JOAN OF ARC, AND THE Times of Charles the Seventh, King of France. BY MRS. BRAY, AUTHOR OF 'THE GOOD ST. LOUIS,' 'THE REVOLT OF THE PROTESTANTS OF THE CEVENNES,' 'THE WHITE HOODS,' 'HARTLAND FOREST,' 'LIFE OF STOTHARD,' ETC. PREFACE. HE subject of the following pages was suggested by the study of the French chroniclers of the fifteenth century. Our English historians, in treating the events of French history which are interwoven with our own, give generally but brief notices of the leading actors in them, and omit those minor details which would have contributed to form a vivid picture of the social state of the period with which they are concerned. The early French chroniclers supply many particulars of this description; but their quaint style, their obsolete language, and their tedious repetitions, repel the modern reader, who requires to be allured and stimulated by composition of a more rapid and lively character. These old writers, however, are singularly rich in original matter, and are usually witnesses of a very trustworthy kind. Most of them, as Monstrelet, Commines, Oliver de la Marche, and others, write about persons known to themselves, and events that had fallen under their own observation, or about those that were within the memory |