‘Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,’
the word ‘Puzzel’ carrying an unsavoury sense. (Act I. Scene 4.) A puzzle, in the usual meaning of the word, the Maid was to the dramatist. I shall not enter into the dispute as to whether Shakespeare was the author, or part author, of this perplexed1 drama. But certainly the role of the Pucelle is either by two different hands, or the one author was ‘in two minds’ about the heroine. Now she appears as la ribaulde of Glasdale’s taunt2, which made her weep, as the ‘bold strumpet’ of Talbot’s insult in the play. The author adopts or even exaggerates the falsehoods of Anglo–Burgundian legend. The personal purity of Jeanne was not denied by her judges. On the other hand the dramatist makes his ‘bold strumpet’ a paladin of courage and a perfect patriot4, reconciling Burgundy to the national cause by a moving speech on ‘the great pity that was in France.’ How could a ribaulde, a leaguer-lass, a witch, a sacrificer of blood to devils, display the valour, the absolute self-sacrifice, the eloquent5 and tender love of native land attributed to the Pucelle of the play? Are there two authors, and is Shakespeare one of them, with his understanding of the human heart? Or is there one puzzled author producing an impossible and contradictory6 character?
The dramatist has a curious knowledge of minute points in Jeanne’s career: he knows and mocks at the sword with five crosses which she found, apparently7 by clairvoyance8, at Fierbois, but his history is distorted and dislocated almost beyond recognition. Jeanne proclaims herself to the Dauphin as the daughter of a shepherd, and as a pure maid. Later she disclaims9 both her father and her maidenhood11. She avers12 that she was first inspired by a vision of the Virgin13 (which she never did in fact), and she is haunted by ‘fiends,’ who represent her St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. After the relief of Orleans the Dauphin exclaims:
‘No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,
But Joan la Pucelle shall be France’s saint,’
a prophecy which may yet be accomplished14. Already accomplished is d’Alencon’s promise:
‘We’ll set thy statue in some holy place.’
To the Duke of Burgundy, the Pucelle of the play speaks as the Maid might have spoken:
‘Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
And see the cities and the towns defaced
By wasting ruin of the cruel foe16!
As looks the mother on her lowly babe,
When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
See, see, the pining malady17 of France;
Behold18 the wounds, the most unnatural19 wounds,
Which thou thyself hast given her woful breast!
O turn thy edged sword another way;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!
One drop of blood drawn20 from thy country’s bosom21
Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore22;
Return thee, therefore, with a flood of tears,
And wash away thy country’s stained spots.’
Patriotism23 could find no better words, and how can the dramatist represent the speaker as a ‘strumpet’ inspired by ‘fiends’? To her fiends when they desert her, the Pucelle of the play cries:
‘Cannot my body, nor blood sacrifice,
Entreat24 you to your wonted furtherance?
Then take my soul; my body, soul, and all,
Before that England give the French the foil.’
She is willing to give body and soul for France, and this, in the eyes of the dramatist, appears to be her crime. For a French girl to bear a French heart is to stamp her as the tool of devils. It is an odd theology, and not in the spirit of Shakespeare. Indeed the Pucelle, while disowning her father and her maidenhood, again speaks to the English as Jeanne might have spoken:
‘I never had to do with wicked spirits:
But you, that are polluted with your lusts25,
Stained with the guiltless blood of innocents,
Corrupt26 and tainted27 with a thousand vices28,
Because you want the grace that others have,
You judge it straight a thing impossible
To compass wonders but by help of devils.
No, misconceiv’d! Joan of Arc hath been
A virgin from her tender infancy29,
Chaste30 and immaculate in very thought;
Whose maiden10 blood, thus rigorously effus’d,
Will cry for vengeance31 at the gates of heaven.’
The vengeance was not long delayed. ‘The French and my countrymen,’ writes Patrick Abercromby, ‘drove the English from province to province, and from town to town’ of France, while on England fell the Wars of the Roses. But how can the dramatist make the dealer32 with fiends speak as the Maid, in effect, did speak at her trial? He adds the most ribald of insults; the Pucelle exclaiming:
‘It was Alencon that enjoyed my love!’
The author of the play thus speaks with two voices: in one Jeanne acts and talks as she might have done (had she been given to oratory33); in the other she is the termagant of Anglo–Burgundian legend or myth.
Much of this perplexity still haunts the histories of the Maid. Her courage, purity, patriotism, and clear-sighted military and political common-sense; the marvellous wisdom of her replies to her judges — as of her own St. Catherine before the fifty philosophers of her legend — are universally acknowledged. This girl of seventeen, in fact, alone of the French folk, understood the political and military situation. To restore the confidence of France it was necessary that the Dauphin should penetrate34 the English lines to Rheims, and there be crowned. She broke the lines, she led him to Rheims, and crowned him. England was besieging35 his last hold in the north and centre, Orleans, on a military policy of pure ‘bluff.’ The city was at no time really invested. The besieging force, as English official documents prove, was utterly36 inadequate37 to its task, except so far as prestige and confidence gave power. Jeanne simply destroyed and reversed the prestige, and, after a brilliant campaign on the Loire, opened the way to Rheims. The next step was to take Paris, and Paris she certainly would have taken, but the long delays of politicians enabled Beaufort to secure peace with Scotland, under James I., and to throw into Paris the English troops collected for a crusade against the Hussites.207 The Maid, unsupported, if not actually betrayed, failed and was wounded before Paris, and prestige returned for a while to the English party. She won minor38 victories, was taken at Compiegne (May 1430), and a year later crowned her career by martyrdom. But she had turned the tide, and within the six years of her prophecy Paris returned to the national cause. The English lost, in losing Paris, ‘a greater gage39 than Orleans.’
207 The Scottish immobility was secured in May–June 1429, the months of the Maid’s Loire campaign. Exchequer40 Rolls, iv. ciii. 466. Bain, Calendar, iv. 212, Foedera, x. 428,1704–1717.
