other scenes in the same mystery, this lengthy work
would appear to be all of a piece.

It was apparently compiled during the reign of Louis XI, by a citizen
of Orleans who was a fair master of his subject. It would be
interesting to make a more detailed study of his authorities than has
been done hitherto. This poet seems to have known a _Journal du siege_
very different from the one we possess.

Was his mystery acted during the last thirty years of the century at
the festival instituted to commemorate the taking of Les Tourelles?
The subject, the style, and the spirit are all in harmony with such an
occasion. But it is curious that a poem composed to celebrate the
deliverance of Orleans on May 8 should assign that deliverance to May
9. And yet this is what the author of the mystery does when he puts
the following lines into the mouth of the Maid:

"Remember how Orleans was delivered in the year one thousand
four hundred and twenty-nine, and forget not also that of
May it was the ninth day."[31]

[Footnote 31:

... Ayez en souvenance....
Comment Orleans eult delivrance....
L'an mil iiijc xxix;
Faites en memoire tous dis;
Des jours de may ce fut le neuf.

_Mistere du siege_, lines 14375-14381, p. 559.]

Such are the chief chroniclers on the French side who have written of
the Maid. Others who came later or who have only dealt with certain
episodes in her life, need not be quoted here; their testimony will be
best examined when we come to that of the facts in detail. Placing on
one side any information to be obtained from _La Chronique de
l'etablissement de la fete_,[32] from _La Relation_[33] of the Clerk
of La Rochelle and other contemporary documents, we are now in a
position to realise that if we depended on the French chroniclers for
our knowledge of Jeanne d'Arc we should know just as much about her as
we know of Sakya Muni.

[Footnote 32: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 285 _et seq._]

[Footnote 33: _Relation inedite sur Jeanne d'Arc, extraite du livre
noir de l'hotel de ville de La Rochelle_, ed. J. Quicherat, Orleans,
1879, 8vo, and _La Revue Historique_, vol. iv, 1877, pp. 329-344.]

We shall certainly not find her explained by the Burgundian
chroniclers. They, however, furnish certain useful information. The
earliest of these Burgundian chroniclers is a clerk of Picardy, the
author of an anonymous chronicle, called _La Chronique des
Cordeliers_,[34] because the only copy