several embassies, particularly in 1448, he was one of the French deputies sent to terminate the papal schism between Felix V. and Nicholas V. On these occasions his private wealth seems to have been made use of to enhance the splendour of the nation. It could not be supposed that a man of low birth should arrive at such distinction without exciting the envy and hatred of the nobles; though they freely borrowed his money, they were only on that account the more bent on his ruin. Jacques Coeur offended Agnes Sorel, the king's mistress, and he lent money to the dauphin, whose designs were suspected by his father. He was accused, in 1452, of extortion in his office, and various other crimes, together with that of having poisoned Agnes Sorel. From the latter charge he easily freed himself; but he was convicted, by a very partial commission of parliament, of malversation, and condemned to make an amende honorable, and to pay an enormous fine, together with the confiscation of all his estates. His life was pardoned at the request of the pope, and he was confined in the convent of Cordeliers, at Beaucaire. In this change of fortune, it is to his credit that he met with sincere attachment from those who had gained a livelihood in his service. One of these, who had married his niece, liberated him from the convent, and he escaped to Rome. He embarked in an expedition fitted out against the Turks, by Callixtus III. He died of a disease in the island of Chio, in 1456. Charles VII. restored part of his property to his children; and his memory was re-established under Lewis XI.

ANTHONY, the illegitimate son of Philip, duke of Burgundy, deserved by his valour the name of Great. He served in Africa against the Moors, and in Switzerland, but was taken prisoner at the battle of Nanci. Lewis XI., of France, and Charles VIII., honourably rewarded his services. He died in 1504, aged eighty-three.

JOHN VI., duke of Brittany, was a prince of great valour and equal benevolence. He was in the service of Charles VII., of France. He died in 1446.

JOAN of ARC, called the Maid of Orleans, an extraordinary heroine, was the daughter of a peasant named James d'Arc, of Domremi, near Vaucouleurs, in Lorraine, where she was born. She went to service at a small inn, in which she was accustomed to attend horses, ride them to water without a saddle, and perform other offices more commonly assigned to the other sex. When about the age of twenty-seven or twentynine, at a time when king Charles VII. was reduced to the lowest condition by the English, who possessed the greatest part of his kingdom, Joan fancied that she saw visions, in which St. Michael commanded her to go to the relief of Orleans, then closely besieged by the English, and afterwards to

cause the king to be crowned at Rheims. She was taken by her parents, in February, 1429, to Brandricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, who at first treated her pretended inspiration as an idle tale; but at length, moved by her repeated and urgent solicitations, he sent her to the king, then at Chinon. Charles, either in earnest or from collusion, proposed to try her by introducing her before a large company, in which he was undistinguished from his nobles by any marks of dignity; and it is said that she immediately recognized him, and acquainted him with secrets which he had never communicated to any person. She demanded to be armed with a consecrated sword, kept in the church of St. Catherine of Fierbois, the marks of which she described, though she had never seen it. Her manner inspired confidence; she was committed to matrons for proof of her virginity, and to the doctors of the church for inquiry into her inspiration. The parliament, to whom she was next consigned, treated her as insane, and asked her for a miracle; she replied, that she had none then to exhibit, but that she soon would perform one at Orleans. In fine, she was completely armed, mounted, and joined the army sent to relieve Orleans. She here displayed a consecrated banner, purged the camp of licentiousness, and, by her whole demeanour, infused into the soldiers that enthusiasm with which she herself was animated. She entered Orleans, introduced a convoy, attacked the English in their forts, routed and dismayed them, and raised the siege. In all these actions she showed an heroic courage, and the dignity of a superior mind. Other successes rapidly followed, and the panic-struck English every where fled before a foe whom they had so lately despised. Joan now thought it time to fulfil her other promise of crowning the king at Rheims; and, accompanied by her, he marched without opposition through the kingdom, all the towns submitting to him as he passed. Rheims sent him its keys, and admitted him with applause. He was crowned and anointed with the holy oil of Clovis, the maid standing by his side in complete armour, and displaying her consecrated banner. Charles testified his gratitude for her extraordinary services, by ennobling her family, and giving it the name of Du Lys, probably in allusion to the lilies of her banner, with a suitable estate in land. Joan, now that the two objects of her mission were obtained, proposed to retire; but Dunois, the general, sensible of the advantages he derived from the idea of her supernatural commission, persuaded her to remain in arms till the English should be finally expelled. By his advice she threw herself into Compeigne, then besieged by the duke of Burgundy and the English; where, on a sally, after having driven the enemy from their entrenchments, her friends deserted her, and she was surrounded and taken captive. The

