They did not have many days to wait.  There are two, to all appearance, well-authenticated stories of the cause of Jeanne’s “relapse.”  One account is given by Frere Isambard, whom she told in the presence of several others, that she had been assaulted in her cell by a Millourt Anglois, and barbarously used, and in self-defence had resumed again the man’s dress which had been left in her cell.  The story of Massieu is different:  To him Jeanne explained that when she asked to be released from her bed on the morning of Trinity Sunday, her guards took away her female dress which she was wearing, and emptied the sack containing the other upon her bed.  She appealed to them, reminding them that these were forbidden to her; but got no answer except a brutal order to get up.  It is very probable that both stories are true.  Frere Isambard found her weeping and agitated, and nothing is more probable than this was the occasion on which Warwick heard her cries, and interfered to save her.  Massieu’s version, of which he is certain, was communicated to him a day or two after when they happened to be alone together.  It was on the Thursday before Trinity Sunday that she put on the female dress, but it would seem that rumours on the subject of a relapse had begun to spread even before the Sunday on which that event happened:  and Beaupere and Midi were sent by the Bishop to investigate.  But they were very ill-received in the Castle, sworn at by the guards, and forced to go back without seeing Jeanne, there being as yet, it appeared, nothing to see.  On the morning of the Monday, however, the rumours arose with greater force; and no doubt secret messages must have informed the Bishop that the hoped-for relapse had taken place.  He set out himself accordingly, accompanied by the Vicar-Inquisitor and attended by eight of the familiar names so often quoted, triumphant, important, no doubt with much show of pompous solemnity, to find out for himself.  The Castle was all in excitement, report and gossip already busy with the new event so trifling, so all-important.  There was no idea now of turning back the visitors.  The prison doors were eagerly thrown open, and there indeed once more, in her tunic and hose, was Jeanne, whom they had left four days before painfully contemplating the garments they had given her, and humbly promising obedience.  The men burst in upon her with an outcry of astonishment.  What she had changed her dress again?  “Yes,” she replied, “she had resumed the costume of a man.”  There was no triumph in what she said, but rather a subdued tone of sadness, as of one who in the most desperate strait has taken her resolution and must abide by it, whether she likes it or not.  She was asked why she had resumed that dress, and who had made her do so.  There was no question of anything else at first.  The tunic and gippon were at once enough to decide her fate.

She answered that she had done it by her own will, no one influencing her to do so; and that she preferred the dress of a man to that of a woman.