[23]
Percéval De Cagny.
[24]
So spelled in the patent. A softening of the Lorraine D’Arc.
[25]
These words are on the base of a statue of her that stands in the square of the town.
[26]
Monstrelet––a Burgundian Chronicler––so writes of her.
CHAPTER XXV
IN PRISON CELLS
“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
3 g
33 er
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.
