t Melun. There 'she heard her Voices
almost every day, and many a time they told her that she would presently
be taken prisoner.' Her year was over, and as the Voices prophesied her
wound at Orleans, now they prophesied her captivity. She prayed that she
might die as soon as she was taken, without the long sorrow of
imprisonment. Then her Voices told her to bear graciously whatever
befell her, for so it must be. But they told her not the hour of her
captivity. 'If she had known the hour she would not then have gone to
war. And often she prayed them to tell her of that hour, but they did
not answer.'

These words are Joan's. She spoke them to her judges at Rouen.

Among all her brave deeds this was the bravest. Whatever the source of
her Voices was, she believed in what they said. She rode to fight with
far worse than death under shield before her eyes, knowing certainly
that her English foes would take her, they who had often threatened to
burn her.

HOW THE MAID TOOK FRANQUET D'ARRAS

There was in these parts a robber chief on the Burgundian side named
Franquet d'Arras. The Maid had been sent, as she said, to help the poor
who were oppressed by these brigands. Hearing that Franquet, with three
or four hundred men-at-arms, was near Lagny-sur-Marne, the Maid rode out
to seek him with four hundred French and Scots. The fight is described
in one way by Monstrelet, in another by Cagny and Joan herself.
Monstrelet, being a Burgundian writer, says that Franquet made a gallant
resistance till he was overwhelmed by numbers, as the Maid called out
the garrison of Lagny. Cagny says that Franquet's force was greater than
that of the Maid who took him. However this may be, Franquet was a
knight, and so should have been kept prisoner till he paid his ransom.
Monstrelet tells us that Joan had his head cut off. She herself told
her judges that Franquet confessed to being a traitor, robber, and
murderer; that the magistrates of Senlis and Lagny claimed him as a
criminal; that she tried to exchange him for a prisoner of her own
party, but that her man died, that Franquet had a fair trial, and that
then she allowed justice to take its course. She was asked if she paid
money to the captor of Franquet.

'I am not treasurer of France, to pay such moneys,' she answered
haughtily.

Probably Franquet deserved to die, but a trial by his enemies was not
likely to be a fair trial.

At Lagny the Maid left a gentler memory. She was very