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NOTE.

Concerning the Article on the Order of the
Garter, &c., in No. CXXXVI.

that a joint Convention has been very recently signed by Austria, England, France, Prussia, and Russia, by which each power agrees-in furtherance of the suppression of the slave-trade-to grant to the cruisers of the other powers warrants to search-We have received various letters com. in certain specified cases-and, if slaves plaining of omissions in our account of be found, to send in for adjudication ships the actual representatives of our old bearing its national flag. This great step royal families, in an article of last Number. -the greatest, we believe, yet made to. We did not profess to name all the exist wards the suppression of the slave-trade ing representatives of every branch, but on the seas, does infinite honour to all only the chief representative-the per the contracting parties, and will, we are son to whom, were the succession to confident, be received with such satisfac- open to that branch, the royal inheritance tion throughout Europe as to silence the would go. Thus, in the case of the petty and interested cavils of a party in Prince of Modena: he was mentioned as France, which-from the triple motive of the head of that particular line of the opposition to M. Guizot, hatred of Eng- House of Savoy in which the blood of land, and zeal for the slave-trade-has Charles I. survives. We did not enubeen very angry at the prospect of this merate more than the two other persons happy arrangement. With Brazil, Den- next included in that line: the Duchess mark, Holland, Naples, Portugal, Sardinia, of Angoulême, her husband. and the Spain, and Sweden, we had already similar children of the late Duke of Berri, are conventions; and thus there is an unani- farther off in that line of Savoy, and theremous concurrence in this great principle fore they, with others, were omitted. of, we may say, the whole civilized world King Louis Philippe comes after them, as -except America; and we cannot be a descendant from the Stuart family; but live that she will-long consent to exclude he was mentioned because he represents herself from so honourable an alliance. another line of that blood, namely, the But whether it is to be done by con- blood of James I. In like manner, when vention, or some special application of the a princess of ancient date had been margeneral principles before stated-we can- ried more than once, we seldom mentioned not bring ourselves to doubt that this more as to her than the representative of question may be easily, and will be speedi- her first marriage. Thus we did not ly arranged. mention Sir A. Edmonstone, of Duntreath, though this Baronet undoubtedly springs from the second marriage of a Scottish princess; and his house have, ever since the time of King Robert II., borne the double tressure on their shield, in token of that high connection.

We conclude with repeating the expression of our anxious but respectful hope we might say our conviction-that, taking them altogether, the points of difference existing between England and America are so inconsiderable, compared with the vast importance of the common interests which should unite them, that the wise and honest statesmen who now principally influence the foreign relations of the two countries will be enabled to bring all those differences to an early, honourable, and final close, and to give to that community of interests such additional cordiality and confidence as may make our two countries in feeling-what, as compared with the rest of mankind, we really are-independent but friendly branches of one great family. '

After these illustrations we need not explain why we did not state that Lord Stourton descends from Thomas de Brotherton through the Howards;' or that the Duke of Rutland comes from Anne Plantagenet, as well as Lord de Ros. In both cases the prime royalty of the blood has been dissevered from the male representation of the great families that were honoured with the royal alli

ance.

THE

LONDON QUARTERLY
QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. CXXXVIII.

FOR MARCH, 1842.

ART. I.-1. Collection des Chroniques Na-
tionales Françaises. Par M. Buchon.
36 vols. Paris, 1826.
2. Collection Complète des Mémoires relatifs
à l'Histoire de France. Par M. Petitot.
Première Série, 52 vols. Seconde Série,
par MM. Petitot et Monmerqué, 78 vols.
Paris, 1819-1829.
3. Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l' His
toire de France. Par M. Guizot. 30 vols.
Paris, 1823-1835.

to their modern memoirs. These have been printed in regular succession, and in one uniform and convenient size, affording to the public a clear and excellent type, combined with a moderate price. We do not pretend to have read at any time all or nearly all the two hundred volumes which our title-page displays. Some of their contents also were known to us from former and separate publications; but so far as our reading in this edition has extended, we have found the bio4. Archives Curieuses de l'Histoire de graphical introductions clear, critical, and France. Première Série, 15 vols. Se-able, and the text, while not overlaid, sufficonde Série, 12 vols. Paris, 1834-1841. 5. Procès de Jeanne d'Arc. Par Jules Quicherat. Premier tome. Paris, 1841.

ciently explained with notes. We think very great praise is due to the various editors, MM. Buchon, Petitot, Monmerque, and last, not least, that eminent statesman who now presides over the councils of his country. And we heartily commend these volumes to the purchase and perusal of all who value French history-to the emulation of all who value our own.

