In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of Rouen, having consumed their horses, and finding frogs and rats unpalatable, yielded the town.  It was the Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine.

“God is asleep,” the Queen said; “and while He nods, the Butcher of Agincourt has stolen our good city of Rouen.”  She sat down and breathed heavily.  “Never was any poor woman so pestered as I!  The puddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and on Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his chief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a page carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance.  I put it to you, is that the contrivance of a sane man?  Euh! euh!” Dame Isabeau squealed on a sudden; “you are bruising me.”

Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder.  “The King of England—­a tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck—­here—­and with his left cheek scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as tapers?” She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited the answer, seeming not to breathe at all.

“I believe so,” the Queen said, “and they say, too, that he has the damned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer.”

“O God!” said Katharine.

“Ay, our only hope now.  And may God show him no more mercy than has this misbegotten English butcher shown us!” the good lady desired, with fervor.  “The hog, having won our Normandy, is now advancing on Paris itself.  He repudiated the Aragonish alliance last August; and until last August he was content with Normandy, they tell us, but now he swears to win all France.  The man is a madman, and Scythian Tamburlaine was more lenient.  And I do not believe that in all France there is a cook who understands his business.”  She went away whimpering, and proceeded to get tipsy.

The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau had left her; you may see a hare crouch so at sight of the hounds.  Finally the girl spoke aloud.  “Until last August!” Katharine said.  “Until last August! Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come to you again.  And I bade this devil’s grandson come to me, as my lover!” Presently she went into her oratory and began to pray.

In the midst of her invocation she wailed:  “Fool, fool!  How could I have thought him less than a king!”

You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse and hatred of herself, the while that town by town fell before the invader like card-houses.  Every rumor of defeat—­and the news of some fresh defeat came daily—­was her arraignment; impotently she cowered at God’s knees, knowing herself a murderess, whose infamy was still afoot, outpacing her prayers, whose victims were battalions.  Tarpeia and Pisidice and Rahab were her sisters; she hungered in her abasement for Judith’s nobler guilt.