CHAPTER XXVI
On Trial
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“Great in everything as she was we here see her at her greatest.” Andrew Lang. “The Maid of France.” |
The days passed drearily enough in the prison cell, but Jeanne endured the chains, the irons, and the hideous company of the guards rather than give her parole not to attempt an escape. The monotony of her misery was varied by visitors who came to stare at her and to banter her.
In the castle in which she was confined there were many people: Bedford, the Regent, Beaufort, the Cardinal of Winchester, the child king, Henry of England, the Earl of Warwick, the chief officers of both the royal and vice-royal court, and a host of guards and men-at-arms. There were many of these who were inquisitive and malicious concerning her. One of the visitors was Pierre Manuel, advocate of the King of England.
“You would not have come here if you had not been 347 brought,” he accosted her jestingly. “Did you know before you were taken that you would be captured?”
“I feared it,” Jeanne answered sadly.
“If you feared it, why were you not on your guard?”
“I did not know the day nor the hour,” she answered patiently.
The Earl of Warwick himself took more than one occasion to show Jeanne to his friends, and one day he brought the Earl of Stafford and Jean de Luxembourg to see her. De Luxembourg was the same who had sold her to the English.