“It was fit that the savior of France should be a woman.

France herself is a woman. She has the fickleness of the

sex, but also its amiable gentleness, its facile and charming

pity, and the excellence of its first impulses. ”

MICHELET. “Joan of Arc. ”

There were shouts of triumph and exultation as the Maid was led back over the

causeway to Margny. The sun had long since set, and the dusk was dying down

into darkness. All along the causeway the earth was stained with blood, and sown with broken swords, scraps of armour, and the dead of friend and foe united now in the peace of mortality. Jeanne was too great a prize for a mere archer to claim, so Jean de Luxembourg bought her immediately from the man,

allowing him to retain her hucque of crimson cramoisie, her saddle cloth, and horse with caparisons. Then she was taken to his camp at Clairoix.

Thither came also the great Duke of Burgundy from his camp at Coudon, ea

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to see the girl who had almost uprooted the dominion of the English in France.

Thither also assembled the English and Burgundians from the other camps in numbers, with cries and rejoicings over the taking of the Maid. Had a great victory been won the effect could not have been greater. It broke the spell. The Maid was human, like other women. So they were “as joyous as if they had taken five hundred prisoners, for they feared her more than all the French captains put together.”

Several times Philip of Burgundy had expressed a wish to see Jeanne the Maid,

especially after receiving her letters summoning him to his rightful allegiance.

Now as he found her sitting calmly in the quarters to which she had been committed, he could not forbear an exclamation of surprise at her youth and

loveliness.

“So you are the Pucelle?” he cried.

“I am Jeanne the Maid, messire,” she answered, regarding him with grave earnestness. “And you, I doubt not, are that Burgundy who hath beguiled the gentle King with fair words and false promises?”

“I am Philip, Duke of Burgundy,” he replied haughtily. “What I have done hath

been for our royal master, Henry, King of England and of France.”

“Ay! and for your country’s wreck and woe.”

“Those are bold words, Pucelle,” ejaculated the duke, flushing. “Have a care.

Neither man nor witch may so speak to Burgundy.”

“My lord duke, if they be not true then most humbly do I entreat your pardon. If they be not true, why then do you besiege the good city of Compiègne, bringing

suffering upon your own people? They are French, as you are.”

“The city was promised me,” he uttered angrily. “Charles the Dauphin gave it me. ’Twas in the truce. He broke his faith.”

“And how kept you yours?” asked the girl dauntlessly. “I think, my lord, that Paris once was promised Charles. How was that faith kept?”

But Philip, without reply, turned upon his heel angrily, and left the room.

Forthwith he sent dispatches to the Regent, to the Dukes of Brittany and Savoy, to his city of St. Quentin, and to the town of Gand that all Christendom might know that the Witch of the Armagnacs was taken.

“By the pleasure of our Blessed Creator,” he wrote, “such grace has come to pass that she whom they call the Maid has been taken. The great news of this capture should be spread everywhere and brought to the knowledge of all, that they may

see the error of those who could believe and lend themselves to the pretensions of such a woman. We write this in the hope of giving you joy, comfort, and consolation, and that you may thank God our Creator.”

Over France the tidings spread. From lip to lip it flew: the Maid was taken. Paris rejoiced, showing its delight by building bonfires and singing Te Deums in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. In the loyal cities and in the hearts of the peasantry there was mourning. At Tours the entire population appeared in the streets with bare feet, singing the Miserere in penance and affliction. Orléans and Blois made public prayers for her safety, and Reims had to be especially soothed by its Archbishop.

“She would not take counsel,” wrote Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Reims, who had always been an enemy to Jeanne, “but did everything according

to her own will. But there has lately come to the King a young shepherd boy who says neither more nor less than Jeanne the Maid. He is commanded by God

to go to the King, and defeat the English and Burgundians. He says that God suffered her to be taken because she was puffed up with pride, loved fine clothes, and preferred her own pleasure to any guidance.”

The archbishop’s letter silenced Reims and other cities. Silenced their outcries, that is, for they continued to send petitions to the King pleading that he would gather the money for her ransom, but he did nothing. Another Archbishop, Jacques Gélu, of Embrun, who had written Charles in favor of Jeanne after Orléans now addressed some bold words to the monarch on her behalf:

“For the recovery of this girl, and for the ransom of her life, I bid you spare neither means nor money, howsoever great the price, unless you would incur the

indelible shame of most disgraceful ingratitude.”

But the King preferred the “indelible shame of disgraceful ingratitude,” for he made no effort of any sort for Jeanne’s ransom or rescue. He had been a poor discredited Dauphin, with doubts as to his own claims to the throne, contemplating flight into Scotland or Spain when Jeanne came to him at Chinon.

She had resolved his doubts, restored the realm, and made him King with the sacred oil upon his brow, yet he preferred to keep his money for his pleasures than to give it for the maiden who had done so much for him. Charles the Seventh of France has been called Charles the Well-served, Charles the Victorious, and he is rightly so called; for it was always others who did his work for him, and won his victories; but Charles the Dastard is the best appellation that can be given him. The ingratitude of Princes is well known, but the heart sickens before such baseness as he showed toward the Maid of Orléans, and the

mind revolts from the thought that human nature can sink to such depths.

But if Charles and the French were indifferent to the value of Jeanne others were not. The University of Paris upon receipt of the news of her capture sent at once to Burgundy, demanding that Jean de Luxembourg send forthwith “this Jeanne,

violently suspected of many crimes touching heresy, to appear before the Council of Holy Inquisition.” A second letter followed this appeal, saying that it was “feared that the woman would be put out of their jurisdiction in some manner.” The University feared without cause, for no attempt was ever made to

redeem the girl whose only crime was to have defended, with matchless heroism,

her country and her King.

Back of the University stood the English, who were eager to get possession of her person, and were willing to pay even princely rewards for her delivery into their hands. They had their vengeance to gratify. They had always threatened to burn her if they caught her, and could she be condemned and executed as a sorceress Charles of Valois would be dishonoured through her who had crowned

him, and it would appear that his cause was not the true one; that Henry of England was the true sovereign of France. Most Englishmen believed that Jeanne was really a witch, for at this time no man believed that she could accomplish her deeds without supernatural aid. Consequently, as the English did not wish to think that God was against them they pronounced her aid to be from

the Evil One. So Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, was sent by Bedford