La Tre- 
 mouille, covert and mocking, a man who had never 
 been earnest in anything except the pursuit of his 
 own pleasure. He had done as much to bring the 
 campaign to naught as if he held secret league with 
 the English. La Tremouille had also prevented the 
 queen from journeying to Rheims, thus robbing her 
 of coronation. And there was La Tremouille's friend, 
 the Count-Bishop of Beauvais, who had some little 
 quarrel against her concerning horses bought of him 
 by her household, and perhaps a larger hatred for that 
 most unreasonable of all reasons jealousy of power. 
 Moreover, there was the Archbishop of Rheims, the 
 favorite's brother, who had taken that same strange 
 attitude toward her. "En nom De !" whispered Jeanne, 
 " if they thought more of the king's dignity, and less 
 of their own, it would be the better for France." 
 
 But there, also, were her friends, scores, thousands, 
 men, women, children, stout knights and nobles and 
 men-at-arms. Answering the silent roll-call of her 
 need, one of them entered the cathedral. The inner 
 door swung shut behind him. He was, like herself, 
 all armed except his head, and carried a plumed hat 
 in his hand when he saw her. The knight who had 
 refused to follow her standard at Orleans was first to 
 seek her in defeat at St. Denis. 
 
 The maid's eyes met his in a long gaze of sorrow. 
 He stooped to one knee to talk with her. Their low 
 voices did not spread from one little circle of sound 
 in the echoing cathedral. 
 
 "Has anything further befallen us, Messire de 
 Gamaches ? "
 
 216 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 " No, pucelle. I come to beg that there be no adieus 
 betwixt us two." 
 
 " Why, we must all part, Messire de Gamaches. But 
 I tell you, and I have been informed truly, however it 
 may go with you and me, there will not be an English- 
 man left on the soil of France within seven years." 
 
 " God send there be no favorites left, either. Do 
 you desire to follow the king ? " 
 
 " I would far rather go home and tend my sheep, 
 messire, which you would have had me do at Orleans ! " 
 
 "You do not forget that I rebelled against follow- 
 ing your standard before it had led us to so many 
 victories ? " 
 
 " I remember you offered me your horse when I took 
 my first wound." 
 
 " Not my horse alone, but my lands and myself I am 
 ready to offer you now. Pucelle, I am of good family, 
 though scarce your equal in arms." 
 
 " Messire de Gamaches, there be plenty of women 
 in France for wives. You may easily choose among 
 them ; I never saw a more accomplished knight. But 
 I was born to other uses. The king had best employ 
 my time, for it will not be long." 
 
 "I have a regard for you, pucelle, that I have for 
 no other, man or woman. We have been captains to- 
 gether, and I had liefer be commanded by you than 
 by any other. When you take the field again I will 
 follow your standard." 
 
 " Messire, you have given me the only comfort I 
 have had this day. When the king has so many good 
 men ready in his hand, how can he disperse them? 
 But it is the favorite's doing." 
 
 " Yes, the apricots like little red apples will be past
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 217 
 
 their season in Bourges, if La Tremouille makes no 
 haste to disband the army. I have heard him mourn 
 the loss of them, together with his ease." 
 
 " Yet he tilted well by Senlis, messire." 
 
 " A man must sometimes shiver a lance, or age will 
 come on him in his youth. Pucelle, I am loath to let 
 you go south to yonder court." 
 
 Jeanne gave him both her hands in farewell. Their 
 gauntlets met with a metallic sound. She thought, 
 " When shall I see such goodly arrays of men gathered 
 again ? " Her eyes swam, her chin quivered. As these 
 companions in arms had met, so they parted, with a 
 long look of sorrow. The closing door swung silently 
 behind De Gamaches, and Jeanne limped slowly down 
 the steps, helmet in hand. 
 
 No more would that casque lead like a star in as- 
 saults. It had been broken by a stone at Jargeau. 
 She traced the closed seam which an armorer had skil- 
 fully made. 
 
 One old woman with kerchief-bound head, and a 
 wrinkled man in blue smock, knelt at their prayers. 
 Pattering with unceasing lips, they watched the glit- 
 tering figure, already loved in St. Denis, pass along the 
 cathedral wall. Jeanne felt her wound to f aintness as 
 she descended to the crypt under this church, where 
 all the kings of France, from Dagobert, were buried. 
 Low stone galleries wound about vaults and chapels 
 in which the great gray coffins were enshrined. Charles 
 had given up these as well as his capital to the enemy. 
 She dragged her foot along the stone path, or leaned 
 her forehead against the side of a cold arch. The 
 crypt was deadly chill. 
 
 Another mailed tread followed her, and she saw
 
 218 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Poton de Xantrailles coining, tall and well-thewed, 
 thin-faced and sharp-eyed, but downcast, as though 
 he bent his head to escape the top of the crypt. Like 
 all the captains, he was ready harnessed, for a general 
 attack on Paris had been intended by way of the bridge 
 of boats. 
 
 Jeanne felt her heart unendurably swelling toward 
 the scattering army. De Xantrailles, with the gentle 
 manners of courts, controlled himself, and gave her 
 first a message from the king, who would know, since 
 she had dismissed her page, young Louis de Coutes, 
 if she desired to have Louis's brother Raymond in- 
 stead. 
 
 " En nom De," answered Jeanne, " let me have no 
 more of the De Coutes family." She laughed. " The 
 knights are dispersing, and Paris is thrown away, and 
 we must take thought only of pages. But understand 
 well, I do not blame my king, Messire de Xantrailles." 
 
 He stood high above the maid. His vizor was lifted. 
 De Xantrailles had witnessed the glories of the court 
 of Burgundy a duchy that outdid many kingdoms in 
 splendor, where tournaments were oftener celebrated 
 than anywhere else in Christendom, and chivalry, in- 
 stead of falling to decay, was at its height. But loyalty 
 which excused the lax relinquishment of a kingdom 
 he had not often seen. 
 
 " Have you heard the cause of this sudden retreat ? " 
 he inquired. 
 
 "No, messire." 
 
 " Charles has just completed making a truce with 
 the Duke of Burgundy until Easter." 
 
 " The only truce with the Duke of Burgundy should
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 219 
 
 be made at the point of a lance ! He showed his sov- 
 ereign nothing but contempt when a message was sent 
 from Rheims beseeching him to throw in his lot with 
 his people. The English only desire to use him." 
 
 " You had scarce left the king, pucelle, when a knight 
 came riding from Paris with sixty followers to join 
 the royal party. He says the city was never so ready 
 to yield. But we have made truce with Burgundy, so 
 we go home." 
 
 Tears, always ready in Jeanne from childhood, 
 gushed down the oval cheeks. She turned and sobbed 
 against the wall. Oh, it was bitter to be ruined at the 
 goal by a courtier's misgovernment ! 
 
 "Jeanne," said De Xantrailles, trembling in the 
 voice, " I am appointed governor of Coucy, the strong- 
 est fortress in France. I am of good family." 
 
 The maid drew her breath sharply at these ominous 
 words. 
 
 " I will demand you of your brother Pierre, and also 
 of the king, as any maid should be demanded. Come 
 with me to Coucy. The wife of De Xantrailles may 
 at least live apart from a court ruled by the favorite." 
 
 "En nom De, what ails these men?" cried Jeanne. 
 " Have you all agreed to take pity on a poor scourge 
 of England because she is thrown aside, and house her 
 since she has no field for her arms ? But I know why 
 you come to me with tears in your eyes, thinking com- 
 fort may be found in marriage. It is the cry of France 
 rending every one of us." 
 
 She set her casque on the floor, and took him by both 
 gauntlets, as she had taken that other good knight, 
 De Gamaches. Her companion in arms worshiped her
 
 220 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 silently, without daring to draw her nearer his mailed 
 body. 
 
 As if she could not bear any further words of part- 
 ing from captains who felt this general bereavement 
 as she felt it, Jeanne snatched up her helmet, and 
 limped away from De Xantrailles along the crypt. 
 
 Behind the choir of St. Denis, and back of the great 
 altar, was a little chapel to the Virgin. Bertrand de 
 Poulengy was kneeling there. He heard a halting step 
 behind him, and turned and saw the maid. With her 
 eyes fixed on the statue, she began to unbuckle her 
 armor. Exhausted and ghastly, and struggling with 
 her unaccustomed task, she yielded him back his office 
 of squire without a word of reproach, standing in the 
 stained light which poured over her from high windows. 
 
 " I went to Haumette Davide," he whispered to the 
 maid. " She is going home to her mother with De 
 Metz of Novelopont, when he has taken leave of you. 
 Will you call me D'Aulon hereafter the squire who 
 never caused you any discomfort? Let me take his 
 place while he is a prisoner." 
 
 " I have no longer need of squire or armor," answered 
 Jeanne ; " yet I cannot well do without you." 
 
 " That is enough for me." 
 
 " You are fit to approach this altar ? " 
 
 " I am not unfit." 
 
 The squire helped her carry all the pieces of her 
 armor and place them about the feet of the statue. 
 Jeanne knelt, and lifted her sword by the blade in both 
 hands, with the cross-hilt over her head. 
 
 " My virgin armor I sacrifice and offer here upon 
 this altar. It is the cry of France ! "
 
 XIII 
 
 ITTLE king of Bourges" though Charles 
 VII was called by his enemies, he had no 
 palace there, and was obliged to use the 
 chateau of his uncle, the Due de Berri, who 
 retired for the winter to another outside the walls. 
 The chateau of Bourges was a wide, stately pile of 
 stone, blackened instead of bleached by age, seated 
 among threading streets and crowding houses, half- 
 way up a slope of land at the top of which stood St. 
 IStienne's cathedral. Common soldiers and attendants 
 entered the chateau from the street below by a court 
 opening into guard-rooms. But the Chevalier du Lys 
 turned in at one of the great gates which, standing 
 opposite, made a crossing street of the paved court 
 fronting the palace. 
 
 Pages were always hastening up or down the stone 
 steps, and horses waiting in the court, except at this 
 hour when night fell and candle-light began to glim- 
 mer. A torch burned at each side of the steps, strug- 
 gling with foggy air, and the stones were slippery with 
 hardening moisture under the chevalier's feet. He 
 passed through half -deserted antechambers, for at 
 
 221
 
 222 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 dusk the king still sat at table, and through long 
 vaulted corridors to the great hall where the court 
 assembled for its evening diversions. Sconced candles 
 were already lighted along the pillared walls, and logs 
 roared in the chimney. It was a mighty chimney, 
 carved all around with stone oak-leaves. Half a dozen 
 knights could have spurred into it, elbow to elbow, 
 without grazing their casques on the top. Its swelling 
 breast withdrew upward to a many-timbered ceiling. 
 And there the firelight twinkled on polished joists, 
 while below it spread a river of shine along the floor, 
 partially bridged by three figures in front of the 
 hearth. 
 
 The chevalier saw that they were his sister and the 
 young demoiselles Agnes Sorel and Madeleine Power. 
 They did not see him. Even Jeanne was dwarfed by 
 the size of the great room. His heart gave a leap, and, 
 uncertain whether he should enter while they three 
 talked by themselves, he stood at the door holding his 
 hat in his hand. The beauty of Agnes Sorel when 
 wrath stirred her was like coruscating light. But he 
 paid no attention to her or to what she said. He looked 
 at Madeleine Power. As soon as the Chevalier du Lys 
 had received his patent of nobility, supported by a 
 grant of land near Orleans, and had ceased to be called 
 Pierre d'Arc, he asked one more favor of the king, 
 without which the first two were thrown away upon 
 him. But he was made to understand that La Tre- 
 mouille had already contracted the demoiselle Power 
 in a suitable alliance. 
 
 Jeanne and Madeleine stood with their arms around 
 each other. All of Agnes's hair was drawn up from
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 223 
 
 her clear forehead under a hennin, and her cheeks 
 burned scarlet with excitement. 
 
