so often
left with hope, so often re-entered in sadness, it must soon have
dropped upon her tired bosom. Slowly the clouds had settled round her.
Over and over again had she affirmed them to be true--these voices that
had guided her steps and led her to victory. And they had promised her
the aid of God if she went forward boldly, and spoke and did not fear.
But now every way of salvation was closing; all around her were fierce
soldiers thirsting for her blood, smooth priests who admonished her in
charity, threatening her with eternal fire for the soul, temporal fire
for the body. She felt that fire, already blowing towards her as if on
the breath of the evening wind, and her girlish flesh shrank. Was that
what the voices had called deliverance? was that the grand victory, the
aid of the Lord?

It may well be imagined that Jeanne slept but little that night; she
had reached the lowest depths; her soul had begun to lose itself in
bitterness, in the horror of a doubt. The atmosphere of her prison
became intolerable, and the noise of her guards keeping up their rough
jests half through the night, their stamping and clamour, and the clang
of their arms when relieved. Early next morning a party of her usual
visitors came in upon her to give her fresh instruction and advice.
Something new was about to happen to-day. She was to be led forth, to
breathe the air of heaven, to confront the people, the raging sea of
men's faces, all the unknown world about her. The crowd had never been
unfriendly to Jeanne. It had closed about her, almost wherever she was
visible, with sweet applause and outcries of joy. Perhaps a little hope
stirred her heart in the thought of being surrounded once more by the
common folk, though probably it did not occur to her to think of these
Norman strangers as her own people. And a great day was before her, a
day in which something might still be done, in which deliverance might
yet come. L'Oyseleur, who was one of her visitors, adjured her now
to change her conduct, to accept whatever means of salvation might be
offered to her. There was no longer any mention of Pope or Council,
but only of the Church to which she ought to yield. How it was that he
preserved his influence over her, having been proved to be a member
of the tribunal that judged her, and not a fellow-prisoner, nor a
fellow-countryman, nor any of the things he had professed to be, no once
can tell us; but evidently he had managed to do so. Jean