Jean
de Luxembourg, had leaped in the night from the top of the tower, and
had, next morning, been taken up all unhurt, as by, miracle, but
astounded and bereft of her senses. For this there was much sorrow, but
would to God that He had taken her to Himself in that hour!

Nevertheless, when she was come to herself again, she declared, by
inspiration of the Saints, that Compiegne should be delivered before the
season of Martinmas. Whence I, for one, drew great comfort, nor ever
again despaired, and many were filled with courage when this tidings came
to our ears, hoping for some miracle, as at Orleans.

Now, too, God began to take pity upon us; for, on August the fifteenth,
the eighty-fifth day of the siege, came news to the Duke of Burgundy that
Philip, Duke of Brabant, was dead, and he must go to make sure of that
great heritage. The Duke having departed, the English Earls had far less
heart for the leaguer; I know not well wherefore, but now, at least, was
seen the truth of that proverb concerning the "eye of the master." The
bastille, too, which our enemies had made to prevent us from going out by
our Pierrefonds Gate on the landward side, was negligently built, and of
no great strength. All this gave us some heart, so much that my hosts,
the good Jacobins, and the holy sisters of the Convent of St. John,
stripped the lead from their roofs, and bestowed it on the town, for
munition of war. And when I was in case to walk upon the walls, and
above the river, I might see men and boys diving in the water and
searching for English cannon-balls, which we shot back at the English.

It chanced, one day, that I was sitting and sunning myself in the warm
September weather, on a settle in a secure place hard by the Chapel Gate.
With me was Barthelemy Barrette, for it was the day of Our Lady's Feast,
that very day whereon we had failed before Paris last year, and there was
truce for the sacred season. We fell to devising of what had befallen
that day year, and without thought I told Barthelemy of my escape from
prison, and so, little by little, I opened my heart to him concerning
Brother Thomas and all his treasons.

Never was man more astounded than Barthelemy; and he bade me swear by the
Blessed Trinity that all this tale was true.

"Mayhap you were fevered," he said, "when you lay in the casement seat,
and saw the Maid taken by device of the cordelier."

"I was no more fevered than I am now, and I swear, by what