mation as yet;
that at bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of
generations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and
in their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of
treacheries of all sorts--for their kings had been treacherous to their
great vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous
to the head of the state and to each other. The soldiery found that
they could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her gone,
everything was gone. She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and
set them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army
and all France became what they had been before, mere dead corpses--that
and nothing more; incapable of thought, hope, ambition, or motion.

2 Joan Sold to the English

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

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

"What? Alive? Noel Rainguesson!"

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

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

Noel was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreciations of our
old boastful big Standard-Bearer