told her that Compiegne would be saved. Now the voices comforted her, bidding her beg God’s pardon for having leaped. [Illustration: THE CORONATION OF CHARLES VII.] Jeanne soon recovered from her injuries, and Compiegne was indeed relieved, but the Maid was sold to the English after she had been some four months a prisoner. She was carried to several different places, and at last to Rouen, where she was imprisoned in the castle with rough, rude men to guard her. No woman was allowed to come near her; she was kept in chains, and night and day had to endure the company of the soldiers. It was because she still hoped that some way of escape might be shown her, that she would not give her promise not to try to escape. Had she done so, she might have been more kindly treated; but her great courage made her ready to bear anything, rather than give up the chance of going back to her task. Jeanne was to be tried by the Church, because the plan of the English was to treat her as a witch inspired by devils. A French bishop, belonging to the English party, was the chief of her judges, and with him sat forty-three learned lawyers and clergy to judge the peasant girl of eighteen, before whom the English army had shrunk in terror. The Maid had already been nine months a prisoner when she was brought to trial. She appeared dressed in a black suit like a page, strong in her confidence in the guidance of God, and trusting in her voices to tell her what to answer. The judges could not make her swear to answer truthfully all their questions. She swore to speak the truth on certain subjects, but on others, chiefly on her private communications to the king, she said she would say nothing. First, for six long days she was questioned in the public court, the ignorant peasant girl alone amongst her enemies. She never faltered, her answers came quick and ready, though often her judges wearied her by going again and again over the same points. When they asked if she often heard her voices, she said that there was no day when she did not hear them, and she had great need of them. She described once how the voice had awakened her, and she had risen and sat on her bed with folded hands to listen and to give thanks for its coming. Always she showed that all that she had done had been done at the bidding of God. “I would rather have been torn in pieces by four horses than have come into France without God’s command,” she said. She stated confidently her belief that her king would gain the kingdom of France, adding that it was this revelation that comforted her every day. She never complained, and said that since it had pleased God to allow it, she believed that it was best that she should have been taken. She said that her voices encouraged her to bear her martyrdom patiently, for she would at last come to the heavenly kingdom. When she was asked what she meant by speaking of her martyrdom, she answered that she meant