Note 3 — The Problem of Jeanne d’Arc

To pause for a moment, probably the element of human sacrifice may have entered into the hair-cutting episode, as it did in the action of the women of Carthage during the last siege; and possibly there may have been some shamefaced reserve in the attributing of the fashion to the example of an egregious “Buster Brown” of New York. To my own memory the fashion was first called either the “Joan of Arc” cut or the “Munitioner” cut. The “Buster Brown” cut came later, and seems to have been seized upon by the English as an excuse against showing deep feelings. It is pleasanter to think that Joan of Arc was really at that time in the hearts of English women; the cult of semi-worship that so strengthened the Allies was really worship of the qualities which mankind has read into the memory of the little maid of Domremy. As she raised the siege of Orleans, so her memory encouraged the Allies to persevere through years of agony nearly as great as her own.