So much is universally acknowledged, but how did the Maid accomplish her marvels41? Brave as she certainly was, wise as she certainly was, beautiful as she is said to have been, she would neither have risked her unparalleled adventure, nor been followed, but for her strange visions and ‘voices.’ She left her village and began her mission, as she said, in contradiction to the strong common-sense of her normal character. She resisted for long the advice that came to her in the apparent shape of audible external voices and external visions of saint and angel. By a statement of actual facts which she could not possibly have learned in any normal way, she overcame, it is said, the resistance of the Governor of Vaucouleurs, and obtained an escort to convey her to the King at Chinon.208 She conquered the doubts of the Dauphin by a similar display of supernormal knowledge. She satisfied, at Poictiers, the divines of the national party after a prolonged examination, of which the record, ‘The Book of Poictiers,’ has disappeared. In these ways she inspired the confidence which, in the real feebleness of the invading army, was all that was needed to ensure the relief of Orleans, while, as Dunois attested42, she shook the confidence which was the strength of England. About these facts the historical evidence is as good as for any other events of the war.
208 Refer to paragraph commencing “The ‘Journal du Siege d’Orleans’” infra.
The essence, then, of the marvels wrought43 by Jeanne d’Arc lay in what she called her ‘Voices,’ the mysterious monitions, to her audible, and associated with visions of the heavenly speakers. Brave, pure, wise, and probably beautiful as she was, the King of France would not have trusted a peasant lass, and men disheartened by frequent disaster would not have followed her, but for her voices.
The science or theology of the age had three possible ways of explaining these experiences:
1. The Maid actually was inspired by Michael, Margaret, and Catherine. From them she learned secrets of the future, of words unspoken save in the King’s private prayer, and of events distant in space, like the defeat of the French and Scots at Rouvray, which she announced, on the day of the occurrence, to Baudricourt, hundreds of leagues away, at Vaucouleurs.
2. The monitions came from ‘fiends.’ This was the view of the prosecutors44 in general at her trial, and of the author of ‘Henry VI., Part I.’
3. One of her judges, Beaupere, was a man of some courage and consistency45. He maintained, at the trial of Rouen, and at the trial of Rehabilitation46 (1452–1456), that the voices were mere47 illusions of a girl who fasted much. In her fasts she would construe48 natural sounds, as of church bells, or perhaps of the wind among woods, into audible words, as Red Indian seers do to this day.
This third solution must and does neglect, or explain by chance occurrence, or deny, the coincidences between facts not normally knowable, and the monitions of the Voices, accepted as genuine, though inexplicable49, by M. Quicherat, the great palaeographer and historian of Jeanne.209 He by no means held a brief for the Church; Father Ayroles continually quarrels with Quicherat, as a Freethinker. He certainly was a free thinker in the sense that he was the first historian who did not accept the theory of direct inspiration by saints (still less by fiends), and yet took liberty to admit that the Maid possessed50 knowledge not normally acquired. Other ‘freethinking’ sympathisers with the heroine have shuffled51, have skated adroitly52 past and round the facts, as Father Ayroles amusingly demonstrates in his many passages of arms with Michelet, Simeon Luce, Henri Martin, Fabre, and his other opponents. M. Quicherat merely says that, if we are not to accept the marvels as genuine, we must abandon the whole of the rest of the evidence as to Jeanne d’Arc, and there he leaves the matter.
209 Quicherat’s five volumes of documents, the Proces, is now accessible, as far as records of the two trials go, in the English version edited by Mr. Douglas Murray.
Can we not carry the question further? Has the psychological research of the last half-century added nothing to our means of dealing53 with the problem? Negatively, at least, something is gained. Science no longer avers, with M. Lelut in his book on the Daemon of Socrates, that every one who has experience of hallucinations, of impressions of the senses not produced by objective causes, is mad. It is admitted that sane54 and healthy persons may have hallucinations of lights, of voices, of visual appearances. The researches of Mr. Galton, of M. Richet, of Brierre du Boismont, of Mr. Gurney, and an army of other psychologists, have secured this position.
Maniacs55 have hallucinations, especially of voices, but all who have hallucinations are not maniacs. Jeanne d’Arc, so subject to ‘airy tongues,’ was beyond all doubt a girl of extraordinary physical strength and endurance, of the highest natural lucidity56 and common-sense, and of health which neither wounds, nor fatigue57, nor cruel treatment, could seriously impair58. Wounded again and again, she continued to animate59 the troops by her voice, and was in arms undaunted next day. Her leap of sixty feet from the battlements of Beaurevoir stunned60 but did not long incapacitate her. Hunger, bonds, and the protracted61 weariness of months of cross-examination produced an illness but left her intellect as keen, her courage as unabated, her humour as vivacious62, her memory as minutely accurate as ever. There never was a more sane and healthy human being. We never hear that, in the moments of her strange experiences, she was ‘entranced,’ or even dissociated from the actual occurrences of the hour. She heard her voices, though not distinctly, in the uproar63 of the brawling64 court which tried her at Rouen; she saw her visions in the imminent65 deadly breach66, when she rallied her men to victory. In this alertness she is a contrast to a modern seeress, subject, like her, to monitions of an hallucinatory kind, but subject during intervals67 of somnambulisme. To her case, which has been carefully, humorously, and sceptically studied, we shall return.
Meantime let us take voices and visions on the lowest, most prevalent, and least startling level. A large proportion of people, including the writer, are familiar with the momentary69 visions beheld70 with shut eyes between waking and sleeping (illusions hypnagogiques). The waking self is alert enough to contemplate72 these processions of figures and faces, these landscapes too, which (in my own case) it is incapable73 of purposefully calling up.
Thus, in a form of experience which is almost as common as ordinary dreaming, we see that the semi-somnolent self possesses a faculty74 not always given to the waking self. Compared with my own waking self, for instance, my half-asleep self is almost a personality of genius. He can create visions that the waking self can remember, but cannot originate, and cannot trace to any memory of waking impressions. These apparently trivial things thus point to the existence of almost wholly submerged potentialities in a mind so everyday, commonplace, and, so to speak, superficial as mine. This fact suggests that people who own such minds, the vast majority of mankind, ought not to make themselves the measure of the potentialities of minds of a rarer class, say that of Jeanne d’Arc. The secret of natures like hers cannot be discovered, so long as scientific men incapable even of ordinary ‘visualising’ (as Mr. Galton found) make themselves the canon or measure of human nature.
Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that some sane persons are capable of hallucinatory impressions akin71 to but less transient than illusions hypnagogiques, when, as far as they or others can perceive, they are wide awake. Of such sane persons Goethe and Herschel were examples. In this way we can most easily envisage75, or make thinkable by ourselves, the nature of the experiences of Jeanne d’Arc and other seers.