 " This hour a thing hath been said to me," exclaimed 
 Agnes, with a pretty catch of her breath as she spoke, 
 which was nobody's but Agnes Sorel's, " such as never 
 should be said to maid by the mother-in-law of a king." 
 
 " But Queen Yolande is very good-natured," Made- 
 leine objected. " I never heard her speak amiss." 
 
 " Oh, her Majesty of Sicily intends me high honor, 
 no doubt. But I was not brought up in a court. We 
 are better nurtured at Loches." 
 
 " What did she say ? " inquired Jeanne, seeing the 
 statecraft of Queen Yolande, and her latest attempt to 
 juggle troops and men out of nothing for the siege of 
 La Charite after the dispersion of the army. 
 
 " I will not tell you. It was an insult also to my 
 king. Only a year ago so eager was I to come to court 
 that I could scarce wait until my kinswoman resigned 
 her place to me. And now I am sick to my soul of 
 base creatures trying to ruin their sovereign before 
 all Christendom. Any woman would set what wit she 
 had against it. Look not over-conscious, demoiselle ; 
 we do not choose our relations in this world." 
 
 " I never chose any but my father," returned Made- 
 leine. 
 
 " Poor child, you will choose no more, shut up in the 
 queen's nunnery apartments. Oh, if I were Queen of 
 France I would come out of seclusion, and no other 
 woman should share with me the rousing of the king." 
 
 " He is wedded to Bourges and Sully," said Jeanne, 
 wistfully looking at the fire. " The sight of Paris 
 should have roused him."
 
 224 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Agnes Sorel laughed. 
 
 " Pucelle, I believe you see nothing in this court but 
 the length and strength of men's legs and arms idling 
 out of armor. Aside from war, you are as simple as 
 an infant." 
 
 The Chevalier du Lys heard this as he stood aside 
 bowing deeply to let the king pass, and he knew it 
 was so. Many soft-shod feet trod the pavement as the 
 crowd of courtiers flocked after the king, who leaned 
 on La Tremouille's arm. Silks and satins shone lus- 
 trously, nor were slashed sleeves wanting, to show 
 robes of linen underneath. Pierre had heard De Xan- 
 trailles say that linen, and especially clean linen, was 
 a luxury everywhere in France, except at the court of 
 Burgundy. 
 
 He fell into the tide of human presences. Charles's 
 household soon gave themselves up to the newly in- 
 vented diversion of card-playing. The queen had a 
 religious dislike of what she called idle bits of paper, 
 and absented herself from the salon where the game 
 was nightly played. Marie of Anjou, though an un- 
 usually compliant wife in many ways, had not the sym- 
 pathetic breadth of her mother, Queen Yolande, who 
 dealt with zest and fluttering hands, relaxing a mind 
 filled with schemes for establishing the throne of 
 France. 
 
 Little ceremony was observed ; Charles demanded 
 none of the worship which his cousin of Burgundy 
 exacted. Seated at many small tables, with many 
 small piles of coin at stake, the courtiers filled the room 
 with hum of voices and laughter. Alan Chartier, the 
 court poet, wandered from table to table, as it was his
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 225 
 
 custom to do, holding a lute in the curve of his arm. 
 The king had Agnes Sorel for his partner, and La 
 Tremouille and his queen's latest maid of honor for 
 his opponents. La Tremouille wasted no attentions 
 on his niece, and Madeleine was first seen in hall that 
 night after her winter of mourning. She learned her 
 part doubtfully. Pierre could see her eyebrows draw- 
 ing together. She lifted her black eyes and met his 
 gaze with silent greeting, and this was all the greeting 
 they two had been allowed since he came to Bourges. 
 In his comings and goings from his lodgings in the 
 street Trois Pommes, a little place near the city wall, 
 and in the cathedral and palace corridors, he had 
 watched for glimpses of Madeleine. Yet even at the 
 lax court of Bourges she was so celled and restricted 
 that he saw her only at a distance. After the rejec- 
 tion of his suit he had gladly followed his sister from 
 court in her brief restricted campaign eastward. The 
 Chevalier du Lys felt how alien his sister and he were 
 with their new patent of nobility. 
 
 If Charles had concluded a treaty with the King of 
 Scotland for help in his wars, it would have cost him 
 the duchy of Berri or the county of Evreux. Jeanne 
 d'Arc had cost him nothing, and was a greater terror 
 to his foes, and with her thrifty peasant hand had doled 
 his war funds to the uttermost advantage. The least 
 he could do for her was to rank her among robles, so 
 a patent was conferred on her and all her family. The 
 heralds made her a coat of arms, giving her the mas- 
 culine shield instead of the feminine lozenge, and the 
 device of the crown upheld on the point of her sword 
 between royal fleurs-de-lis. Du Lys was the new name 
 
 15
 
 226 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 of her family. But she made no change in her banner, 
 and said to the heralds, " I remain Jeanne d'Arc. My 
 father's name is good enough for me, though my 
 brothers may like the other." 
 
 During this dreary winter of her chained inactivity, 
 a woman named Catherine of Rochelle came to court 
 with visions ; and there was news of a shepherd boy in 
 the mountains who promised to do for the king what 
 Jeanne had undertaken, and to do it better. The 
 favorite also bestirred himself, and found employment 
 which would take the maid out of his sight for a while. 
 She was sent to take St. Pierre-le-Moustier, southeast 
 of Bourges, which she took as by miracle, and La 
 Charite, northward, which was so strongly fortified 
 with watch-towers as to resist a siege. Bourges en- 
 gaged her octrois, and Orleans also sent her succors, 
 says a chronicle, but the court provided nothing. The 
 ground was frozen hard, slippery with frost, and 
 showers of crystals filled the air like diamond-dust. 
 Jeanne was glad to have armor again upon her body, 
 though it was an ill-fitting suit obtained from the Due 
 de Berri, and glad to be afield and see the sun describe 
 his little arc in the south. But La Charite" had to be 
 abandoned. Once her spirit rose beyond control, and 
 she rode, with her squire and her brother and a few 
 attendants, to Orleans and Jargeau and Montfaucon. 
 There the people still thought of France. But she 
 heard what almost slew her. The state of the country 
 was now worse than it had been before she took up 
 arms. Invaders and robbers were alike made bold by 
 Charles's withdrawal from the north ; and the English 
 forced exile or death on defenseless people who would
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 227 
 
 not forswear their loyalty. Whole villages stood ten- 
 antless, the inhabitants having journeyed into other 
 countries. Pestilence also followed the long famine. 
 Everywhere the earth, rank with centuries of foul ac- 
 cumulations, yielded up their odor to dampness. It 
 was told her that wolves prowled even in Paris, that 
 skeletons of children lay on dunghills, and the cry of 
 wandering wretches could be heard in the night "I 
 am dying of cold and hunger ! " Yet Paris was then 
 the pleasantest city in France, with covered bridges 
 and orchards, vineyards and towered fortresses. The 
 Bastille stood among trees. That winter trenches 
 were cut and bodies laid in the ground like corded 
 wood. 
 
 Pierre could see the intrigues around him. He 
 knew that Queen Yolande constantly threw Agnes 
 Sorel in the king's way, and that the Queen of France 
 was resigned to desperate measures against La Tre- 
 mouille. He saw the eyes of that young maid of honor, 
 defiant against her pursuer, yet melting constantly in 
 helpless tenderness upon the king. He saw and en- 
 joyed the jealous rage of La Tremouille, who brought 
 counter-forces to bear in a war suited to a favorite's 
 talents ; and many another hand-to-hand encounter 
 Pierre could see betwixt courtiers sleepy-eyed with 
 dissipation. 
 
 But Jeanne saw nothing. Whenever she came into 
 hall, a supple, noble figure, her rapt gaze moving from 
 face to face, she was a rebuke, being above all martial 
 glory the maid, virgin in mind and person, the maid 
 of France. 
 
 " Why should the paschal lamb be paraded ? " was
 
 228 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 spitefully said behind her back. " Turn it out again 
 to its native grass." 
 
 " Oh, Jeanne d'Arc ! " a courtier would groan to 
 some face within the screen of a fan. " La-la ! I am 
 so sick of this pucelle. She can take pleasure in no 
 human pursuit, but must be praying or riding and 
 fighting. A lover would be more to the purpose at 
 her age, but she will not even make love. The king 
 might amuse himself better with a dwarf." 
 
 Yet the maid laughed in fellowship and without bit- 
 terness when she came back flushed from St. Pierre- 
 le-Moustier, or from rushing through the winter air on 
 her courser. Her face was not sad, but it wore the 
 puzzled look of one constrained to waste on lower things 
 a space of time given for robust action. Housing and 
 trivial amusements were hard for her to endure, when 
 the pulse of France was again reviving in the north. 
 
 Jeanne remained leaning against the chimney, being 
 left out when tables were set for cards. She was richly 
 dressed, as the king required her to be, wearing over 
 the fine cloth of her chevalier's costume a crimson- vel- 
 vet levite. The long, loose sleeves almost covered her 
 hands, on one of which She wore the ring her father 
 had given her at Rheims. A lean child like a wolf 
 stood near, and watched her with sharp eyes, seeming 
 to measure her capacity for war, and sagely to appre- 
 ciate her as one of the engines for extending his future 
 kingdom. A servant of the queen's bedchamber did 
 reverent battle with him to draw him from this spec- 
 tacle for the night. But he escaped out of this person's 
 hands with slippery ease, and roved at will among 
 the tables.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 229 
 
 Then Alan Chartier approached, playing softly on 
 the lute he carried a chanson which Jeanne remem- 
 bered. She met his eyes quickly. The court poet was 
 this winter too often at her heels ; yet she had sym- 
 pathy with him, as one seeking also for expression, 
 and sometimes falling into great sadness with life. 
 
 " What will you do with me, pucelle ? " asked Alan 
 Chartier, making accompaniment to his words on the 
 lute-strings. " You have got a mastery over me that 
 grows from day to day." 
 
 " God be praised for that," laughed Jeanne. " I 
 have, then, at least one man-at-arms." 
 
 " There is a woman soul in me, and in you there is 
 the soul of a man. Will you put me to the further 
 disadvantage of suing for your love?" 
 
 " Nenni," answered Jeanne, using the strong peasant 
 negative. " That I will not, messire." 
 
 " The pucelle hath just received a declaration from 
 Alan Chartier," remarked Agnes Sorel to Charles. 
 " He plays that purring tune when his affections are 
 about to make a spring." 
 
 " Jumps the cat that way ? " responded the king, 
 glancing up the room. His stunted dauphin, the wolf- 
 like child, crept behind Agnes, and tweaked hairs on 
 her white neck below the hennin. 
 
 " It was merely the Dauphin Louis amusing him- 
 self," said a smiling dame at the next table to her, as 
 she recoiled in pain. 
 
 " If the nurse does not remove that boy, I trust God 
 may ! " Agnes responded ; and Charles himself laughed. 
 But she caught a gentle caution from the smooth- 
 shaven, clear-cut face of Jacques Coaur, the silversmith
 
 230 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 of Bourges, whose many favors to the king gave him 
 access at any time to court. His friendly smile checked 
 her impatience with a child to whose making had gone a 
 mad grandfather and a corrupt and selfish grandmother. 
 
 Pierre dealt his cards indifferently. He had been 
 shoved beside the wall to fill a table far from Made- 
 leine Power, and cared little whether he won or lost 
 coin. He could perceive what was befalling Agnes 
 Sorel in spite of her strict bringing up ; and with the 
 complete rebellion of youth, he declared to himself that 
 happiness bought at any price was better than such 
 misery as his. Madeleine Power had never thought of 
 him. She was promised in marriage to another man 
 whose name he could not learn. And after he had 
 watched for her with heart-sick patience so many 
 months, she glanced at him once, as at any varlet. 
 
