who had been deputed to negotiate respecting the ransom of their companions. The English, therefore, fearful lest she should execute this threat, immediately liberated her herald, making him the bearer of a thousand terms of disdain, menace, and indignation."

Page 65. Because those of Orleans testified so great a wish to behold her, that they almost broke down the gates of the hotel wherein she was lodged, &c.

"The Pucelle, in order to show herself to the people, who burned with desire and impatience to give her the most satisfactory proofs of their joy and their affection, accompanied by many of the leading and most qualified personages, proceeded on horseback through the city. At the noise of her coming forth, and this review, so great a multitude got together from all quarters, that many of the crowd were well nigh suffocated. All the workmen quitted their instruments and their toils, preferring the honour and the content of beholding her, to the necessity of their own occupatious. Each admired her comely appearance, her winning grace, her action and general demeanour. Nor was there truly any thing about her, but denoted a girl of illustrious birth; her soul being so well regulated, and her mind so truly exalted. But that which, above all, caused her to be looked upon and extolled, was, her noble carriage on horseback, in which estate she supported the helmet, the shield, and the cuirass, with so much grace and address, that it might be said, she had never done any other thing from her

infancy, and that her heart had been always addicted to arms, encounters, and battles."-Dubreton, p. 169, &c.

And unto all it appeared a great marvel, how she could hold herself, as she did, with such gentility on horseback, &c.

This description of our heroine is strictly correct; for by referring to Monstrelet, we find that Jeanne d' Arc "montait chevaux à poil, et fesait apertises qu'autres filles n'ont point coutume de faire."

Jeanne's expertness in wielding the lance is proved by an ocular witness, according to the statement of Philippe, and the duke of Alençon indirectly confirms the same: "For no sooner had he learned the arrival of Jeanne at Chinon, than he forthwith repaired to St. Florent, and on the following day beheld her pass, une lance à la main, qu'elle portait et faisait mouvoir avec beaucoup de grace; et alors il lui fit don d'un beau cheval: bearing a lance in her hand, which she carried and wielded with much grace; and then he made her a present of a fine horse."

Page 66. Where she heard the vespers.

Jeanne, from this epoch, directed nearly all the attacks which were made; and early on the morning of the ensuing day, awaking suddenly from her sleep, with a start, she forthwith summoned Daulon, exclaiming, to use her own words, as handed down to us by the historians of her time: "En nom de Dieu, mon conseil m'a dit que je vaisse

contre les Anglais; où sont ceux qui me doivent armer? Car le sang de nos gens coule "In the name of par terre." God, my counsel has told me, that I should go against the English; where are those that should arm me? For the blood of our people flows on the ground."

Page 69. And immediately on coming up commenced such

an assault upon the boulevard and the bastille near that spot, and fortified by the English, on the ground where lately stood the church of the Augustines, that they took the same by force, &c.

In speaking of the capture of this boulevard, without having recourse to any of the marvellous statements of Jeanne's historians, who conceived that she would acquire more reputation if held forth in the light of an inspired woman, than an intrepid warrior; we find, according to the narrative handed down by the Bastard Dunois: “Et Joanna posuit se super bordum fossati, et instante, ibi ipsâ existente, Anglici tremuerunt et effecti sunt pavidi; armati verò regis resumpserunt animum et ceperunt ascendere .. Bollevardum fuit captum," &c.— Laverdy, pp. 361, 362.

Page 71.

And their Tournelles and their boulevards will be taken, &c.

The innate love for war that animated Jeanne d'Arc is testified in history, where it is recorded, that in preparing for a coup de guerre, and when the soldiers were ranged in order for battle, the Pucelle by her harangues knew how to inspire and invigorate their spirits

:

for action; and that, whensoever the cry was TO ARMS, "elle étoit la première et la plus diligente, fut à pied ou à cheval that she was the foremost and the most active, whether on foot or on horseback." In addition to which, a contemporary historian, speaking of her equestrian prowess, asserts: "A principio ætatis suæ . . . . . pascendo pecora sæpius cursum exercebat ; et modo huc atque illuc illi frequens cursus erat; et aliquando currendo hastam ut fortis eques manu capiebat et arborum truncos. percutiebat," &c.- Phillipe de Bergame, in Hordal, p. 40, who, according to Moreri, under the head Foresti, was born in 1434.

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Page 73. And many other knights, bannerets, and English noblemen, were drowned.

It is a curious fact, that in confirmation of this circumstance, when the new bridge was building at Orleans, a number of helmets, breast-plates, &c. were dragged up from the bed of the river at this very spot.

And truly was there wrought a miracle of our Lord, performed at the request of Saint Aignan and Saint Euverte, &c.

After Jeanne and the Bastard had taken the bastille, Dubreton, at page 203, gives the following marvellous narrative. "This great victory was signalized by a still more wonderful miracle; which was, that two young men, armed in a different manner from the other combatants, perfectly beautiful and well-grown, were seen in the air upon two white horses; and that the cries of a great army, accompanied by the clangour of trumpets,

were heard during the hottest period of the battle. It was commonly believed, that these two young men were Saints Aignan and Euverte, whom the inhabitants of Orleans firmly believe their patrons, and their tutelar divinities in all mischances that may chance to threaten them."

Superstition, which might very justly be termed an epidemic disorder among the people at that period, was fully called into action upon the subject of Jeanne d'Arc's exploits; and a few instances will be sufficient to demonstrate how far this weakness predominated, even with writers and studious personages, whose pursuits were calculated to dispel such chimeras from the brain. In the history of the Abbey of Saint Dennis, which was translated by Le Laboureur, in a chapter where he treats of an eclipse of the sun, he seriously remarks that-" The astrologers, judging from a natural science of effects from causes, prognosticated that extraordinary accidents would ensue, and which happened accordingly."-Laboureur, p. 548.

From Juvenal des Ursins, archbishop of Rheims, we learn "that sometimes the image of a certain saint had suddenly turned its back upon a soldier who sought to purloin the same, and who, in consequence, lost his wits, while the rest of his comrades turned devotees," - (page 50.) ***** Sometimes priests, by means of invocations, raised the devil; and such was the confidence placed in them, that the council of Charles VI. enacted, that they should offer up their prayers in order to effect the king's recovery. (Page 192.) − (Page 192.) ***** In another place, the

thunder entered the hotel of the

dauphin, killed a child,

and wounded others; in which strain he continues,