Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/423

 9* s. x. NOV. 22,iwa] NOTES AND QUERIES.

415

tnunication induces me to mention that in ' The Story of Rouen,' by Theodore Andrea Cook, one of that most charming series of books named "Mediaeval Towns," now in course of publication by Messrs. Dent & Co., will be found the latest account of the trial and death of Jeanne d'Arc. She was burnt alive and her ashes cast into the Seine. The actual death sentence pronounced on 29 May, 1431, by forty-two judges in full council, ran as follows :

"Mandons que vous citiez la dite Jeanne

comparaitre en personne devant nous demain, heure de huit heures du matin, au lieu dit Le Vieux Marche", pour se voir par nous dSclaree relapse, excommunie'e, h6r6tique, avec 1'intimation k lui faire en pareil cas. Donne" en la Chapelle du Manoir archi^piscopal de Rouen, le mardi, 29 mai, 1'an du Seigneur 1431, apres la fe"te de la Trinite" de notre Seigneur."

Perhaps it may not be out of place for me to add that in ' The History of France,' by M. Guizot, translated by Rooert Black, M.A. (Sampson Low & Co., 1873), at p. 354, vol. ii., there is a full-page engraving of 'Joan in Prison,' by Alph. de Neuville. The Maid of Orleans is represented therein as tall and very handsome, in man's attire, and her shapely legs in irons. Mr. Cook states that

"not a single attempt was made to rescue her in Rouen at the last, not a solitary effort had been made before to save her by the French. Judged by the Church, and appealing for fair hearing, Jeanne was not supported in her trial by a single French ecclesiastic. Not a single reference to her death occurs on subsequent occasions, when the Court of France had official opportunity to make it."

HENRY GERALD HOPE.

"THE" AS PART OF TITLE (9 th S. ix. 428: x. 13, 338). The genesis of this slipshod writing, which has culminated in the atrocity of " editing of Sketch," was, I think, the drop- ping of the article in the mention of yachts in sporting correspondence. The celebrated old yacht "The Arrow" became "Arrow," &c. In the last two or three years it has become the "correct thing" to drop the article in writing of the doings of packs of hounds. We read now of " Cottesmore " and "Pytchley" (Hounds). Not that these sporting scribes are generally terse in their diction. Shall I soon be invited to lunch at " Criterion " ? H. P. L.

"WHAT HAS POSTERITY DONE FOR us? ""(9 th S. x. 309. > I quote the following from Mr. C. Litton Falkiner's ' Studies in Irish History and Biography,' published at the beginning of the current year :

" Ministers often found Sir Boyle Roche's bull

a better answer to a troublesome opposition than any which the front bench could offer. Who could

pursue further the prosaic and utilitarian argument that a grant from the Exchequer would operate unjustly on the taxpayers of a future generation in the face of Sir Boyle's triumphant interrogative, ' Why should we put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity; for what has posterity done for us? "P. 234.

No date is given for this utterance, but it seems to have occurred during Grattan's Parliament. Trumbull wrote part of his satirical poem in 1774, and completed it in 1782. F. ADAMS.

In the days of my childhood (more than half a century ago) this was attributed to a famous wit in the House of Commons, in answering the argument of the then Chan- cellor of the Exchequer in favour of a pro- posed large reduction of the National Debt that it would be for the benefit of posterity. " D posterity what has posterity done for us ? " were the words that tingled in my ears. I did not know till I read in ' N. & Q.' that Trumbull had fathead it.

J. TREEVE EDGCOME.

Inner Temple.

In a letter of Gray to Dr. Wharton, dated 8 March, 1758, we find the following : "As to posterity, I may ask (with somebody whom I have forgot), what has it ever done to oblige me ? " The italics are mine ; Gray is humor- ously disclaiming the pretence of writing what will live. I fancy that Sir Boyle Roche has been credited with the bull, but if he uttered it, it can hardly have been original, unless by pure coincidence, as he was not born till 1743, and would thus be only fifteen at the time of Gray's letter. Perhaps the " somebody "jGray refers to was Mrs. Montagu (1742), if the'reference to her, which I do not find in any edition of Bartlett, is correct. It could not be Trumbull, the date of whose birth is 1750. C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.

Bath.

"CARANT" OR "CORANT" (9 th S. x. 328). It is certainly the same as courante, " a run- ning or careering about," given in the ' H.E.D.' as a variant of coranto. The ' H.E.D.' is not the sole book of reference for dialect words ; in fact, they are more fully treated in the 'E.D.D.,' which should be consulted. The word is given in the 'English Dialect Dic- tionary,' s.v. ' Courant,' both as substantive and as verb. It occurs in eight dialects, has eight meanings, and is illustrated by at least sixteen quotations. WALTER W. SKEAT.

Halliwell, in his 'Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,' describes the latter as an Anglo-Saxon word to mean "run- ning." Charles Kingsley, in his ' Westward