 The evening waxing later, card-tables were put 
 aside for dancing, and Pierre followed his sister into 
 the upper corridors of the palace. Jeanne also had 
 lodged in the street Trois Pommes, and afterward with 
 the wife of Jacques Coaur ; but this being the eve of 
 the court's departure to Sully, she slept in the palace. 
 They walked in silence, both having lost the fresh joy 
 of life, until Pierre opened the door of a small tower 
 chamber which Jeanne shared with a maid of honor. 
 She kissed him on his cheeks, and said : 
 
 "Good night, Pierrelo. Be early in the saddle. 
 Sully-sur-Loire is the chateau of La Tremouille ; but 
 at least we go toward Compiegne, where I have reason 
 to believe our people may now be fighting." 
 
 " You saw the demoiselle Paure in the hall, Jehan- 
 nette?"
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE I^AKC 231 
 
 " Yes ; both before and after the king entered." 
 
 " Does the queen go to Sully f " 
 
 " The queen goes, but Madeleine Paure does not." 
 
 Hatred of Sully that instant entered Pierre. 
 
 " I love her as if she were our Catherine, Pierrelo. 
 But put all thoughts of marriage out of your head 
 until France is better at ease." 
 
 " Since no marriage is made for me, how can I do 
 otherwise ? " 
 
 "I did my best for thee, Pierrelo, though it is a 
 marvel to me how men can desire to wed when they 
 have no country. But here in this court they think of 
 nothing but lute-playing and the talk of lovers. Are 
 there not enough starving families now in France with- 
 out founding more ? " 
 
 " Jehannette, in some ways you do not grow at all, 
 but remain a child." 
 
 " That part of me which does not grow is not needed," 
 reflected Jeanne. 
 
 " But why does the demoiselle Paure remain here, 
 if the queen goes to Sully ? " inquired Pierre, desiring 
 to find some excuse for remaining himself. 
 
 " She does not remain here. She goes to Loches, 
 where her family are about to celebrate her marriage." 
 
 Pierre turned sick. " Who is the man, Jehannette ? " 
 
 " Young Louis de Coutes ! " Jeanne smiled in the 
 face of his misery. " That froward lad, my page. But 
 he is of good family, as he himself assured me; one 
 of the richest in Touraine, the demoiselle Agnes says, 
 and the king will early knight him for good services." 
 
 "Louis de Coutes! No wonder her family were 
 close-mouthed with the bridegroom's name. A boy
 
 232 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 a scribe fellow that wrote your letters and set down 
 your accounts ! " 
 
 " He is mine own age, Pierrelo, and much older in 
 nobility than a chevalier called Du Lys." 
 
 " He shall not have her ! Doth she like this mar- 
 riage, Jehannette ? " 
 
 " I did not ask her," answered Jeanne, with such 
 candor that the miserable chevalier smiled. 
 
 " That insolent Louis de Coutes who drew sword 
 against Bertrand at St. Denis ! " 
 
 " Did he so?" 
 
 Pierre sent the whistling Domremy yes betwixt his 
 lips. " And Bertrand gave him the wound that has 
 kept him out of court this winter, while his family ar- 
 range for him this marriage. Louis de Coutes hath 
 despite against us." 
 
 " If it had not been Louis de Coutes, it had been 
 some other man not a peasant from the march of Lor- 
 raine. We could not hope that the favorite would 
 make any alliance with us. I have caused a letter to 
 be sent to Tours asking that five hundred livres tour- 
 nois be voted by the city to the marriage portion of 
 Messire Paure's daughter. He painted my banner. 
 It is the only reward I have ever asked for my services 
 to France, except the lifting of the tax from Domremy." 
 
 A candle in the chamber shone on Pierre, showing 
 his hardening face, which had matured since the wind 
 along the Meuse blew rings of hair over his forehead. 
 The tan of a military summer was cleared from his 
 lovable features by partial housing. A reckless look 
 sprang into his gray eyes. 
 
 " I will not care. It shall be nothing to me."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 233 
 
 " Oh, Pierrelo, I wish we could go home ! " 
 
 Pierre gave her a sidewise glance. "But what 
 would we do in Domremy now, Jehannette ? For me, 
 it is my wish to go where La Hire and De Xantrailles 
 and the Due d'Alenc.on are. I would see some more 
 fighting." 
 
 Jeanne herself laughed eagerly. "Has Bertrand 
 made all our preparations for the journey to-morrow ? " 
 
 " He forgets nothing. I left him polishing your old 
 mail." 
 
 Pierre kissed his sister on both her cheeks, bade her 
 good night again, and turned to leave the palace. 
 
 A few torches were fastened along the stone walls, 
 overlaying with a new smear of blackness the breath 
 of past torches as chill drafts of air flowed by. His 
 echoing steps brought him nearer the staircase, and 
 there Madeleine Power met him, running up from the 
 hall below. They both paused and looked at each 
 other, and Pierre knew she had come on purpose to 
 intercept him. He heard the music. A wave of color 
 carried the hardness from his face, and left it pliant 
 with all that a man cannot say. To see her so near 
 at hand was to be enthralled into forgetting what had 
 happened and what might come. 
 
 This demoiselle in court dress was more a woman 
 than the maid in her mother's old clothes at Loches, 
 or the peasant who carried water from St. Martin's 
 well. Pierre looked his last on her black eyes and 
 bright hair. Madeleine was made small and perfect 
 like an ivory miniature. A perfume sweet as linden 
 flowers went with her, conquering the rankness of the 
 torches.
 
 234 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARG 
 
 " Chevalier du Lys, I have something which belongs 
 to you, and I would not return it by any other hand 
 than my own." 
 
 Pierre felt the old palace strike cold through him as 
 he remembered the horse-money at Tours. There 
 were the coins showing through the silk netting of a 
 new purse. His voice and hands shook, but he made 
 a doubtful face over his examination of it. 
 
 " This does not belong to me, demoiselle." 
 
 " You have forgotten, but I have not. You dropped 
 a bag in my pannier at Tours. At first I thought it 
 was a miracle of the blessed St. Martin ; but when my 
 father heard about you he knew better." 
 
 " If St. Martin parted his cloak to a miserable beg- 
 gar, would he fail of gifts to pilgrims ? " 
 
 " St. Martin gave only at need, chevalier. He knew 
 my mother's family would not let my father and me 
 starve." 
 
 " Do you want me to take this purse ? " 
 
 " It is clear the money is yours." 
 
 " Then keep it as a peasant's offering to his lady's 
 marriage." 
 
 Her face fell. She looked at the hilt of his sword. 
 
 "It is ungentle to remind me of marriage." 
 
 " I have been told that your marriage is soon to be 
 celebrated." 
 
 " There is much, chevalier, that I would like to ask 
 your advice about. My father said you were a man to 
 be trusted. But you have avoided me ever since you 
 came to court." 
 
 "Avoided you, demoiselle? I have watched for 
 you every day."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 235 
 
 " If you had watched for me you must have found 
 some way to show me kindness. I have no friend now, 
 chevalier. With the exception of the pucelle, there 
 is no woman I love at court, and I see her seldom. 
 No one in the world has need of me as my father 
 had." 
 
 The innocent child who had walked with him into 
 St. Martin's cave, holding to his hand because the 
 place was dark, looked at him again through the eyes 
 of this maid of honor. He could hear his own heart 
 pounding, and the rival with whom her marriage was 
 to be celebrated passed out of his mind. 
 
 " Demoiselle Madeleine, I myself have such need of 
 you that I swear to be your bachelor for life. Because 
 my proposals were thought unfit for you, that shall 
 make no difference with me." 
 
 "You made proposals for me, chevalier? When 
 did you make proposals ? " Her face was white and 
 haughty. It disturbed Pierre, but he answered with 
 hardihood : 
 
 " As soon as I was raised to a rank which made the 
 proposals possible." 
 
 " My family refused them?" 
 
 " Your family refused them." 
 
 Madeleine heard her aunt De Beuil ascending the 
 staircase behind her on almost silent feet. She had ex- 
 pected to be followed as soon as she was missed. But 
 she looked at Pierre with a swift and silent and hope- 
 less acknowledgment. 
 
 Long after she had been walked in disgrace to the 
 queen's apartments through the tunnel-like corridors 
 of the palace, he stood leaning against the wall, stupe-
 
 236 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 fied by unreasonable joy, and trying to recall the flash 
 which had fallen upon him. 
 
 His mind went no further than that look, and he 
 wrapped himself in the thought of it when he passed 
 out through the palace gates. 
 
 There were few lights in the close-built town, on 
 hillocks or in valleys where roofs pressed together. 
 Pierre glanced up at the Roman towers where Jacques 
 Cosur's new chateau was to be founded. No wonder 
 the king loved Bourges. How pleasant and hospitable 
 was the province of Berri ! There had been a fore- 
 casting in his mind that, in spite of all drawbacks, 
 some good awaited him in Berri.
 
 XIV 
 
 HE May afternoon was waning in Com- 
 piegne. It had been a golden day for the 
 north provinces at that season of the year, 
 and the city was put in a joyful stir by 
 the coming of the pucelle. She had arrived at dawn, 
 with about five hundred men, from Crepy, and entered 
 on the south side, unseen by the besiegers on the 
 north. Splendidly mounted and equipped, her saddle- 
 cloth made of cloth of gold, a crimson levite belted 
 over her armor, her standard displayed, she cantered 
 with her troops toward the bridge gate ; for it had been 
 concerted with the Captain of Compiegne that she 
 should strike and surprise the Burgundians at Margny 
 before the sun went down, cutting off the farther camp 
 of Claroix from the English at Venette. 
 
 It was not the first time the maid had been seen in 
 Compiegne since Easter. In April, when English 
 captains were about to embark fresh troops for France, 
 they refused to go. "The witch is out again," they 
 declared to their angry officers. " It is true she hath 
 not been seen in the north since autumn ; but soldiers 
 have this feeling only when she is afield." They de- 
 
 237
 
 238 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 serted in crowds. Beating and imprisonment had no 
 effect on them. Only those who could not escape were 
 forced on board. 
 
 Then the Duke of Bedford heard the maid was ac- 
 tually at Melun, and had helped the inhabitants drive 
 out the English garrison. As swiftly, she was at 
 Lagny-sur-Marne, striking English marauders. She 
 had leaped again into the field, for there had never been 
 any truce with the invaders, and Charles's truce with 
 the Duke of Burgundy expired at Easter. The French 
 were renewing their struggle without the king. The 
 Bastard of Orleans, who had been made Count Dunois, 
 was pushing, with the Due d'Alenc.on, toward St. 
 Denis. At first it was told in terrified Paris that the 
 maid was coming to renew her attack. She certainly 
 attempted, both by Soissons and Pont-1'Eveque, to 
 break her way southward. But Compiegne, the most 
 important town of northern France, often besieged and 
 harried by the invaders, holding fast to its loyalty, was 
 at this time threatened by both Burgundians and Eng- 
 lish. The French captains flocked to the maid. The 
 Duke of Bedford at once issued a proclamation against 
 soldiers and officers who should " be terrified by the 
 enchantments of this pucelle." 
 
 Her squire and the Chevalier du Lys, her brother, 
 knew with what force she had sprung into the field. 
 They rode alone with her out of Sully-sur-Loire with- 
 out the king's knowledge or consent, a few needful 
 things strapped behind their high saddle-backs. It 
 was a three-days' ride to Melun across rough country 
 and up the long ridge of Fontainebleau forest. Pierre 
 thought with hatred of Sully-sur-Loire, the most in-
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 239 
 
 hospitable place in France a many-towered castle, 
 with pointed roofs, and curtains of stone, rising from 
 a river-like moat. It stood beside the Loire ; but how 
 dreary was the great river at Sully, running deep along 
 the high bank, and spreading far off in shallows, seem- 
 ing to cut France off from the north ! 
 
