to think of these Norman strangers as her own people.  And a great day was before her, a day in which something might still be done, in which deliverance might yet come.  L’Oyseleur, who was one of her visitors, adjured her now to change her conduct, to accept whatever means of salvation might be offered to her.  There was no longer any mention of Pope or Council, but only of the Church to which she ought to yield.  How it was that he preserved his influence over her, having been proved to be a member of the tribunal that judged her, and not a fellow-prisoner, nor a fellow-countryman, nor any of the things he had professed to be, no once can tell us; but evidently he had managed to do so.  Jeanne would seem to have received him without signs of repulsion or displeasure.  Indeed she seems to have been ready to hear anyone, to believe in those who professed to wish her well, even when she did not follow their counsel.

It would require, however, no great persuasion on L’Oyseleur’s part to convince her that this was a more than usually important day, and that something decisive must be done, now or never.  Why should she be so determined to resist her only chance of safety?  If she were but delivered from the hands of the English, safe in the gentler keeping of the Church, there would be time to think of everything, even to make her peace with her voices who would surely understand if, for the saving of her life, and out of terror for the dreadful fire, she abandoned them for a moment.  She had disobeyed them at Beaurevoir and they had forgiven.  One faltering word now, a mark of her hand upon a paper, and she would be safe—­even if still all they said was true; and if indeed and in fact, after buoying her up from day to day, such a dreadful thing might be as that they were not true——­

The traitor was at her ear whispering; the cold chill of disappointment, of disillusion, of sickening doubt was in her heart.

Then there came into the prison a better man than L’Oyseleur, Jean Beaupere, her questioner in the public trial, the representative of all these notabilities.  What he said was spoken with authority and he came in all seriousness, may not we believe in some kindness too? to warn her.  He came with permission of the Bishop, no stealthy visitor.  “Jean Beaupere entered alone into the prison of the said Jeanne by permission, and advertised her that she would straightway be taken to the scaffold to be addressed (pour y etre preschee), and that if she was a good Christian she would on that scaffold place all her acts and words under the jurisdiction of our Holy Mother, the Church, and specially of the ecclesiastical judges.”  “Accept the woman’s dress and do all that you are told,” her other adviser had said.  When the car that was to convey her came to the prison doors, L’Oyseleur accompanied her, no doubt with a show of supporting her to the end.  What a change from the confined and gloomy prison to the dazzling clearness of the