The reason, meantime, for my systematic hatred of D’Arc is this.  There was a story current in France before the Revolution, framed to ridicule the pauper aristocracy, who happened to have long pedigrees and short rent rolls, viz., that a head of such a house, dating from the Crusades, was overheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, “Chevalier, as-tu donne au cochon a manger!” Now, it is clearly made out by the surviving evidence, that D’Arc would much have preferred continuing to say—­“Ma fille as-tu donne au cochon a manger?” to saying “Pucelle d’Orleans, as-tu sauve les fleurs-de-lys?” There is an old English copy of verses which argues thus:—­

  “If the man, that turnips cries,
  Cry not when his father dies—­
  Then ’tis plain the man had rather
  Have a turnip than his father.”

I cannot say that the logic of these verses was ever entirely to my satisfaction.  I do not see my way through it as clearly as could be wished.  But I see my way most clearly through D’Arc; and the result is—­that he would greatly have preferred not merely a turnip to his father, but the saving a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of France.

It is probable (as M. Michelet suggests) that the title of Virgin, or Pucelle, had in itself, and apart from the miraculous stones about her, a secret power over the rude soldiery and partisan chiefs of that period; for, in such a person, they saw a representative manifestation of the Virgin Mary, who, in a course of centuries, had grown steadily upon the popular heart.

As to Joanna’s supernatural detection of the Dauphin (Charles VII.) amongst three hundred lords and knights.  I am surprised at the credulity which could ever lend itself to that theatrical juggle.  Who admires more than myself the sublime enthusiasm, the rapturous faith in herself, of this pure creature?  But I admire not stage artifices, which not La Pucelle, but the Court, must have arranged; nor can surrender myself a dupe to a conjuror’s leger-de-main, such as may be seen every day for a shilling.  Southey’s “Joan of Arc” was published in 1796.  Twenty years after, talking with Southey, I was surprised to find him still owning a secret bias in favor of Joan, founded on her detection of the Dauphin.  The story, for the benefit of the reader new to the case, was this:—­La Pucelle was first made known to the Dauphin, and presented to his court, at Chinon:  and here came her first trial.  She was to find out the royal personage amongst the whole ark of clean and unclean creatures.  Failing in this coup d’essai, she would not simply disappoint many a beating heart in the glittering crowd that on different motives yearned for her success, but she would ruin herself—­and, as the oracle within had told her, would ruin France.  Our own sovereign lady Victoria rehearses annually a trial not so severe in degree, but the same in kind.