The Promoter then asked that inquiries might be made into the life and conduct of the Maid and of the manner in which she had undertaken the reconquest of France. The inquiries lasted for several months and brought us the precious depositions-from which we have already largely quoted-of Joan's early friends and her comrades at arms, besides those of many witnesses of the trial, of whom the notary Manchon's are perhaps the most important, regarding as they do the documentary evidence and the traps that were laid to falsify the records of the proceedings.

The final meeting took place, as was fitting, at Rouen, on the 7th of July, 1456. Here the Court assembled in the Hall of the Archbishop's Palace, and the formal sentence of rehabilitation was solemnly read by the Archbishop of Rheims. It concludes as follows:

We say, pronounce, decree, and declare, the said Processes and Sentences full of cozenage, iniquity, inconsequences, and manifest errors, in fact as well as in law. We say that they have been, are, and shall be--as well as the aforesaid Abjuration, their execution, and all that followed-null, non-existent, without value or effect.

Nevertheless, in so far as is necessary, and as reason doth command us, we break them, annihilate them, annul them, and declare them void of effect; and we declare that the said Jeanne and her relatives, plaintiffs in the actual Process, have not, on account of the said trial, contracted nor incurred any mark or stigma of infamy; we declare them quit and purged of all the consequences of these same Processes; we declare them, in so far as is necessary, entirely purged thereof by this present.

We ordain that the execution and solemn publication of our present Sentence shall take place immediately in this city, in two different places, to wit:

To-day, in the Square of Saint-Ouen, after a General Procession and a public Sermon.

To-morrow, at the Old Market-Place, in the same place where the said Jeanne was suffocated by a cruel and horrible fire, also with a General Preaching and with the placing of a handsome cross for the perpetual memory of the Deceased, and for her salvation and that of other deceased persons.

We declare that we reserve to ourselves (the power) later on to execute, publish, and for the honour of her memory to signify with acclaim, our said Sentence in the cities and other well-known places of the kingdom wherever we shall find it well (so to do) under the reserves, finally, of all other formalities which may yet remain to be done.

Thus was the Maid's memory vindicated. In our own generation, the France of to-day, echoing the France of the fifteenth century, has solemnly petitioned for yet greater honour for her deliverer, and the Cause for the Canonisation of the Venerable Joan of Arc, Virgin, is already well advanced in Rome.

In conclusion we must again express our gratitude to Mr. Douglas Murray for his admirable book, which, it must be a pleasure to him to think, will help so many to understand and appreciate more fully the saintly Maiden and her heroic deeds.

M. M. MAXWELL-SCOTT.

THE GARDENS OF ANCIENT ROME,

AND WHAT GREW IN THEM

FROM archæological experiences of the city and Campagna di Roma one may say that, wherever stucco-relief or actual fresco-work comes to light, one finds depicted not only amorini or grotteschi, but, with more or less skill, birds, flowers, garlands of fruit, or sometimes large shrubs, or even tall leafy trees. Now, these representations as a rule are not merely formal leaves and flowers, not conventional foliage, such as we frequently see in Roman or early English architectural work; they are often actually identifiable with this or that species or variety of plants, which was sometimes familiar, sometimes historic, and sometimes positively sacred in the eyes of the ancient population of this city.

What is even more to the point in view, these beautiful objects are depicted with such vivid grace, and they betray, by form or colouring, such skilful observation on the part of the artist, that we may reasonably conclude the people for whom they were painted must at least have delighted in gardens and the things which grew in them; in fact, were a people who loved Nature as their mother, rather more deeply than other sides of their known character would lead us to conjecture.