 At Sully, Pierre had watched day after day in vain 
 for Madeleine Power. The morning the court left 
 Bourges he was early afoot, determined to press his 
 suit again ; but a page wearing the De Beuil li very came 
 to him with a message for the pucelle. The demoiselle 
 Power sent word that her marriage was to be post- 
 poned, and she was to join the court at Sully. So easy 
 was it for Pierre to believe what was told him that he 
 suspected no trick, until La Tremouille's insolent hos- 
 pitality, which made every mouthful of bread bitter, 
 forced the truth upon him. Madeleine Power was not 
 brought to Sully, and he heard no more of her. He 
 thought of dashing out by himself to Loches. But if 
 he were there, what had he to offer a demoiselle who 
 had merely looked at him ? Should he carry her off by 
 violence ? 
 
 "Pierrelo," Jeanne once said to him, "do you re- 
 member the huge red snails around Bermont spring ? 
 They must be creeping forth ; and all the Meuse valley 
 is quickening with green. I cannot stay here idling 
 any longer, where we are not wanted, and so little time 
 remains to me." 
 
 " God he knoweth I have no stomach for this place," 
 answered Pierre, " and less care what becomes of me 
 now, so I go free of it." What lonelier spot was there 
 in France than this old village of worm-eaten carved
 
 240 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 timbers, clustering around a feudal stronghold ? And 
 how delicious was the forest of Fontainebleau after 
 Sully-sur-Loire ! 
 
 The second night the three riders came to a deep 
 oval valley in the forest, a vast cup of white and gray 
 rock. Sunset was behind as they descended into the 
 gorge, a pink flame mounting the sky sparkles upon 
 sparkles, the rosy smoke sweeping the zenith. And 
 when they had picked their way across, and ascended 
 to the opposite forest level, there, in sand as soft as 
 ashes, rock turned to dust without grain, stood ruined 
 walls which they knew to be the ancient abbey of 
 Franchard, to which a peasant had directed them as a 
 landmark. There was enough roof to shelter them for 
 the night. They heard the bubblings of nightingales ; 
 and near them were moss-crusted elms dropping finger- 
 tips of branches almost to the ground, white-pillared, 
 forming cathedral naves in the forest; white birch, 
 pine, and oaks; hills and dales of springing fern. 
 Jeanne closed her eyes, thinking how near also was 
 Paris ; and Bertrand closed his, contented to be any- 
 where with her. 
 
 To Bertrand this was the happy spring of his life. 
 He felt riding to heaven alone with her, for Pierre was 
 moody, and lagged. She had grown so accustomed to 
 his tendance that there was communion between them 
 without talk. He had her to himself, depending on his 
 presence, while the English began to feel the coming ter- 
 ror. She told him before she told Pierre that her voices 
 had warned her she was to be taken prisoner before St. 
 John's day. Always reticent in speaking about this 
 unseen counsel, she sometimes turned a startled face
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 241 
 
 toward Bertrand as they rode. Her lips parted ; her 
 lifted eyes filled with light. He held his breath. 
 
 This twenty-third day of May in Compiegne his near- 
 ness to her was incredibly crowned. Jeanne and Pierre 
 and Bertrand took the sacrament in the church of St. 
 Jacques at the morning mass, kneeling in the fifth 
 small chapel from the entrance, on the right-hand side 
 of the church. As they passed into the aisle it hap- 
 pened that the bells began to chime. Bertrand and 
 Jeanne both lifted their faces. Did he hear a faint 
 tone of some unearthly voice a sweet, still articula- 
 tion under the clamor ? 
 
 Jeanne leaned, pallid, against a pillar opposite the 
 chapel. The paneled and flower-carven wood, support- 
 ing shorter stone pillars near the clerestory, threw her 
 face into relief. At once the early worshipers in St. 
 Jacques's church drew toward her smiling, and some 
 of them secretly touched her. Bertrand had seen her 
 stand godmother to many a baby during her cam- 
 paigns, and every boy that she held was christened 
 Charles, for the king. 
 
 " My friends," spoke out Jeanne, " I am soon to be 
 taken and sold into captivity, and then I can never 
 again have it in my power to help France and the king. 
 Pray for me." 
 
 Bertrand remembered what awe struck through the 
 listening faces. But the people of Compiegne could 
 not think of such forecasting when the pucelle rode out 
 to make her attack on Margny. 
 
 " Did you know," Bertrand inquired, as he helped her 
 mount, " this Captain of Compiegne was appointed to 
 his post by favor of La Tremouille?" 
 
 16
 
 242 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 The maid looked startled at her squire. " No, I did 
 not. But for the honor of France he is bound to sup- 
 port us in this sally. En nom De, if I thought I should 
 be taken at this time I would not go out. God grant 
 I may perish when I am taken, for it is far easier to 
 trust my soul to him than my body to the English. 
 But St. Jean's day is a month distant, and we must do 
 all we can." 
 
 Poton de Xantrailles rode beside her, and the setting 
 sun shone on the left side of their faces as they gal- 
 loped over the lowered drawbridge and the rosy Oise, 
 where archers were taking to boats to support the at- 
 tack from the river. 
 
 The Oise flows southwestward, and Compiegne is on 
 the left bank. A fortified bridge then joined it to the 
 northeast shore, where defensive works were further 
 guarded by a deep f oss. Over this a stationary bridge 
 was built, and it seemed the entrance to a high cause- 
 way stretching across the marshy meadows. In the 
 north, bounding the wet land, was a low range of hills. 
 Straight ahead, beyond the causeway, could be seen 
 the church tower of Margny, a third of a league from 
 Compiegne, and there lay the Burgundian camp she 
 meant to strike. Beyond that, and at twice the dis- 
 tance, was Clairoix, the second Burgundian camp, which 
 she meant, by this quick blow at an unexpected hour, 
 to cut off from the English camp at Venette, a half- 
 league to the west of her route. 
 
 The archers in the boats saluted the pucelle as the 
 armor of her troops flashed across the Oise bridge. 
 Five hundred strong, the attacking party took at speed 
 the long line of the causeway. A little lower and a
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 243 
 
 little ruddier,' the level-lying sun touched the walls of 
 Compiegne and the great forest lying behind them. It 
 promised to be a pleasant May twilight, clear and fair. 
 The waiting bowmen laughed and talked to one an- 
 other, even after the noise of combat reached them 
 from Margny. The pucelle would doubtless bring in 
 many prisoners. The Duke of Burgundy was himself 
 said to be at Clairoix, and a surprised duke would he 
 be when he found himself suddenly cut off from his 
 allies at Venette. 
 
 People on the walls of Compiegne could see what the 
 archers at the river level could not see. Venette was 
 aroused by the clamor in Margny. English troops 
 were streaming out to attack the French rear. Gun- 
 ners on the walls made haste to train cannon which 
 they dared not fire, and the silenced archers in the boats 
 made ready shafts which they dare not discharge. For 
 back came French and English together, pell-mell, 
 crowding the causeway, pushed off into the marsh, a 
 fighting, struggling mass, the Burgundians of Margny 
 pressing behind ; and the Captain of Compiegne did 
 nothing. 
 
 The archers, unable to shoot without wounding their 
 friends, gathered refugees into the boats. Alarm-bells 
 were rung in the city ; men and women ran to the open 
 gates. The pucelle and her body-guard could be seen 
 covering the rear of her panic-stricken troops. Now 
 she rode back and lashed the pursuers, and now she 
 turned to rally her own soldiers. Her brother and her 
 squire and De Xantrailles, the one captain who never 
 left her, pressing around her, fought with desperate 
 courage. Shouts and the clang of weapons seemed to
 
 244: THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 fill that little sunset world. The entrance to the Oise 
 bridge was wedged with struggling bodies, and horses 
 trampled their own dying riders. The pucelle, when 
 she could no longer cover her troops, conspicuous in 
 her crimson garment, was seen to make a dash for 
 the marshes. Surrounded by Burgundians, she was 
 dragged from her plunging horse by her robe, and yells 
 upon yells of triumph drowned the noise of battle. The 
 pucelle was taken ! It would be shouted long after 
 nightf ah 1 at Clairoix by drunken soldiers, and repeated 
 with joyful derision from camp to camp. The witch 
 was caught. Trumpets which usually called to arms 
 shrieked discordant fanfares over this great prisoner. 
 Captains taken with her counted as nothing; they 
 might easily ransom themselves. But the witch of the 
 Armagnacs, worth more than the ransom of a king, 
 the terror of England, was at last a captive, dragged 
 off to the Burgundian camp. The Duke of Burgundy 
 would that very hour send out despatches bearing the 
 news to the regent and all Christendom. 
 
 Men and women of Compiegne ran struggling across 
 the Oise bridge, as the mob of soldiers cleared away, 
 to fall with any weapon on the rear of their retreating 
 foes. What did English and Burgundians care at that 
 moment for Compiegne ? They had done enough that 
 great day. The inspired maid was taken ! 
 
 It was four days afterward that Jeanne turned in 
 her saddle to watch that dear town of Compiegne grow 
 less in the distance, as she rode among her captors 
 northward along the course of the Oise. A score of 
 men-at-arms guarded her, and wherever a device ap- 
 peared on their housings, it was the rampant two-tailed
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 245 
 
 lion of Burgundy. Wooded hills lay along the horizon 
 at their left, and at their right, in the low ground, 
 flowed the pleasant Oise. 
 
 Jeanne could not speak to her squire, for he was held 
 in charge by troopers at the rear ; but she took comfort 
 from the thought, " We are prisoners to the Burgun- 
 dians, not to the English. While the Lord of Luxem- 
 bourg, a vassal of the Duke of Burgundy, holds us to 
 ransom, it might be worse with us." 
 
 Pierre and De Xantrailles were yet in the camp at 
 Clairoix, lightly wounded. She hoped she was not go- 
 ing far from them ; but late in the day the cavalcade 
 passed Noyon, winding among the path-like streets of 
 the ancient gray town. Huge white oxen, yoked by 
 the horns in many pairs, were crowded to the walls to 
 let them go by. The people of Noyon ran to look at 
 the captive pucelle paraded to their sight ; and some 
 were sorrowful, while others, having it in mind to stand 
 well with Burgundy, shouted as she rode with her head 
 bowed. Charlemagne had been crowned in Noyon. 
 
 Bertrand noticed with dull attention the carved 
 beam-ends and oaken cross-pieces in house-fronts, and 
 the little leaded windows. Beyond Noyon he made a 
 landmark of every windmill standing with spread arms 
 against the fading sky. Neither Jeanne nor he had 
 given their parole not to escape ; but there was small 
 hope of escape. Both were mounted on poor horses, 
 the refuse of the camp. 
 
 The moist May night closed over half-desolate fields 
 as they turned westward into a path lined with no vil- 
 lages and no lights. Remote and lonely exile waited 
 behind unknown horizons. It grew chill, and the jaded
 
 246 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 horses lagged until they heard the barking of a dog. 
 A cluster of houses where no fires burned skirted the 
 way. Then a moat showed its livid water on the right 
 hand, as the party mounted a short ascent and turned 
 into an orchard. 
 
 "What place is this?" inquired Bertrand of his 
 guards. 
 
 " This is the tower of Beaulieu." 
 
 " I see no tower." 
 
 But as they drew nearer to a drawbridge he saw its 
 low top against the sky. It was a round tower of brick, 
 at one end of a long dusky chateau. The only lights 
 came through two south windows of this tower. The 
 cavalcade called impatient curses on the keeper before 
 the gates were opened. Bertrand noticed, as they rode 
 across the lowered drawbridge, which came down creak- 
 ing on its unused chains to meet them, an oblong hole 
 in the bricks, about three feet above the water in the 
 moat, made noticeable by shine reflected from a wall 
 within. 
 
 One old man held up a candle in the brick-paved 
 court, where the horses were crowded against one an- 
 other, so near was the opposite wall, and he smiled 
 without teeth at the liberal abuse he received as he 
 locked the gates under the archway again. 
 
