The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY
28 CITY HALL PLACE :: NEW YORK
A Tale of the Inquisition
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY
DANIEL DE LEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, 1910
Copyright 1910, by the NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.

Whether one will be satisfied with nothing but a scientific diagnosis in psychology, or a less ponderous and infinitely more lyric presentation of certain mental phenomena will do for him; whether the student of history insist on strict chronology, or whether he prize at its true value the meat and coloring of history; whether a reader prefer in matters canonical the rigid presentation of dogma, or whether the tragic fruits of theocracy offer a more attractive starting point for his contemplation;—whichever the case might be, The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc will gratify his intellectual cravings on all the three heads.
This, the fifteenth story of the series of Eugene Sue's matchless historic novels entitled The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages , presents the picture of the Fifteenth Century—a historic elevation climbed up to from the hills of the era sketched in the preceding story, The Iron Trevet; or Jocelyn the Champion , and from which, in turn, the outlines become vaguely visible of the critically historic era that forms the subject of the next story, The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer .
As in all the stories of this stupendous series bestowed by the genius of Sue upon posterity, the leading characters are historic, the leading events are historic, and the coloring is true to history. How true to the facts are the historic revelations made by the author in this series, and how historically true are the conclusions he draws, as they rise in relief on the canvas of these novels, appears with peculiar conspicuousness in The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc , above all in this century, when the science of history has remodeled its theory, and, instead of, as in former days, basing man's acts upon impulse, has learned to plant impulse upon material facts.