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Of the high opinion held by her enemies of the Maid's influence, one could not ask for a more remarkable proof than this testimony, coming as it does from a partisan of her foes. After three days passed at Margny, Joan of Arc was taken, for greater security, by Luxembourg to the castle of Beaulieu, in Picardy.
The Burgundians were encamped at Margny and at Clairvoix; the English, under the command of Montgomery, were encamped at Venette. Her plan was to draw out the Duke of Burgundy, should he come to the support of his men at these places.
It was about five o'clock that afternoon when Joan of Arc rode out of Compiègne at the head of five hundred horsemen and foot soldiers. Flavy remained within the town, of which he was Governor. The attack led by the Maid on Margny, with splendid impetuosity, proved a complete success, and the enemy fled for shelter to their companions at Clairvoix. Here the resistance made was far more stubborn.
Anon her horsemen charged back furiously, and drove the Picards and Burgundians, who pursued, over a third part of the raised roadway. But now, forth from Margny, trooped Burgundian men-at-arms without end or number, the banner of the Maid waved wildly, now up, now down, in the mad mellay, and ever they of Burgundy pressed on, and still our men, being few and outnumbered, gave back.
The captor of Jeanne was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg and took her as we have seen to the quarters of his master at Margny, into whose hands she thenceforward passed. She was kept in the camp three or four days and then transferred to the castle of Beaulieu, which belonged to him; and afterwards to the more important stronghold of Beaurevoir, which seems to have been his principal residence.
The archer or whoever it was who secured this prize, took Jeanne back, along the bloody road with its relics of the fight, to Margny, the Burgundian camp, where the leaders crowded together to see so important a prisoner.
On the crest of their bastille, over against our Pierrefonds Gate, matches were lighted and men were watching in double guard, and the same on the other side of the water, at the Gate Margny. Plainly our foes expected a rescue sent to us of Compiegne by our party. But the forest, five hundred yards from our wall, lay silent and peaceable, a sea of brown and yellow leaves.
All the windows and roofs of the houses and water-mills on the bridge were crowded with men and women, gazing, and it came into my mind that Flavy had done ill to leave these mills and houses standing. They wrought otherwise at Orleans. This was but a passing thought, for my heart was in my eyes, straining towards Margny.
Behind this moat rose the town walls, girt with strong towers at short intervals. On the right bank of the river extended a wide stretch of fertile meadow land, bounded on the northern horizon by the soft low-lying hills of Picardy. From the circuit of the walls across the plain the eye rested on the towns of Margny, of Clairvoix, and of Venette.
On the other side extends a great meadow, nearly a mile broad, at the end of which the rising ground of Picardy rises suddenly like a wall, shutting in the horizon. The meadow is so low and so subject to floods that it is crossed by an ancient foot of the low hills. The Burgundians had one camp at Margny, another at Clairoix; the headquarters of the English were at Venette.
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