JOAN OF ARC.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 523, 2 June 1909, Page 4

JOAN OF ARC.

THE MAID WHO DEFEATED ENGLAND.

TURNED THE COTOSB OF FRENCH

AND ENGLISH HISTORY,

On Sunday, April'lß, lustra great crowd filled tho famous basilica of St. Peter's at Homo, for the ceremony of the beatification of Joan of Arc. At tho'end'of the I 'ipso tho figure of tho new saint was placed, surrounded by hundreds of'. Bmall clectrio lamps. , : '

What' Joan of Aro means to history was pointed out in a fine appreciation in tho "Observer":— . ,' .'''•".

"France may bo said, as a result of the career of Jeanne d'Arc, to have commenced the mare ordered course-of modern history, Louis XI, of tho leaden images, was an odd executor of tho siintship and heroism • and tho whole moral bequest of tho alald i of. Orleans. But h<- grasped thol occasion ; and did the work, ie stamped on feudal anarchy.. Ho ..con*. ...ated the State. Ho , created the first unified national monarchy i in Europe. .. ,"Ho was in somo sort the forerunner of ; -Alexander Hamilton, Cavour, and Bismarck, and of all .those who see in tho' idbal of tho union of the British Empire, the greatest dream of the modern world. Evon to us, tho v nation that destroyed! her, and now needs no losj than her own' the political and social inspiration of hor memory, the Maid remains for all time the pur© saint, as well, as the natural genius, of ; hWoio patriotism. \'. ■, ; ~ St. Francis of Assist. "M.. Anatolo France, in h'is ' celebrated has recently attempted to emulate tho suWlo art with which Renan dissolves the dmmty of Christ...and tho familiar seutnnentalism with'which M. Paul Sabatier seoms almost ■ to patronise the sainthood .of Francis of Assisi. Yet even upon tha sanest principles of rationalism all men 0/ all creeds ought to be as much'agreed about the 'living miracle' of the fifteenth century as they have long been about-the typical book of that time. Thomas a Kernpis, in whom all mediaeval mysticism at its purest and deepest finds its expression,, isi no more,aJocal and temporary possession' than ; thi Bible itself, fie is' penetrated with psychological truth. As George Eliot once said, he has been loved as ranch by agnostics as by Catholics. , ■ "la the same way, tho memory of tho Maid of Orleans ought to bo ono of tha most legacies of. the whole world Her banner ought-to be the oriflammo of all the victories of' ; the. spirit so long as a heroic task remains for human vision to conceive and for human will to attempt, for.franco, above all, rescued at the.darkest hour, of her whole national' lifo : by the magical apparition of . the" shepherdess of Domremy, and; .not only rescued by a girl of eighteen, but oreatcd anew, extended, strengthened, consolidated, inspired, transformed from a condition of shame, weakness,_ and misery, into a puissant and conquering kingdom—for Franco, the figure of Joanne d Aro ought to.be the symbol of all the best hopes which earnest men and women across the Channel—and : there aro many-rcan cherish for their national future, Tlia Misfortunes of Franco. ir"-?! 0^' as Wond orful and sane as tho Maids to the national ideal would yet.save the glory and (strength of France, Nothing' less can. It is, perhaps, the supremo misfortuno of the Republic that its citizens ar« divided with .respect to tho personalities amTepisoucsot that marvellous past) which ought to be their common heritage. Even Napoleon raised men above ..themselves and enlarged for all time a sense of the achiove- ■ monts to which,a people may attain. Far more extraordinary, still was tho.effect of that .passionate .crusade which reversed in a few weeks'the whole moral and' political tendency of the Hundred 'fears'' War, and swept the English invaders into. the sea. . Were the Republic of to-day nerved by tho spirit which. Jeanne d'Arc breathed into' a dismembered - and despairing' land,; Fraw* w'?, Id c bb,: sense, invincißle;: •I. .. million trained men in arms, filled Ti,tt- ho .x d Ti ion of W29-or with that c 4. I<U3 m its different, yet not less idealistic, way—there is no force on earth that conk) break her. defence or threaten her' existence! Sainthood, ;f it means pure heart and per*!-feet-will, is as' real a thing as heroism, though oven rarer, Joan of Arc remain? one of the shining figures of all time ho cause in her—in her prayers and dreams,' her gentleness and her valour, her compassion and hor gaiety, in the womanliness taiat made hor neat even in her warrior's habit, and m her will of steel and energy 'df flame —there were, mot sainthood and horoism: together as in no-other being recorded in auk thentio, history;"