These were the same Voices that had called the peasant girl from her quiet home at Domrémy; the same that with trumpet note had sent her on from victory to victory, through the burning days of Orleans and Patay; now, as clear and loud, they pronounced her doom. She heard, and bowed her head before the heavenly will in meek acceptance. Is not this perhaps the most wonderful part of all the heroic story? She never thought of escape; it never occurred to her to lay down the sword. If it had been so willed, she would have held her hand for one hour, would have kept her chamber at the moment of fate, if haply it might pass and leave her free for further effort; since that was not to be, forward in God's name! There were still some good hours left. Only one step higher, good Maid! that final step in Rouen Old Market, which shall take thee home to thy Father's house. From Melun she rode to Lagny (whence the news of her presence spread to Paris, causing great alarm), and in that neighborhood had several skirmishes with the English, with little advantage to either side; and so, by-and-by, in mid-May, she came to Compiègne. I make no apology for dwelling a little on these French towns which might--reverently be it said--be called the Stations of the Maid. Every rod of French ground is now and for all time sacred to us and to all lovers of Liberty. Originally a hunting-lodge of the Frankish kings; the Romans called it Compendium. Charles the Bald built two castles there, and a Benedictine abbey whose inmates received (and kept down to the 18th century), "the privilege of acting for three days as lords of Compiègne, with full power to release prisoners, condemn the guilty, and even inflict sentence of death." The abbey church treasured the dust of three kings; possessed also a famous organ, the oldest in France, given by Constantine Copronymus (whoever he was!) to Pepin the Short. Louis the Debonair was deposed at Compiègne. In its palace, Louis XV. received Marie Antoinette as his daughter-in-law, Napoleon I. received Marie Louise as his Empress. In the nineteenth century it was for many years the favorite resort of Napoleon III. and his court during the hunting season. The memory pictures of this latter time are brilliant enough. Lovely Empresses, Eugenie with her matchless shoulders, Elizabeth, the "Violet of Austria" with her glorious hair, sweep through the famous forest in their long riding habits. Hunting horns sound the _morte_ and the _hallali_; officers in scarlet and gold hold high counsel with others in gold and green. All very gay, very bright; but these pictures shift and change like a kaleidoscope. Presently they vanish. Half a century passes, as a watch in the night. Compiègne looks from her girdling towers and sees a gray tide rush forward, seething and boiling, almost to her very walls; sees it met, stemmed, by a barrier of blue and brown, slender, but immovable; hears the words which shall ring through all centuries to come: