JIHON JOAN OF ARC. 



245 



JIHON, or GIHON, or SIEJON,or AMOL, or 

 AMU (anciently Oxus); a river of Central Asia, 

 which rises from mountains between Great Bucharia 

 and Chinese Tartary, and, after a N. W. course of 

 more than 1200 miles, flows into the lake of Aral. 

 The cities of Samarcand, Bucharia, Termed, Balk 

 and Gaurare on its branches. It has been generally 

 believed, that it formerly flowed into the Caspian 

 sea, and that its course was turned into its present 

 channel by the Tartars, according to some, before 

 the sixteenth century, but according to others, about 

 1719. This opinion is rejected by Malte-Brun, and 

 other geographers, who maintain that the Jihon 

 always flowed into the lake of Aral, and that the 

 rejected opinion was formed and propagated by 

 persons whose knowledge was imperfect, particu- 

 larly with regard to the form of the Caspian sea, or 

 the existence of the lake of Aral. 



JOAB, son of David's sister, and his first general, 

 fought valiantly for David, but often showed a 

 revengeful and artful spirit; for instance, against 

 Abner (2 Samuel, iii. 27, 39) and Amasa (2 Samuel, 

 xx. 9, seq.) His services secured him the favour of 

 David, though that king was often offended with 

 him (2 Samuel, xviii. 33, xix. 4.) After David's 

 death, he espoused the cause of Adonijah, and was 

 killed in the temple, by the altar, at the command of 

 Solomon (1 Kings, ii. 28, seq.) 



JOACHIM MURAT. See Murat, 



JOACHIMSTHALER. See Dollar. 



JOAN, the papess, according to a story long 

 believed, but now acknowledged to be a fiction, was 

 a native of Mentz, of the name of Gilberta or Agnes, 

 who, falling in love with an Englishman at Fulda, 

 went to travel with him, studied at Athens, and 

 visited Rome. Continuing to conceal her sex, she 

 took the name Johannes Angelicas, and rose, by her 

 talents, from the station of a notary to the papal 

 chair, under the name of John VIII (854 to 856, 

 between Leo IV. and Benedict III). She governed 

 well, but, having become pregnant by a servant, or, 

 according to some, by a cardinal, she was delivered 

 in a solemn procession, and died on the spot, near 

 the Coliseum, which place the popes are said to have 

 avoided ever after in their processions. This story, 

 first related by Marianus Scotus, in his Chronicon (in 

 the twelfth century), is not mentioned by any con- 

 temporary writer hostile to the papal see, and is 

 generally considered, since Blondell's Eclaircissement 

 sur une Femme, as a mere fable. The examination 

 on the sella stercoraria* perhaps gave rise to this 

 story ; perhaps it is a satire on the barefaced profli- 

 gacy of some popes ; perhaps it is a fruit of the 

 excitement against the popes, which became very 

 general in the thirteenth century ; others still have 

 thought it to be an allegory of the decretals of the 

 pseudo Isidore, then brought to light. Clemens 

 Sylvius first showed the falsehood of the story. 

 Spanheim defended the account in his De Johanna 

 Papissa. Gibbon says, " Till the reformation, the 

 tale was repeated and believed without offence, and 

 Joan's female statue long occupied her place among 

 the popes, in the cathedral of Sienna. She has been 

 annihilated by two learned Protestants, Blondell and 

 Bayle ; but their brethren were scandalized by this 

 equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and 

 L'Enfant attempted to save this poor engine of con- 

 troversy ; and even Mosheim condescends to cherish 

 some doubt and suspicion." 



* From the time of .Honoring II. 1064 to Leo X. the 

 popes were actually obliged, after their election, to seat 

 themselves upon a stool with an opening, where they were 

 examined by the youngest deacon, in order to determine 

 that they were males, with their organs perfect, because 

 no mutilated person can be a member of the Catholic 

 priesthood. 



JOAN OF ARC (Jeanne d'Arc); the Maid of 

 Orleans. The belief, prevalent in the middle ages, 

 that particular individuals were gifted with super- 

 natural powers, as instruments of a higher will, 

 explains the extraordinary character and conduct of 

 the maid of Orleans. After the death of Charles VI. 

 king of France, in 1422, Henry VI. of England, then 

 a child of nine months old, was proclaimed king of 

 France, according to the treaty of Troyes (1420); 

 his uncle, the duke of Bedford, acted as regent. 

 France had been distracted, for forty-two years, by 

 civil dissensions. On one side were quen Isabella, 

 the duke of Burgundy, and England ; on the other, 

 the dauphin Charles, who had been abandoned by 

 his own mother, was supported by the Orleans party. 

 This division, and the talents of the English generals, 

 the earls of Somerset, Warwick, Salisbury, Suffolk, 

 Arundel, Talbot, and Fastolfe, had reduced nearly 

 all France to the dominion of England. The dauph:n, 

 a youth of nineteen, was crowned at Poictiers as 

 king Charles VII. He possessed many qualities 

 proper for interesting his countrymen in his favour, 

 and was wanting only in firmness and resolution. 

 Still he maintained himself in France for the space of 

 seven years. At length, Bourges, and the territory 

 belonging to it, were nearly all that remained to him. 

 Paris and the north of France, as far as the Loire, 

 were in possession of the English. Salisbury had 

 been besieging Orleans since October 12, 1428. 

 The city was bravely defended by Gaucour. Its 

 fall would have ruined the cause of Charles. In the 

 valleys of the Vosges, on the old frontiers of Lor- 

 raine, in the village of Domremy la Puccelle, on the 

 banks of the Meuse, lived a peasant girl, Jeanne 

 d'Arc, whose parents were common country people 

 of reputable character, and in good circumstances 

 for their station. In the midst of timid and super- 

 stitious persons, who were in continual trouble and 

 alarm at the misfortunes of their country, Joan was 

 quietly occupied in domestic employments, and 

 sometimes in driving the cattle to pasture. Her 

 history has been very minutely traced. The third 

 volume of the Notices and Extracts from Manuscripts 

 in the library of the king, by De 1'Averdy (Paris, 

 1790, 4to), contains whatever is important respecting 

 her, taken from twenty-eight manuscripts relating to 

 her trial and condemnation. She was of a delicate 

 frame, and uncommon sensibility of temperament. 

 This, perhaps, was heightened by the circumstance 

 of her being exempt from the common law of her 

 sex ; and Dufresnoy has remarked how this circum- 

 stance and her spirit of devotion may account for 

 her visions. Her enthusiasm, and her habits of 

 solitary meditation, explain the angelic voices and 

 visions of the maid. While her companions were 

 sporting beneath the Fairies' tree, the beautiful May 

 (le beau Mai ou I'arbre des fees), not far from the 

 fountain of Domremy a tree which was once sacred 

 to the Druids, and famous in many a ghostly tale 

 Joan was singing and dancing by herself, in pious 

 enthusiasm, and binding garlands for the holy virgin, 

 in the little chapel of "our Lady of Bellemont," 

 which she usually visited on Saturday. She was 

 never a servant, at least not in an inn. The English 

 chroniclers have misrepresented these facts ; and 

 Hume is also in error with regard to her age. The 

 beautiful Joan was but eighteen when she went to 

 the dauphin at Chinon in Touraine. Commanded, 

 as she asserted, by a vision of our lady of Bellemont, 

 to raise the siege of Orleans, and to conduct Charles 

 to Rheims to be crowned, she presented herself in 

 February, 1429, to the governor of Vaucouleur, 

 Robert of Baudricourt, who at first thought her 

 possessed, and twice dismissed her ; but upon her 

 returning a third time, he sent her to Chinon with 



