"Joan the Woman," a photo-play founded on the life of "that good maid whom Englishmen burned at Rouen," was presented last night for the first time in Boston with Mme. Farrar in the title role. The prima donna herself was in a box. Her appearance was made the occasion for one of those curious scenes now inseparable from Mme. Farrar's public visits to her native city. When she entered the box, house and orchestra rose simultaneously and faced her, the conductor waved his baton like an acolyte offering incense, and the band played "My Country Tis of Thee." During the entre-acte, Mme. Farrar sang the national anthem in the presence of the enraptured house. There can be no question that patriotic America is seen at her best on a first night.

As for "Joan the Woman," there is a great deal that could be said about it, but any comment, whether of praise or blame, can with difficulty be expressed moderately. We might begin by saying that we have but little sympathy with the fastidious critics who find Mme. Farrar's conception of Joan of Arc a little too robust. Their own preconceptions of the character are, it is to be feared, a little too intense. "That wonderful child," as Mark Twain calls her in one of his finest stories, was not the anaemic heroine she is pictured in Bastian Lepage's sickly painting in the Metropolitan Museum. She was simply a innocent and gallant girl who said her prayers and did her duty even when it called on her to rescue a nation and die an abominable death. Up to this point, Mme. Farrar's creation is sound and historically accurate. And altogether, it may be said that most of the shocking details of the film may be laid on the adapter and not on the star.

"Jean the Woman" was adapted by one Jeannie Macpherson and produced by Cecil de Mille with creditable attention to historic detail and imposing display. Three scenes--the raising of the Siege of Orleans, the Coronation, and the final episode of the Martyrdom--stand out from the rest, and are more than worth seeing. Only it must be said that the Orleans business, though magnificent in effect, is, from the strategic point of view, extremely puzzling. We do not know whether Miss Macpherson is responsible for the battle scenes, but we fear the "love interests" in the photo-play must be laid to her charge. Everything that was miraculous and lovable in the character of Joan was not enough for Miss Macpherson. Not at all; she is a dramatist. So she has seen fit to force on the Maid of France a love affair with an English soldier. Shakespere, another dramatist, always sensitive to the public taste, took similar liberties with the character of Joan, but Miss Macpherson, being a lady, stopped short of that.

The life and passion of the "Flower of France" are quite wonderful and divine enough in historic fact, without adding sugary heroics in order to pamper a public taste as cheap as dirt. The crime of her trial and death are in all belief bad enough without inventing impossibly fiendish detail and a demonaic bishop for villain. Incidentally, the authoress of "Joan the Woman" seemed to have been rather hard put to it to present a good group of Frenchmen as the soldiers of the Maid and an equally good group of Englishmen compelled by cruel History to be her murderers. There seemed to be a vague impression in the audience that the Germans were some how responsible. We should add that the piece is exceptionally well acted, but marred by some excessively feeble, sugary music, which continues throughout. Altogether it is a magnificent, if slightly silly, business and will probably have an enormous vogue