NOTES.


[NOTE 1.

_Arc_:--Modern France, that should know a great deal better than myself,
insists that the name is not d'Arc, _i.e._ of Arc, but _Darc_. Now it
happens sometimes, that if a person, whose position guarantees his access
to the best information, will content himself with gloomy dogmatism,
striking the table with his fist, and saying in a terrific voice--"It is
so; and there's an end of it,"--one bows deferentially; and submits. But
if, unhappily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably
into reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him
that may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish,
perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism; he would have
entrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable
points. But coming down to base reasons, he lets in light, and one sees
where to plant the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France for
disturbing the old received spelling, is--that Jean Hordal, a descendant of
_La Pucelle's_ brother, spelled the name _Darc_, in 1612. But what of that?
Beside the chances that M. Hordal might be a gigantic blockhead, it is
notorious that what small matter of spelling Providence had thought fit to
disburse amongst man in the seventeenth century, was all monopolized by
printers: in France, much more so.]

[NOTE 2.

_Those that share thy blood_:--a collateral relative of Joanna's was