Chapter VI
The Martyrdom
Jean Renault sat in a tavern at Chinon, abstractedly gazing out over the flowery fields which were visible from his windows. It was a day in May, 1431, and the time and the scene painfully reminded him this was the third spring since the incidents in the forest and the Ursuline church. He was not a dreamer, however, but a man of quick and resolute action. It was the thought that he had been prevented from accomplishing the purpose upon which his heart was set that made him gloomy and abstracted. A heavy step interrupted his reverie.
“Ha! the villain,” exclaimed La Hire, as he entered, almost beside himself with rage. “The sordid, venal wretch! The dishonorable scoundrel, who would sell that noble one for contemptible gold! But just let him wait! I am searching for him and I am on his track!”
“Noble sir,” interrupted Jean, “of whom speak you?”
“Of whom am I speaking? Of whom else than Luxemburg? That—”
“Ah! of him! I too was thinking of him.”
“I can well believe it, my boy,” for although Jean was now a knight, La Hire continued to call him “my boy.” “I cannot sleep because of it. Shame and disgrace upon him.”
“I wish we had been at Compiègne. Then we should have had a chance to meet him.”
“Yes, yes, to meet him—but the poor Maiden!”
“Yes, the poor Maiden! I was also thinking of her.”