Read "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
My wound gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of October; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength. All this time there were reports drifting about that the King was going to ransom Joan. I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the littleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself so much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.
In October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the second one, on the 23rd, I was wounded again. My luck had turned, you see. On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the disorder and confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into Compiègne, and hobbled into my room as pallid and pathetic an object as you would wish to see.