 Thought Bertrand, "This does not seem a strong 
 place." 
 
 "Now, Messire d'Aulon," said the captain of the 
 escort, using the name which Bertrand had given at 
 his capture, " you will do your last service to the maid, 
 and disarm her." 
 
 The servants of the party led away the horses.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 247 
 
 Jeanne was already in the tower, and her squire fol- 
 lowed her. She had been stripped in camp of her 
 crimson levite, her courser, and cloth-of-gold saddle- 
 housings, but the Lord of Luxembourg, her captor, 
 had allowed her to remain in her armor, according to 
 her custom among men in the field. 
 
 Many spurs jingled on the paved floor, and as soon 
 as the jailer had turned a huge key behind the pris- 
 oner, her escort, taking candles, and bidding him bring 
 them firing and supper in fewer minutes than it had 
 required to open the gates, trooped through another 
 door into the chateau. 
 
 Opposite this door in the tower was a high, shallow 
 fireplace with an oven beside it. On the pot-hanger 
 hung a seething kettle. The lazy blaze and the old 
 man's candle showed brown timbers and many cross- 
 pieces hung with cobwebs overhead, flooring the con- 
 cave of the tower, and roofing the circular walls. A 
 table, a bench, a kind of lair which could not be called 
 a bed, and some cooking- vessels, were all the furniture. 
 
 Jeanne stood spreading her hands before the blaze 
 while Bertrand knelt to unbuckle her mail. Her supple 
 body drooped. He did not let himself say, " This is 
 the last time I shall take off her harness," but his fin- 
 gers fondled every strap. The cleft between her lower 
 lip and chin seemed more deeply indented than ever, 
 and her eyes were weary. She was recalling the dark 
 face and broad-tipped nose of Philip of Burgundy, sur- 
 named the Good, whom her king in youth had offended 
 with deadly offense. Her usual distrust of him, which 
 the magnificent man in black velvet had courteously 
 shaken by a few words of pride in her, being French
 
 248 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 himself, and unable to repress them, had begun to 
 revive. She was prisoner to Burgundy's vassal; but 
 would he stand between her and the English ? 
 
 The old man, trotting from side to side of the tower, 
 paused with his back and hands laden as Bertrand said 
 to him sternly : 
 
 " Before you carry fire or food to rough men-at-arms, 
 your duty is to the pucelle. For this unmannerly 
 treatment of such a prisoner your Lord of Luxem- 
 bourg will hold you to account." 
 
 Opening and shutting his mouth with indecision, 
 the jailer put down his loads, and dipped broth from 
 his kettle, and put wine and bread on the table, taking 
 them from a kind of buttery within the chateau door. 
 He pacified with high-pitched voice impatient calls for 
 his service ringing through empty rooms beyond. 
 
 "Where is the pucelle to lodge?" asked the squire, 
 laying down the last piece of her armor. 
 
 The old man beckoned, and trotted with his candle 
 down three steps at the left side of the chimney, Jeanne 
 and Bertrand following. He thrust the light beside 
 an iron-clamped oaken door over three steps at right 
 angles to the first descent, showing behind the fire- 
 place a vaulted cell, about six feet high and nine feet 
 long and less than three feet wide. They could hear 
 the lapping of the moat through that slit in the wall 
 which Bertrand had noticed as he crossed the draw- 
 bridge, and which let in all the air a prisoner could 
 hope for when the door was shut and locked. The 
 floor was stone. The farther end of the cell was con- 
 cave. 
 
 " I have lain hard many a time," said Jeanne, laugh-
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 249 
 
 ing, "but never before was I put to sleep in a 
 tomb." 
 
 " The pucelle is not to be lodged in this dungeon ? '' 
 
 Her keeper nodded. 
 
 " Let me lie here," entreated Bertrand. ' ' There must 
 be better places in a chateau for a noble maid." 
 
 "You, messire?" chuckled the old man. "Who 
 cares to hold you ? That is simply a matter of ransom 
 between you and your captor. But this is the witch 
 of the Armagnacs." 
 
 " Have you no fear of her?" 
 
 The jailer shook his head hardily. " I am a Chris- 
 tian man." 
 
 " I have known men who called themselves so, yet 
 they durst not move hand or foot when they would 
 approach her," whispered the squire at the old man's 
 ear as he ascended the steps behind that disturbed ser- 
 vitor. 
 
 The men-at-arms were by this time clamoring in 
 such wrath that he seized his loads again and ran 
 through the chateau rooms. 
 
 " Quick ! " whispered Bertrand, holding the bowl of 
 broth to Jeanne. She understood him, and swallowed. 
 He put some pieces of bread in his pouch while she 
 drank. The jailer's steps had not passed out of hear- 
 ing, on resounding floors within, when both prisoners 
 were outside, locking the door behind them. 
 
 They turned toward the front of the chateau, for 
 there seemed no way except this. So habitually had 
 Jeanne let herself be guided by others, since the warn- 
 ing of capture had followed her, that she took no 
 thought but Bertrand's, and stooped as he did, running
 
 250 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 under the windows. Damp greenness, gathered on the 
 outlines of old bricks, came to their nostrils. A wall 
 bounded them on the left, and it turned at right angles 
 on a walk which led to a gate at the top of a terrace. 
 The gate was fast, but it was low, and both scrambled 
 over it. A high balustrade of brick with a coping of 
 stone guarded one side of the stairs ; a wall guarded 
 the other. 
 
 They were feeling their way downward into the 
 moist darkness when Bertrand turned and caught 
 Jeanne's hands. He saw the dim guards below, but 
 they had also seen him. Shouts of warders, oaths, 
 and the rattle of swords leaping from scabbards drove 
 them back over the gate. The front of the chateau 
 flashed with candles, and men dropped from the low 
 windows. 
 
 The prisoners, grasped by many hands, faced each 
 other in one look before they were separated. All 
 Bertrand's patience and faithfulness and self-restraint, 
 and his sympathy like a discerning god's, the maid 
 owned and blessed as she lost them. The dungeon 
 closed upon her. She heard no sound but the lapping 
 of the moat.
 
 XV 
 
 HE Old World's reek, a stench left by death 
 and ignorance and sudden flight, met a 
 party of knights and men-at-arms at the 
 entrance of a village. Coney Castle could 
 yet be seen in the wooded world behind them. The 
 village was empty, and as silent as the withered bush 
 hanging in front of what had been the wine-shop. No 
 dog barked at the cavalcade, and the late afternoon 
 sun probed desolate houses through the open doors. 
 But deserted villages were common in northern France. 
 This one was intersected by a road coming from the 
 west, and at its junction with the road from Coucy 
 the men drew rein and screened themselves by the 
 church wall. Two archers dismounted, and went along 
 the bending street, stooping to examine marks in the 
 dust. 
 
 " English," said one of them, pointing with his bow 
 end at many hoof-prints having a triangular shape. 
 Horseshoes made in France were round, but the Eng- 
 lish horseshoes had a broader base of iron, forming a 
 triangle in the center. 
 
 " Here be the tracks left by Messire du Lys's troop," 
 
 251
 
 252 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 said the other archer, and they went back with their 
 information. 
 
 Both captains pushed up their pointed vizors, show- 
 ing disturbed faces. ' ' By my baton," swore the broad- 
 backed knight, " if the pucelle's guards have escaped 
 us, Poton, La Hire will curse thee as no fit man to lead 
 a sortie." 
 
 " What have these shoe-prints to do with the pucelle's 
 guards ? " returned De Xantrailles. " Her guards are 
 Burgundians, the vassals of Luxembourg. Mounted 
 on English-shod coursers they may be ; but by this 
 token there is more than one troop to meet, and the 
 Chevalier du Lys will find himself hard pressed on the 
 north road." 
 
 "What certain information have you that the pu- 
 celle is to be removed from Beaulieu tower at this 
 time?" 
 
 " It is not a far cry from Beaulieu to Coucy. The 
 place hath been watched for me nearly three months, 
 and I know that Luxembourg is about to carry her to 
 his chateau of Beaurevoir in the north. It hath a 
 strong high tower. If you had come to my help sooner 
 we might have broken into Beaulieu." 
 
 " Come to thy help sooner ? Had not La Hire enough 
 to do to hold his own town of Louviers, in the very 
 teeth of Rouen, where the English have their strong- 
 hold?" 
 
 " And not a coin didst thou send to my ransom/' 
 continued De Xantrailles, his wrath gathering. " By 
 hardship did I get free, for I never made myself rich 
 with pillage, and the country is destroyed, as thou dost 
 see, around Coucy. The pucelle's ransom I could not
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 253 
 
 pay, but I sent a messenger at once to the king show- 
 ing her state. It was only this month that I was 
 able to exchange some prisoners I had taken for her 
 brother and her squire ; and they added the churchman, 
 Brother Pasquerel, her confessor, who, since he is also 
 ordained to priestly offices, my mother hath employed 
 at Coucy. By St. Martin, I have been too poor this 
 summer to pay for mass and candles." 
 
 " Is La Hire rich himself ? In running this venture 
 he hath scarce a coin in his strong box stored against 
 need. And Louviers is a slippery holding, while Coucy 
 is impregnable, only to be taken by surprise. And 
 against all counsel thou didst leave it open to surprise, 
 with so few warders, when we rode away." 
 
 "Since Compiegne I have few warders to leave. 
 By St. Martin, I cannot make men-at-arms." 
 
 "And if thou couldst, they were better patterned 
 on another than thyself." 
 
 "I wish I had the making of thee over," said De 
 Xantrailles, savagely. "I would not use a damned 
 atom of thy old substance." 
 
 La Hire sat stiff, a head and shoulders below his 
 friend, and glared at De Xantrailles. 
 
 "What hath La Hire ever seen in Poton de Xan- 
 trailles to love ? " 
 
 " A well-made man, one able to sit down without 
 holding a great lapful of bowels." 
 
 " "Well made, thou sayest ? Can a man call himself 
 well made who knows not hunger from the back- 
 ache ? " 
 
 Having reached this pitch of disagreement, both 
 knights laughed in the hollows of their casques. Their
 
 254 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 retinues, accustomed to the pair, kept guard, and 
 watched around the church wall for the approach of 
 the pucelle. 
 
 " Where is the young Chevalier du Lys, that he was 
 not left in charge of Coucy ? " 
 
 " Have I not told thee many times I sent him out 
 with part of my retinue to watch the northern road 
 from Beaulieu, while we take the southern ? " 
 
 " If La Hire had reached Coucy in time, that had 
 been better ordered." 
 
 " Who made thee captain over me, fitienne de Vig- 
 nolles?" 
 
 " God Almighty," shouted La Hire, standing up in 
 his stirrups. " He gave thee length of legs and arms, 
 but no head ; for saith he to himself, ' The fool will 
 lose it. Let us make it a separate member, and call 
 it La Hire.'" 
 
 " Fat-witted I was never called before," sneered Po- 
 ton de Xantrailles. " It doth cut me to the heart." 
 
 " Whoever doth cut thee to the heart will find no 
 blood on his knife," retorted La Hire. "Where is 
 Bertrand de Poulengy ? Did you send the squire also 
 with the chevalier ? " 
 
 " Since I must read you the tale of all my men, Ber- 
 trand de Poulengy hath been my spy on Beaulieu since 
 he came to Coucy, and it is he that I now expect to 
 give me warning of the maid's approach. He hath a 
 good horse under him." 
 
 " That was not ill planned." 
 
 " God be praised," said Poton de Xantrailles, " that 
 one device at least was not ill planned." 
 
 " Yea ; amen ; though La Hire dreads winning by
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 255 
 
 this ride a bed that will cool him after the fever in 
 Louviers." 
 
 " In God's name, if you were laid low with a fever, 
 La Hire, why have you let me accuse you ? " 
 
 "To ease thee, Poton, to ease thee. It was the 
 wound taken with Louviers. All flesh is not the flesh 
 of the pucelle, that closes in four or five days." 
 
