cretly harbored French hearts in their
bodies. Then we came out frankly and told them everything, and found
them ready to do anything they could to help us.

Our plan was soon made, and was quite simple. It was to help them drive
a flock of sheep to the market of the city. One morning early we made
the venture in a melancholy drizzle of rain, and passed through the
frowning gates unmolested. Our friends had friends living over a humble
wine shop in a quaint tall building situated in one of the narrow lanes
that run down from the cathedral to the river, and with these they
bestowed us; and the next day they smuggled our own proper clothing and
other belongings to us. The family that lodged us--the Pieroons--were
French in sympathy, and we needed to have no secrets from them.

(1) It remained there three hundred and sixty years, and then was
destroyed in a public bonfire, together with two swords, a plumed cap,
several suits of state apparel, and other relics of the Maid, by a mob
in the time of the Revolution. Nothing which the hand of Joan of Arc is
known to have touched now remains in existence except a few preciously
guarded military and state papers which she signed, her pen being guided
by a clerk or her secretary, Louis de Conte. A boulder exists from which
she is known to have mounted her horse when she was once setting out
upon a campaign. Up to a quarter of a century ago there was a single
hair from her head still in existence. It was drawn through the wax of
a seal attached to the parchment of a state document. It was
surreptitiously snipped out, seal and all, by some vandal relic-hunter,
and carried off. Doubtless it still exists, but only the thief knows
where. -- TRANSLATOR.

3 Weaving the Net About Her

IT WAS necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for Noel and
myself; and when the Pierrons found that I knew how to write, the
applied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for me with
a good priest named Manchon, who was to be the chief recorder in the
Great Trial of Joan of Arc now approaching. It was a strange position
for me--clerk to the recorder--and dangerous if my sympathies and the
late employment should be found out. But there was not much danger.
Manchon was at bottom friendly to Joan and would not betray me; and
my name would not, for I had discarded my surname and retained only my
given one, like a person of low degree.

I attended Manchon constantly straight alon