Paris. It has been
edited by the historians Bachon and Quicherat, and translated from the
Latin into French by Fabre.

The next batch of witnesses' evidence concerns the fighting period of
Joan of Arc's life, and consists principally of the testimony given
by her companions in her different campaigns, and this appears to us
by far the most interesting and curious.

Of those witnesses the first to testify was a prince of the blood,
Joan of Arc's 'beau Duc,' as she loved to call John, Duke of Alencon.
He is thus styled in the original document: '_Illustris ac
potentissimus princeps et dominus_.'

Alencon came of a truly noble line of ancestors, and was descended
also from brave warriors. His great-grandfather fell at Crecy, leading
the vanguard of the French host. His grandfather was the
companion-in-arms of the great Du Guesclin. His father, on the field
of Agincourt, after having wounded the Duke of York and stricken him
to the ground, crossed swords with King Harry, and then, overwhelmed
by numbers, had fallen under a rain of blows.

With Dunois (Bastard of Orleans) Alencon is one of the most prominent
of the French leaders who appear in Shakespeare's play, in the first
part of _Henry VI_. Duke John, like his illustrious forebears, had
also fought and bled for his country. His first campaign was made when
he was but eighteen. Alencon first saw Joan of Arc in 1429. A strong
mutual regard sprang up between the prince and the Maid of Domremy.
Alencon had wedded the daughter of the Duke of Orleans, and it was to
her that the heroine, when she left with the Duke for their expedition
against Paris, promised to bring back her husband in safety.

No one had seen more of Joan of Arc during those days of fighting than
had Alencon, and no one bore a higher testimony than did the Duke to
her purity, her courage, and the sublime simplicity of her character.
It was the Duke of Alencon who was especially struck with the skill
shown by the heroine in warlike matters; particularly in her science
in the management of artillery--ridiculously rude as that branch of
the service appears to us.

'Everybody,' Alencon says, 'was amazed to see that in all that
appertained to warfare she acted with as much knowledge and capacity
as if she had been twenty or thirty years trained in the art of war.'

Next to Alencon's evidence came that of the famous Bastard of Orleans,
the Count de Dunois, one of the most engaging and sympathetic figures