When we go over an ancient house, whether in Rome or at Pompeii, we are tempted to criticise the narrowness of the windows and the restricted area of their sleeping-rooms, for to us they appear 'poky,' or quite impossible. But perhaps we ought to allow liberally for the fact that the owners passed much more of their lives out of doors than within them; in the sunny streets, in the airy porticoes, in the beautiful gardens; and, therefore, we should not translate these untoward evidences for proof of a dislike of fresh air. It seems more probable that when these artists are found, as at Livia's Villa, representing these realistic leaves, flowers, and trees, instead of other ornaments, they are following, as it were, a line of least resistance, and are expressing some of that constant delight in the open-air life which they led, and in the things of nature which they most loved to observe and have about them.

Again, if we clear for ourselves an imaginary path through the

throng of imported divinities and cults (worshipped by the later Romans with so much sumptuosity, but so little sincerity), and go to the primitive deities adored by the early Latian peoples, we have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that a large proportion of their gods and goddesses may be referred to the 'powers' of the Vegetable world, not, as we should perhaps expect, to the Military spirit. They were gods of the corn, the wine, the fruits and flowers; sylvani, or tree-spirits; Saturn, the sowing god; and Flora, goddess of the flower-world. And there, surely enough, we find (what at first may rather surprise us) Venus to be the garden-goddess (not the fatal temptress Aphrodite, of 'a later dispensation') to whom the myrtle is sacred, and with it the Vallis Murcia-the site of the Circus Maximus. Moreover we find Mars, the early god of Vegetation, the lord of the wheatfields, and having his first temple among them in the Campus Martius, and to whom the first month of the Roman year-the budding month-is sacred. His priests, or dervishes, were called Salii, or leapers; and they had their meeting in chapter-houses on each of the hills of Rome. On the first of the new year they danced, singing their hymns, around the Palatine, and the height which they leaped was regarded as indicative as to the height to which Mars would allow the new grain to grow.

Venus, we find, had a temple dedicated to her in 293 B.C. and yet another in B.C. 265, upon the feast-day of the Vinalia Rustica. Moreover, April was considered to be her month, therefore very respectable authorities have considered that, besides being the goddess of gardens, vineyards also were regarded as being under her prolific surveillance and protection. But in any case she was the divinity to whom the owners of gardens and orchards paid their vows.

And this brings me to the consideration of the word 'hortus.' For in early days it seems to have signified an orchard or a garden indifferently. And perhaps no argument is needed to persuade us, that, with an agricultural people such as the ancient Romans, the garden was for a long period a purely practical adjunct to the residence; the necessary and increasingly important companion to the house which it supplied; and the refuse of which fed the dog and the pig. We may thus at the same time take for certain that this humble position was fulfilled by it long years before it became so matured as to give birth to the separate flower-garden. What flowers, sacred and others, were grown, probably grew as strips in what we should call a kitchen-garden.

The villa, of course, had no being as yet. Pliny states that he finds no mention of a villa in the XII. Tables, nusquam nomi

natur villa,' but only the word 'hortus,' signifying the 'bina jugera,' or two acres inheritable by the heir to the house.

1 H.N. lib. xix. cap. 19.

In those early times of this city, the woodlands, with their dark ilex shadows and gnarled trunks, were not regarded as places of delight and attraction; they were not yet'vocales' or 'venerabiles,' so much as dangerous, black, and oracular, as were our own forests to the medieval mind; they were looked upon with awe and fear, as 'selve oscure,' 'caligantes nigra formidine.' In them you would be likely to meet wild beasts, bandits, or apparitions. But, besides these, there were many strips of woodland, or at any rate preserved portions left over from clearings, which were consecrated to one or other divinity, which might neither be cut nor utilised for 'mast' or fuel, by man or pig, without due and formal act of expiation. Such were the 'nemus' and the 'lucus'-a subject for separate treatment.

So too, in the garden, there came to be cultivated plants which, besides being good for food, were raised for ritual uses, garlands, decorations, and sacrificial fuel, and also, no doubt, for salves and medicines.

