Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/470

 462

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JUNE 11, '98.

JOAN OF ARC.

(Concluded from p. 443-}

" IN the year of grace 1571, the loth day of March, were reinstated upon the bridge the images in bronze of Our Lady of Pity, holding the body of our Lord descended from the cross, of King Charles VII., and of Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans, which had been removed nine years before by the Huguenots, enemies of images.* This restoration was done at the expense of the inhabitants, who taxed themselves, as their ancestors had done (Manuscripts of the Abbe" Dubois).

" This monument differed little from the first ; but the artist had not the intelligence of his mission. In his desire to innovate, Lescot made a work without taste. We give the description of it after the engraving of Leonard Gautier. It appears to us of greater authenticity than other sketches that we

1 The Virgin was seated at the foot of a cross, at the arms of which were suspended a lance and a sponge; the summit was terminated by a kind of nest containing little pelicans that their mother nourished with her blood. The Virgin, clothed in a long tunic, her head covered with a veil, has her arms crossed upon her breast and looks sorrowfully at Jesus Christ stretched upon her knees. One easily perceives in the figure of the Saviour the rigour that it would have upon the cross ; a linen [cloth] encompasses his waist ; he has his hair and beard long ; a radiant nimbus surrounds his head ; the crown of thorns is at his feet. The nimbus of the Virgin is a simple disc. Charles VII. is at her right ; his helmet crowned is at his feet, and on her left rises a lance. On the left, Joan of Arc, kneeling, her head bare, looks at the king ; her long hair descends upon her shoulders, and her lance, surmounted by a little standard with the arms of Orleans [thereon], rises at the left. The two statues are clothed in complete armour and have the hands put together [in prayer].

" A gross fault was committed by the author oJ this second work. After having placed before Charles VII. the shield of the arms of France, he has surrounded it with the collar of the Order o: St. Michael, which was not instituted till 1469 bj Louis XL, his son, forty years after the raising o: the siege. [Qy. Of some other Order ?]

" The pedestal is composed of three square com partments, each containing a table designed to receive an inscription. A very rare volume is devoted exclusively to inscriptions proposed foi these tables ; but none has ever been traced there.- "It is this monument, little different from the first, that authors have described and copied ; it is that which Lafontaine saw in 1663, and that he found mean, of insignificant appearance, and sharing the poverty of its age. ' I saw the Maid,' says he in a letter to Chapelain, 'but, faith, it was withou* pleasure ; I found in her neither the look nor th size of an amazon ; the Infanta Grandafile* is wort] ten such as she. If it were not that you were he chronicler, I do not know that I should make men

d'Orleans,' by Francois Lemaire (Orleans, 1648)."
 * " ' Histoire et Antiquites de la Ville et Duch

t "See the ' Recueil ' of Du Lys, already namec by us."

ion of it; I looked at it, for love of you, longer ban I should [otherwise] have done.'*

" The restoration of Pierre Lescot, notwith- tanding its imperfections, existed during almost wo centuries. In 1739 a violent hurricane bat- ered down the bronze cross of the monument, and t was soon replaced by a cross of wood. At the ommencementof the eighteenth century the bridge f the Middle Ages oegan to succumb under he weight of years, and under the oft-repeated ssaults of great floods and breakings-up of the ice. n May, 1745, the arches adjacent to the monument f the Maid were ready to fall. It was taken away ,nd deposited during twenty-five years in an under- ground storehouse of the Hotel de Ville, Rue Ste. Catherine, in order to facilitate the urgent

parations of the bridge.

"In the month of June, 1771, the Aldermen [of )rleans], at the suit of M. Hector Desfriches, a dis- tinguished designer, entrusted him to transfer the uonument to the angle formed by the streets rloyale and Vieille Poterie. This artist should lave respected the work of Lescot. The altera- tions of which he is the author turned, besides, to description given by a contemporary historian, Polluche, in the ' Essais Historiques sur Orleans ':
 * he embellishment of the monument. Here is the

" This monument, borne upon a stone pedestal of line feet in length, by as much in height, is com- posed of four figures of bronze, nearly of natural j dze, and of a great cross of the same metal. The Virgin is seated at the foot of the cross, upon a rock or calvary in lead, which unites all the igures. She holds upon her knees the outstretched aody of Jesus Christ : above the head of the Saviour, at some distance, is a cushion which carries the crown of thorns ; on the right is the statue of the King Charles VII., and on the left that of Joan of Arc, both kneeling upon cushions which have been added to the new monument. These two figures, which have the hands put together [in prayer], are fully armed, with the exception of the helmets, which are placed a little forward ; that of the king is surmounted by a crown. The shield of the arms of France is between the two, set upon the rock, without any support, without crown or other ornament. The lance of the Maid is stretched across this monument. This celebrated girl is in man's attire, and distinguished solely by the form of her hair, which is tied with a sort of ribbon, and falls below the waist. Behind the cross is a pelican which appears to nourish her young with her blood. They are contained in a nest or basket, and were formerly at the top of this same cross, at the foot of which, upon the fore part, a serpent holding an apple has been added.

" The pedestal, which serves as a base, is adorned with scrolls and tables of black marble, upon which are engraven, in letters of gold, two inscriptions. Upon the first table, which faces the Rue Royale, one reads as follows :

Du Regne de Louis XV.

Ce Monument, erig6 sur 1'ancien Pont

Par le Roi Charles VII. , Tan 1458,

En acti9n de graces de la delivrance

De cette Ville, et des Victoires remportees

" We have borrowed this interesting passage from the ' Notice des (Euvres Litteraires et Artis- tiques inspirees par Jeanne Dare,' by M. F. Dupuis (Orleans, Alex. Jacob, 1852)."