If we compare the progress of historical publications in France and England during the last twenty or thirty years we shall find but little ground for self-gratulation. Our Record Commission comprised most able men: it was animated by the best inten- To review in a few pages several hundred tions; but in its results it has brought forth volumes and several hundred years would be only misshapen and abortive works-alla vain and frivolous attempt. We shall prebegun apparently without rule or method-fer to single out some one period and some scarce any yet completed, and scarce any de- one subject, which we shall endeavour to ilserving to be so-all of different forms and lustrate, not only from the publications now sizes and alike only in the enormous before us, but from whatever other sources amount of the expense incurred, and the al- may supply. Let us take one of the most most utter worthlessness of the information remarkable characters in ancient or modern afforded. Never before, according to the times, Joan of Arc, the maid of Orleans. farmer's phrase, was there so much cry and The eighth volume of M. Petitot's Collecso much cost with so little wool. Amongst tion' contains many ancient documents referthe French, on the contrary, there have been ring to her history,-an original letter, for -without the need of government grants or example, from the Sire de Laval to his government commissions-some well-com- mother, describing her appearance at Court bined undertakings to collect, arrange, and publish the most valuable documents in their language, from their early chronicles down

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and some memoirs written, beyond all doubt, by a contemporary, since the writer refers to information which he received from

the chiefs at the siege of Orleans; nay, wayfarer whom chance might lead to her vilwritten probably, as M. Petitot conjectures lage. An ardent piety, however, soon made from their abrupt termination, in the very her an object of remark, aud perhaps of ridiyear of that siege. cule. She was sometimes seen to kneel and But these are by no means the only nor pray alone in the fields. She took no pleathe most important documents to be consulted. sure in the pastimes of her young companions; It is well known that at the trial in 1431, but as soon as her daily work was over she Joan was herself examined at great length, would rush to the church, and throw herself together with many other witnesses. A new prostrate with clasped hands before the altar, trial of revision,' with the view to clear her directing her devotions especially to the Virgin memory from the stain of the first, was un- and to Saints Catherine and Margaret, in dertaken by order of King Charles in 1456; whose name that church was dedicated. The and at this second trial several of her kins- sacristan declares in his depositions at the men, of her attendants, of her companions in trial that she was wont to rebuke him whenarms, appeared to give their testimony. ever he neglected to ring the bells for the vilNow, manuscript copies of all these remark- lage service, and to promise him a reward if able depositions exist in the public libraries, he would for the future do his duty better. both of Paris and Geneva. They have been Every Saturday, and sometimes oftener, she illustrated by MM. de Laverdy and Lebrun went in pilgrimage to a small chapel, dedicatde Charmettes, and more recently by the ed to the Virgin, at a little distance from the superior skill of De Barante and Sismondi.* village. Another spot to which Joan often reOf these last we shall especially avail our paired was a venerable beech, which spread selves; and by combining and comparing its ancient boughs on the confines of the such original records, many of them descend- neighbouring forest of Bois Chenu. At its ing to the most familiar details, and nearly foot ran a clear streamlet, to whose waters all unknown till more recent times, we hope healing powers were ascribed. to make the English reader, at least, better the popular name of 'L'Arbre des Dames,' acquainted than he may hitherto have been or 'L'Arbre des Fées,' and, according to Joan with the real character and history of the he- herself at her trial, several grey-headed crones roine. in the village, and amongst the rest her godJoan was the child of Jacques d' Arc, and mother, pretended to have heard with their own of Isabeau Romée his wife, poor villagers of ears fairies discoursing beneath the mysterious Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine. She shade. But for that very reason the tree was had one sister, who appears to have died in hallowed by Catholic worship, as such spots childhood, and three brothers. When asked have ever been, in the dark ages with the at her trial what had been her age on first view to drive out the evil spirits, in less creducoming to King Charles's Court, she an-lous times to dispel the superstition from the swered, nineteen. The good rule of making public mind. Once every year, the priest of a large addition to a lady's own declaration Domremy, at the head of the elders of the vilof her years does not appear needful in this lage, walked round the tree in solemn procescase: her own declaration was also confirm- sion, chaunting psalms and prayers, while the ed by other witnesses; and we may without young people were wont to hang garlands on hesitation fix her birth in 1410 or 1411.f the boughs, and to dance beneath them until Her education was such as a peasant-girl re-night with lighter minstrelsy,

The tree bore

' or legend old, Or song heroically bold.'

