Another tragedy on the same subject appeared in 1642, written by the Abbé d'Aubignac—a very pedantic play.
Next appears an 'heroic poem' by Chapelain, published in 1656, entitled La Pucelle. Great things had been expected of this poem, but it fell very flat after a long expectancy of thirty years when it at length saw the light. Chapelain's ridiculous poem gave the idea to Voltaire of his licentious one.
Even Voltaire was ashamed of his work, and long denied that he was its author. As a very slight reparation for his deed, he writes of Joan of Arc in his Essai sur les m[oe]urs et l'esprit des natives, that the heroine would have had altars built in the days when altars were erected by primitive men to their liberators.
Southey, referring to Voltaire's infamous production, said, 'I never committed the crime of reading Voltaire's Pucelle.'
After all, Voltaire did infinitely more harm to himself by writing his poem La Pucelle than he did to the memory of the Maid of Orleans, for it revealed to the world what an amount of depravity was mixed up within that wonderful shrewd mind, and how it weakened its genius. The great Revolution which swept so many shams away with its terrible breath, venerated, to its honour be it said, both the spirit of humanity displayed by the poet-philosopher and the spirit of patriotism that possessed the virgin heroine and martyr.
In 1795 appeared Southey's heroic play on Joan of Arc. That drama is more a glorification of the principles of the French Revolution than of Joan of Arc. There is no attempt made to follow out her history. The play contains a love episode due entirely to the youthful poet's imagination, but it contains fine passages as well, and seems to us to have merited more praise from posterity than it has received.
Schiller's play, like Southey's, sins grievously as far as historical truth is concerned. The German poet wishes, it seems, to remove the bad impression made by Voltaire's poem. The play was first performed on the stage at Weimar in 1801; and the Jungfrau von Orleans met with considerable success. It contains noble lines, but is historically a mere travesty of the life and death of the heroine.
In 1815 Casimir Delavigne wrote, as a counterblast to the double invasion that France had just undergone, his well known Messeniennes to the honour of the French heroine. These poems had a great success, the second being the most admired; but they are now forgotten. Two other dramatic poets followed in Delavigne's steps: these were d'Avrigni and Soumet. By the former appeared, in 1819, a tragedy in five acts and in verse; it was performed at the Théâtre Français. Soumet's play was also acted; it almost equals d'Avrigni's in length and tediousness.
Besides the above tragedies which had, as the French term it, the honour of seeing the light of the footlights, Desnoyers wrote a play on Joan of Arc in 1841, and was followed by a series of other writers in verse and in prose—Caze, Dumolard, Maurin, Cramar, Hédouville, Millot, Lequesme, Crepot, Puymaigre, Porchat, Haldy, Renard, Jouve, Cozic, Daniel Stern, Bousson de Maviet, Constant Materne. All the above wrote plays and tragedies on the subject of Joan of Arc between the years 1805 and 1862. Daniel Stern was the only authoress who composed a drama in honour of the heroine.
While all this galimatias of dramas has sunk into the limbo which waits for all such work, Villon's two lines remain as bright as the day on which, four centuries ago, he wrote them:—