"Or en ce temps avoit une jeune fille au pais de Lorraine, aagee de dix-huict ans ou environ, nommee Janne, natifue d'un paroisse nommee Dompre, fille d'un Laboureur nomme Jacques Tart; qui jamais n'avoit fait autre chose que garder les bestes aux champs, a la quelle, ainsi qu'elle disoit, avoit estè revelè que Dieu vouloit qu'elle allast devers le Roi Charles septiesme, pour luy aider & le conseiller a recouvrer son royaume & ses villes & places que les Anglois avoient conquises en ses pays. La quelle revelation elle n'osa dire à ses pere & mere, pource qu'elle scavoit bien que jamais n'eussent consenty qu'elle y fust allee; & le persuada tant qu'il la mena devers un gentelhomme nomme Messire Robert de Baudricourt, qui pour lors estoit Cappitaine de la ville, on chasteau de Vaucouleur, qui est assez prochain de la: auquel elle pria tres instanment qu'il la fist mener devers le Roy de France, en leur disant qu'il estoit tres necessaire qu'elle parlast a luy pour le bien de son royaume, & que elle luy feroit grand secours & aide a recouvrer son dict royaume, & que Dieu le vouloit ainsi, & que il luy avoit esté revelé par plusieurs fois. Des quelles parolles il ne faisoit que rire & se mocquer & la reputoit incensee: toutesfois elle persevera tant & si longuement qu'il luy bailla un gentelhomme, nommè Ville Robert, & quelque nombre de gens, les quels la menerent devers le Roy que pour lors estoit a Chinon."

Page 3.-Of eighteen years.

This agrees with the account of her age given by Holinshed, who calls her "a young wench of an eighteene years old, of favour was she counted likesome, of person stronglie made and manlie, of courage great, hardie, and stout withall; an understander of counsels though she were not at them, greet semblance of chastitie both of bodie and behaviour, the name of Jesus in hir mouth about all her businesses, humble, obedient, and fasting divers daies in the weeke."

Holinshed, 600. De Serres speaks thus of her: “A young maiden named Joan of Arc, borne in a village upon the Marches of Barre called Domremy, neere to Vaucouleurs, of the age of eighteene or twenty years, issued from base parents, her father was named James of Arc, and her mother Isabel, poore countrie folkes, who had brought her up to keep their cattell. She said with great boldnesse that she had a revelation how to succour the king, how he might be able to chase the English from Orleance, and after that to cause the king to be crowned at Rheims, and to put him fully and wholly in possession of his realme.

"After she had delivered this to her father, mother, and their neighbours, she presumed to go to the lord of Baudricourt, provost of Vaucouleurs; she boldly delivered unto him, after an extraordinary manner, all these great mysteries, as much wished for of all men as

not hoped for: especially comming from the mouth of a poore country maide, whom they might with more reason beleeve to be possessed of some melancholy humour, than divinely inspired; being the instrument of so many excellent remedies, in so desperat a season, after the vaine striving of so great and famous personages. At the first he mocked and reproved her, but having heard her with more patience, and judging by her temperate discourse and modest countenance that she spoke not idely, in the end he resolves to present her to the king for his discharge. So she arrives at Chinon the sixt day of May, attired like a man.

"She had a modest countenance, sweet, civill, and resolute; her discourse was temperate, reasonable and retired, her actions cold, shewing great chastity. Having spoken to the king, or noblemen with whom she was to negociate, she presently retired to her lodging with an old woman that guided her, without vanity, affectation, babling, or courtly lightnesse. These are the manners which the Original attributes to her."

Edward Grimeston, the translator, calls her in the margin," Joane the Virgin, or rather Witch,"

Page 5.—Lest he in wrath confound me.

Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Then said I, Ah, LORD GOD, behold I cannot speak, for I am a child.

But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak.

Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces lest I confound thee before them.

Jeremiah, Chap. 1.

Page 10.-Taught wisdom to mankind!

But as for the mighty man he had the earth, and the honourable man dwelt in it.

Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.

Rush o'er the land and desolate and kill.

Job.

"While the English and French contend for dominion, sovereignty, and life itself, men's goods in France were violently taken by the license of war, churches spoiled, men every where murthered or wounded, others put to death or tortured, matrons ravished, maids forcibly drawn from out their parents' arms to be deflowered; towns daily taken, daily spoyled, daily defaced, the riches of the inhabitants carried whether the conquerors think good; houses and villages round about set on fire, no kind of cruelty is left unpractised

upon the miserable French, omitting many hundred kind of other calamities which all at once oppressed them. Add here unto that the commonwealth, being destitute of the help of laws (which for the most part are mute in times of war and mutiny), floateth up and down without any anchorage at right or justice. Neither was England herself void of these mischiefs, who every day heard the news of her valiant children's funerals, slain in perpetual skirmishes and bickerings, her general wealth continually ebbed and wained, so that the evils seemed almost equal, and the whole western world echoed the groans and sighs of either nation's quarrels, being the common argument of speech and compassion through Christendom."

Speed.

Page 13.-By day I drove my father's flock afield. People found out a nest of miracles in her education, says old Fuller, that so lion-like a spirit should be bred among sheep like David.

Page 17.-Death! to the happy thou art terrible,

But how the wretched love to think of thee,
O thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside!

O Death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions, unto the man that hath nothing to vex him, and that hath pros