bominable and hideous method
of torture which was never departed from during the rest of her life.
Afterwards, at the beginning of her trial she was relieved from the
cage, but never from the presence and scrutiny of this fierce and
hateful bodyguard. Such detestable cruelties were in the manner of
the time, which does not make us the less sicken at them with burning
indignation and the rage of shame. For this aggravation of her
sufferings England alone was responsible. The Burgundians at their worst
had not used her so. It is true that she was to them a piece of
valuable property worth so much good money; which is a powerful argument
everywhere. But to the English she meant no money: no one offered to
ransom Jeanne on the side of her own party, for whom she had done
so much. Even at Tours and Orleans, so far as appears, there was no
subscription--to speak in modern terms,--no cry among the burghers to
gather their crowns for her redemption--not a word, not an effort, only
a barefooted procession, a mass, a Miserere, which had no issue. France
stood silent to see what would come of it; and her scholars and divines
swarmed towards Rouen to make sure that nothing but harm should come
of it to the ignorant country lass, who had set up such pretences of
knowing better than others. The King congratulated himself that he
had another prophetess as good as she, and a Heaven-sent boy from the
mountains who would do as well and better than Jeanne. Where was Dunois?
Where was La Hire,(1) a soldier bound by no conventions, a captain whose
troop went like the wind where it listed, and whose valour was known?
Where was young Guy de Laval, so ready to sell his lands that his men
might be fit for service? All silent; no man drawing a sword or saying
a word. It is evident that in this frightful pause of fate, Jeanne had
become to France as to England, the Witch whom it was perhaps a danger
to have had anything to do with, whose spells had turned the world
upside down for a moment: but these spells had become ineffectual or
worn out as is the nature of sorcery. No explanation, not even the
well-worn and so often valid one of human baseness, could explain the
terrible situation, if not this.

(1) La Hire was at Louvain, which we hear a little later the
new English levies would not march to besiege till the Maid
was dead, and where Dunois joined him in March of this fatal
year. These two at Louvain within a few leagues