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Updated: June 15, 2025
The joy of the English was overwhelming the despair of the French correspondingly great; and that despair gave place to anger when it was learned that William de Flavy, the man whom she had tried to defend, had betrayed her into the hands of the English because he was jealous of her. This man's wife slew him when she learned of his base act, and was pardoned for the crime when she told its cause.
The names of La Tremoïlle and Regnault de Chartres should also be pilloried by the side of that of Flavy the two great courtiers who held the ear of the King, and who had always plotted against Joan of Arc. As has already been said, it was Regnault de Chartres who had the effrontery to announce the news of Joan of Arc's capture to the citizens of Rheims as being a judgment of Heaven upon her.
Suddenly, on the crest of the boulevard, Flavy threw up his arm and gave one cry "Xaintrailles!"
"Flavy called him in from Valenciennes, where he was about some business of his own, for there is no greater master of the culverin. And, faith, as he says, he 'has had rare sport, and will have for long." "Was there an onfall of the enemy?" "Nay, they are over wary. He shot them as they dug behind pavises. For the Duke has moved his quarters to Venette, where the English lay, hard by the town.
When evening came, she was not the less eager to take part in a sortie with her usual comrades and a troop of about five hundred men. William de Flavy, commandant of the place, got ready some boats on the Oise to assist the return of the troops. All the town-gates were closed, save the bridge-gate. The sortie was unsuccessful.
Did William de Flavy purposely have the drawbridge raised and the portcullis lowered before she could get back into Compiegne? He was suspected of it at the time, and many historians have indorsed the suspicion. But there is nothing to prove it.
But it was surely this knowledge which actuated Joan to take a few brave men, and without orders from the king, to go in aid of William de Flavy, commander of the fortress of Compiègne, who was in distress. She set out, and on the evening of May 24th, headed an attack upon the English.
M. Marin's opinion, having the authority of a soldier, carries weight with it; and his opinion is that Joan of Arc was deliberately betrayed by Flavy, and purposely allowed to fall into the hands of her enemies.
She took no thought for the English, having already carefully arranged with Flavy how they should be prevented from cutting off her retreat. The governor provided against any chance of this by arming the boulevard strongly with archers to drive off any advancing force, and also by keeping ready on the Oise a number of covered boats to receive the foot-soldiers in case of a retrograde movement.
It was an episode in which faint heart, perhaps treason, played an unwelcome part, for while the gallant maid was taking all manner of chances outside the gates the military governor, Guillaume de Flavy, ordered the barriers of the great portal closed behind her and her men. Near the end of the Pont de Saint Louis Jeanne d'Arc fell into the hands of the besiegers.
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