In the other state of semi-somnolence, while still alert enough to watch and reason on the phenomena76, we occasionally, though less commonly, hear what may be called ‘inner voices.’ That is to say, we do not suppose that any one from without is speaking to us, but we hear, as it were, a voice within us making some remark, usually disjointed enough, and not suggested by any traceable train of thought of which we are conscious at the time. This experience partly enables us to understand the cases of sane persons who, when to all appearance wide awake, occasionally hear voices which appear to be objective and caused by actual vibrations77 of the atmosphere. I am acquainted with at least four persons, all of them healthy, and normal enough, who have had such experiences. In all four cases, the apparent voice (though the listeners have no superstitious78 belief on the subject) has communicated intelligence which proved to be correct. But in only one instance, I think, was the information thus communicated beyond the reach of conjecture79, based perhaps on some observation unconsciously made or so little attended to when made that it could not be recalled by the ordinary memory.
We are to suppose, then, that in such cases the person concerned being to all appearance fully68 awake, his or her mind has presented a thought, not as a thought, but in the shape of words that seemed to be externally audible. One hearer, in fact, at the moment wondered that the apparent speaker indicated by the voice and words should be shouting so loud in an hotel. The apparent speaker was actually not in the hotel, but at a considerable distance, well out of earshot, and, though in a nervous crisis, was not shouting at all. We know that, between sleeping and waking, our minds can present to us a thought in the apparent form of articulate words, internally audible. The hearers, when fully awake, of words that seem to be externally audible, probably do but carry the semi-vigilant experience to a higher degree, as do the beholders of visual hallucinations, when wide awake. In this way, at least, we can most nearly attain80 to understanding their experiences. To a relatively81 small proportion of people, in wakeful existence, experiences occur with distinctness, which to a large proportion of persons occur but indistinctly,
‘On the margin82 grey
‘Twixt the soul’s night and day.’
Let us put it, then, that Jeanne d’Arc’s was an advanced case of the mental and bodily constitution exemplified by the relatively small proportion of people, the sane seers of visual hallucinations and hearers of unreal voices. Her thoughts — let us say the thoughts of the deepest region of her being — presented themselves in visual forms, taking the shapes of favourite saints — familiar to her in works of sacred art — attended by an hallucinatory brightness of light (‘a photism’), and apparently uttering words of advice which was in conflict with Jeanne’s great natural shrewdness and strong sense of duty to her parents. ‘She MUST go into France,’ and for two or three years she pleaded her ignorance and incompetence83. She declined to go. She COULD resist her voices. In prison at Beaurevoir, they forbade her to leap from the tower. But her natural impatience84 and hopefulness prevailed, and she leaped. ‘I would rather trust my soul to God than my body to the English.’ This she confessed to as sinful, though not, she hoped, of the nature of deadly sin. Her inmost and her superficial nature were in conflict.
It is now desirable to give, as briefly85 as possible, Jeanne’s own account of the nature of her experiences, as recorded in the book of her trial at Rouen, with other secondhand accounts, offered on oath, at her trial of Rehabilitation, by witnesses to whom she had spoken on the subject. She was always reticent86 on the theme.
The period when Jeanne supposed herself to see her first visions was physiologically87 critical. She was either between thirteen and fourteen, or between twelve and thirteen. M. Simeon Luce, in his ‘Jeanne d’Arc a Domremy,’ held that she was of the more advanced age, and his date (1425) fitted in with some public events, which, in his opinion, were probably the occasions of the experiences. Pere Ayroles prefers the earlier period (1424) when the aforesaid public events had not yet occurred. After examining the evidence on both sides, I am disposed to think, or rather I am certain, that Pere Ayroles is in the right. In either case Jeanne was at a critical age, when, as I understand, female children are occasionally subject to illusions. Speaking then as a non-scientific student, I submit that on the side of ordinary causes for the visions and voices we have:
1. The period in Jeanne’s life when they began.
2. Her habits of fasting and prayer.
3. Her intense patriotic88 enthusiasm, which may, for all that we know, have been her mood before the voices announced to her the mission.
Let us then examine the evidence as to the origin and nature of the alleged89 phenomena.
I shall begin with the letter of the Senechal de Berry, Perceval de Boulainvilliers, to the Duke of Milan.210 The date is June 21st, 1429, six weeks after the relief of Orleans. After a few such tales as that the cocks crowed when Jeanne was born, and that her flock was lucky, he dates her first vision peractis aetatis suae duodecim annis, ‘after she was twelve.’ Briefly, the tale is that, in a rustic90 race for flowers, one of the other children cried, ‘Joanna, video te volantem juxta terrain,’ ‘Joan, I see you flying near the ground.’ This is the one solitary91 hint of ‘levitation’ (so common in hagiology and witchcraft) which occurs in the career of the Maid. This kind of story is so persistent92 that I knew it must have been told in connection with the Irvingite movement in Scotland. And it was! There is, perhaps, just one trace that flying was believed to be an accomplishment93 of Jeanne’s. When Frere Richard came to her at Troyes, he made, she says, the sign of the cross.211 She answered, ‘Approchez hardiment, je ne m’envouleray pas.’ Now the contemporary St. Colette was not infrequently ‘levitated’!
210 Proces, v. 115.
211 Proces, i. 100.
To return to the Voices. After her race, Jeanne was quasi rapta et a sensibus alienata (‘dissociated’), then juxta eam affuit juvenis quidam, a youth stood by her who bade her ‘go home, for her mother needed her.’
‘Thinking that it was her brother or a neighbour’ (apparently she only heard the voice, and did not see the speaker), she hurried home, and found that she had not been sent for. Next, as she was on the point of returning to her friends, ‘a very bright cloud appeared to her, and out of the cloud came a voice,’ bidding her take up her mission. She was merely puzzled, but the experiences were often renewed. This letter, being contemporary, represents current belief, based either on Jeanne’s own statements before the clergy94 at Poictiers (April 1429) or on the gossip of Domremy. It should be observed that till Jeanne told her own tale at Rouen (1431) we hear not one word about saints or angels. She merely spoke15 of ‘my voices,’ ‘my counsel,’ ‘my Master.’ If she was more explicit95 at Poictiers, her confessions96 did not find their way into surviving letters and journals, not even into the journal of the hostile Bourgeois98 de Paris. We may glance at examples.
