The severities inflicted upon her here were terrible. For the first time she was heavily fettered; even at night her ankles were ironed and fastened to a chain which passed under her bed and was locked to a heavy beam at the foot. Hands, feet and throat were bound to a pillar, and she was kept in an iron cage, or huche. Also, because it was their policy to degrade her as well as to keep her, five rude English soldiers from the lowest class were given her for guards. Three of these were always to be in her room night and day, and two outside. The whole being sickens, and is filled with rage, and shame, and burning indignation at the cruelties that were inflicted upon this modest young girl. Where were La Hire, Dunois, Alençon, Boussac, Rais, and other captains that no sword was drawn for Jeanne?
Oh, shame to England that so used her! And ten times shame to France who deserted her and sold her! A blot upon England? Yes. And upon France that she had saved. A stain that can never be obliterated as long as the world stands. She was a woman in the age of chivalry, when women were supposed to be the objects of a kind of worship, every knight 345 being sworn to succor and help them in need and trouble. And the “Chivalry of England shamefully used and destroyed her; the Chivalry of France deserted and sold her.”[27]
She was to be tried by the Church, yet she was placed in a military prison, instead of an ecclesiastical one guarded by women. There was but one solace; many times a day her Saints came to her whispering words of comfort and consolation.
“But I do not always understand,” said the maiden afterward before her judges, “because of the disturbance in the prison, and the noise made by the guards.”
And thus, in chains, in an iron cage, Jeanne D’Arc passed her nineteenth birthday.
Andrew Lang.