s are curious and quaint in their old French
expressions, but they are quite unreadable for any but French students
well versed in the literature of the fifteenth century.

In 1440, Martin le France, provost of the Cathedral of Lausanne,
bestows some lines on Joan of Arc in his poem called the _Champion des
dames_. In 1487, Martial de Paris published, under the title of
_Vigiles du roi Charles VII._, a rhymed translation of Jean
Chartrier's chronicle of that monarch.

Villon has left some charming lines in which he has placed the
heroine's name as it were on a string of pearls; they occur in his
exquisite ballad 'Dames du temps jadis,' and, as it would be
profanation to try and translate, I give them here in the original:--

'La Reine blanche comme un lys
Qui chantait a voix de sirene,
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allis,
Haremburge qui tint le Maine,
Et Jeanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu' Anglais brulerent a Rouen,
Ou sont-ils, vierge souveraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?'

Long before those beautiful lines were written by Villon, a play
called _Le Mystere du Siege d'Orleans_ had been acted. As early as the
year 1435 this performance appears to have taken place on the
anniversary of the deliverance of the city, and the dramatic piece was
probably acted on the return of that day for many a year after. This
was one of the so-called 'Miracle Plays,' popular both in France and
in England at that period. The author or authors of the play are not
known.

Some one has taken the trouble to count the number of lines: they
amount to 20,529, and are all in dialogue!

Whether the unfortunate audience had to sit all through this
performance one does not know. One hopes, for their sake, that, like a
Chinese play or a Bayreuth performance of Wagner's operas, the
performance was extended over a number of days.

Joan is naturally the heroine throughout; she first appears as the
bearer of the Divine mandate to drive the enemy from off the sacred
soil of France. The play closes with her triumphant return to Orleans
after the victory of Patay. As far as the mission is concerned the
play is historically correct, and it is in this respect an improvement
on Shakespeare and Schiller. There is a point of great interest
concerning this piece which, so far as we know, has never been
noticed--namely, the fact of one of its acts being almost identical
with one in the First Part of _King Henry VI_. In th