Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-02-05
AMA70LE FRANCE,
LECTURE TOPIC
Prof. Cons, OF Bryn Mawr, Will
Address Alliance Fran
caise Here.

| Anatole France, one of the greatest
living French writer's, will be discussed
in a lecture by Professor Louis Cons,
of Bryn Mawr College, before the Alli-
ance Franchise at the Public Library
next Wednesday afternoon.
France is famous for his recent work
on the Joan of Arc and his burlesque
history OF France, entitled the Isle Of
the Penguins."
Regarding the Joan of Arc he says:
Maid and peace-loving soldier, de-
| voice, prophecies. sorceress, angel of
| the Lord, ogress-everybody looks at
her In his own way and dreams of her
according to his own character. Pious
people attribute to her an invincible
| sweetness and the divine treasures of
charity; simple folk make her simple
like themselves; men who are violent
and gross represent her as an ugly n
terrible giantess. Will 1t eve be possible
to find out what she was in reality"
And then he answer his own ques-
ton:
1.-THE texts make especially clear that
Joan was a saint. She was a saint with
all the attributes of ~sanctity peculiar
to the fifteenth century. She had WIS.,
ions, and these visions were neither
feigned nor counterfeited She believed
that she really heard voices which
spoke to her and which did not come
from human mouths. These voices
talked with her, for the most part, in a
distinct manner Ineligible to her. She
heard them best in the woods or when
the church bells We're ringing. She saw
faces multiplied and tiny, like sparks in
tho midst of a dazzling light. Without
doubt she also had visions of another
sort, for she tells us that she saw Saint
| Michael in the garb of a prud'homme,
that is to say of a good knight, and
Sainte Catharine and Sainte Marquee
rite wearing crowns. She saw them sa-
lutte her, she embraced them and
sensed their sweet odor."
1.-THE Isle of the Penguins'' takes as
many liberties with facts as the
K~nickerbocker history of New York,
and deliberately and mischievously
DISCUSSES prominent French ~personages.
After having his fun, France makes a
prophecy: .
Then, in the course of ages, the vii
lagos full of the products of the soil,
the fields heavy with grain, were pill
LACED and ravaged by barbarian in
vaders. The country changed masters
several times. The ~conqueror erected
castles on the hills, crops were estab-
lished, routes were opened through the
forests and the marshes, the streams
arrayed themselves with vessels. The
villages became great towns, and, uni
ted to one another, formed a city
which was protected by deep bitches
and high walls. Later, capital of a
great State, it found itself cranped by
useless ramparts and made green prom
enades of them. 1t waxed rich and
grew excessively. The buildings were
never high enough. They mounted con-
tinually, higher and higher. Thirty
and forty story structures were erect
| ed, in which offices, shops, banks and
corporation headquarters were super
posed, and the earth was excavated.
ever deeper and deeper, for tunnels and
easements. Fifteen million men toiied
in the giant city"
In this story France attempts to show
how the cycle of human life completes
itself and yet repeats itself.