oire in the fat country where the vines still
flourished and the young corn grew. Now and then a band of armed men was
sent forth to succour a fighting town in the suffering and struggling
Ile-de-France, always under the conflicting orders of those intrigants
and courtiers: but within the Court, all was gay; "never man," as rough
La Hire had said on an earlier occasion, "lost his kingdom more gaily
or with better grace" than did Charles. Where was La Hire? Where was
Dunois?--there is no appearance of these champions anywhere. Alencon had
returned to his province. Only La Tremoille and the Archbishop holding
all the strings in their hands, upsetting all military plans, disgusting
every chief, met and talked and carried on their busy intrigues, and
played their Sibyl--_Sibylle de carrefour_, says one of the historians
indignantly--against the Maid, who, all discouraged and downcast,
fretted by caresses, sick of inactivity, dragged out the uneasy days in
an uncongenial world; but Jeanne has left no record of the sensations
with which she saw these days pass, eating her heart out, gazing
over that rapid river, on the other side of which all the devils were
unchained and every result of her brief revolution was being lost.

At length however the impatience and despair were more than she could
bear; the Court was then at Sully and the spring had begun with its
longer days and more passable roads. Without a word to anyone the Maid
left the castle. The war had rolled towards these princely walls, as
near as Melun, which was threatened by the English. A little band of
intimate servants and associates, her two brothers, and a few faithful
followers, were with her. So far as we know she never saw Charles or his
courtiers again. They arrived at Melun in time to witness and to take
part in the repulse of the English, and it was here that a communication
was make to Jeanne by her saints of which afterwards there was frequent
mention. Little had been said of them during her dark time of inaction,
and their tone was no longer as of old. It was on the side of the moat
of Melun where probably she was superintending some necessary work
to strengthen the fortifications or to put them in better order for
defence, that this message reached her. The "Voices" which so often had
urged her to victory and engaged the faith of heaven for her success,
had now a word to say, secret and personal to herself. It was that she
should be taken prisoner; an