ceived at that time; she was not taught to read or to write, but she could spin and sew and repeat her Pater-Noster and her AveMaria. From her early childhood she was sent forth to tend her father's flocks or The times in which the lot of Joan was herds on the hills. Far from giving signs cast were such as to turn an ardent spirit of any extraordinary hardihood or heroism, she towards things of earth as well as towards was so bashful as to be put out of counte- things of heaven. Her young heart beat nance whenever spoken to by a stranger. high with enthusiasm for her native France, She was known to her neighbours only as a now beset and beleaguered by the islandsimple-minded and kind-hearted girl, always strangers. Her young fancy loved to dwell ready to nurse the sick, or to relieve any poor on those distant battles, the din of which

De Barante, Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne, vol. v., pp. 270-360, and vol. vi., pp. 1-140; Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xiii., pp. 115-194. +Yet Pasquier (perhaps from a misprint in his book) has altered nineteen to twenty-nine, and this

error has misled both Hume and Rapin.

might scarcely reach her quiet village, but each apparently hastening the ruin of her father-land. We can picture to ourselves how earnestly the destined heroine-the fu ture leader of armies-might question those chance travellers whom, as we are told, she

château, a town safe from aggression, as belonging to the Duke of Lorraine, where she remained, as she tells us, during fifteen days,* and where she probably may have wrought for her living; and such is the only foundation for the story given by Monstrelet, a chronicler of the Burgundian faction, and adopted by Hume and other later historians, that Joan had been for several years a servant at an inn.

The fiery spirit of Joan, wrought upon by the twofold impulse of religious and political enthusiasm, was not slow in teeming with vivid dreams and ardent aspirations: ere long these grew in intensity, and she began to fancy that she saw the visions and heard the voices of her guardian saints calling on her to re-establish the throne of France, and expel the foreign invaders. It is probable that

delighted to relieve, and for whose use she would often resign her own chamber, as to each fresh report from the changeful scene of war. She was ten years of age when the ignominious treaty of Troyes, signed by a monarch of diseased intellect, yielded the succession to the English. She was twelve years of age when that unhappy monarch (Charles VI.) expired, when the infant King of England was proclaimed King of France at Paris, at Rouen, and at Bordeaux, when the rightful heir, the Dauphin (but few as yet would term him Charles VII.), could only hold his little Court in the provinces beyond the Loire. In 1423 came the news of the defeat of Crevant; in 1424 the flower of French and Scottish chivalry fell at Verneuil; in 1425 La Hire and his brave companions were driven from Champagne, A brief respite was indeed afforded to Charles a constitution which, though robust and harby the recall of the Regent Duke of Bedford to quell the factions at home, and by some difference which arose between him and his powerful kinsman and ally the Duke of Burgundy. But all these feuds were now composed, and Bedford had returned, eager to carry the war beyond the Loire, and to crush the last hopes of the Armagnacs,' as Charles's adherents were termed, from the prevailing party at his Court. Had Bedford succeeded-had the diadems of France and England been permanently united on the same head-it is hard to say which of the two nations would have had the greater reason for regret.

Remote as was the situation of Domremy, it could not wholly escape the strife or the sufferings of those evil times. All the people of that village, with only one exception, were zealous Armagnacs; some of their neighbours, on the contrary, were no less zealous Burgundians. So strong was Joan of Arc's attachment to the King, that, according to her own avowal, she used to wish for the death of his one disloyal subject at Domremy. When Charles's lieutenants had been driven from Champagne, the fathers of her village had of course like the rest bowed their heads beneath the Burgundian yoke, but the children retained their little animosities, and the boys were wont to assemble and sally forth in a body to fight the tiny Burgundians of the adjoining village of Maxey. Joan says at her trial that she had often seen her brothers returning bruised and bloody from these mimic wars.

On one occasion a more serious inroad of a party of Burgundian cavalry compelled the villagers of Domremy to take to flight with their families and flocks, and await elsewhere the passing of the storm. Joan and her parents sought shelter at an hostelry in Neuf

dy, was in some points imperfect, may have contributed in no small degree to the phantoms and illusions of her brain. She said on her trial that she was thirteen years of age when these apparitions began. The first, according to her own account, took place in her father's garden, and at the hour of noon, when she suddenly saw a brilliant light shining in her eyes, and heard an unknown voice, bidding her to continue a good girl, and promising that God would bless her, The second apparition, some time afterwards, when she was alone, tending her flock in the fields, had become much more defined to her view, and precise in its injunctions; some majestic forms floated before her; some mysterious words reached her ears, of France to be delivered by her aid.‡ Gradually these forms resolved themselves into those of St. Catherine and St. Margaret, while the third, from whom the voice seemed to come, and who looked, as she says, 'un vray preud'homme,' announced himself to her as Michael the Archangel. I saw him,' she said to her

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+ Sexûs sui infirmitates semper usque ad mortem adfuisse constat. (Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xiii., p. 117.)

