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These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any means overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical representative of the serf of yore, and think not so much of present times, which may be prosperous enough, as of the old days when the peasant was taxed beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in Michelet's image, like a hare between two furrows.
Petitot's Memoires sur le Regne de Louis XIII.; Secret History of the French Court, by Cousin; Le Clerc's Vie de Richelieu; Henri Martin's History of France; Memoires de Richelieu, by Michaud and Poujoulat; Life of Richelieu, by Capefigue, and E.E. Crowe, and G.P.R. James; Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia; Histoire du Ministere du Cardinal de Richelieu, by A. Jay; Michelet's Life of Henry IV. and Richelieu; Biographie Universelle; Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France.
To calm myself during that week of excitement, I thought many times of Michelet's wise motto, "Let the weal and woe of humanity be everything to you, their praise and blame of no effect; be not puffed up with the one nor cast down with the other." Naturally at such a time I reviewed my life, its march and battle on the highways of experience, and counted its defeats and victories.
But the amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach is the way in which he improves and varies against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. Listen to him: They "showed their backs" did these English. The law laid its guns so as to rake the accused at every possible angle.
The Nganga of Congo-land, the Mganga of the Wasawahili and the Uganga of the Gaboon, exactly corresponds with M. Michelet's Sorciere of the Middle Ages, "physicienne," that is doctor for the people and poisoner; we cannot, however, apply in Africa the adage of Louis XIII.'s day, "To one wizard ten thousand witches."
Thus it happened that he once showered kisses on Michelet's hands, objects by no means suitable for such a demonstration. Michelet said, laughing: "Come, stop it; my hands are dirty." And then poor Paga began to kiss Michelet's bare, hairy arms, saying distractedly: "If your hands are dirty, your arms are all right."
Lamartine's Characters; Berington's Middle Ages; Michelet's History of France; Life of St. Bernard; French Ecclesiastical Historians; Bayle's Critical Dictionary; Biographic Universelle; Pope's Lines on Abélard and Héloïse; Letters of Abélard and Héloïse. Perhaps the best known and most popular of heroines is Joan of Arc, called the Maid of Orleans.
Of these two evils the former appeared to him the less, while the latter he could only think of in terms of folly and outrage. Taine's conservatism was the reaction of opinion against the violence of the Commune and the weak beginnings of the Third Republic, as Michelet's liberalism had been its reaction against Orleanist and Bonapartist middle class and military dictation.
Twenty years more have elapsed and things have not yet become much better. Frank sex talks like Dr. Long's teaching are as a-propos today as was Michelet's book when it was written, or when, after forty years had passed M. Lemaitre wrote his introduction.
Although only one hundred and thirty pages are given to her life, these pages form a book in themselves, and as a separate volume Michelet's Life of Joan of Arc has gone through a large number of editions, the latest a handsome illustrated one, published by Hachette in 1888.
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