 " Well, then, a truce to words between us. It put 
 me in a rage to ride alone, when we have fought elbow 
 to elbow so long." 
 
 " Slit La Hire's tongue if he has offended thee, Poton. 
 Thou art the bride and the son of a ruffian, but the 
 ruffian loves thee." 
 
 " I am but half a knight without you," acknowledged 
 De Xantrailles. " If you had been at Compiegne the 
 pucelle had not been taken." 
 
 " La Hire is no amulet to keep off evil ; but what- 
 ever befalls at Coucy, his hand is in thine." 
 
 They embraced each other as well as they could in 
 armor and on horseback, and swore that this should 
 be their first and last tilt with words. Their retinues, 
 who had heard many first and last tilts with words, 
 smiled idly, and pulled leaves to chew, or struck at 
 floating mosquitos. The horses moved restless feet, 
 for time was passing ; and the sun shone horizontally 
 across the village, throwing longer shadows with the 
 stone houses on unplanted fields. 
 
 Its light dazzled the men's eyes, and they drew their 
 lids together, watching through slits for the cavalcade 
 on which they intended to pounce. Some of them had 
 ridden with their masters to Rheims, and they remem- 
 bered the pucelle's compassion on the French prisoners
 
 256 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 at Troyes. She would not permit the English garri- 
 son to carry them away. So intently had the waiting 
 troops fixed their minds on the west that clashing arms 
 and a whirlwind of pursuit through the crooked north- 
 ern street took them unawares. 
 
 The Chevalier du Lys came into sight, fighting and 
 flying with a handful of men before a full retinue of 
 English. La Hire saw with rage that there was a con- 
 certed ambush ; for behind, on the Coucy road, gal- 
 loped another company of English. 
 
 It was the evening-time when maids drove in their 
 geese and peasants with laden panniers appeared from 
 the fields. This untenauted village, this graveyard of 
 the people, was filled with a brief resurrection ; but it 
 was the lif e of war battle-cries, the scream of slaugh- 
 tered horses, the encounter, ax to ax, sword to sword, 
 club against club. Coucy had been taken by surprise, 
 and the French were surrounded. At dusk victors and 
 prisoners, all who were not left to increase the breath 
 of pestilence among empty stone houses, moved up the 
 ascent to Coucy Castle. An English warder raised the 
 portcullis and let down the drawbridge. 
 
 So sudden and ruinous had been the result of this 
 sortie that Pierre beheld the facts around him with 
 slow receptiveness, a peasant's inability to compass the 
 unusual returning upon him. He saw La Hire and De 
 Xantrailles led to the dungeons Jeanne's two friends 
 the only friends of all her thousands who had made 
 any attempt to rescue her. And he heard De Xan- 
 trailles's mother weeping aloud among her women. 
 And Coucy, the great seat of the Duke of Orleans, 
 vaster and more beautiful than any other feudal hold
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 257 
 
 in the dismembered kingdom, full of such gathered 
 art in marble and paintings as comforted men who 
 had little to live for, a palace suited with everything 
 known as luxury, a fortress proof against assault, had 
 fallen into the hands of the English. 
 
 Pierre's captors began to strip off his armor in the 
 court. There were many of them, talking English and 
 Franco-Norman, and the hubbub calmed him. They 
 seemed to have many prisoners, and to have swept 
 much country in every direction around Coucy. Free 
 companions were among these regular troops ; he saw 
 faces scowling at him that he traced slowly back to 
 Lagny-sur-Marne, where Jeanne had dealt with Eng- 
 lish marauders. 
 
 He stood with the great round tower behind him, and 
 was glad of the open night sky and cool August night 
 air. The underground dungeons at Coucy were deep. 
 Yet torches continued to spin about the court, and he 
 was guarded, and not housed as the knights had been. 
 A hand gentler than the hands that had stripped him 
 touched his arm, and there stood Brother Pasquerel, 
 fixing dark eyes of pity on him. 
 
 " We have added prisoners to the English instead 
 of taking any from them, Brother Pasquerel," said 
 the chevalier. His desperate laugh made the monk 
 sadder. " What will become of my sister now ? " 
 
 " Think now of thine own salvation, my son. The 
 hour has come." 
 
 " What do they intend to do with me ? " 
 
 Pierre felt the embarrassment of not being able to 
 take the churchman seriously. He said to himself, 
 " I am to die " ; but that seemed to matter very little. 
 
 17
 
 258 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 He knew nothing of death, though he faced it every 
 day ; but that it had arrived gave the moment a sting- 
 ing novelty, and nothing more. 
 
 " The free companions in this troop are permitted 
 to take revenge on you for the man who was turned 
 over to justice at Lagny-sur-Marne," said the monk. 
 
 "Do you understand their words, Brother Pasque- 
 rel?" 
 
 " I understand their intentions. But they brought 
 in an illustrious prisoner, who now waits in the chapel 
 for ransom, and he knows their tongue and has told 
 me what they say. The Archbishop of Rheims, jour- 
 neying from Bourges to his own diocese, hath been 
 molested by these lawless companions." 
 
 " The Archbishop of Rheims," said Pierre, " will find 
 ransom an easy matter to arrange with his friends the 
 English. If I were brother to Messire La Tr6mouille 
 my head would be fast enough on my shoulders." 
 
 A firm-set head it looked, his undergarment being 
 stripped to the waist, showing the round neck and 
 young pink brawn of the torso. 
 
 " You confessed to me this morning, my son," said 
 Brother Pasquerel, as Pierre's elbows were grasped by 
 his executioners ; and the young man had a solemn 
 sense of prayers in his ears as he walked across the 
 court. At the foot of a flight of stone steps leading 
 from one of the towers was a stone block which the 
 knights of Coucy had used in mounting their coursers. 
 Beside it stood the free companion who was to act as 
 headsman, his sleeves turned well back, and a ferocious 
 readiness in his face. His mighty battle-ax would 
 have beheaded a bull.
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 259 
 
 Pierre looked np at the filmy sky and all around 
 him, feeling that he had neglected giving to the world 
 all the attention it deserved. This was death this 
 coming withdrawal from things. He felt already far 
 away, but neither afraid nor regretful. He thought 
 of Jeanne, and of one other, and that reminded him 
 of saying a prayer, which he whispered, his young 
 features placid as marble, having its fine heroic grain. 
 Brother Pasquerel had absolved many a dying man in 
 the pucelle's first campaign, and in her last, to which 
 he had followed her from Tours. But absolving the 
 dying was an easy religious task compared with seeing 
 the life struck brutally out of this young chevalier 
 whom he loved. He had been from man to man, plead- 
 ing against the slaughter with imploring gestures, 
 forthe language of the victors hecould not speak, and 
 they pushed him out of their way. The Archbishop 
 of Rheims had taken sanctuary, with his frightened 
 retinue, in the chapel, and Brother Pasquerel had 
 despairingly asked his intercession, receiving an im- 
 patient reply from a prisoner who felt little interest in 
 the pucelle or her relations. 
 
 " The pucelle hath been taken in her stubborn pride," 
 said the archbishop. " She would not listen to counsel, 
 and it is a just judgment that hath fallen upon her. As 
 for this chevalier, I have no power to help him, being 
 hindered on mine own journey, with all these poor 
 people. If Poton de Xautrailles had guarded his own, 
 and left the pucelle and her family to their devices, 
 he could have given me better welcome in Coucy." 
 
 Torches showed the intent and savage faces of their 
 bearers gathered around the stone horse-block. Pierre
 
 260 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 was forced to his knees. His arms were tied behind 
 his back, and on his naked breast from armpit to nipple 
 was ridged a clean red scar. The headsman spat upon 
 both palms with a zest of anticipation, and Pierre 
 heard the friar's shaking voice, like a distant humming 
 of bees, as it went on with its office. He looked at 
 the stone, and thought he would stretch his neck well 
 across the hollow worn by feet. And then he felt his 
 head seized by arms, and squeezed against the yield- 
 ing bosom of a woman, and her draperies around his 
 naked shoulders and over him. Thus shut in and 
 stifled by heavenly odors like linden flowers, he could 
 hear nothing but her heart and the rush of her breath. 
 
 His own pulses boomed. Oh, this was dying to 
 have all he desired in life encompassing him as his 
 head was about to drop ! Though Pierre knew his 
 state was fixed, he laughed under Madeleine Power's 
 cloak, exulting over the English, and La Tremouille, 
 and the Archbishop of Rheims. It is better to die in 
 the full flower of joy and effort than to linger even a 
 little late. 
 
 The headsman rested his ax on the stone, for he saw 
 there would be a controversy with this woman ; and 
 the Archbishop of Rheims, in wrath, pushed through 
 the circle to reach his niece. If these favored prison- 
 ers had been shut in a tower before the execution 
 began, much trouble would have been saved. Yet the 
 new Captain of Coucy, and all his men, admired her, 
 standing her ground in a whirlpool of three languages. 
 For every man in the fortress had somewhere a woman 
 in whose arms he secretly longed, yet scarcely hoped, 
 to lay his head in his last hour. Ravaging and killing
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 261 
 
 was their trade ; yet a woman might have her way 
 with them, as it had been since the creation, and par- 
 ticularly since Mary the Virgin had been lifted like a 
 lily over Christendom. 
 
 "This man is my betrothed husband," declared 
 Madeleine in English. "I claim his life." 
 
 " Shame upon you ! " spoke her uncle the archbishop 
 at her ear. 
 
 " Let her prove it ! " shouted some of the torch- 
 bearers, accustomed in their own country to the en- 
 croachments of monastic brethren on the offices of 
 priests. " Here is the friar let him marry them." 
 
 " Hold your base tongues," said the new Captain of 
 Coucy. " This demoiselle is niece to his lordship of 
 Rheims, and to the little king's chancellor. She is 
 not to be wedded for a show to men-at-arms." 
 
 " Off with his head, then ! There be plenty of better 
 men to comfort the demoiselle." 
 
 " He goes to the dungeon for ransom," decided the 
 captain. " A brother of the pucelle, and nephew of 
 the chancellor to the little King of Bourges, should 
 bring good ransom." 
 
 " Franquet d' Arras was handed over by the pucelle 
 to be beheaded at Lagny," was grumbled under the 
 smoky glare of torches. 
 
 " Stand forth, you free riders who are not satisfied 
 with the government of Coucy," cried the captain, 
 wheeling in his place. " By St. George, there be cells 
 enough under this rock for all of you ! To the dun- 
 geon with this man, and with every free rider that 
 hath aught to say further about Franquet d' Arras." 
 
 Pierre's arms were released. He stood up dazzled in
 
 262 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 the torch-light, and took Madeleine openly into them ; 
 and the archbishop withdrew from the court, leaving 
 her to her own devices. It had not been at his desire 
 that this half-Scot was thrust on him for discipline. 
 He sent her frightened waiting- woman after her a 
 middle-aged maid, who walked close to the black skirts 
 of Brother Pasquerel. 
 
 Chinon was like a large inclosed garden ; but Coucy 
 was a perfect feudal castle, with central court and 
 massive ancient round towers. The prisoner and 
 Madeleine followed the jailer and his torch down a 
 winding stone staircase. So close were the circular 
 descending walls that Brother Pasquerel and the at- 
 tendant and a warder following them found the dan- 
 gerous stone footing scarcely wide enough for one; 
 but they were not borne up by angels. Pierre and 
 Madeleine walked side by side, and his naked guard- 
 ing arm grazed the rock. He thought of Bertrand, 
 free, outside of Coucy, and felt sorry for poor Bertrand. 
 
 They reached the first underground floor before they 
 remembered that they were forgetting to talk, and 
 this separation might last for years. 
 
