Octave Thanet

“ Whereupon Cochon fared gaily to Warwick and said to him in English, "You can dine now with a good appetite. We have caught her at last." On the 30th of May, 1431,—the next day but one,—Joan of Arc met her dreadful fate. She died with a patience and constancy—the first natural recoil past—that affected even her judges and made an indelible impression on the weeping spectators. And not only on the spectators: the imagination of France has never been more deeply stirred. Twenty years later, the French clergy, after a solemn trial, rehabilitated the memory of Joan. ”

“ No one can read the most direct accounts without suspecting that Joan had a long head. She knew nothing of the technique of war which, it is to be remembered, was simpler far in those days than these, but she intuitively seized upon the wisest plan of campaign, possibly because it was the most daring. Her personal courage is as well established as anything can be. Lord Ronald loves to dwell on it. ”

“ It is no reproach to Lord Ronald that he has told the story of the heroine whom his mother loved ("my mother," he says, "had what the French call a culte" for Joan of Arc) rather as the affectionate admirer than the cold-blooded critic. There are times, indeed, when the judicial spirit looks ungraceful, especially in a young man. ”

“ Lee Latrobe Bateman, who made the sketches from the spot during a pious journey which Lord Ronald and he made together to the scenes of Joan's life. It is seldom, I may add, that one leaves a work of history with a feeling of more confidence in the research, judgment, and conscientious fidelity of the historian. ”

“ Besides this, they had some two to three hundred francs kept safe for use in case of emergency, and the furniture, goods, and chattels of their modest home. "All told, the fortune of the family of Joan attained an annual income of about two hundred pounds of our money." A thousand dollars a year needs doubling, if not trebling, to reduce it to our standard; and Lord Ronald very sensibly remarks that it was "a not inconsiderable revenue at that time; and with it they were enabled to raise a family in comfort, and to give alms and hospitality to the poor." ”

“ Through his very straightforwardness and idiomatic energy, the author often grows truly impressive and pathetic; while we never lose our faith in his truthfulness or his common sense. He has graphically rendered Jeanne's lovable qualities—those qualities that saints and martyrs, alas I do not inevitably possess. ”