repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is ec miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. 6. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance, which seems, for a moment, to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them: it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the world. REV. SYDNEY SMITH. LXVII. -THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 1. JOAN OF ARC, surnamed the Maid of Orleans, from her heroic defence of that city, was born about the year 1411, in the little hamlet of Domremy, near the river Meuse, in France, where her house is still preserved as a national relic. Her parents were humble and honest peasants. 2. At that time the kingdom of France was nothing more than a province conquered by the English, who treated the inhabitants with great severity. The young and unfortunate King of France, Charles the Seventh, beheld, day by day, his possessions taken from him, and his people persecuted. 3. The calamitous state of the nation was a subject of great concern, even11 in the little, obscure village where Joän dwelt; and in her prayers she never forgot France and its rightful monarch. It chanced that a prophecy was current that a virgin should rid France of its enemies; and this prophecy seems to have been realized by its effect upon the mind of Joan. 4. Such was her enthusiasm, such her perseverance, that, after many difficulties and rebuffs, she gained access to Charles the Seventh, and induced him to give her the rank of a military commander, and allow her to go to raise the siege of Orle-ans. She assumed a military cos'tume, and, on the 3d of May, 1429 actually entered the besieged city at the head of a convoys of *To "aise a siege" is to cause a besiegir g army to relinquish their attempt to take a city by that mode of attack. provisions and munitions of war, which her panic-stricken ene mies dared not attack. EI 5. A few days later, in an attack on the English intrenchments she rushed, armed only with her standard, towards1 them, seized the first ladder, and planted her colors on the ramparts. An arrow struck her in the shoulder, and she fell to the ground: the English raised a shout of triumph, and the French fell back discouraged. EI 6. Joan, perceiving that victory was about to turn in favor of the enemy, tore, with her own hand, the arrow from her deep wound, sprang from the ground, rallied her soldiers, and penetrated with them into the English intrenchments. EI 7. "Thus," says an historian," that famous siege, which had lasted seven months, during which all the efforts of the chivalry of France had only succeeded in repelling a few assaults, was raised, in a few hours, by the courage of a heroine of seventeen. A week after the arrival of Joan of Arc, the had fled from the walls of the delivered city." enemy 8. Other successes followed this. Wherever Joan presented herself, the enemy fled before her. The fortunes of Charles the Seventh were retrieved. The 14th of July, 1429, having assisted at the ceremony of his coronation, she exclaimed, when it was over, "Now I shall not regret to die! Having liberated her country, she wished to retire to her native village, to "serve her father and mother in keeping their sheep; " but to this the king would not consent. She was prevailed upon to continue her martial career. 9. Scarcely had a year elapsed since the glorious day on which she had delivered Orleans, when the courageous girl, having remained till the very last while the French were retreating from the siege of Compiègne,* saw herself surrounded by a troop of Burgun'dian archers. By parrying their blows, and receding step by step as she fought, she at last succeeded in gaining the foot of the ramparts. One step mcre, and she would have entered the town. * Pronounced Kŏm-pê-an'. 10. But, whether from jealousy, or bad management, or treach ery, those who guarded the entrance into the city closed the gate, the drawbridge was immediately raised, and Joan was a prisoner. She was delivered over to the English by the Burgundian leader, for a sum of money; and the English, ashamed of having been conquered by a young girl, thought to efface the memory of their defeats by accusing her of witchcraft. 11. Joan asserted her innocence of this cruel charge. "Were I condemned," she said, "were I to behold the fire kindled, the wood prepared, the executioner ready to tie me to the stake, were I even in the midst of the flames, I would say only what I have already said, and maintain it until death. I submit with resignation to whatever torments you have to inflict. I know not if I have more to suffer; but my trust is in God." 12. Fearing lest she might be torn by the people from their grasp, her cowardly and ever infamous judges condemned her to death. It was on the 31st of May, 1431,- that is to say, when Joan was verging on her twentieth year, that, on a frivolous and wicked charge of her-esy and witchcraft, she was led to the stake in the old market-place at Rouen. Eight hundred English soldiers escorted her. The magistrate place her on the 13. A stupendous pile had been erected. commanded the executioner to take Joan, and pile. The English soldiers, seeing that she spoke with her confessor, lost all patience, and exclaimed, "Do you intend to make us dine here?" They then seized her themselves, and tied her to the stake, at the same time calling upon the execu tioner to apply his torch from below. He did so, and the flames began to crackle. 14. An intrep'id priest was standing by Joan, and he lingered, offering her religious consolation, as the smoke ascended. Even in that dreadful moment, the hero'ic girl seemed to think more of another's safety than of her own mortal anguish so near. She begged the priest to go down, but to continue "to speak pious words" to her from his station below. 15. The last audible utterance from the lips of Joan was the sacred name of Jesus. The assistants, unable to restrain their tears, exclaimed, "She is innocent! She is truly a Christian!" A secretary of the English monarch, being present, said, weeping, to one of the judges, "You have ruined us; for they are burning a holy creature, whose soul is in the hands of God." lier ashes were scattered to the winds. Her memory is "I said to my little son, who was watching, with tears, a tree he had auted, Let it alone; it will grow while you are sleeping!"" 1. "PLANT it safe, thou little child! Then cease watching and cease weeping: Leave it with a quiet heart, It will grow while thou art sleeping." 2. "But, O father!" says the child, With a troubled face, close creeping, 3. "I have loved my linden so! In each leaf seen future floweret: Lest the canker should devour it. 1. "O, good father!" says the child, And my linden-tree be dead, Where I sit forlorn and pining! 5. Rather let me, evermore Through this winter-time watch keeping, Bear the cold, and storms, and frost, Ay, bear aught but idle sleeping." 6. Sternly said the father, then : 7 "Who art thou, child, vainly grieving? Canst thou send the balmy dews, Or the rich sap interfuse, That one leaf shall burst to leafing ? "Canst thou bid the heavens restrain 8. "Plant it; consecrate with prayers; His large eye all things beholding." 9. If his hope, tear-sown, that child Oft this truth gleams through my prayers, LXIX. THE PETULANT MAN. MR. GRIM MICHAEL COUSIN MARY. Cousin Mary. MORE breezes? What terrible thing has happened now, Cousin Grim? What's the matter? Grim. Matter enough, I should think! I sent this stupid fellow to bring me a pair of boots from the closet; and he has brought me two rights, instead of a right and left. Cousin. What a serious calamity! But perhaps he thought it was but right to leave the left. * See the Exercises under the eighteenth elementary sound, page 38. |