 " Come on," urged the keeper, waiting below, and 
 lifting his flambeau in the darkness. " We go down 
 to the prisons beneath." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Pierre and Madeleine, both drawing a 
 breath of relief. There would be another flight of 
 heavenly stairs, though the dungeon door waited like 
 the grave at its foot. At this stage of their journey 
 Madeleine put her arm around Pierre. She slipped 
 into his hand and closed his fingers upon what had 
 now become their love-token, the small purse of coin, 
 the price of Jacques d' Arc's horse in Tours. France
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 263 
 
 was an impoverished country, yet hoarded money, an 
 unspent treasure, thus passed from hand to hand. 
 The germ of home went hid therein. Pierre forecast, 
 with the happy certainty which brought good things 
 to him, all the future to grow out of that seed. He 
 saw the fair white-towered chateau he afterward built 
 in Orleans, and the worship there given to this woman, 
 his wife, and to his mother, the mother of the pucelle. 
 For the first time he thought of Jehannette without a 
 rush of anguish. 
 
 " At Bourges I could not see you," said Pierre, im- 
 plying how much better it had befallen him at Coucy. 
 
 " At Bourges I began to think of you instead of my 
 father," revealed Madeleine. 
 
 Then he remembered there was such a person as 
 Louis de Coutes, and inquired, as if such a tie would 
 be of trivial importance compared with this exag- 
 gerated moment: 
 
 " They did not celebrate your marriage after you 
 left court?" 
 
 "No," answered Madeleine, also slighting the sub- 
 ject ; and she added in simple explanation : 
 
 " I will never have any husband but you." 
 
 " I will never have any wife but you." 
 
 " Here is your cell, messire," spoke the jailer below. 
 
 Pierre and Madeleine clung together, and kissed 
 each other with their first kiss at parting. The gar- 
 ments which had been stripped from Pierre were tossed 
 into the dungeon by his keeper. Not a glint of day- 
 light would ever penetrate to this depth under Coucy. 
 Once more, and yet once more, they kissed each other, 
 and he went smiling alone to the chain which his 
 jailer clanked beside the wall.
 
 XVI 
 
 HE lethargy which fell on France during 
 the year Jeanne d'Arc lay in prison was 
 like the" sullenness of a beast that has been 
 goaded to its last effort. The momentum 
 she had given to war being withdrawn, the struggle 
 ceased. Yet at that very time the tide turned at Or- 
 leans was running out toward Britain, carrying the 
 invaders with it. 
 
 From Beaurevoir, along northern provinces to the 
 sea, her journey of captivity had been watched with 
 tears. When she descended the coast, and Rouen 
 Castle inclosed her, the English held her by purchase 
 from the Burgundians. And France slept on nearly 
 a quarter of a century before rousing to demand what 
 had been done, in the name of law, with its maid at 
 the end of that year's imprisonment. 
 
 Other nations took knowledge that a pucelle "of 
 such high chivalry," says a chronicler, " that there was 
 no knight in Christendom whose fame overshadowed 
 hers "was on trial among her enemies ; that she was 
 put MI a cage in the tower of Rouen Castle, chained 
 
 264
 
 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 265 
 
 with three chains, her feet manacled to a log of wood 
 at night, and common soldiers occupied the room with 
 a maid who had veiled the life of her body from man ; 
 that in Rouen, the real capital of English France, it 
 was believed the English would never have any suc- 
 cess in arms while she lived. 
 
 So low had war-ridden and dismembered France 
 sunk that not only was French money paid by the 
 English purchasers of the pucelle, but French men 
 were found, in a corner of the realm, willing to condemn 
 her for the English. Pierre Cauchon, the Count-Bishop 
 of Beauvais, who had resented some horse-dealings of 
 her household, and all of the power so young a crea- 
 ture had acquired over armies, made himself her judge, 
 because she was taken in his diocese, and allowed her 
 no counsel for defense. If the king had moved in her 
 favor he might have had her tried at Rome, or Bale, 
 where a religious conference was then in progress. 
 She was accused of intending to settle the claims of 
 the three quarreling popes. 
 
 Only one lawyer of Paris had the courage to declare 
 her trial illegal from beginning to end, and he was 
 obliged to leave Rouen in haste, and betake himself to 
 a place where he would be safer. 
 
 The Inquisition and the University of Paris were 
 ordered to appear in the case against her; but not 
 even a priest was permitted to speak for her. 
 
 When Jeanne was at Beaurevoir, there was a tale 
 told that she fell from the high tower, and was taken 
 up for dead, in her frenzied attempt to escape and go 
 back to the help of Compiegne. But it is not recorded 
 that Orleans or Compiegne, or any other town, of-
 
 266 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 fered anything but processions and prayers for her 
 release. 
 
 The Archbishop of Rheims issued from his part of 
 the realm a comforting letter to his flock, assuring 
 them that the maid had been abandoned as an instru- 
 ment of heaven, but they might count on the shepherd 
 boy from the mountains. 
 
 In Bourges and Sully the winter was merry with 
 cards and lute-playing. There the maid, when any 
 one thought of her, was blamed for leaving court and 
 throwing herself into danger. Perhaps Queen Yo- 
 lande, and of a certainty Agnes Sorel, moved for her 
 ransom. But meanness bred of long poverty held 
 back, and the English neither held back nor hesitated 
 to tax France for the money. 
 
 La Hire and De Xantrailles and her brother were in 
 prison. But where were the young Due d'Alene.on, 
 the Bastard of Orleans, and all those fair captains who 
 had followed her banner to victory ? 
 
 Seventy accusations, finally reduced to twelve Latin 
 articles, were brought against the prisoner, chief of 
 which were wearing man's clothes, leading troops to 
 battle, pretending to have heavenly voices, blasphemy, 
 and witchcraft. Only six public sessions were held, 
 but the trial with closed doors dragged daily from 
 February until nearly the end of May. An emaciated, 
 fetter- worn maid, not yet nineteen years old, tormented 
 by endless cunning questions, was driven to recite 
 such matters as her secret prayer before the court : 
 " Very tender God, in honor of your holy passion, I 
 pray you, if you love me, that you will reveal to me 
 how I ought to answer these churchmen. I know well,
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 267 
 
 as to this habit, the commandment why I took it, but 
 I do not know in what manner I ought to leave it off. 
 Be pleased, therefore, to teach me." 
 
 Or she was taunted about those voices of whom she 
 had spoken only when necessary in her life. Or she 
 was lured to confess sorcery in her victories, and an- 
 swered indignantly : " En nom De", I did nothing but 
 tell the men to go in boldly, and I went in myself ; 
 and I think it would be a good thing for France if I 
 did now as I did before. Why do not the English 
 quit France, and begone into their own country ? " 
 
 In Domremy the people waited some dreadful event. 
 But Choux enjoyed the May sunshine in front of the 
 Widow Davide's wine-shop. He resorted there because 
 he had long been forbidden to come nearer her door 
 than the boundary of the manure-heap. When Choux 
 encroached beyond that stone line, the Widow Davide 
 made a sally with water, which usually struck him in 
 the face, and gave him his only experience of it. With 
 his woolen cap-strings dripping, he slapped his breast, 
 and danced before his enemy. 
 
 " Does the Widow Davide think she can drown me ? 
 It is not permitted. Come out and drag me again to 
 the Meuse, Widow Davide ! " 
 
 " Have a care, or it shall yet be done, thou foul sor- 
 cerer," threatened the Widow Davide. "Thou art 
 spared for Jehannette d' Arc's sake, because she hath 
 taken the tax off Domremy and Greux." 
 
 "Things go better with me than with Jehannette 
 d'Arc. Regard me ! I have had a voice above two 
 years, and I am not put in prison. I am indeed the 
 flower of the Meuse valley."
 
 268 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AKC 
 
 "Shut the door against him, Haumette," said the 
 "Widow Davide to her daughter. " He will vaunt him- 
 self until poor Jacques d'Arc overhears his words. 
 The D'Arcs may be ennobled, and Jehannette may 
 have been a great general riding with the king ; but 
 Jacques d'Arc sits a broken-hearted man, and she is a 
 prisoner. I see not that the D'Arcs are better off than 
 I am. And I bore much scandal from thy roving 
 summer, and the child that Aveline Laxart found by 
 miracle in the church of Bury-la-C6te and killed by 
 over-nursing. Since she hath found one of her own 
 this year without miracle, and can rest her tongue con- 
 cerning St. Catherine and that other, it may die out of 
 memory. But I see not that the D'Arcs, with two 
 children laid in English prisons, are better off than I 
 am." 
 
 Haumette herself, gazing with chastened black eyes 
 along Domremy street, and across the interval to 
 Greux, knew as her mother did not that hush of sus- 
 pense, that martyr-worship of the maid's family, which 
 hung over the villages. The greatness that had flashed 
 upon her, and struck her for her sin, and repented the 
 blow in one agonized look of memory and tenderness, 
 was stamped on Haumette forever. She was not sorry 
 about the child in Bury-la-C6te, there being no ma- 
 ternity in her. But she repented with many prayers 
 every day on her knees that she had been unfit for the 
 touch of Jeanne d' Arc's sword. 
 
 In the May weather Mengette had the sense of some 
 divine, terrible presence on the hills, as she led her 
 geese out early. She looked down at the church, 
 thinking fearfully of St. Michael. If Isabel had not
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 269 
 
 needed her so much during the year her lonely life 
 would have been unendurable. But Jacquemine d'Arc 
 was now home from Vaucouleurs, and she was careful 
 to keep out of his way. He looked at her in church, 
 and he walked past her house when his work was done. 
 He also sent his mother to reason with Mengette, and 
 to prove that troth had never been broken between 
 them by their quarrel. Mengette listened to Isabel 
 without a word, and avoided Jacquemine. 
 
 He had not fared very well in Vaucouleurs. Ger- 
 ardiu d'Elpinal said the people of Vaucouleurs refused 
 him at sight as the brother of the pucelle ; but when 
 he adopted the name of Du Lys, they rose up, and cast 
 their official over the city wall. He was needed at 
 Domremy before he came riding dejectedly home ; for 
 Jacques d'Arc no longer went afield, or even tended 
 the sheep, but sat always with Jeanne's letter, written 
 before she went into France, spread open on the 
 table. 
 
 Jacquemine had been home since midwinter. Usu- 
 ally when Mengette saw him approaching, and in- 
 creased the space between them, he turned off, or 
 retraced the way he had come. But while she was 
 watching her geese nip the short May grass which 
 broke through the white hill soil, he drew quite close 
 to her, stealthily. Mengette left the gander quaver- 
 ing at this intrusion, and walked toward the oak woods, 
 pulling wool on her distaff as if she thought only of 
 spinning. Jacquemine followed her. She turned on 
 the upland, having him at her heels ; and her geese 
 waddled in a long line to meet her. 
 
 " Mengette," said Jacquemine, " I intend to come to
 
 270 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 speech with you this day, wherever you may set your 
 face." 
 
 She continued her walk. 
 
 " Gerardin d'Epinal says you do well to be rid of 
 me, for I am a poor stunted creature, and you will 
 make a better marriage." 
 
 Mengette turned upon him. "That is not the 
 truth." 
 
 She saw at arm's-length how wasted he was, and that 
 the dear lines of his face, which had been hers since 
 his boyhood, were stamped deep by care. 
 
 " I wish I had not gone to the vineyard the day we 
 quarreled. I wish I had never gone to Vaucouleurs. 
 Domremy is good enough for me. My father is plainly 
 dying on account of Jehannette, and Pierre also is 
 in prison. My brother Jean is settled at Vauthon. 
 Whether my name be D'Arc or Du Lys, whether I be 
 noble or simple, I have these old people to feed ; and 
 you have Choux. I must take my father's place, and 
 tend the fields and vineyards." 
 
 All the little jealousies of Jacquemine's life were 
 swallowed up in fraternal love and anguish, and a sob 
 almost rent his slight body. 
 
 " Oh, Jehannette ! Oh, Pierrelo ! " 
 
 Mengette dropped her distaff, and wept upon her 
 own hands. 
 
