et un avant-jeu en vers, et des épodes chantées en musique, dédiée par Jean Barnet à M. le Comte de Salms, Seigneur de Domremy la Pucelle; Nanci, Veuve Sanson, 1581, in quarto.

John Barnet, above named, was not the author of this piece; but only revised and edited the same. It is extremely rare, and Father Niceron attributes it with every semblance of probability to Father Fronton le Duc, a learned Jesuit.

It was performed on the seventh of September, 1580, at Pont-à-Mousson, in presence of Charles III. Duke of Lorraine, who was so gratified with the representation that he ordered a considerable sum to be given to the poet, for the purpose of buying him a new robe, as that which he wore, like the costume of poets in general, smelt somewhat of evangelic poverty. This anecdote appears in a fragment of the manuscripts of Father Oudin inserted in the Memoirs of M. Michault; Paris, 1654, vol. ii. page 277. See also Father Niceron, vol. xxxviii. page 114: Hist. of Jeanne d'Arc, vol. iii. page 296: and the Historical Dictionary.

Jeanne d'Arc, dite la Pucelle d'Orléans, native du village d'Epernay, près Vaucouleurs, en Lorraine, tragédie anonime en cinq actes en vers, sans distinctions de scènes, avec un prologue et des chaurs: Rouen, Raphaël du Petitval, 1603, in 12mo.

The subject matter of this piece is thus represented: Charles VII. groaning under the weight of his misfortunes in presence of the duke of Alençon, the latter seeks to raise his drooping hopes. Jeanne quits her village

and repairs to tender her services to the king, when the Bastard of Orleans, surprised to witness in her so much courage, demands if it is by her personal charms she intends to subdue the enemy; to which interrogatory she replies with becoming modesty and firmness. This adventure is immediately construed into a miracle, and the command of troops is awarded to Jeanne, when she marches to the English, whom she overthrows, gaining a complete victory; she is subsequently made to fall into the hands of her enemies, who, treating her as a sorceress, make her suffer an ignominious death; the supposed representation of which execution concludes the tragedy.

This piece has nothing to recommend it but extreme rarity; the plot and language being alike poor and void of interest. There was another edition at Rouen, in 1611; and a third at Troyes, Nicolas Oudot, 1626, in 8vo.

La Pucelle, tragédie en prose; Paris, 1642, in 12mo. Upon this subject, consult Lenglet's History of Jeanne d'Arc, part iii. page 297. Paul Boyer, in his Universal Dictionary, page 167, attributes this piece to Benserade; but Samuel Chapuzeau, in his account of the French theatres, names, as its author, Hippolite Jule de la Menardiere, an officer of the king's household, of whom some mediocre performances in poetry are handed down to us. The writer of the Theatrical Dictionary places. more reliance on the opinion of Boyer, than that of Chapuzeau.

La Pucelle d'Orléans, autre tragédie en prose, de l'Abbé d'Aubignac (François Hedelin), represented in the same year 1642.

It must be obvious that these productions are of little utility for history; we have only given them insertion, as they are few in number, and to show every species of composition that has been made a vehicle for commemorating the heroine of the Siege of Orleans.

N. B. In the Vatican at Rome is preserved, among the manuscripts of the Queen of Sweden, a dramatic. work, entitled, "Le Mystère du Siége d'Orléans."

Les trois Etats de l'Innocence, par le Sieur de Cérisiers, aumonier du Roi: Paris, Camusat et Lepetit, 1646; Toulouse, 1650, in 8vo.

From the contents of the privilege granted to publish this work, we learn that René de Cerisiers was of the Company of Jesus. In the first part, afflicted innocence appears under the form of Jeanne d'Arc. Abbé Lenglet observes, that this production was a rhapsody of the time, in every respect worthy to be coupled with the article of La Pucelle, inserted by Father Caussin the Jesuit in his Saintly Court. The views of both these writers might have been very praiseworthy, and their compositions received some applause at the time they appeared; but, at the present day, their merit is very much diminished.

La Pucelle d'Orléans, ou la France délivrée; poème héroique de Jean Chapelain, de l'Académie Française, avec

les figures de Bosse; Paris, 1656, in folio, ibid. 1656, in 12mo. and a third edition in 1657.

Chapelain consumed thirty years in composing, or rather promising his work to the public, which at length made its appearance as above; all France had been on the tiptoe of expectation; but the sale of the poem sealed its doom; since it would be difficult to find any thing more intensely stupid than the perusal of this epic; the versification of which is hard in the extreme, and the composition forced and abounding in the most monstrous transpositions. Vid. Brossette in his notes on the works of Despreaux, vol. i. p. 70.

Aurelia, ou Orléans délivré, poème Latin, traduit en Français par M. Roussy; Paris, Merigot, 1738, in

12mo.

This poem, produced in prose, had never any original in Latin verse, as would be inferred from the title; at least from all that I have hitherto been able to ascertain. Vid. Le Journal des Savans, for November, 1738.

Abbé Lenglet speaks concerning this work, like a person who had never inspected it.

Aurelia liberata à Puella vulgo dictâ Jeanne d'Arc.

Dominus mecum quasi

Bellator fortis.

Aurelia, typis Couret de Villeneuve, typographi, Viá Regiá, 1782.

This Latin poem is from the pen of M. Charbuy, pro

fessor of rhetoric, the translation being by one of his former scholars, then professor of the third class. The latter is certainly preferable to the original poem, the Latin of which is obscure, and very unlike the versification of the elegant writers during the Augustan age; it is also interspersed with numerous Gallicisms.

La France sauvée, ou le Siége d'Orléans levé.—Epitre suivie d'une autre, sur le bon usage de la poësie, et d'une ode tirée du pseaume Miserere, par M. Servant, d'Orléans : Orléans, Le Gall, 1772: under the preceding work.

·

L'Amazone Française, poëme nouveau, contenant l'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc, dite La Pucelle d'Orléans, par le Père Néon, dit le Philopole; Orléans, Jacob, 1721, in 4to.

It is difficult to say which predominates most in this work dedicated to the magistrates of Orleans; the bad taste of its author, and his little talent for poetical composition, or the ridicule which characterizes its pages. The author, a regular canon of the congregation of France, then resident at Orleans in the monastery of St. Euverte, was called Father Lejeune, but he thought fit to change his name into Greek, under the signature Néon. This poem contains about twelve hundred verses.

Father Lemoine also celebrated La Pucelle, in his Galérie des Femmes Illustres; and in the Mercure for September, 1776, p. 25, is an Heroide, entitled Jeanne d'Arc à Charles VII.