Most of our historians, lovers of the so-called embellishments of history rather than of truth, say that Joan went fearlessly to the torture; but as the chronicles of the times bear witness, and as the historian Villaret admits, she received her sentence with cries and tears; a weakness pardonable in her sex, and perhaps in ours, and very compatible with the courage which this girl had displayed amid the dangers of war; for one can be fearless in battle, and sensitive on the scaffold.

I must add that many persons have believed without any examination that the Maid of Orleans was not burned at Rouen at all, although we have the official report of her execution. They have been deceived by the account we still have of an adventuress who took the name of the "Maid," deceived Joan of Arc's brothers, and under cover of this imposture, married in Lorraine a nobleman of the house of Armoise. There were two other rogues who also passed themselves off as the "Maid of Orleans." All three claimed that Joan was not burned at all, and that another woman had been substituted for her. Such stories can be admitted only by those who want to be deceived.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Beuchot says: There was at that time in France an Inquisitor-General, named Brother Jean or Jacques le Graverend. His vice-inquisitor or vicar, who took part in Joan's trial, was not called Brother Martin, but Brother Jean Magistri or the Master.

[9] This is a translation of the Latin of the Sorbonne, made long after.

[10] Beuchot says that Berriat Saint-Prix, in his "Jeanne d'Arc," proves, page 341 et seq., that the imputations against Brother Richard are groundless, and that he could exercise no influence at the trial.

KISSING

I ask pardon of the boys and the girls; but maybe they will not find here what they will seek. This article is only for scholars and serious persons for whom it is barely suitable.

There is but too much question of kissing in the comedies of Molire's time. Champagne, in the comedy of "La Mre Coquette" by Quinault, asks kisses of Laurette; she says to him"You are not content, then; really it is shameful; I have kissed you twice." Champagne answers her"What! you keep account of your kisses?" (Act I. Sc. 1.).

The valets always used to ask kisses of the soubrettes; people kissed each other on the stage. Usually it was very dull and very intolerable, particularly in the case of ugly actors, who were nauseating.

If the reader wants kisses, let him look for them in the "Pastor Fido"; there is one entire chorus where nothing but kisses is mentioned; and the piece is founded solely on a kiss that Mirtillo gave one day to Amarilli, in a game of blind man's buff, un bacio molto saporito.

Everyone knows the chapter on kisses, in which Jean de la Casa, Archbishop of Benevento, says that people can kiss each other from head to foot. He pities the people with big noses who can only approach each other with difficulty; and he counsels ladies with long noses to have flat-nosed lovers.

The kiss was a very ordinary form of salutation throughout ancient times. Plutarch recalls that the conspirators, before killing Csar, kissed his face, hand and breast. Tacitus says that when Agricola, his father-in-law, returned from Rome, Domitian received him with a cold kiss, said nothing to him, and left him confounded in the crowd. The inferior who could not succeed in greeting his superior by kissing him, put his mouth to his own hand, and sent him a kiss that the other returned in the same way if he so wished.