The ‘Journal du Siege d’Orleans’ is in parts a late document, in parts ‘evidently copied from a journal kept in presence of the actual events.’212 The ‘Journal,’ in February 1429, vaguely99 says that, ‘about this time’ our Lord used to appear to a maid, as she was guarding her flock, or ‘cousant et filant.’ A St. Victor MS. has courant et saillant (running and jumping), which curiously100 agrees with Boulainvilliers. The ‘Journal,’ after telling of the Battle of the Herrings (February 12th, 1429), in which the Scots and French were cut up in an attack on an English convoy101, declares that Jeanne ‘knew of it by grace divine,’ and that her vue a distance induced Baudricourt to send her to the Dauphin.213 This was attested by Baudricourt’s letters.214
212 Quicherat. In Proces, iv. 95.
213 Proces, iv. 125.
214 Proces, iv. 125.
All this may have been written as late as 1468, but a vague reference to an apparition102 of our Lord rather suggests contemporary hearsay103, before Jeanne came to Orleans. Jeanne never claimed any such visions of our Lord. The story of the clairvoyance as to the Battle of the Herrings is also given in the ‘Chronique de la Pucelle.’215 M. Quicherat thinks that the passage is amplified104 from the ‘Journal du Siege.’ On the other hand, M. Vallet (de Viriville) attributes with assurance the ‘Chronique de la Pucelle’ to Cousinot de Montreuil, who was the Dauphin’s secretary at Poictiers, when the Maid was examined there in April 1429.216 If Cousinot was the author, he certainly did not write his chronicle till long after date. However, he avers that the story of clairvoyance was current in the spring of 1429. The dates exactly harmonise; that is to say, between the day of the battle, February 12th, and the setting forth105 of the Maid from Vaucouleurs, there is just time for the bad news from Rouvray to arrive, confirming her statement, and for a day or two of preparation. But perhaps, after the arrival of the bad news, Baudricourt may have sent Jeanne to the King in a kind of despair. Things could not be worse. If she could do no good, she could do no harm.
215 Proces, iv. 206.
216 Histoire de Charles VII., ii. 62.
The documents, whether contemporary or written later by contemporaries, contain none of the references to visions of St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and St. Michael, which we find in Jeanne’s own replies at Rouen. For this omission106 it is not easy to account, even if we suppose that, except when giving evidence on oath, the Maid was extremely reticent. That she was reticent, we shall prove from evidence of d’Aulon and Dunois. Turning to the Maid’s own evidence in court (1431) we must remember that she was most averse107 to speaking at all, that she often asked leave to wait for advice and permission from her voices before replying, that on one point she constantly declared that, if compelled to speak, she would not speak the truth. This point was the King’s secret. There is absolutely contemporary evidence, from Alain Chartier, that, before she was accepted, she told Charles SOMETHING which filled him with surprise, joy, and belief.217 The secret was connected with Charles’s doubts of his own legitimacy108, and Jeanne at her trial was driven to obscure the truth in a mist of allegory, as, indeed, she confessed. Jeanne’s extreme reluctance109 to adopt even this loyal and laudable evasion110 is the measure of her truthfulness111 in general. Still, she did say some words which, as they stand, it is difficult to believe, to explain, or to account for. From any other prisoner, so unjustly menaced with a doom112 so dreadful, from Mary Stuart, for example, at Fotheringay, we do not expect the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The Maid is a witness of another kind, and where we cannot understand her, we must say, like herself, passez outre!
217 Proces, v. 131. Letter of July 1429. See supra, ‘The False Pucelle.’
When she was ‘about thirteen,’ this is her own account, she had a voice from God, to aid her in governing herself. ‘And the first time she was in great fear. And it came, that voice, about noonday, in summer, in her father’s garden’ (where other girls of old France hear the birds sing, ‘Marry, maidens113, marry!’) ‘and Jeanne had NOT fasted on the day before.218 She heard the voice from the right side, towards the church, and seldom heard it without seeing a bright light. The light was not in front, but at the side whence the voice came. If she were in a wood’ (as distinguished114 from the noise of the crowded and tumultuous court) ‘she could well hear the voices coming to her.’ Asked what sign for her soul’s health the voice gave, she said it bade her behave well, and go to church, and used to tell her to go into France on her mission. (I do not know why the advice about going to church is generally said to have been given FIRST.) Jeanne kept objecting that she was a poor girl who could not ride, or lead in war. She resisted the voice with all her energy. She asserted that she knew the Dauphin, on their first meeting, by aid of her voices.219 She declared that the Dauphin himself ‘multas habuit revelationes et apparitiones pulchras.’ In its literal sense, there is no evidence for this, but rather the reverse. She may mean ‘revelations’ through herself, or may refer to some circumstance unknown. ‘Those of my party saw and knew that voice,’ she said, but later would only accept them as witnesses if they were allowed to come and see her.220
218 The reading is NEC not ET, as in Quicherat, Proces, i. 52, compare i. 216.
219 Proces, i. 56.
220 Proces, i. 57.
This is the most puzzling point in Jeanne’s confession97. She had no motive116 for telling an untruth, unless she hoped that these remarks would establish the objectivity of her visions. Of course, one of her strange experiences may have occurred in the presence of Charles and his court, and she may have believed that they shared in it. The point is one which French writers appear to avoid as a rule.
She said that she heard the voice daily in prison, ‘and stood in sore need of it.’ The voice bade her remain at St. Denis (after the repulse117 from Paris in September 1429), but she was not allowed to remain.
On the next day (the third of the trial) she told Beaupere that she was fasting since yesterday afternoon. Beaupere, as we saw, conceived that her experiences were mere subjective118 hallucinations, caused by fasting, by the sound of church-bells, and so on. As to the noise of bells, Coleridge writes that their music fell on his ears, ‘MOST LIKE ARTICULATE SOUNDS OF THINGS TO COME.’ Beaupere’s sober common-sense did not avail to help the Maid, but at the Rehabilitation (1456) he still maintained his old opinion. ‘Yesterday she had heard the voices in the morning, at vespers, and at the late ringing for Ave Maria, and she heard them much more frequently than she mentioned.’ ‘Yesterday she had been asleep when the voice aroused her. She sat up and clasped her hands, and the voice bade her answer boldly. Other words she half heard before she was quite awake, but failed to understand.’221
221 Proces, i. 62.
She denied that the voices ever contradicted themselves. On this occasion, as not having received leave from her voices, she refused to say anything as to her visions.
