faith, Maid of Orleans! And of a truth
it wrought miracles, for thy brave and steadfast heart divined what was
to be done and faltered not by the wayside. And yet, adoring thee as a
saint, let us love thee as a simple girl, "Jehanne la bonne Lorraine"!

"Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys
Harembourges, qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglois bruslerent a Rouen:
Ou sont-ilz, Vierge Souveraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?"

CHAPTER XIV

THE RISE OF THE MONARCHY

HISTORIANS, having a predilection for exactness, are concerned to find
dates not only for kings and queens and battles and treaties, but for
those great changes in the manners and morals of mankind which begin
unconsciously, are wrought out in silence, and present themselves to the
historian as accomplished revolutions before he is at all aware that
anything of moment is going on. A revolution of this kind was in
progress throughout Christendom in the fifteenth century; and its
results are so astonishing, so bewildering in their magnitude and in
their infinite ramifications that we resort to figurative language and
call the movement the Renaissance, the Revival of Learning. It is,
indeed, a new birth, a new life, rather newer and altogether more
astonishing than any mere return of the learning of the ancients could
have been; but the leaven in the decaying mass of feudalism operated
slowly, and did not come to full power until long after the period which
must be a limit for this book; therefore, we can but note certain
significant facts in the mighty process which was to transform the
feudal lady of the chateau into the lady of the court and of the
brilliant literary salon, to substitute a Catherine de Medicis, or a
Marguerite de Navarre, or a Madame de La Fayette, for an Eleanor of
Guienne, a Mahaut d'Artois, or a Christine de Pisan. As nearly as can be
determined, the age of feudalism ends in the fifteenth century; but the
soul of the old civilization leaves its body imperceptibly and enters
into that of the new: it "melts, and makes no noise,

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
Now his breath goes, and some say no."

Jeanne d'Arc herself, we have said in the preceding chapter, was no
product of chivalry, found no chivalry to shield her. The old was
already in her