I. la perte du royaume était l'œuvre d'une femme

Isabeau (daughter of a Bavarian duke), the wife of Charles VI, disinherited her son, Charles VII, to give the kingdom to her daughter, whom she married to Henry V of England. She was instrumental in bringing about the treaty of Troyes (see introductory note to p. 93).

ID. l'héritière du duché de Lorraine. Isabelle, daughter of Charles II of Lorraine, was married to René d'Anjou in 1420. This resulted in better relations between Anjou and France.

12. Un jour d'été, etc. Michelet draws this and most of the anecdotes of the text from the court records of the trial in which Jeanne Dare was condemned to death.

101. — I. estoit. Old form of était. The diphthong oi for ai in the imperfect indicative, the conditional, certain adjectives and a few other words, was not replaced by the modern ai until the custom had been introduced by Voltaire; the pronunciation had already passed to ai before this time.

103. — 25. ma mie. In the Old French manuscripts mon amie was written mamie, then the words became wrongly separated (ma mie for m'amie). The use of mon before a feminine substantive beginning with a vowel is probably due to analogy with bonne amie.

28. la mi-carême. Carême is masculine, la agrees (as in la Saint-Michel, and other expressions for saints' days) with fête understood; it should be noticed that mi-carême {Saint- Michel, etc.) are probably survivals of the Old French usage of a substantive dependent on another without a governing preposition, just as in Hôtel-Dieu, etc.

104. — 2. quoique j'aimasse. The imperfect subjunctive is now almost prohibited in conversational French; it is

avoided by using a phrase which does not require the subjunctive, or by violating the rules for the sequence of tenses, that is, by using a present subjunctive after a past leading tense, etc. Especially unpopular are all the forms of the first conjugation, except the third person singular.

12. le duc de Lorraine. At this time Charles II (1390- 143 1) was Duke of Lorraine; he was the father-in-law of René d'Anjou.

27. leur fit écrire qu'elle les priait de, etc. Strictly the phrase may have two interpretations; the context shows, however, that leur is the indirect object of écrire.

105. — 19. La cour de Charles VII. The English being in control of the territory north of the Loire, the French court had been forced to retire to Chinon.

22. le parti de la reine et de sa mère. That is, the party of the Queen and her mother, Yolande d'Anjou, which was opposed to the party of George de La Trémouille, minister of Charles VII, who did not wish the king to escape from his authority by going to war against the English.

106. — 4. depuis le 12 février. The date of the battle of the Herrings, when the French convoy of fish for the starving city was routed and the fish scattered over the field. The siege of Orleans had begun October 12, 142S.

21. Jehanne. Old spelling of Jeanne (the Latin etymon is Johanna).

28. vrai héritier de France et fils du roi. Jeanne Darc said, in other words, that Charles VII was the son of Charles VI and consequently the true heir to the throne, which the English claimed for Henry VI (see also introductory note to p. 93).

31. Ceux-ci, qui. The relative clause is not restrictive, consequently ceux-ci, not ceux alone, is used .

107. — 5. L'archevêque de Reims. The archbishop of Rheims was the highest in rank of the French prelates.

21. la chronique. The contemporary Old French chronicle, also called la chronique de la Pucelle.

108. — 3. damoiselles. The origin of this word and of demoiselle is the same; damoiselle is, however, not a modern word, it was given formerly to unmarried women of the nobility and then extended to married women even of the middle class.

23. de par le Roi. Par is here not the preposition, but stands for the word part, the following substantive being a survival of the Latin genitive. The spelling par is due to confusion with the preposition (see Littré, Dictionnaire^ under par {de)).

109. — 21. fleurdelisé. The standard of the French kings began to be adorned with fleurs-de-lis about 1147 (reign of Louis VII); it is quite probable that the figure was an attempt to represent the end of a halberd, not the flower.

30. la mort de Salisbury. This English leader died during the siege of Orleans.

110. — I. les Bourguignons. The Burgundians were on the English side in the Hundred Years' War.

10. S'ils avaient été réunis, cela eût fait. The indicative mood is ordinarily used in the French unreal (contrary to fact) conditional sentence; however, the literary language allows the pluperfect subjunctive in either the protasis or the apodosis.

12. boulevards. The word comes from the German hohle and werk ('work or rampart of planks'). In the fifteenth century the word signified a rampart of earth supported by beams; when the fortifications were razed and avenues replaced them, the modern meaning arose.

113. — 4. le corps du duc. The English had captured the Duke of Orleans at the battle of Agincourt in 1415; he remained a prisoner in England until 1440.