The Project Gutenberg EBook of Joan of Arc, by Ronald Sutherland Gower

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Title: Joan of Arc

Author: Ronald Sutherland Gower

Release Date: October 24, 2005 [EBook #16933]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: TOUR COUDRAY--CHINON.]

JOAN OF ARC

BY

LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A.

A TRUSTEE OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS

SEVEN ETCHINGS AND THREE PHOTO-ETCHINGS

LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND
MDCCCXCIII

DEDICATION.

My mother had what the French call a _culte_ for the heroine whose
life I have attempted to write in the following pages.

It was but natural that one who loved and admired all that is good and
beautiful and high-minded should have a strong feeling of admiration
for the memory of Joan of Arc. On the pedestal of the bronze statue,
which my mother placed in her house at Cliveden, are inscribed those
words which sum up the life and career of the Maid of Orleans:--

'_La grande pitie qu'il y avait au royaume de France._'

Thinking that could my mother have read the following pages she would
have approved the feeling which prompted me to write them, I inscribe
this little book to her beloved memory.

R.G.

ARCACHON,

_November 29._

PREFACE.

The authors whose works I have chiefly used in writing this Life of
Joan of Arc, are--first, Quicherat, who was the first to publish at
length the Minutes of the two trials concerning the Maid--that of her
trial at Rouen in 1430, and of her rehabilitation in 1456, and who
unearthed so many chronicles relating to her times; secondly, Wallon,
whose Life of Joan of Arc is of all the fullest and most reliable;
thirdly, Fabre, who has within the last few years published several
most important books respecting the life and death of Joan. Fabre was
the first to make a translation in full of the two t