I will add but one remark on the character of the truest heroine that the world has ever seen.
If any person can be found in the present age who would join in the scoffs of Voltaire against the Maid of Orleans and the Heavenly Voices by which she believed herself inspired, let him read the life of the wisest and best man that the heathen nations ever produced. Let him read of the Heavenly Voice, by which Socrates believed himself to be constantly attended; which cautioned him on his way from the field of battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the time of his death visited him with unearthly warnings. [See Cicero, de Divinatione, lib. i. sec. 41; and see the words of Socrates himself, in Plato, Apol. Soc.] Let the modern reader reflect upon this; and then, unless he is prepared to term Socrates either fool or impostor, let him not dare to deride or vilify Joan of Arc.
SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN JOAN OF ARC'S VICTORY AT ORLEANS, A.D. 1429, AND THE DEFEAT OP THE SPANISH ARMADA, A.D. 1588.
A.D. 1452. Final expulsion of the English from France.
1453. Constantinople taken, and the Roman empire of the East destroyed by the Turkish Sultan Mahomet II.
1455. Commencement of the civil wars in England between the Houses of York and Lancaster.
1479. Union of the Christian kingdoms of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella.
1492. Capture of Grenada by Ferdinand and Isabella, and end of the Moorish dominion in Spain.
1492. Columbus discovers the New World.
1494. Charles VIII. of France invades Italy.