But in the case of this little Maiden, this handmaid of the Lord, the deception might have been all natural and perhaps shared by herself. Were her first triumphs accidents merely, were her "voices" delusions, had she been given up by Heaven, of which she had called herself the servant? It was a stupor which quenched every voice--a great silence through the country, only broken by the penitential psalms at Tours. The Compiègne people, writing to Charles two days after May 23d, do not mention Jeanne at all. We need not immediately take into account the baser souls always plentiful, the envious captains and the rest who might be secretly rejoicing. The entire country, both friends and foes, had come to a dreadful pause and did not know what to think. The last circumstance of which we must remind the reader, and which was of the greatest importance, is, that it was only a small part of France that knew anything personally of Jeanne. From Tours it is a far cry to Picardy. All her triumphs had taken place in the south. The captive of Beaulieu and Beaurevoir spent the sad months of her captivity among a population which could have heard of her only by flying rumours coming from hostile quarters. From the midland of France to the sea, near to which her prison was situated, is a long way, and those northern districts were as unlike the Orleannais as if they had been in two different countries. Rouen in Normandy no more resembled Rheims, than Edinburgh resembled London: and in the fifteenth century that was saying a great deal. Nothing can be more deceptive than to think of these separate and often hostile duchies as if they bore any resemblance to the France of to-day. The captor of Jeanne was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg and took her as we have seen to the quarters of his master at Margny, into whose hands she thenceforward passed. She was kept in the camp three or four days and then transferred to the castle of Beaulieu, which belonged to him; and afterwards to the more important stronghold of Beaurevoir, which seems to have been his principal residence. We know very few details of her captivity. According to one chronicler, d'Aulon, her faithful friend and intendant, was with her at least in the former of those prisons, where at first she would appear to have been hopeful and in good spirits, if we may trust to the brief conversation between her and d'Aulon, which is one of the few details which reach us of that period. While he lamented over the probable fate of Compiègne she was confident. "That poor town of Compiègne that you loved so much," he said, "by this time it will be in the hands of the enemies of France." "No," said the Maid, "the places which the king of Heaven brought back to the allegiance of the gentle King Charles by me, will not be retaken by his enemies." In this case at least the prophecy came true.