Ten Girls from History

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TEN GIRLS FROM HISTORY

by

KATE DICKINSON SWEETSER

Author of "Ten Boys from History," "Ten Girls from Dickens," "Boys and Girls from Thackeray," "Boys and Girls from George Eliot."

[Illustration: JOAN OF ARC]

[Illustration]

New York Duffield & Company 1912

Copyright, 1912, by Duffield & Co.

CONTENTS

PAGE

JEANNE D'ARC: THE MAID OF FRANCE 11

VICTORIA: A GIRL QUEEN OF ENGLAND 41

SALLY WISTER: A GIRL OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 69

COFACHIQUI: AN INDIAN PRINCESS OF HISTORIC LEGEND 89

JENNY LIND: THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE 109

ELIZA LUCAS: A GIRL PLANTER OF THE 15TH CENTURY 123

LADY JANE GREY: THE NINE DAYS QUEEN 147

"GENTLE ANNIE": A DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT 181

MADELEINE DE VERCHÈRES: THE HEROINE OF CASTLE DANGEROUS 193

ADRIENNE DE LAFAYETTE: A YOUNG PATRIOT'S WIFE 267

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

JEANNE D'ARC Frontispiece

COFACHIQUI 90

LADY JANE GREY 148

MADELEINE DE VERCHÈRES 194

PREFACE

As in the Ten Boys from History, so in this companion volume, the plan has been to call attention to the lives of girls who achieved some noteworthy success during youth, and in whose character courage was the dominant trait.

Many authorities have been consulted in the re-telling of these stories, and in their presentation more attention has been paid to accuracy of historic fact than to the weaving of interesting romances, in the hope that this volume may be used as an introduction to the more detailed historical documents from which its sketches are taken.

K. D. S.

TEN GIRLS FROM HISTORY

JEANNE D'ARC:

The Maid of France

THE peaceful little French village of Domrémy lies in the valley of the river Meuse, at the south of the duchy of Bar, and there five hundred years ago was born the wonderful "Maid of France," as she was called; she who at an age when other girls were entirely occupied with simple diversions or matters of household importance was dreaming great dreams, planning that vast military campaign which was to enroll her among the idols of the French nation as well as among heroes of history.

On the parish register of an old chapel in the village of her birth can still be seen the record of the baptism of Jeanette or Jeanne d'Arc, on the sixth of January, 1412, and although her father, Jacques d'Arc, was a man of considerable wealth and importance in the small community of Domrémy, yet even so neither he nor any of the nine god-parents of the child--a number befitting her father's social position--could forecast that the child, then being christened, was so to serve her country, her king, and her God, that through her heroic deeds alone the name of Jacques d'Arc and of little Domrémy were to attain a world-wide fame.

At the time of Jeanne's birth the Hundred Years' War between England and France was nearing its end. Victorious England was in possession of practically all of France north of the river Loire, while France, defeated and broken in spirit, had completely lost confidence in her own power of conquest and Charles, the Dauphin, rightful heir to the throne of France, had been obliged to flee for his life to the provinces south of the Loire. This was the result of opposition to his claim on the part of his mother, Isabeau, who had always hated the Dauphin, and who, in her Treaty of Troyes, set aside her son's rights to the throne, and married his sister Catherine to the King of England, thus securing to their children that succession to the throne which was the lawful right of the Dauphin.