It is plain, however, that Joan, in the account she gave at her trial of this second apparition, unconsciously transferred to it some circumstances that, according to her own view of the case, must have been of several years' later date. A promise 'de faire lever le siège d'Orleans' could not be given until after the siege had begun, which it was not until October, 1428. Now, her second vision, as she

states it, must have been about 1424. (Collection, vol. viii., p. 238.)

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judges, with these eyes, as plainly as I see to proceed into France. Honest Jacques you now.' In another part of her trial, when and Isabeau felt no other fear than that their again questioned on the same subject, she daughter's ardent imagination might be answered Yes; I do believe firmly, as practised upon by some men-at-arms, and she firmly as I believe in the Christian faith, induced to go forth from home, and follow and that God has redeemed us from the pains them to the wars. Did I think such a of hell, that those voices came from Him, and thing would be,' said her father to one of his by His command.' Her own sincerity and sons, '1 would sooner that you drowned her; strength of belief are indeed beyond doubt and if you did not, I would with my own or cavil; it was this feeling alone that could hands!" animate her to such lofty deeds, or support her in such a death.

It is alleged by Joan herself that she was struck with affright at the first of these visions ('eut moult paour de ce'), but that the following ones filled her with ecstacy and rapture. When the Saints were disappearing, I used to weep and beseech I might be borne away with them, and after they had disappeared I used to kiss the earth on which they had rested.' Sometimes she spoke of her celestial monitors as 'mes Voix,' and sometimes gave them the reverential title of Messire;' and, in gratitude for such signs, of heavenly favour, she vowed to herself that she would consecrate her maiden state to God.

The impulse given by her visions, and the restraints imposed by her sex and station, might long have struggled for mastery in the mind of Joan, had not the former been quickened and brought into action by a crisis in political affairs. The Duke of Bedford having returned to France and mustered large reinforcements from Burgundy, sent forth a mighty army against Charles. Its command he intrusted to the valiant Earl of Salisbury, under whom fought Sir John Talbot, Sir John Fastolf, Sir William Gladsdale, captains of high renown. Salisbury, having first reduced Rambouillet, Pithiviers, Jargeau, Sully, and other small towns, which yielded with slight or no resistance, proceedMeanwhile, however, she was growing ed to the main object of his enterprise, the up in comeliness and beauty, and found favour siege of Orleans-a city commanding the in the sight of an honest yeoman, who sought passage of the Loire and the entrance into her in marriage, and whose suit was warm- the southern provinces, and the most imporly pressed by her parents. Joan steadily re- tant, both from its size and its situation, of fused. The rustic lover, having soon exhaust- any that the French yet retained. Here, ed his scanty stock of rhetoric, had recourse then, it was felt on all sides, must the last to a singular expedient: he pretended that struggle for the French monarchy be made. she had made him a promise of marriage, Orleans once subdued, the troops of Bedford and cited her before the official at Toul to might freely spread over the open country compel her to perform her engagement. beyond the Loire, and the Court of Charles The Maid went herself to Toul and under-must seek shelter in the mountains of took her own defence, when having declared Auvergne or of Dauphiné. To this scene, on oath that she had never made any such then, the eyes not only of France and of promise, the official gave sentence in her England, but of all Europe, were turned; favour. on this ground, as on the 'champ clos' of ancient knights and paladins, had been narrowed the conflict for sovereignty on the one side, for independence on the other.

Her parents, displeased at her stubborn refusal, and unable to comprehend-nor did she dare to reveal to them-her motives, held her, as she says, 'en grant subjection.' It was in the month of October, 1428, that They were also much alarmed at the strange Orleans was first invested by the Earl of hints which she had let fall to others on the Salisbury. But his design had been previ mission which she believed had been entrust-ously foreseen, and every exertion made both ed to her from on high. Several of these by the French King and by the inhabitants hints are recorded by the persons to whom themselves to provide for a long and resolute they were addressed, the witnesses in the trial of 1456. She said to that inhabitant of Domremy whose death she had desired to see because he did not favour the Dauphin, 'Gossip, if you were not a Burgundian, I could tell you something. To another neighbour she exclaimed, There is now between Colombey and Vaucouleurs a maid who will cause the King of France to be crowned!' She frequently said that it was needful for her

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defence. A brave officer, the Sire de Gaucourt, had been appointed Governor, and two of the principal captains of that age, Pothon de Xaintrailles, and Dunois, a bastard of the

* On n'appellait alors France que les provinces qui formaient le domaine de la Couronne. Les autres provinces étaient désignées collectivement sous le nom de Royaume de France.' (Supplément aux Mémoires de Jeanne d'Arc, Collection, vol. viii., p. 240.)

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