No, nobody can tell you that, and,
poor dumb things, they could not have told you themselves, but it was
there--indeed, yes. Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with
crape!

The 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the most
strange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has been played
upon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march no more.

BOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM

1 The Maid in Chains

I CANNOT bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of
the summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was not much
troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan had been put
to ransom, and that the King--no, not the King, but grateful France--had
come eagerly forward to pay it. By the laws of war she could not
be denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a rebel; she was a
legitimately constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by
her King's appointment, and guilty of no crime known to military law;
therefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were
proffered.

But day after day dragged by and no ransom was offered! It seems
incredible, but it is true. Was that reptile Tremouille busy at the
King's ear? All we know is, that the King was silent, and made no offer
and no effort in behalf of this poor girl who had done so much for him.

But, unhappily, there was alacrity enough in another quarter. The news
of the capture reached Paris the day after it happened, and the glad
English and Burgundians deafened the world all the day and all the night
with the clamor of their joy-bells and the thankful thunder of their
artillery, and the next day the Vicar-General of the Inquisition sent a
message to the Duke of Burgundy requiring the delivery of the prisoner
into the hands of the Church to be tried as an idolater.

The English had seen their opportunity, and it was the English power
that was really acting, not the Church. The Church was being used as a
blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only
able to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and
the valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English
power could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the
influence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. Joan
of Arc was the only power in France that the English did not despise,
the only power in France that they considered formidable.