The Mystery of Joan of Arc

THE memory of Jeanne d'Arc has never aroused such ardent and passionate controversies as have raged for the last few years round this great historical figure. One party, while exalting her memory, tries to monopolize her and to confine her personality within the limits of Catholic doctrine. A second, by means of tactics which are sometimes brutal, as in the case of Thalamas and Henri Bérenger, sometimes clever and learned, as in the case of M. Anatole France, tries to lessen her prestige and to reduce her mission to the proportions of an ordinary historical episode. Where shall we find the truth as to the part played by Jeanne in history? As we read it, it is to be found neither in the mystic reveries of the men of faith nor in the material arguments of the positivists critics. Neither the one nor the other seems to hold the thread which form the mystery of this extraordinary life. To penetrate the mystery of Jeanne d'Arc it seems to us necessary to study, and have practical knowledge of, psychic science. It is necessary to have sounded the depths of this invisible world, this ocean of life which envelops us, from which we all come at birth and into which we are replunged at death.