Joan of Arc

It was but natural that one who loved and admired all that is good and beautiful and high-minded should have a strong feeling of admiration for the memory of Joan of Arc. On the pedestal of the bronze statue, which my mother placed in her house at Cliveden, are inscribed those words which sum up the life and career of the Maid of Orleans:--

'La grande pitie qu'il y avait au royaume de France.'

Thinking that could my mother have read the following pages she would have approved the feeling which prompted me to write them, I inscribe this little book to her beloved memory.

R.G.

ARCACHON,

November 29.

PREFACE.

The authors whose works I have chiefly used in writing this Life of Joan of Arc, are--first, Quicherat, who was the first to publish at length the Minutes of the two trials concerning the Maid--that of her trial at Rouen in 1430, and of her rehabilitation in 1456, and who unearthed so many chronicles relating to her times; secondly, Wallon, whose Life of Joan of Arc is of all the fullest and most reliable; thirdly, Fabre, who has within the last few years published several most important books respecting the life and death of Joan. Fabre was the first to make a translation in full of the two trials which Quicherat had first published in the original Latin text.

Thinking references at the foot of the page a nuisance to the reader, these have been avoided.

The subjects for the etched illustrations in this volume have been kindly supplied by my friend, Mr. Lee Latrobe Bateman, during a journey we made together to places connected with the story of the heroine.

R.G.

LONDON, January, 1893.

CONTENTS.

PAGE CHAPTER I. THE CALL 1

CHAPTER II. THE DELIVERY OF ORLEANS 39

CHAPTER III. THE CORONATION AT RHEIMS 70

CHAPTER IV. THE CAPTURE 100

CHAPTER V. IMPRISONMENT AND TRIAL 138

CHAPTER VI. MARTYRDOM 242

CHAPTER VII. THE REHABILITATION 253

APPENDIX. I. JOAN OF ARC IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH HISTORY 289

II. JOAN OF ARC IN POETRY 301

FRENCH BIBLIOGRAPHY 311

ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY 320

INDEX 323

List of Illustrations

(SEVEN ETCHINGS, THREE PHOTO-ETCHINGS).

TOUR COUDRAY--CHINON FRONTISPIECE

CHINON To face page 16

STREET IN CHINON " 20

HALL OF AUDIENCE--CHINON " 28

TOUR D'HORLOGE--CHINON " 32

WEST PORTAL--RHEIMS " 80

INTERIOR--RHEIMS " 96

FIFTEENTH-CENTURY HOUSES--COMPIEGNE " 112

TOUR DE LA PUCELLE--COMPIEGNE " 128

ST. OUEN--ROUEN " 224

JOAN OF ARC.

CHAPTER I.

THE CALL.

Never perhaps in modern times had a country sunk so low as France, when, in the year 1420, the treaty of Troyes was signed. Henry V. of England had made himself master of nearly the whole kingdom; and although the treaty only conferred the title of Regent of France on the English sovereign during the lifetime of the imbecile Charles VI., Henry was assured in the near future of the full possession of the French throne, to the exclusion of the Dauphin. Henry received with the daughter of Charles VI. the Duchy of Normandy, besides the places conquered by Edward III. and his famous son; and of fourteen provinces left by Charles V. to his successor only three remained in the power of the French crown. The French Parliament assented to these hard conditions, and but one voice was raised in protest to the dismemberment of France; that solitary voice, a voice crying in a wilderness, was that of Charles the Dauphin--afterwards Charles VII. Henry V. had fondly imagined that by the treaty of Troyes and his marriage with a French princess the war, which had lasted over a century between the two countries, would now cease, and that France would lie for ever at the foot of England. Indeed, up to Henry's death, at the end of August 1422, events seemed to justify such hopes; but after a score of years from Henry's death France had recovered almost the whole of her lost territory.