At the next meeting she admitted having heard the voices in court, but in court she could not distinguish the words, owing to the tumult115. She had now, however, leave to speak more fully. The voices were those of St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Later she was asked if St. Margaret ‘spoke English.’ Apparently the querist thought that the English Margaret, wife of Malcolm of Scotland, was intended. They were crowned with fair crowns, as she had said at Poictiers two years before. She now appealed to the record of her examination there, but it was not in court, nor was it used in the trial of Rehabilitation. It has never been recovered. A witness who had examined her at Poictiers threw no light (twenty years later) on the saints and voices. Seven years ago (that is, when she was twelve) she first saw the saints. On the attire119 of the saints she had not leave to speak. They were preceded by St. Michael ‘with the angels of heaven.’ ‘I saw them as clearly as I see you, and I used to weep when they departed, and would fain that they should have taken me with them.’
As to the famous sword at Fierbois, she averred120 that she had been in the church there, on her way to Chinon, that the voices later bade her use a sword which was hidden under earth — she thinks behind, but possibly in front of the altar — at Fierbois. A man unknown to her was sent from Tours to fetch the sword, which after search was found, and she wore it.
Asked whether she had prophesied121 her wound by an arrow at Orleans, and her recovery, she said ‘Yes.’
This prediction is singular in that it was recorded before the event. The record was copied into the registre of Brabant, from a letter written on April 22nd, 1429, by a Flemish diplomatist, De Rotselaer, then at Lyons.222 De Rotselaer had the prophecy from an officer of the court of the Dauphin. The prediction was thus noted122 on April 22nd; the event, the arrow-wound in the shoulder, occurred on May 7th. On the fifth day of the trial Jeanne announced that, before seven years were gone, the English ‘shall lose a dearer gage than Orleans; this I know by revelation, and am wroth that it is to be so long deferred123.’ Mr. Myers observes that ‘the prediction of a great victory over the English within seven years was not fulfilled in any exact way.’ The words of the Maid are ‘Angli demittent majus vadium quam fecerunt coram Aurelianis,’ and, as prophecies go, their loss of Paris (1436) corresponds very well to the Maid’s announcement. She went on, indeed, to say that the English ‘will have greater loss than ever they had, through a great French victory,’ but this reads like a gloss124 on her original prediction. ‘She knew it as well as that we were there.’223 ‘You shall not have the exact year, but well I wish it might be before the St. John;’ however, she had already expressed her sorrow that this was NOT to be. Asked, on March 1st, whether her liberation was promised, she said, ‘Ask me in three months, and I will tell you.’ In three months exactly, her stainless125 soul was free.
222 Proces, iv. 425.
223 Proces, i. 84.
On the appearance, garb126, and so on of her saints, she declined to answer questions.
She had once disobeyed her voices, when they forbade her to leap from the tower of Beaurevoir. She leaped, but they forgave her, and told her that Compiegne (where she was captured on May 23rd, 1430) would be relieved ‘before Martinmas.’ It was relieved on October 26th, after a siege of five months. On March 10th an effort was made to prove that her voices had lied to her, and that she had lied about her voices. The enemy maintained that on May 23rd, 1430, she announced a promised victory to the people of Compiegne, vowing127 that St. Margaret and St. Catherine had revealed it to her. Two hostile priests of Compiegne were at Rouen, and may have carried this tale, which is reported by two Burgundian chroniclers, but NOT by Monstrelet, who was with the besieging army.224 In court she said n’eust autre commandement de yssir: she had no command from her voices to make her fatal sally. She was not asked whether she had pretended to have received such an order. She told the touching128 story of how, at Melun, in April 1430, the voices had warned her that she would be taken prisoner before midsummer; how she had prayed for death, or for tidings as to the day and hour. But no tidings were given to her, and her old belief, often expressed, that she ‘should last but one year or little more,’ was confirmed. The Duc d’Alencon had heard her say this several times; for the prophecy at Melun we have only her own word.
224 I have examined the evidence in Macmillan’s Magazine for May 1894, and, to myself, it seems inadequate.
She was now led into the allegory intended to veil the King’s secret, the allegory about the Angel (herself) and the Crown (the coronation at Rheims). This allegory was fatal, but does not bear on her real belief about her experiences. She averred, returning to genuine confessions, that her voices often came spontaneously; if they did not, she summoned them by a simple prayer to God. She had seen the angelic figures moving, invisible save to her, among men. The voices HAD promised her the release of Charles d’Orleans, but time had failed her. This was as near a confession of failure as she ever made, till the day of her burning, if she really made one then.225 But here, as always, she had predicted that she would do this or that if she were sans empeschement. She had no revelation bidding her attack Paris when she did, and after the day at Melun she submitted to the advice of the other captains. As to her release, she was only bidden ‘to bear all cheerfully; be not vexed129 with thy martyrdom, thence shalt thou come at last into the kingdom of Paradise.’
225 As to her ‘abjuration’ and alleged doubts, see L’Abjuration du Cimetiere Saint–Ouen, by Abbe Ph. H. Dunard; Poussielgue, Paris, 1901.
To us, this is explicit enough, but the poor child explained to her judges that by martire she understood the pains of prison, and she referred it to her Lord, whether there were more to bear. In this passage the original French exists, as well as the Latin translation. The French is better.
‘Ne te chaille de ton martire, tu t’en vendras enfin en royaulme de Paradis.’
‘Non cures de martyrio tuo: tu venies finaliter in regnum paradisi.’
The word hinc is omitted in the bad Latin. Unluckily we have only a fragment of the original French, as taken down in court. The Latin version, by Courcelles, one of the prosecutors, is in places inaccurate130, in others is actually garbled131 to the disadvantage of the Maid.
This passage, with some others, may perhaps be regarded as indicating that the contents of the communications received by Jeanne were not always intelligible132 to her.
That her saints could be, and were, touched physically133 by her, she admitted.226 Here I am inclined to think that she had touched with her ring (as the custom was) a RELIC134 of St. Catherine at Fierbois. Such relics135, brought from the monastery136 of Sinai, lay at Fierbois, and we know that women loved to rub their rings on the ring of Jeanne, in spite of her laughing remonstrances137. But apart from this conjecture, she regarded her saints as tangible138 by her. She had embraced both St. Margaret and St. Catherine.227
226 Proces, i. 185.
227 Proces, i. 186.
For the rest, Jeanne recanted her so-called recantation, averring139 that she was unaware140 of the contents or full significance of the document, which certainly is not the very brief writing to which she set her mark. Her voices recalled her to her duty, for them she went to the stake, and if there was a moment of wavering on the day of her doom, her belief in the objective reality of the phenomena remained firm, and she recovered her faith in the agony of her death.
