us--inseparably, alas!--with those stained-skinned, varnished-eyed
munchers of chocolate and raveners of garlic, who are not Frenchmen at
all, but Spaniards and Italians. In a word, if it hadn't been for Jeanne
d'Arc, France would not now belong to that line of histrionic, forensic,
perfidious chatterboxes, the precious Latin race--Devil take it!"

Durtal raised his eyebrows.

"My, my," he said, laughing. "Your remarks prove to me that you are
interested in 'our own, our native land.' I should never have suspected
it of you."

"Of course you wouldn't," said Des Hermies, relighting his cigarette.
"As has so often been said, 'My own, my native land is wherever I happen
to feel at home.' Now I don't feel at home except with the people of the
North. But I interrupted you. Let's get back to the subject. What were
you saying?"

"I forget. Oh, yes. I was saying that the Maid had completed her task.
Now we are confronted by a question to which there is seemingly no
answer. What did Gilles do when she was captured, how did he feel about
her death? We cannot tell. We know that he was lurking in the vicinity
of Rouen at the time of the trial, but it is too much to conclude from
that, like certain of his biographies, that he was plotting her rescue.

"At any rate, after losing track of him completely, we find that he has
shut himself in at his castle of Tiffauges.

"He is no longer the rough soldier, the uncouth fighting-man. At the
time when the misdeeds are about to begin, the artist and man of letters