d'Arc was a
prisoner before they carried her to Rouen. I have often walked about
that castle and tried to think how it must have been with her when they
left her there a prisoner. God knows, perhaps we shall all have an
opportunity of knowing, how she felt when a prisoner of Truth. Like a
fly in a spider's net she was, poor girl! Only nineteen! She had lived
a life that was worth the living, Jacqueline. She knew she was about
to meet the fate her heart must have foretold. Girls do not run such a
course and then die quietly in their beds. They are attended to their
rest by grim sentinels, and they light fagots for them. I have read the
story many a time, when I could look at the window of the very room
where she was a prisoner. It was strange to think of her witnessing the
crowning of the King, with the conviction that her work ended there and
then,--of the women who brought their children to touch her garments or
her hands, to let her smile on them, or speak to them, or maybe kiss
them. And the soldiers deemed their swords were stronger when they had
but touched hers. And they knelt down to kiss her standard, that white
standard, so often victorious! I have read many a time of that glorious
day at Rheims."

"And she said, _that_ day,' Oh, why can I not die here?'" said
Jacqueline, with a low voice.

"And when the Archbishop asked her," continued Victor, "'Where do you,
then, expect to die?' she answered, 'I know not. I shall die where God
pleases. I have done what the Lord my God commanded me; and I wish that
He would now send me to keep my sheep with my mother and sister.'"

"Because she loved Domremy, and her work was done," said Jacqueline,
sadly. "And so many hated her! But her mother would be sure to love.
Jeanne would never see an evil eye in Domremy, and no one would lie in
wait to kill her in the Vosges woods."

"It was such as you, Jacqueline, who believed in her, and comforted her.
And to every one that consoled her Christ will surely say, 'Ye blessed
of my Father, ye did it unto me!' Yes, to be sure, there were too many
who stood ready to kill her in all France,--besides those who were
afraid of her, and fought against our armies. Even when they were taking
her to see the Dauphin, the guard would have drowned her, and lied about
it, but they were restrained. It is something to have been born in
Domremy,--to have grown up in the very place where she used to play, a
happy little girl. You have seen that fou