Of EXTERNAL evidence as to her accounts of these experiences, the best is probably that of d’Aulon, the maitre d’Hotel of the Maid, and her companion through her career. He and she were reposing141 in the same room at Orleans, her hostess being in the chamber142 (May 1429), and d’Aulon had just fallen asleep, when the Maid awoke him with a cry. Her voices bade her go against the English, but in what direction she knew not. In fact, the French leaders had begun, without her knowledge, an attack on St. Loup, whither she galloped143 and took the fort.228 It is, of course, conceivable that the din3 of onset144, which presently became audible, had vaguely reached the senses of the sleeping Maid. Her page confirms d’Aulon’s testimony145.
228 Proces, iii. 212.
D’Aulon states that when the Maid had any martial146 adventure in prospect147, she told him that her ‘counsel’ had given her this or that advice. He questioned her as to the nature of this ‘counsel.’ She said ‘she had three councillors, of whom one was always with her, a second went and came to her, and the third was he with whom the others deliberated.’ D’Aulon ‘was not worthy148 to see this counsel.’ From the moment when he heard this, d’Aulon asked no more questions. Dunois also gave some evidence as to the ‘counsel.’ At Loches, when Jeanne was urging the journey to Rheims, Harcourt asked her, before the King, what the nature (modus) of the council was; HOW it communicated with her. She replied that when she was met with incredulity, she went apart and prayed to God. Then she heard a voice say, Fille De, va, va, va, je serai a ton aide, va! ‘And when she heard that voice she was right glad, and would fain be ever in that state.’ ‘As she spoke thus, ipsa miro modo exsultabat, levando suos oculos ad coelum.’229 (She seemed wondrous149 glad, raising her eyes to heaven.) Finally, that Jeanne maintained her belief to the moment of her death, we learn from the priest, Martin Ladvenu, who was with her to the last.230 There is no sign anywhere that at the moment of an ‘experience’ the Maid’s aspect seemed that of one ‘dissociated,’ or uncanny, or abnormal, in the eyes of those who were in her company.
229 Proces, iii. 12.
230 Proces, iii. 170.
These depositions150 were given twenty years later (1452–56), and, of course, allowance must be made for weakness of memory and desire to glorify151 the Maid. But there is really nothing of a suspicious character about them. In fact, the ‘growth of legend’ was very slight, and is mainly confined to the events of the martyrdom, the White Dove, the name of Christ blazoned152 in flame, and so forth.231 It should also have been mentioned that at the taking of St. Pierre de Moustier (November 1429) Jeanne, when deserted153 by her forces, declared to d’Aulon that she was ‘not alone, but surrounded by fifty thousand of her own.’ The men therefore rallied and stormed the place.
This is the sum of the external evidence as to the phenomena.
231 For German fables154 see Lefevre–Pontalis, Les Sources Allemandes, Paris, 1903. They are scanty155, and, in some cases, are distortions of real events.
As to the contents of the communications to Jeanne, they were certainly sane, judicious156, and heroic. M. Quicherat (Apercus Nouveaux, p. 61) distinguishes three classes of abnormally conveyed knowledge, all on unimpeachable157 evidence.
(1.) THOUGHT-READING, as in the case of the King’s secret; she repeated to him the words of a prayer which he had made mentally in his oratory.
(2.) CLAIRVOYANCE, as exhibited in the affair of the sword of Fierbois.
(3.) PRESCIENCE, as in the prophecy of her arrow-wound at Orleans. According to her confessor, Pasquerel, she repeated the prophecy and indicated the spot in which she would be wounded (under the right shoulder) on the night of May 6. But this is later evidence given in the trial of Rehabilitation. Neither Pasquerel nor any other of the Maid’s party was heard at the trial of 1431.
To these we might add the view, from Vaucouleurs, a hundred leagues away, of the defeat at Rouvray; the prophecy that she ‘would last but a year or little more;’ the prophecy, at Melun, of her capture; the prophecy of the relief of Compiegne; and the strange affair of the bon conduit at the battle of Pathay.232 For several of these predictions we have only the Maid’s word, but to be plain, we can scarcely have more unimpeachable testimony.
232 Proces, iv. 371, 372. Here the authority is Monstrelet, a Burgundian.
Here the compiler leaves his task: the inferences may be drawn by experts. The old theory of imposture158, the Voltairean theory of a ‘poor idiot,’ the vague charge of ‘hysteria,’ are untenable. The honesty and the genius of Jeanne are no longer denied. If hysteria be named, it is plain that we must argue that, because hysteria is accompanied by visionary symptoms, all visions are proofs of hysteria. Michelet holds by hallucinations which were unconsciously externalised by the mind of Jeanne. That mind must have been a very peculiar159 intellect, and the modus is precisely160 the difficulty. Henri Martin believes in some kind of manifestation161 revealed to the individual mind by the Absolute: perhaps this word is here equivalent to ‘the subliminal162 self’ of Mr. Myers. Many Catholics, as yet unauthorised, I conceive, by the Church, accept the theory of Jeanne herself; her saints were true saints from Paradise. On the other hand it is manifest that visions of a bright light and ‘auditions’ of voices are common enough phenomena in madness, and in the experiences of very uninspired sane men and women. From the sensations of these people Jeanne’s phenomena are only differentiated163 by their number, by their persistence164 through seven years of an almost abnormally healthy life, by their importance, orderliness, and veracity165, as well as by their heroic character.
Mr. Myers has justly compared the case of Jeanne with that of Socrates. A much humbler parallel, curiously close in one respect, may be cited from M. Janet’s article, ‘Les Actes Inconscients dans le Somnambulisme’ (‘Revue Philosophique,’ March 1888).
The case is that of Madame B., a peasant woman near Cherbourg. She has her common work-a-day personality, called, for convenience, ‘Leonie.’ There is also her hypnotic personality, ‘Leontine.’ Now Leontine (that is, Madame B. in a somnambulistic state) was one day hysterical166 and troublesome. Suddenly she exclaimed in terror that she heard A VOICE ON THE LEFT, crying, ‘Enough, be quiet, you are a nuisance.’ She hunted in vain for the speaker, who, of course, was inaudible to M. Janet, though he was present. This sagacious speaker (a faculty of Madame B.‘s own nature) is ‘brought out’ by repeated passes, and when this moral and sensible phase of her character is thus evoked167, Madame B. is ‘Leonore.’ Madame B. now sometimes assumes an expression of beatitude, smiling and looking upwards168. As Dunois said of Jeanne when she was recalling her visions, ‘miro modo exsultabat, levando suos oculos ad coelum.’ This ecstasy169 Madame B. (as Leonie) dimly remembers, averring that ‘she has been dazzled BY A LIGHT ON THE LEFT SIDE.’ Here apparently we have the best aspect of poor Madame B. revealing itself in a mixture of hysterics and hypnotism, and associating itself with an audible sagacious voice and a dazzling light on the left, both hallucinatory.
