The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1895-03-27
Personal RecoIIectIons {
Joan of Arc.
BY THE s1EUR LOUIS DE coNTE

being told in fiction, and in a manner
likely to place it among the great
historical novels. The name of the
author, who is disguised as the Sieur
Loeis de Conte, Joan's page ard
secretary, is not disclosed, but he is
said to be the most popular among
living American magazine writer's.
l. the Sieur Louis de Conte, was
born in Neufchateau, the 9th of
January, 14l0; that is to say, ex-
actly two years before Joan of Arc
was born in Domremy. My family
had fed to those distant regions
from the neighborhood of Paris in
the first years of the century. In
politics they were Armagnacs-
patriots: they were for our own
French King, crazy and impotent as
he was. The Burgundian party, who
were for the English, had stripped
them. aud done it we'll They took
everything but my fathers small
nobility, and when he reached
Neufchateau he reached j. in poverty
and with a broken spirit. But the
political atmosphere there was the
sort he liked, and that was some
thing. He came to a region Of
comparative quiet; he left behind
him a regioA peopled with furles,
madmen, devils, where slaughter was
a daily pastime and no mans life safe
for a moment. In Paris, mobs roared
through the streets nightly, sacking,
burning, killing. unmolested, I'M
interrupted. The sun rose upon
wrecked and smoking buildings, and
upon mutilated corpses lying here,
there, and yonder about the streets,
just as they fell, and stripped naked
by thieves, the unholy cleaners after
the mob. None had the courage to
gather these dead for bnrial they
were left there to rot and create
plaques
And plaques they did create
Epldemics swept away the people
like flies, and the burials were con.
Quoted secretly and by. night; for
public funerals we're not allowed,
lest the revelation of the magnitude
of the plaques work unman the
people and plunge them into despair.
Then came, finally, the b%itterest
winter which had visited France in
five hundred years. Famine, pesti-
leuce, slaughter, ice, snow-Parls
had all these at once. The dead lay
in heaps about the streets, and
wolves entered the city in daylight
and d%evoured them.
All, France had fallen low-so low.
For more than fifty years the
English fangs had been bedded
in her flesh, and so cowed had her
armies become by ceasless rout and
defeat that It was said and accepted
that the mere sight of an English
army was sufficient to put a French
one to flight.
When l was five years old the
predictions disaster of Agincourt fell
upon France; and although the
English King went home to enjoy
his glory, he left the country pros.
trate and a prey to rowing bands OF
Free Companions in the service of
the Burgundian party and one of
these bands came raiding through
Neufchateau one night, and by the
light Of our burning roof thatch |
saw ali that were dear to me in this
world (save an elder brother, your
ancestor, left with the Court in Paris
butchered while they begged for
mercy, and heard the butchers laugh
at their prayers and mimic their
pleadines. l was overlooked, and
escaped without hart. When the
savages were gone l crept out and
cried the night away watching the
burning houses and was all alone.
except for the company Of the dead
and the wounded, for the rest had
taken fight and hidden themselves.
was sent to Domremy, to the
priest, whose housekeeper became a
loving mother to me-. Fhe priest in
the course of time taught ne to read
and write, and he and | were the
only persons in the village who pos
seSsed this leaning.
st the time that the house OF TINS
good priest, Guillaume Fronte, be
came my home | was SIX years Old
We lived close by the village
church, and the small garden OF
Joan's parents was behind the
church. AS to that family, there
were Jacques, dare the father, his
wife Isabel Romeo, three sons
Jacques, ten years Old, Pierre, eight,
and Jean, seven Joan, four, and her
baby sister Catherine, about ) year
old I had these children Tor play