JEANNE D'ARC.*

THE character and achievements of Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of

Orleans, have long passed beyond the range of controversy. Her simple courage and her splendid faith, which so pro- foundly influenced the fortunes of France, are accepted by all with unquestioning admiration. The source and quality of her inspiration may still be matter for discussion, but that is all. The world needs no argument to convince it of Jeanne d'Arc's piety or patriotism. Indeed, though she suffered at the stake, in accord with the savage fanaticism of her time, she had not been dead much more than twenty years when, under the auspices of Pope Calixtus, her trial was recon- sidered and her condemnation was annulled. Evidence was taken upon oath concerning her childhood, her military exploits, and her violent death, and this evidence, translated and edited by Mr. T. Douglas Murray, gives us so plainly unvarnished a picture of the past as history rarely affords.

The trial of Jeanne d'Arc, which precedes her rehabilita,- tion, is further proof, if further proof were needed, of her courage and address. A simple, untrained peasant girl, she faced her judges without faltering or timidity. She replied to their questions with an adroitness which might have baffled a clever attorney, and not one of the clergy who sat upon the bench got the better of her. Nor was this adroitness the outcome of cunning or forethought. It is clearly born of her absolute confidence in herself and her cause. She pleaded her case without counsel, and with a dignity which no counsel could have surpassed. Jean Beaupere, Master in Theology, Canon of Rouen, considered her very subtle, with the subtlety of a woman, and truly she confuted the subtlest doctors without difficulty. And when, after her relapse from recantation, she was led to the stake, nothing could have been better or braver than her demeanour. The eye-witnesses testify one and all to her submission and composure. One just word of reproach she threw at the Bishop of Beauvais. "Bishop," she said, "I die through you." Thereafter she asked Brother Isambard de in Pierre "to go into the church near by and bring her the Cross, to hold it upright on high before her eyes until the moment of death, so that the Cross on which God was banging might be

in life continually before her eyes." This Brother Isa.mbard did, and she died "saying such pitiful, devout, and Catholic

words, that those who saw her in great numbers wept, and that the Cardizal of England and many other English were forced to weep and to feel compassion."

But it is the record of her life, not the record of her death, that is most interesting to us. The depositions are no dry legal documents. They carry us back to Domremy, and show us the life of a fifteenth-century village. Jean Morel, a labourer and her godfather, draws us a picture of Jeanne fol- lowing the plough and minding the cattle in the fields. She was a good girl, who knew her Belief and her Pater and her Ave as well as any of her companions. Moreover, "she had modest ways, as beseemed one whose parents were not rich."

Before all things, she was religious, and if she heard the Mass- bell she would leave the fields and his her back to the village and to the church, where she heard the Mass. The same labourer gave evidence on the Fairies' Tree, a piece of superstition pretty enough to quote :—

" I have heard that the Fairies came there long ago to dance," he says ; "but since the Gospel of Saint John has been read under the tree, they coma no more. At the present day, on the Sunday when in the Holy Church of God the Introit to the Maas Laetare Jerusalem' is sung, called with us 'the Sunday of the Wells,' the young maidens and youths of Domremy are accus- tomed to go there, and also in the spring and summer and on festival days ; they dance there and have a feast: On their • Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of Orleans, Deltsvrer of Prance: being the Story of her Vie, her dehteventente, and her Death, as Attested on Oath and Bet Forth if) the Origmat Documents. Mated be T. Douglas Murray. London; W. Heins. mann. Ns.) return they go dancing and playing to the Well of the Thorn, where they drink and amuse themselves, gathering flowers. Jeanne the Maid went there, like all the other girls at these times and did as they did; but I never heard say that she went the alone, either to the tree or to the well—which is nearer to the village than the tree—or that she went for any other purpose than to walk about and play like her companions."

So all the witnesses agree in asserting the piety and industry of Jeanne the Maid. One of her godmothers describes her as fond of work and often at the spinning-wheel; the cure of a neighbouring parish says that she often confessed her sins, and that, if she had had money, she would have given it to him for the saying of masses. One labourer confessed that she would often retire alone "to talk with God." To another she said one day, "Gossip, if you were not a Burgundian, I would tell you something " ; and afterwards when she met the same man at Chilloias she owned that she feared "nothing but treason." The unanimity of these simple folk is remarkable, and truly Jeanne d'Arc differed from the most of prophets in this, that she was not without honour in her own country and among her own people.

Then Jean de Novelemport, knight, called Jean de Metz, relates how he met the Maid at Vauoouleurs, gave her the garb and equipment of one of his men, and conducted her to Chinon, where she might present herself to the King's Court and Council. Both he and his companions had faith in her and in her mission, and not one of them ever thought to molest her, or to show her the smallest incivility. This, perhaps, was her most wonderful quality ; until she appeared

before the Court which condemned her she was able to inspire all men with confidence. That a village maid, without any help that she did not procure herself, should not only make her way to the presence of her Sovereign, but should persuade that Sovereign to accept her counsel, is a marvel indeed. Little less marvellous was her influence with the army. It vexed her to hear blasphemies, and out of respect to her the soldiers put a restraint upon their tongues. "No one in the army dared swear or blaspheme before her," says Louis de Contes, her page, "for fear of being reprimanded." It is this page who gives the beat account of the Maid and her prowess, and adds many of the small touches which give life to a portrait. She was of the most sober habits, he says. "Many times I saw her eat nothing during a whole day but a morsel of bread When she was in her lodging she ate only twice a day." Moreover, brave as she

was, and eager to attack her enemies, she was always humane, and quick to express compassion for a fallen foe. "Seeing a Frenchman," so de Contes tells the tale, "who was charged with the convoy of certain English prisoners, strike one of them on the head in such a manner that he was left for dead on the ground, she got down from her horse, had him con- fessed, supporting his head herself, and comforting him to the best of her power." But on one point she was obdurate ; she would permit no woman other than herself and her com- panions to be with the army. Once near Chateau-Thierry

she observed the mistress of one of her followers riding on horseback. Instantly she rode at her threatening her with her sword, not striking her, but admonishing her in all gentleness to leave the army if she would not be punished. Similar in substance is the evidence of Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, who declares his belief that she was sent by God, and that her conduct was rather divine than human. As to her soldierlike ability he had never a doubt, and when she came to Orleans he greeted her with the simple phrase," I am very glad of your coming." He, too, adds the astonishing testimony that she sometimes spoke in jest of the affairs of war, and " to encourage the soldiers, foretold events which were not realised." But when she spoke seriously she declared that she was sent to do no more than raise the siege of Orleans, and to see the King crowned at Rheims. Such are some of the testimonies in favour of Jeanne d'Are

culled from Mr. Douglas Murray's interesting book. Truly, the Maid of Orleans, rarely honoured in her brief life, WU yet more rarely honoured after her death. Her rehabilitat.ron, possibly unique in history, was complete and ungrudging. "We say, pronounce, decree, and declare," thus runs the,

document, 'the said Processes and Sentences full ?. cozenage, iniquity, inconsequences, and manifest errors, m

fact as well as in law; we say that they have been, are, and. shall be—as well as the aforesaid Abjuration, their execution, and all that followed—null, non-existent, without value or effect." Jeanne d'Arc died at the stake, but her memory received such amends as only a repentant world can make.