English indulged a malignant triumph on the capture of one who had caused such a reverse in their affairs, and resolved to show her no mercy. The duke of Bedford purchased her of the captors, and instituted against her the charges of sorcery, impiety, and magic. The clergy in his interest, and the university of Paris, joined in accusing her. She was brought, heavy-ironed, before an ecclesiastical commission at Rouen, where a number of captious interrogatories were put to her during a trial of four months, which she answered with firmness and dignity. Among other questions, she was asked why she assisted with her standard in her hand at the coronation of Charles. "Because," she nobly replied, "the person who shared in the danger had a right to share in the glory." Her pretended visions and inspirations were the most dangerous points of the attack, and the weakest of her defence. Urged on these grounds with the crimes of heresy and impiety, she appealed to the pope, but her appeal was disallowed. At length, they solemnly condemned her as a sorceress and blasphemer, and delivered her over to the secular arm. Her resolution at last forsook her, and she tried to avert the dreadful punishment that awaited her, by openly recanting her errors, and disavowing her supposed relations. Her sentence was then mitigated to perpetual imprisonment; but her enemies were not satisfied with this vengeance. They insidiously placed in her apartment a suit of man's apparel; and, because, tempted by the view of a dress in which she had obtained so much honour, she ventured to put it on, they interpreted the action as a relapse into heresy, and she was condemned to the stake. In June, 1431, to the perpetual shame of her unjust persecutors, she was cruelly burned in the market-place of Rouen. She met her fate with resolution, and the English themselves were affected at the scene. Charles did not avenge her cause; he contented himself with procuring a revision of the process, and a restoration of her memory by the pope ten years after the event. In that act she was styled a martyr to her religion, her country, and her king.' The enthusiastic admiration of her countrymen did not wait for such a slow process. They propagated many marvellous tales relative to her execution; and a party supposed that she was not really dead, but waited her return to lead them, as before, to victory. Posterity has not been able to form an uniform and consistent judgment respecting this personage and her actions. The most probable account seems to be, that she was sincere in her idea of her divine inspiration, and gave herself up to the enthusiasm of a heated fancy, and that this circumstance was improved by some of the leading people in the interest of Charles, with the addition of so much artifice as was necessary to rouse the public. It is not doubted that, in fact, the appearance of the

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Maid of Orleans greatly turned the contest between the French and English.

This heroine has been the subject of various works in prose and verse. Of the latter, the serious poem of Chapelain has had much less success than the burlesque and very licentious one of Voltaire-a real injury to her memory, which has been in some degree repaired in England by Southey's sublime and spirited poem of "Joan of Arc," in which she is represented in the brightest colours of virtue and heroism.

PETER D'AUBUSSON, grand master of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, or knights of Rhodes, was born of noble parents, in La Marche, in 1423. Adopting the military profession, he served first under Albert, son-in-law to the emperor Sigismund, against the Turks, in Hungary, where he greatly distinguished himself. He returned to France on the breaking out of the war with England, and attached himself to the dauphin, son of Charles VII., whom he accompanied to the siege of Montereau-Faut-Yonne. The dauphin afterwards being instigated by the malcontent lords to revolt against his father, was brought back to his duty by the persuasions of D'Aubusson. The recital of the barbarities committed by the Turks, and the great exploits of Hunniades and Castriot, so warmed the imagination of this young soldier, that he repaired to Rhodes, in order to be admitted to the knighthood of St. John; and by his success against the infidels, soon obtained the commandery of Salins. In 1457 the grand master sent him to France, to implore assistance against the Turks, and he returned with considerable supplies in money and ammunition. A new office of bailly of the knights of Auvergne being created in 1471, he was the first person appointed to it; which was followed by those of superintendant of the fortifications of Rhodes, and grand prior of Auvergne. His high reputation at length caused him, on a vacancy in 1476, to be elected grand master of the order. He immediately exerted himself in making preparations against the formidable attack long menaced by Mahomet II. The Turkish fleet, with a very numerous army on board, appeared off the island in May, 1480, and besieged Rhodes. During two months it was pressed with vigour, and sustained with equal intrepidity; the grand master particularly distinguished himself, and received five wounds, one of which was thought to be mortal. The Turks were at length compelled to re-embark, after losing nine thousand men killed, and a great many wounded. Mahomet prepared to renew the siege the following year, but death prevented him, and a civil war ensued between his sons Bajazet and Zizim. The latter, in 1482, took refuge in Rhodes, whence the grand master sent him into France. The possession of this competitor gave him a great advantage in treating

with Bajazet, who was induced to pay a yearly pension to the order and grand master, under the name of compensation for the damages inflicted in the late siege, but really for the safe custody of Zizim. D'Aubusson employed his influence over Bajazet to prevent his fleet from passing the straits of Gallipoli, for which service he received the title of deliverer of Christendom. Bajazet also gratified him with the gift of the precious relic of St. John the Baptist's right arm, taken in Constantinople, which, after a due recognition of its authenticity, was deposited, with great pomp, in the church of St. John at Rhodes. Several princes desired to obtain the person of Zizim, in order to put him at the head of a new crusade, but D'Aubusson preferred keeping him in his own power till the pope, Innocent VIII., made a similar request to the grand master, with which he complied, and Zizim was conducted to Rome in 1489. In return, the pope presented him with a cardinal's hat, and renounced in his favour the right of nominating to benefices, belonging to the order. D'Aubusson employed the interval of peace in rebuilding the churches of Rhodes, and augmenting the splendour of religion. He had nothing, however, so much at heart as forming a new league against the infidels; but finding himself thwarted in this design by pope Alexander VI., after he had been actively employed as chief of a crusade, he fell into a melancholy, under which he sunk in his eighty-first year, in 1503, leaving behind him the character of one of the most accomplished and illustrious heads of his order.

PETER DE BREZÉ, lord de la Varenne, and great seneschal of Normandy, was in great favour in the reign of Charles VII. This made him less acceptable to Lewis XI., the son and successor of Charles VII. Therefore it was believed that Lewis XI., soon after he came to the crown, made choice of him to command the succours which he granted to Margaret of Anjou, queen of England, only to be rid of him, because that succour was so very inconsiderable. Brezé was fortunate in the beginning, and made a considerable progress against the contrary party; but he gained no advantage in the end; the French were besieged in the towns they had taken, and obtained no other capitulation than their lives, on condition that they should return into France. An historian says, that their commander and the queen fell among a company of highwaymen. It does not appear that this expedition to England did any prejudice to the fortune of the seneschal of Normandy; for in the year 1465 he made a great figure at the court of France. The war for the public good, supported by the count de Charolois, who advanced into the heart of the kingdom, was a very troublesome business for Lewis XI. He advised, among others, with Peter de Brezé, what he was to