The Maid of France - 1913 Author:Andrew Lang JEANNE D'ARC, during her nineteen years of life, was a cause of contention among her own countrymen, and her memory divides them to the present day. In her life she was of course detested as a witch and heretic by the French of the Burgundian faction. After her death, her memory was distasteful to all writers who disbelieved in her supernormal f... more »aculties, and in her inspiration. She had no business to possess faculties for which science could not account, and which common sense could not accept today, the quarrel over her character and career is especially bitter. If the Church canonizes her, the Church is said, by the "Anticlericals," to "confiscate" her, and to stultify itself. Her courage and her goodness of heart are denied by no man, but, as a set-off against the praises of the " clericals," and even of historians far from orthodox, her genius is denied, or is minimized; she is represented as a martyr, a heroine, a puzzle-pated hallucinated lass, a perplexed wanderer in a realm of dreams; the unconscious tool of fraudulent priests, herself once doubtfully honest, apt to tell great palpable myths to her; own glorification, never a leader in war, but only a kind of mascotte, a " little saint," and a beguine-in brecches! The historical chronicles concerning the Maid date from 1430 to 1470: some are by friendly French, some by hostile Burgundian hands. Their evidence needs to be studied critically, with an eye on the probable sources of information of each chronicler. The mystery play, Mistere du Siege d'0rleans is a late poetical chronicle (arc. 1470?). A few facts may be gleaned from works even later than 1470, when the writer's sources of information are mentioned and seem to be good.« less