The door finally opens and another prelate appears. He is a canon of the name of Nicolas Loyseleur. His face is long and worn; his eyes are covered like a reptile's. His red eyelids are stripped of their lashes. A colorless fissure barely indicates the location of his lips whose smile bears the imprint of hypocrisy. It is at once the face of a hypocrite and a gallows-bird. BISHOP PETER CAUCHON (half rising and with deep interest)--"What news? What news? Good or bad?" CANON LOYSELEUR--"The messenger sent by Captain Morris left the Maid in the prison of Breville." BISHOP CAUCHON--"What is the man's errand?" CANON LOYSELEUR--"He came by orders of Captain Morris to request the Earl of Warwick to have the dungeon of the old tower prepared to receive Joan Darc, who is to arrive at Rouen under a strong escort to-morrow morning at the latest." BISHOP CAUCHON--"Did Captain Morris follow my instructions accurately?" CANON LOYSELEUR--"From point to point, monseigneur. The captive travels in a closed litter, with irons on her feet and hands. When a town has to be crossed, the said Joan is gagged. No one has been able to approach her. The guards of the escort informed all inquirers that they were taking to Rouen an old witch who throttled little children to accomplish her evil deeds." BISHOP CAUCHON (laughing)--"And the good people forthwith crossed themselves and gave the litter a wide berth? Stupid plebs!" CANON LOYSELEUR--"It was just as you say. That notwithstanding, at Dieppe, the exasperation of the mob at what they really took for a witch became so violent that the people sought to tear her from our hands and trample her to death." BISHOP CAUCHON--"The idiots! What would have been left for us?" CANON LOYSELEUR--"This incident excepted, the journey went smooth. No one along the route thought for a moment that the prisoner was Joan the Maid." BISHOP CAUCHON--"That was of the highest importance. The girl's renown is such in Gaul at present, even in the provinces that are subject to our English friends, that if it had been learned that she was being taken in chains, the town and country plebs would have been greatly agitated, they might even have taken the she-devil away from her keepers. Well, at any rate, we got her now!" CANON LOYSELEUR (pointing to the parchments)--"Shall we now proceed with the reading of the condensed acts of the Maid?"