* * * * Messrs. Sheed and Ward publish at
7s. 6d. a book by nine members of the French Academy—Marshal Foch, Louis Bertrand, Georges Goyau, Henri Lavedan, Louis Madelin, Me. Henri-Robert, Mgr. Baudrillart, Maurice Barres, Gabriel Hanotaux—who offer each an essay as an act of homage " For Joan of Arc." The volume is beautifully illustrated. The colour facsimiles of fifteenth-century tapestry and miniatures from fifteenth-century manuscripts are really charming. Marshal Foch's paper stands first upon the list. It treats of the Maid as a Soldier ; for while he believes in her " vision " he thinks it had real strategy behind it. From the non- military point of view M. Louis Bertrand's Joan in Lorraine is by far the most attractive. M. Bertrand comes from Lorraine, and he knows the life of the country, which has, he tells us, changed but little. He describes the " Maid's " birth- place, and from his knowledge and her words Composes a picture which is as delightful as it is unexpected. In his opinion she was no " cowherd " and the better-off peasantry were not " man-faced animals," but such a race as might produce such a saint, so far as saints are ever the product of their environment, which is, he thinks, very little indeed- `' They belong to no country ; they are from elsewhere."
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