The coincidence (not observed by M. Janet) with Jeanne’s earliest experience is most curious. Audivit vocem a dextero latere. . . . claritas est ab eodem latere in quo vox auditur, sed ibi communiter est magna claritas. (She heard a voice from the right. There is usually a bright light on the same side as the voice.) Like Madame B., Jeanne was at first alarmed by these sensations.
The parallel, so far, is perfectly170 complete (except that ‘Leonore’ merely talks common sense, while Jeanne’s voices gave information not normally acquired). But in Jeanne’s case I have found no hint of temporary unconsciousness or ‘dissociation.’ When strung up to the most intense mental eagerness in court, she still heard her voices, though, because of the tumult of the assembly, she heard them indistinctly. Thus her experiences are not associated with insanity171, partial unconsciousness, or any physical disturbance172 (as in some tales of second sight), while the sagacity of the communications and their veracity distinguish them from the hallucinations of mad people. As far as the affair of Rouvray, the prophecy of the instant death of an insolent173 soldier at Chinon (evidence of Pasquerel, her confessor), and such things go, we have, of course, many alleged parallels in the predictions of Mr. Peden and other seers of the Covenant174. But Mr. Peden’s political predictions are still unfulfilled, whereas concerning the ‘dear gage’ which the English should lose in France within seven years, Jeanne may be called successful.
On the whole, if we explain Jeanne’s experiences as the expressions of her higher self (as Leonore is Madame B.‘s higher self), we are compelled to ask what is the nature of that self?
Another parallel, on a low level, to what may be called the mechanism175 of Jeanne’s voices and visions is found in Professor Flournoy’s patient, ‘Helene Smith.’233 Miss ‘Smith,’ a hardworking shopwoman in Geneva, had, as a child, been dull but dreamy. At about twelve years of age she began to see, and hear, a visionary being named Leopold, who, in life, had been Cagliostro. His appearance was probably suggested by an illustration in the Joseph Balsamo of Alexandre Dumas. The saints of Jeanne, in the same way, may have been suggested by works of sacred art in statues and church windows. To Miss Smith, Leopold played the part of Jeanne’s saints. He appeared and warned her not to take such or such a street when walking, not to try to lift a parcel which seemed light, but was very heavy, and in other ways displayed knowledge not present to her ordinary workaday self.
233 See Flournoy, Des Indes a la Planete Mars. Alcan, Paris, 1900.
There was no real Leopold, and Jeanne’s St. Catherine cannot be shown to have ever been a real historical personage.234 These figures, in fact, are more or less akin to the ‘invisible playmates’ familiar to many children.235 They are not objective personalities176, but part of the mechanism of a certain class of mind. The mind may be that of a person devoid177 of genius, like Miss Smith, or of a genius like Goethe, Shelley, or Jeanne d’Arc, or Socrates with his ‘Daemon,’ and its warnings. In the case of Jeanne d’Arc, as of Socrates, the mind communicated knowledge not in the conscious everyday intelligence of the Athenian or of la Pucelle. This information, in Jeanne’s case, was presented in the shape of hallucinations of eye and ear. It was sane, wise, noble, veracious178, and concerned not with trifles, but with great affairs. We are not encouraged to suppose that saints or angels made themselves audible and visible. But, by the mechanism of such appearances to the senses, that which was divine in the Maid — in all of us, if we follow St. Paul — that ‘in which we live and move and have our being,’ made itself intelligible to her ordinary consciousness, her workaday self, and led her to the fulfilment of a task which seemed impossible to men.
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adj.不知所措的 | |
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2 taunt | |
n.辱骂,嘲弄;v.嘲弄 | |
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3 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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4 patriot | |
n.爱国者,爱国主义者 | |
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5 eloquent | |
adj.雄辩的,口才流利的;明白显示出的 | |
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6 contradictory | |
adj.反驳的,反对的,抗辩的;n.正反对,矛盾对立 | |
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7 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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8 clairvoyance | |
n.超人的洞察力 | |
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9 disclaims | |
v.否认( disclaim的第三人称单数 ) | |
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10 maiden | |
n.少女,处女;adj.未婚的,纯洁的,无经验的 | |
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11 maidenhood | |
n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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12 avers | |
v.断言( aver的第三人称单数 );证实;证明…属实;作为事实提出 | |
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13 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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14 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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15 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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16 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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17 malady | |
n.病,疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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18 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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19 unnatural | |
adj.不自然的;反常的 | |
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20 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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21 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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22 gore | |
n.凝血,血污;v.(动物)用角撞伤,用牙刺破;缝以补裆;顶 | |
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23 patriotism | |
n.爱国精神,爱国心,爱国主义 | |
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24 entreat | |
v.恳求,恳请 | |
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26 corrupt | |
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27 tainted | |
adj.腐坏的;污染的;沾污的;感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 );使污染;败坏;被污染,腐坏,败坏 | |
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28 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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32 dealer | |
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33 oratory | |
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v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解 | |
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35 besieging | |
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36 utterly | |
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37 inadequate | |
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39 gage | |
n.标准尺寸,规格;量规,量表 [=gauge] | |
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40 exchequer | |
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n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 );令人惊奇的事物(或事例);不平凡的成果;成就v.惊奇,对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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42 attested | |
adj.经检验证明无病的,经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 );证实;声称…属实;使宣誓 | |
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43 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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47 mere | |
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48 construe | |
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49 inexplicable | |
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52 adroitly | |
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55 maniacs | |
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56 lucidity | |
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57 fatigue | |
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58 impair | |
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59 animate | |
v.赋于生命,鼓励;adj.有生命的,有生气的 | |
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adj. 震惊的,惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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61 protracted | |
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62 vivacious | |
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63 uproar | |
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64 brawling | |
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67 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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68 fully | |
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69 momentary | |
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70 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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71 akin | |
adj.同族的,类似的 | |
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72 contemplate | |
vt.盘算,计议;周密考虑;注视,凝视 | |
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73 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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74 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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75 envisage | |
v.想象,设想,展望,正视 | |
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76 phenomena | |
n.现象 | |
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n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 );震动;感受;(偏离平衡位置的)一次性往复振动 | |
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78 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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80 attain | |
