Joan of Arc
by Francis Cabot Lowell (1855-1911)
Published 1896 by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
382 pages |
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Boston, New York, And Chicago
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 1896
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Preface
To most persons the life of Joan of Arc is unreal, resembling a picturesque legend rather than truthful his tory. In truth, however, the facts of her real life are known to a somewhat remarkable degree of certainty and in very considerable detail. Pure legends concerning her are, indeed, common enough,--they sprang into existence within a fortnight of her appearance at Charles's court; but their absurdity can be easily detected, not merely by their extravagant improbability, but because they are inconsistent with well-known facts.
The life of Joan of Arc affords a striking illustration of two important his- torical principles: first, that legends require the shortest possible time for their luxuriant growth,--a contempora neous account being often little less legendary than an account separated from the event by a considerable lapse of time; and second, that the wildest and most improbable legends may exist beside the most definite and well-ascertained historical facts. The popular impression concerning Joan and the existence of these numerous legends have caused me in this book to cite authorities more frequently and more fully than I should otherwise have done. In the management of proper names I may not hope to have succeeded better than other authors who have written of the history of one country in the language of another.
In this matter it is hard to formulate a principle, and impossible to live up to it when formulated without falling into absurdity. For instance, I find it impossible to write of the great ally of the English except as "Philip, duke of Burgundy;" and, if I am to do so, I do not see how I can write of Joan's father as "Jacques d'Arc," or of the favorite of Charles VII. as "Georges de la Trémoille." In the fifteenth century, the particle "de" in "de Bourgogne," "d'Arc," and "de la Trémoille" meant, so far as I can perceive, the same thing. I acknowledge, however, that "James of Arc" is an awkward locution, and in the notes, at any rate, I have sometimes left a French name untranslated. In December, 1895, I delivered at the Lowell Institute four lectures on Joan of Arc, and in preparing them I made free use of the manuscript of this book, copying sentences and pages into the lectures where I thought such use of my material advisable. The invitation to de liver the lectures, however, was given after the book was substantially finished. January 18, 1896.
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Overview
