e of demons. History has relieved her moral character from the
aspersions thrown upon it, and philosophy has quite denuded her of the
least claims to supernatural power, whether derived from above or from
below: nothing remains but the enthusiast and the visionary, and the
strange position into which circumstances conducted her. And this
position of the thought-bewildered maid is rendered the more striking,
when we consider that it was her own countrymen who judged of her in so
contradictory a manner; for the war which raged around her was rather a
civil war, in which one of the parties had formed an alliance with
England, than a national war between France and England. It was by
Frenchmen that she was extolled and reverenced, and by Frenchmen that
she was condemned and executed: it was under the auspices, and with the
blessings, of the church that she conquered; it was the church that
execrated her, and sent her as an abomination to the stake.

This point of view is not only historically true, but replete, we think,
with poetic interest. The maiden is not, indeed, invested with any
supernatural attributes; we see her here neither more nor less than the
pious and day-dreaming enthusiast; but an enthusiast for her country--an
enthusiast for a young prince whom she has been taught to honour, and
whose reverse of fortune has deeply affected her. We see this young
enthusiast--her imagination swarming with visions, her heart beating
with generous aspirations--thrown out from her village retirement upon
the tumult of war; we see her snatched up, as by a whirlwind, by the
fanaticism of the multitude, who bear her, as she bears her banner,
onwards in their career, and conquer under this new standard they have
reared. We see her arriving at a success which, notwithstanding her own
prophecies, must have astonished herself. When the king has been crowned
at Rheims, something whispers to her that she ought now to retreat into
her native village, or, what was the only fitting termination for her
course, into some religious house, and find there a harbour from the
tempest on which she is tossing. But the selfish men around her will not
let her go. She may guide them a little yet. They bear the torch while
there is an ember left. Then comes the changeful fortune of war, defeat
and imprisonment; and now we see the same poor human heart, its visions
soiled and clouded, its courage beaten down, surrounded only by enemies
and scoffers, beg