France: but
if there were a hundred thousand more Goddens than there are, they shall
never win the kingdom of France." The English lord drew his dagger to
strike the helpless girl, all the stories say, but was prevented by
Warwick. Warwick, however, we are told, though he had thus saved her
twice, "recovered his barbarous instincts" as soon as he got outside,
and indignantly lamented the possibility of Jeanne's escape from the
stake.

Such incidents as these alone lightened or darkened her weary days in
prison. A traitor or spy, a prophet of evil shaking his head over her
danger, a contemptuous party of jeering nobles; afterwards inquisitors,
for ever repeating in private their tedious questions: these all visited
her--but never a friend. Jeanne was not afraid of the English lord's
dagger, or of the watchful eye of Warwick over her. Even when spying
through a hole, if the English earl and knight, indeed permitted himself
that strange indulgence, his presence and inspection must have been
almost the only defence of the prisoner. Our historians all quote,
with an admiration almost as misplaced as their horror of Warwick's
"barbarous instincts," the _vrai galant homme_ of an Englishman who in
the midst of the trial cried out "_Brave femme_!" (it is difficult to
translate the words, for _brave_ means more than brave)--"why was she
not English?" However we are not concerned to defend the English share
of the crime. The worst feature of all is that she never seems to
have been visited by any one favourable and friendly to her, except
afterwards, the two or three pitying priests whose hearts were touched
by her great sufferings, though they remained among her judges, and gave
sentence against her. No woman seems ever to have entered that dreadful
prison except those "matrons" who came officially as has been already
said. The ladies de Ligny had cheered her in her first confinement,
the kind women of Abbeville had not been shut out even from the gloomy
fortress of Le Crotoy. But here no woman ever seems to have been
permitted to enter, a fact which must either be taken to prove the
hostility of the population, or the very vigorous regulations of the
prison. Perhaps the barbarous watch set upon her, the soldiers ever
present, may have been a reason for the absence of any female visitor.
At all events it is a very distinct fact that during the whole period
of her trial, five months of misery, except on the one occasion already
r