mind for a moment the fatal knowledge which oppressed it.
There is some difficulty in understanding the events of this day, but
the lucid narrative of Quicherat, which we shall now quote, gives a
very vivid picture of it. Jeanne had timed her arrival so early in the
morning, probably with the intention of keeping the adversaries in their
camps unaware of so important an addition to the garrison, in order that
she might surprise them by the sortie she had determined upon; but no
doubt the news had leaked forth somehow, if through no other means, by
the sudden ringing of the bells and sounds of joy from the city. She
paid her usual visits to the churches, and noted and made all her
arrangements for the sortie with her usual care, occupying the long
summer day in these preparations. And it was not till five o'clock in
the evening that everything was complete, and she sallied forth. We hear
nothing of the state of the town, or of any suspicion existing at the
time as to the governor Flavy who was afterwards believed by some to be
the man who sold and betrayed her. It is a question debated warmly like
all these questions. He was a man of bad reputation, but there is no
evidence that he was a traitor. The incidents are all natural enough,
and seem to indicate clearly the mere fortune of war upon which no man
can calculate. We add from Quicherat the description of the field and
what took place there:

"Compiegne is situated on the left bank of the Oise. On the other side
extends a great meadow, nearly a mile broad, at the end of which the
rising ground of Picardy rises suddenly like a wall, shutting in the
horizon. The meadow is so low and so subject to floods that it is
crossed by an ancient foot of the low hills. Three village churches mark
the extent of the landscape visible from the walls of Compiegne;
Margny (sometimes spelt Marigny) at the end of the road; Clairoix three
quarters of a league higher up, at the confluence of the two rivers,
the Aronde and the Oise, close to the spot where another tributary, the
Aisne, also flows into the Oise; and Venette a mile and a half lower
down. The Burgundians had one camp at Margny, another at Clairoix; the
headquarters of the English were at Venette. As for the inhabitants
of Compiegne, their first defence facing the enemy was one of those
redoubts or towers which the chronicles of the fifteenth century called
a boulevard. It was placed at the end of the bridge and commanded the
r