 " But Choux," said Jacquemine, still sobbing, " will 
 live forever. My mother counsels that we marry at 
 once, without waiting for him to die. We can take 
 care of him together. If your mind be not fixed on 
 making a better marriage, in God's name put me off 
 no longer."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 271 
 
 " My mind was never turned to marriage with any 
 other man, Jacquemine d'Arc." 
 
 He picked up her distaff, and she took it, drawing 
 out a thread, and brightening over the accustomed 
 labor. Long talk and much spinning, following the 
 geese through the grass, seeing their own peaceful 
 world lying at their feet these were the homely, sweet 
 comforts which would never come to a man on another 
 hillside at the opposite corner of France. 
 
 Moist lush hills, holding Rouen in their lap, sloped 
 skyward, though where the soil cropped out it was 
 white like the soil of the Meuse valley. The Seine, 
 full of wooded islands, flowed at their feet. A little 
 later, cowslips and poppies would be showing through 
 the green thousands of lustrous-petaled cups massed 
 in smears of yellow and crimson. 
 
 The ocean tide came up to Rouen. Bertrand de 
 Poulengy watched the morning glint upon the river 
 at intervals ; but his mind was fixed within the walls, 
 where the life of the city was spread below him, di- 
 minished only by distance. His horse grazed behind 
 him on the heights which rolled toward Bonsecours 
 chapel. He wore no plate-armor, and his lean body 
 shrunk from his hose and leather cuirass and short 
 tunic of chain mail. On his knees he had spread out a 
 piece of the linen banner Jeanne d'Arc carried through 
 all her battles. An archer had cut it up at Compiegne, 
 and Bertrand's own captor the more willingly divided 
 his fragment with his prisoner because he half feared 
 the magic of the thing. 
 
 Bertrand traced over and over the city walls around 
 which he had skirted helplessly. The gray pinnacled
 
 272 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 mass of Rouen Castle was grim even in May-time. 
 Bedford was lord of that castle, though Warwick was 
 Captain of Rouen. Broad light upon hills and long 
 Seine valley showed one of the fairest parts of Nor- 
 mandy. For here the peasant was guarded at his labor, 
 Louviers, still held by La Hire's garrison, being the 
 only unconquered town near by. 
 
 He noticed a bell tolling in Rouen, and the black- 
 ness made by congregated people, even when their 
 raiment or armor is bright, showed in one quarter of 
 the city near him. It was not very far from the cas- 
 tle's grayness that they were swarming together, and 
 after a while a yellow glare struggled up in the midst 
 of them. Wavering and lofty rose a pillar of smoke. 
 
 Bertrand de Poulengy stood up with his arms 
 stretched behind him, the wrists back to back. He 
 knew Jeanne d'Arc had not been condemned to perish 
 at the stake. All the world knew she was a prisoner 
 in Rouen Castle yet undergoing trial. But who was 
 chained to the iron stake in the market-place below 
 him? 
 
 Bertrand began to feel the faintness of excessive 
 heat, and to breathe the quivering air which whirled 
 its white anguish around him. He felt his clothing 
 scorch, and the shame of its cracking upon him, and 
 leaving him naked to cruel eyes. 
 
 " Water ! " he whispered " holy water ! " 
 
 And then the flames rose around him, and he was 
 alone in this red, stifling death, sinking in coals and 
 hot plaster as fagots crumbled, breathing flame, his 
 flesh running in liquid agony, his bones warping. 
 
 "Jesus ! " he gasped" Jesus ! "
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 273 
 
 And then he felt himself drawn slowly upward ; he 
 heard music, he smelled a thousand sweet odors, as 
 numbness passed to gladness, the music became half- 
 distinct words, and he laughed in exultation : 
 
 " The voices ! " 
 
 Light as air, he shot aloft from the earth, and turned 
 his head to see, shooting up with the same impulse 
 from the smoke in Rouen, a dove. He forgot his own 
 flight, and hung watching it. Wi thout flutter of wings 
 or swerve of body, it rose and rose, and was gone in 
 the dazzle. Sinking, he watched in a kind of trance 
 for that dove to reappear, remembering skylarks on the 
 Vosges hills, and forgetting that he had ever suffered. 
 
 Mists gathered from the void, and set a lower sky 
 betwixt the dove and him. The emotions which come 
 like winds from we know not what hollows of space 
 to play upon us poor, helpless stringed instruments 
 of flesh and spirit played on him, and made eternity 
 around him. Bertrand lay on the hill overlooking 
 Rouen until late afternoon. 
 
 The rain with sudden little whip-lashes cut him, and 
 water ran in minute tricklings around him ; the sun 
 broke out ; and the smoke, curved and driven into fan- 
 tastic shapes by the wet air, again rose straight from 
 Rouen, thinning to airy blueness. He was in peace, 
 as in some divine ether. Sometimes the breathing and 
 low grinding of his courser, the companion of many a 
 long journey on the earth, intruded near by. But the 
 horse was not insistent, like a man who stood over 
 him, heavy shod in the herbage, shaking him, and 
 saying : 
 
 " Bertrand ! Bertrand de Poulengy ! " 
 
 18
 
 274 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'AEC 
 
 He looked at the man with slow interest. 
 
 "Is it thou, Bertrand? There is little left of thy 
 face except the bones and blue eyes." 
 
 "D'Aulon, have you died also?" 
 
 " What ails thee, lad ? Has prison made a ghost of 
 me?" 
 
 " I think I dreamed." The young squire sat up, 
 and the old squire sat on the ground beside him. 
 
 The air was sweet after rain, and all scent of smoke 
 was gone. "With the instinct of adjusting himself to 
 what was present, Bertrand came forward in his eyes, 
 and examined his old companion. 
 
 "Where have you been, D'Aulon?" 
 
 " In Eouen prison this twelvemonth past." 
 
 " Then you saw her. How does she fare ? " 
 
 " Well, I trust in God," answered the old squire. 
 
 " But who brought you out of Rouen prison ? " 
 
 " The pucelle's ransom money that she sent from 
 Bourges a year ago." 
 
 "Yes; she sold all her nags. She ransomed you, 
 but no one ransoms her. D'Aulon, did they burn a 
 prisoner in Kouen to-day ? " 
 
 " I heard so." 
 
 " Was it a man or a woman ? " 
 
 " It was a woman, lad." 
 
 Bertrand looked down, and twisted his fingers in the 
 grass. 
 
 " Doubtless it was some poor old woman." 
 
 The other squire leaned forward, sheltering his face 
 with both hands. " No ; she was young." 
 
 " We are used to war, you and I, D'Aulon. Never 
 mind the woman they burned, but tell me about
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'AEC 275 
 
 the pucelle. Does she think we have all forgotten 
 her?" 
 
 " Would a poor squire be allowed any speech with 
 the pucelle, lad ? " 
 
 "No no. I never have learned, in all my service, 
 how far beneath her I am." 
 
 " Where have you been, Bertrand, this twelvemonth 
 past?" 
 
 " All over the northern provinces, trying to collect 
 robbers to attack Rouen, since there are no longer any 
 soldiers in France. You say they burned a woman 
 to-day. But she was not the age of the pucelle ? " 
 
 " About the age of the pucelle," answered the old 
 squire ; and he broke into groans and tears, bending 
 forward upon his knees, and weeping aloud. 
 
 Bertrand made no noise but an audible swallowing, 
 as if struggling for breath in the midst of smoke. He 
 waited a long time for the other to be done wailing. 
 
 " They burned a young maid alive a young maid 
 about the age of the pucelle," he resumed. " Did you 
 see it done, D'Aulon ? " 
 
 " No, I did not see it. I could not see a thing like 
 that done ; but the streets were full of weeping women, 
 and weeping men, too, as I came out of the prison. 
 Her name was on every side." 
 
 " Do not speak her name," said Bertrand, sharply. 
 " Did this young maid suffer long ? " 
 
 " I think not very long, though the pile was pur- 
 posely built so high that the executioner could not reach 
 her to shorten her suffering. She had a cross brought 
 from the nearest church and held up where she could 
 see it ; and she called out for holy water."
 
 276 THE DAYS OP JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 D'Aulon still hid his face in his hands. 
 
 " The priest stayed with her until he was in danger 
 of burning also. Then she made him come down off 
 the pile. It was afterward that she called for water. 
 And the people say she also cried aloud the name of 
 Jesus. No ; it was not very long that the blessed maid 
 was forced to suffer ; for her head soon fell upon her 
 breast. The flames took wonderful shapes as of wings, 
 and there were men near who heard her speak of 
 something else." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 D'Aulon looked aside at the young squire, and whis- 
 pered : " She spoke of voices. And a soldier fell in a 
 fit : he saw a dove rise from the fire." 
 
 Both squires sat like stone, the younger one with 
 an unwinking gaze fixed on Rouen. When the sun 
 was gone he said, without turning his head : 
 
 " D'Aulon, I took your name while you were in 
 prison. Whatever I did as her squire was done in 
 your name." 
 
 " Why did you take my name ? " 
 
 " God knows. It was my whim. She praised you 
 once. I give it back to you with my horse. Take my 
 horse, and ride to Louviers. You will find friends in 
 Louviers." 
 
 " By St. Martin, I will not take the courser from 
 under you, and leave you here alone in sight of tliis 
 cursed city." 
 
 " D'Aulon, I never loved you. Would I give you 
 my horse if I needed it ? Respect a man's vows, and 
 begone. When I come to Louviers you may give me 
 my horse again."
 
 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 277 
 
 " But you are too weak to walk." 
 
 " I have had the pestilence, but I have strength to 
 walk as far as I am to go." 
 
 "Let me put you on the courser, and fare beside 
 you." 
 
 " Take him, or another may seize his bridle with less 
 right." 
 
 The shadows would overtake D'Aulon on his peril- 
 ous ride. When he was gone, the young squire made 
 haste down to the Seine, and waited there until a great 
 Norman horse came out of the city gates, drawing a 
 cart. A haggard man walked beside the cart, and he 
 turned, and carefully backed his horse near the water. 
 Iridescent brine and the reflected rosiness of sunset 
 made pools of fire-opal in the Seine. The tide was up. 
 When it ran out it would carry drenched refuse of a 
 funeral pile plaster in which the stake had been fixed, 
 ashes, charred bone, and one great, darkly crimson 
 clot like a ruby. 
 
 " Her heart, it was so full of blood it would not 
 burn," muttered the man beside the cart ; and looking 
 across his load, he saw a pinched, blue-eyed face at the 
 other wheel. The Norman peasant took off his cap to 
 his superior. 
 
 "Are you the executioner of Rouen?" 
 
 " Yes, messire." 
 
 "Did you burn a woman there to-day?" 
 
 " Yes, messire." 
 
 " For what was she condemned ? " 
 
 "Sorcery, messire, though there be many say she 
 died a martyr, and ten thousand people wept." 
 
 " When was she condemned ? n
 
 278 THE DAYS OF JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 "Early this morning, messire. God forgive her 
 judges." 
 
 Bertrand clung with both lean hands to the spokes 
 of the wheel. "What was her name?" 
 
 "Jeanne d'Arc, messire that great captain of the 
 French called the pucelle." 
 
 Jeanne d'Arc! a splash in the Seine, a dissolving 
 of ashes, a spread of sinking fragments ! No ! there 
 was a mightier presence in that sunset land. It was 
 the time of evening when she rode in to her victories. 
 
 Behind the carter's back, and so quietly that his sink- 
 ing made no sound, Bertrand let himself down into 
 the water, to float with her to the sea. He heard the 
 rush of troops, the clang of armor, the crash of falling 
 walls, and a woman's voice, a leader's voice, an angel's 
 voice, bell-like, spreading its tones wave upon wave, 
 until they seemed to reach the horizon, to ripple over 
 France and around the world : 
 
 " Amys ! Amys ! ayez bon courage ! Sus ! Sus ! Us 
 sont tous nostres ! "
 
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