tell you he has signed the treaty."

"Who made him do it?"

"You know, without my telling. The Queen."

Then there was another uproar--everybody talking at once, and all heaping
execrations upon the Queen's head. Finally Jacques d'Arc said:

"But many reports come that are not true. Nothing so shameful as this
has ever come before, nothing that cuts so deep, nothing that has
dragged France so low; therefore there is hope that this tale is but
another idle rumor. Where did you get it?"

The color went out of his sister Joan's face. She dreaded the answer;
and her instinct was right.

"The cure of Maxey brought it."

There was a general gasp. We knew him, you see, for a trusty man.

"Did he believe it?"

The hearts almost stopped beating. Then came the answer:

"He did. And that is not all. He said he knew it to be true."

Some of the girls began to sob; the boys were struck silent. The
distress in Joan's face was like that which one sees in the face of a
dumb animal that has received a mortal hurt. The animal bears it, making
no complaint; she bore it also, saying no word. Her brother Jacques put
his hand on her head and caressed her hair to indicate his sympathy, and
she gathered the hand to her lips and kissed it for thanks, not saying
anything. Presently the reaction came, and the boys began to talk. Noel
Rainguesson said:

"Oh, are we never going to be men! We do grow along so slowly, and
France never needed soldiers as she needs them now, to wipe out this
black insult."

"I hate youth!" said Pierre Morel, called the Dragon-fly because his
eyes stuck out so. "You've always got to wait, and wait, and wait--and
here are the great wars wasting away for a hundred years, and you never
get a chance. If I could only be a soldier now!"

"As for me, I'm not going to wait much longer," said the Paladin; "and
when I do start you'll hear from me, I promise you that. There are some
who, in storming a castle, prefer to be in the rear; but as for me, give
me the front or none; I will have none in front of me but the officers."

Even the girls got the war spirit, and Marie Dupont said:

"I would I were a man; I would start this minute!" and looked very proud
of herself, and glanced about for applause.

"So would I," said Cecile Letellier, sniffing the air like a war-horse
that smells the battle; "I warrant you I would not turn back from the
field though all England were in front of me."

"Pooh!" said the Palad