from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet; that at
bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of
generations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and in
their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of treacheries
of all sorts--for their kings had been treacherous to their great vassals
and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous to the head of
the state and to each other. The soldiery found that they could depend
utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her gone, everything was gone.
She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and set them boiling;
with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army and all France
became what they had been before, mere dead corpses--that and nothing
more; incapable of thought, hope, ambition, or motion.



2 Joan Sold to the English

MY WOUND gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of
October; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength. All this
time there were reports drifting about that the King was going to ransom
Joan. I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the
littleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself
so much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.

In October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the
second one, on the 23d, I was wounded again. My luck had turned, you see.
On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the disorder and
confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into Compiegne, and
hobble into my room as pallid and pathetic an object as you would wish to
see.