visit to the town, received Joan with so much affection, that, overcoming her apprehensions, she decided to go to the aid of the good people. On the 23rd of May, 1430, Joan departed from Crespy at the head of her company, two or three hundred men strong. Thanks to the darkness and to the skilful precautions in which she wrapped her nocturnal march, her troops passed unperceived between the Burgundian and English camps and entered Compiegne with her before daylight. She immediately went to mass in the parish church of St. James. It was barely day, but a large number of the inhabitants had learned of the arrival of their emancipatrix and went to church to see her. After mass, Joan retired near one of the pillars of the nave, and addressing herself to several of the people who were gathered there together with their children, all anxious to see her, she said to them in sad accents: "My friends, I have been sold and betrayed, I shall soon be taken and put to death--my voices have for some time been warning me of the contemplated treason"--'" BISHOP CAUCHON--"What a lucky thing it was for us that Joan did not hearken to these presentiments! The she-devil so often escaped the snares vainly laid for her by the captains, whose vindictive jealousy so well served our purposes and the purposes of the Sires of La Tremouille and of Gaucourt and of my companion in God, the Bishop of Chartres!" CANON LOYSELEUR--"Indeed, the emissary whom Monseigneur the Bishop of Chartres sent here secretly and whom I visited in your name, informed me that it was in concert with the Sire of La Tremouille that the Sire of Flavy invited the Maid to Compiegne, meaning to deliver her to the English." BISHOP CAUCHON (laughing)--"I shall give Flavy, whenever he wishes it, full absolution for all his crimes in return for the capture of Joan. Proceed, canon. I shall presently tell you more fully what my projects are."