pleasant to us of the
personal staff, but not to Joan. However, she only saw it, she didn't
live it. The King did his sincerest best to make her happy, and showed a
most kind and constant anxiety in this matter.

All others had to go loaded with the chains of an exacting court
etiquette, but she was free, she was privileged. So that she paid
her duty to the King once a day and passed the pleasant word, nothing
further was required of her. Naturally, then, she made herself a hermit,
and grieved the weary days through in her own apartments, with her
thoughts and devotions for company, and the planning of now forever
unrealizable military combinations for entertainment. In fancy she moved
bodies of men from this and that and the other point, so calculating the
distances to be covered, the time required for each body, and the nature
of the country to be traversed, as to have them appear in sight of each
other on a given day or at a given hour and concentrate for battle.
It was her only game, her only relief from her burden of sorrow and
inaction. She played it hour after hour, as others play chess; and lost
herself in it, and so got repose for her mind and healing for her heart.

She never complained, of course. It was not her way. She was the sort
that endure in silence.

But--she was a caged eagle just the same, and pined for the free air and
the alpine heights and the fierce joys of the storm.

France was full of rovers--disbanded soldiers ready for anything that
might turn up. Several times, at intervals, when Joan's dull captivity
grew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop of cavalry and
make a health-restoring dash against the enemy. These things were a bath
to her spirits.

It was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her lead
assault after assault, be driven back again and again, but always rally
and charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last
the tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D'Aulon,
who was wounded, sounded the retreat (for the King had charged him on
his head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after
him--as he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of
the staff still hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to
come, saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye
danced merrily, and she turned upon him crying out:

"A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty-thous