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81 relatively | |
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82 margin | |
n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
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83 incompetence | |
n.不胜任,不称职 | |
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84 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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85 briefly | |
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86 reticent | |
adj.沉默寡言的;言不如意的 | |
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87 physiologically | |
ad.生理上,在生理学上 | |
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88 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
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89 alleged | |
a.被指控的,嫌疑的 | |
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90 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
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91 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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92 persistent | |
adj.坚持不懈的,执意的;持续的 | |
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93 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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94 clergy | |
n.[总称]牧师,神职人员 | |
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95 explicit | |
adj.详述的,明确的;坦率的;显然的 | |
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96 confessions | |
n.承认( confession的名词复数 );自首;声明;(向神父的)忏悔 | |
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97 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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98 bourgeois | |
adj./n.追求物质享受的(人);中产阶级分子 | |
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99 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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100 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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101 convoy | |
vt.护送,护卫,护航;n.护送;护送队 | |
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102 apparition | |
n.幽灵,神奇的现象 | |
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103 hearsay | |
n.谣传,风闻 | |
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104 amplified | |
放大,扩大( amplify的过去式和过去分词 ); 增强; 详述 | |
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105 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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106 omission | |
n.省略,删节;遗漏或省略的事物,冗长 | |
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107 averse | |
adj.厌恶的;反对的,不乐意的 | |
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108 legitimacy | |
n.合法,正当 | |
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109 reluctance | |
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿 | |
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110 evasion | |
n.逃避,偷漏(税) | |
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111 truthfulness | |
n. 符合实际 | |
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112 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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113 maidens | |
处女( maiden的名词复数 ); 少女; 未婚女子; (板球运动)未得分的一轮投球 | |
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114 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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115 tumult | |
n.喧哗;激动,混乱;吵闹 | |
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116 motive | |
n.动机,目的;adv.发动的,运动的 | |
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117 repulse | |
n.击退,拒绝;vt.逐退,击退,拒绝 | |
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118 subjective | |
a.主观(上)的,个人的 | |
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119 attire | |
v.穿衣,装扮[同]array;n.衣着;盛装 | |
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120 averred | |
v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 );证实;证明…属实;作为事实提出 | |
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121 prophesied | |
v.预告,预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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123 deferred | |
adj.延期的,缓召的v.拖延,延缓,推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 );服从某人的意愿,遵从 | |
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124 gloss | |
n.光泽,光滑;虚饰;注释;vt.加光泽于;掩饰 | |
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125 stainless | |
adj.无瑕疵的,不锈的 | |
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126 garb | |
n.服装,装束 | |
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127 vowing | |
起誓,发誓(vow的现在分词形式) | |
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128 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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129 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
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130 inaccurate | |
adj.错误的,不正确的,不准确的 | |
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131 garbled | |
adj.(指信息)混乱的,引起误解的v.对(事实)歪曲,对(文章等)断章取义,窜改( garble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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132 intelligible | |
adj.可理解的,明白易懂的,清楚的 | |
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133 physically | |
adj.物质上,体格上,身体上,按自然规律 | |
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134 relic | |
n.神圣的遗物,遗迹,纪念物 | |
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135 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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136 monastery | |
n.修道院,僧院,寺院 | |
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137 remonstrances | |
n.抱怨,抗议( remonstrance的名词复数 ) | |
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138 tangible | |
adj.有形的,可触摸的,确凿的,实际的 | |
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139 averring | |
v.断言( aver的现在分词 );证实;证明…属实;作为事实提出 | |
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140 unaware | |
a.不知道的,未意识到的 | |
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141 reposing | |
v.将(手臂等)靠在某人(某物)上( repose的现在分词 ) | |
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142 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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143 galloped | |
(使马)飞奔,奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 ); 快速做[说]某事 | |
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144 onset | |
n.进攻,袭击,开始,突然开始 | |
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145 testimony | |
n.证词;见证,证明 | |
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146 martial | |
adj.战争的,军事的,尚武的,威武的 | |
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147 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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148 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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149 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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150 depositions | |
沉积(物)( deposition的名词复数 ); (在法庭上的)宣誓作证; 处置; 罢免 | |
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151 glorify | |
vt.颂扬,赞美,使增光,美化 | |
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152 blazoned | |
v.广布( blazon的过去式和过去分词 );宣布;夸示;装饰 | |
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153 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
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154 fables | |
n.寓言( fable的名词复数 );神话,传说 | |
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155 scanty | |
adj.缺乏的,仅有的,节省的,狭小的,不够的 | |
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156 judicious | |
adj.明智的,明断的,能作出明智决定的 | |
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157 unimpeachable | |
adj.无可指责的;adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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158 imposture | |
n.冒名顶替,欺骗 | |
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159 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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160 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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161 manifestation | |
n.表现形式;表明;现象 | |
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162 subliminal | |
adj.下意识的,潜意识的;太弱或太快以至于难以觉察的 | |
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163 differentiated | |
区分,区别,辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 ); 区别对待; 表明…间的差别,构成…间差别的特征 | |
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164 persistence | |
n.坚持,持续,存留 | |
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165 veracity | |
n.诚实 | |
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166 hysterical | |
adj.情绪异常激动的,歇斯底里般的 | |
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167 evoked | |
[医]诱发的 | |
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168 upwards | |
adv.向上,在更高处...以上 | |
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169 ecstasy | |
n.狂喜,心醉神怡,入迷 | |
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170 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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171 insanity | |
n.疯狂,精神错乱;极端的愚蠢,荒唐 | |
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172 disturbance | |
n.动乱,骚动;打扰,干扰;(身心)失调 | |
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173 insolent | |
adj.傲慢的,无理的 | |
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174 covenant | |
n.盟约,契约;v.订盟约 | |
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175 mechanism | |
n.机械装置;机构,结构 | |
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176 personalities | |
n. 诽谤,(对某人容貌、性格等所进行的)人身攻击; 人身攻击;人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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177 devoid | |
adj.全无的,缺乏的 | |
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178 veracious | |
adj.诚实可靠的 | |
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