lly frank. It was indeed a ransom which was paid to
Jean of Luxembourg with a share to the first captor, the archer who had
secured her; but it was simple blood-money as everybody knew. At Crotoy
she had once more the solace of female society, again with much
pressing upon her of their own heavy skirts and hanging sleeves. A
fellow-prisoner in the dungeon of Crotoy, a priest, said mass every day
and gave her the holy communion. And her mind seems to have been soothed
and calmed. Compiegne was relieved; the saints had kept their word: she
had that burden the less upon her soul: and over the country there were
against stirrings of French valour and success. The day of the Maid was
over, but it began to bear the fruit of a national quickening of vigour
and life.

It was at Crotoy, in December, that she was transferred to English
hands. The eager offer of the University of Paris to see her speedy
condemnation had not been accepted, and perhaps the Burgundians had
been willing to wait, to see if any ransom was forthcoming from
France. Perhaps too, Paris, which sang the _Te Deum_ when she was taken
prisoner, began to be a little startled by its own enthusiasm and to ask
itself the question what there was to be so thankful about?--a result
which has happened before in the history of that impulsive city:--and
Paris was too near the centre of France, where the balance seemed to
be turning again in favour of the national party, to have its thoughts
distracted by such a trial as was impending. It seemed better to the
English leaders to conduct their prisoner to a safer place, to the
depths of Normandy where they were most strong. They seem to have
carried her away in the end of the year, travelling slowly along the
coast, and reaching Rouen by way of Eu and Dieppe, as far away as
possible from any risk of rescue. She arrived in Rouen in the beginning
of the year 1431, having thus been already for nearly eight months in
close custody. But there were no further ministrations of kind women for
Jeanne. She was now distinctly in the hands of her enemies, those who
had no sympathy or natural softening of feeling towards her.

The severities inflicted upon her in her new prison at Rouen were
terrible, almost incredible. We are told that she was kept in an iron
cage (like the Countess of Buchan in earlier days by Edward I.), bound
hands, and feet, and throat, to a pillar, and watched incessantly by
English soldiers--the latter being an a