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.