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One day Joan played a cunning trick on her jailer, and not only slipped out of her prison, but locked him up in it. But as she fled away she was seen by a sentinel, and was caught and brought back. Then she was sent to Beaurevoir, a stronger castle. This was early in August, and she had been in captivity more than two months now.
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
In the afternoon the examiners returned to the attempt at escape or suicide they seemed to have preferred the latter explanation made at Beaurevoir; and as Jeanne expresses herself with more freedom as to her personal motives in these prison examinations and opens her heart more freely, there is much here which we give in full.
History must not, without proof, impute crimes so odious and so shameful to even the most depraved of men. However that may be, Joan remained for six months the prisoner of John of Luxembourg, who, to make his possession of her secure, sent her, under good escort, successively to his two castles of Beaulieu and Beaurevoir, one in the Vermandois and the other in the Cambresis.
This, it seems to me, is what the historians should have observed, and what they have neglected. The Maid was taken to Jean de Luxembourg, Comte de Ligny. She was shut up in the fortress of Beaulieu, then in that of Beaurevoir, and from there in that of Crotoy in Picardy.
While there, she made two attempts to escape; first, apparently, by running out through a door, when she was at once caught by the guards; secondly, by jumping from a high window, when the shock of the fall was so great that she lay insensible on the ground until discovered. She was then removed to Beaurevoir, where she remained until the beginning of November.
Asked, if the same was not requested of her in the castle of Beaurevoir, she answered: "It is true. And I replied that I could not lay it aside without the permission of God." Asked, if M. Jean de Pressy and others at Arras had offered her a woman's dress, she answered, "He and others have often asked it of me."
For word came that the Maid, being in ward at Beaurevoir, a strong place of Jean de Luxembourg, had leaped in the night from the top of the tower, and had, next morning, been taken up all unhurt, as by, miracle, but astounded and bereft of her senses. For this there was much sorrow, but would to God that He had taken her to Himself in that hour!
She was then asked if she had been long in the tower of Beaurevoir; answered, that she was there about four months, and that when she heard the English come she was angry and much troubled. Her voices forbade her several times to attempt to escape; but at last, in the doubt she had of the English she threw herself down, commending herself to God and to our Lady, and was much hurt.
She was then asked about the woman, Catherine de la Rochelle, whom, it may be remembered, Joan had discovered to be a vulgar impostor, and whom she had tried to dissuade from making people believe that she could discover hidden treasures, advising her to return to her husband and her children. Next she was asked why she had tried to escape from her prison tower at Beaurevoir.
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