It is not without reason therefore, not without justice that, transformed by enthusiastic imagination, she became the symbol of _la patrie_ in arms.
In 1817, Le Brun de Charmettes,[124] a royalist jealous of imperial glory, wrote the first patriotic history of Jeanne d'Arc.

The history is an able work.

It has been followed by many others, conceived in the same spirit, composed on the same plan, written in the same style.
From 1841 to 1849, Jules Quicherat, by his publication of the two trials and the evidence, worthily opened an incomparable period of research and discovery.

At the same time, Michelet in the fifth volume of his "Histoire de France," wrote pages of high colour and rapid movement, which will doubtless remain the highest expression of the romantic art as applied to the Maid.[125] [Footnote 124: Le Brun de Charmettes, _Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc surnommee la Pucelle d'Orleans_, Paris, 1817, 4 vols.

in 8vo.] [Footnote 125: Michelet, _Histoire de France_, vol.v.] But of all the histories written between 1817 and 1870, or at least of all those with which I have made acquaintance, for I have not attempted to read them all, the most discerning in my opinion is the fourth book of Vallet de Viriville's "Histoire de Charles VII" in which his chief preoccupation is to place the Maid in that group of visionaries to which she really belongs.[126] [Footnote 126: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.
ii, Paris, 1863, in 8vo.] Wallon's book has been widely circulated if not widely read.