uppose she should not relapse?

Why, then she must be forced to do it.

Did Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they chose
to make their prisoner's captivity crueler and bitterer than ever, no
official notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did
begin that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it.
Yes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon was made almost
unendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will not do it.

22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer

FRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for Noel and me. Our minds were full
of our splendid dream of France aroused--France shaking her mane--France
on the march--France at the gates--Rouen in ashes, and Joan free! Our
imagination was on fire; we were delirious with pride and joy. For we
were very young, as I have said.

We knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon in the
yester-afternoon. We supposed that as Joan had abjured and been taken
back into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was being gently used
now, and her captivity made as pleasant and comfortable for her as the
circumstances would allow. So, in high contentment, we planned out our
share in the great rescue, and fought our part of the fight over and
over again during those two happy days--as happy days as ever I have
known.

Sunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy weather, and
thinking. Thinking of the rescue--what else? I had no other thought now.
I was absorbed in that, drunk with the happiness of it.

I heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came nearer,
and I caught the words:

"Joan of Arc has relapsed! The witch's time has come!"

It stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than sixty
years ago, but that triumphant note rings as clear in my memory to-day
as it rang in my ear that long-vanished summer morning. We are so
strangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is
the memories that break our hearts that abide.

Soon other voices took up that cry--tens, scores, hundreds of voices;
all the world seemed filled with the brutal joy of it. And there were
other clamors--the clatter of rushing feet, merry congratulations,
bursts of coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the boom and crash of
distant bands profaning the sacred day with the music of victory and
thanksgiving.

About the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon and me