The semi-volcanic soil of Rome possesses innate genius for growing good vegetables. For variety of salads, no city in Europe should excel Rome; though it may be thought that the hotel-keepers might, rather oftener than they do, permit their guests to experience these pleasant possibilities. Yet it is certain that, in the early days to which I am referring, the number of fruits and vegetables was strictly limited, as compared with imperial and modern days, when importations from all parts of the then known world continually arrived to enrich both garden and cuisine of the Roman house or villa. It is perhaps impossible now to determine precisely all the strictly indigenous vegetables which the early Romans used-I mean in those days when the meat-meal occurred but once a day, and when libations were made, not yet with wine, but with milk or honey.

Referring to those days of simplicity, Varro says 'avi et atavi nostri, cum allio ac cæpe eorum verba olerent, tamen optime animati erant': i.e., vigorous folks as they were, our forebears flavoured their speech with onion and garlic; and if we turn for a moment to the origins of some of the most aristocratic names in Roman history-the Fabii, the Cæpiones, the Lentuli, and the Pisones-we shall find that they rather corroborate the suggested homeliness of the national beginnings.

It can scarcely be said that if one hears a person addressed as Mr. Bean the fact necessarily impresses us; yet, if in Cæsar's day a Roman had heard one of his neighbours addressed as 'Fabius,' he would have become aware that the person so addressed was a member of the most aristocratic of the clans; albeit in that period the harmless, necessary bean had come to be considered as food only fit for peasants and gladiators. In the Louvre or was it in the Hermitage ?-I once saw a golden crown fashioned of bean-leaves which had been taken from an Italian tomb, and which, doubtless,

had adorned the brows of some once-revered personage, and the thought came from the olden time: Was he, by chance, of the valiant Fabii, one of whom erected a triumphal stone arch on the Sacra Via, three hundred of whom once perished together in the Veientine war?

At the feast of the goddess Carna, in her temple on the Cœlian, used to be offered a mess of beans. Ovid explains this custom by saying that when her cult was instituted the Latin soil produced only beans and spelt. But Macrobius tells us further that beans were looked upon as a great source of vitality: quod his maxime rebus vires corporis roborentur; otherwise, the origin then of our phrase, full of beans.' He says also that the Kalends of June were called Fabariæ because beans were then ripe and were called for in sacrificial rites. Pliny says that in the administration of justice, a black bean signified condemnation, while a white one meant 'not guilty.' The black variety was also much used as a funeral offering to the Lemures, and was laid in tombs. There is no doubt, therefore, that however much it had become despised in Imperial days, in preceding periods the bean had been one of the most important plants of the Roman garden.

But the Fabii were by no means the only illustrious family deriving their name from a garden vegetable. The Capiones owed theirs to capa-an onion; the Lentuli theirs to lens, the lentil; while the Pisones derived theirs from 'pisum,' the pea; moreover, Cicero, the cognomen of Marcus Tullius, like that of Professor Ceci to-day, is from cicer, the chick-pea. In Satire V. 177, Persius tells us that at the feast of Flora vetches, beans, and lupines were scattered broadcast among the populace gathered together in the Circus Maximus. The significance of this was doubtless the same as that intended by the rice, peas, and beans still thrown at weddings in various countries.

The potato was, of course, wanting to the Roman garden, but Cato considered the cabbage (brassica) to be the very king of vegetables, and it is likely that many varieties of the plant were cultivated already in his day. Brassica est quæ omnibus holeribus antistat,3 and he liked it both cooked and raw, dressed with vinegar. The best kind of artichokes (cinara) came from Carthage, whence had been imported the malum Punicum, or pomegranate; and also, apparently, the finest figs. For one recollects the clever use made by the same Cato of a bunch of quite fresh Carthaginian figs, which, being suddenly produced from beneath his toga, were intended to convince his hearers that great Carthage was become too near a commercial rival in the Mediterranean for the security of Rome. Feniculum or fennel, and lactuca, lettuce-both of them, with the Phoenicians, sacred to Adonis-were regarded, as Cato, R. R. 156.

2 Saturnal. i. 123.