In 1419 this baron was making war on the brothers Didier and Durand of Saint-Die. It matters not for what reason. For this war as for every war the villagers had to pay. As the men-at-arms were fighting throughout the whole castellany of Vaucouleurs, the inhabitants of Domremy began to devise means of safety, and in this wise. At Domremy there was a castle built in the meadow at the angle of an island formed by two arms of the river, one of which, the eastern arm, has long since been filled up.[224] Belonging to this castle was a chapel of Our Lady, a courtyard provided with means of defence, and a large garden surrounded by a moat wide and deep. This castle, once the dwelling of the Lords of Bourlemont, was commonly called the Fortress of the Island. The last of the lords having died without children, his property had been inherited by his niece Jeanne de Joinville. But soon after Jeanne d'Arc's birth she married a Lorraine baron, Henri d'Ogiviller, with whom she went to reside at the castle of Ogiviller and at the ducal court of Nancy. Since her departure the fortress of the island had remained uninhabited. The village folk decided to rent it and to put their tools and their cattle therein out of reach of the plunderers. The renting was put up to auction. A certain Jean Biget of Domremy and Jacques d'Arc, Jeanne's father, being the highest bidders, and having furnished sufficient security, a lease was drawn up between them and the representatives of Dame d'Ogiviller. The fortress, the garden, the courtyard, as well as the meadows belonging to the domain, were let to Jean Biget and Jacques d'Arc for a term of nine years beginning on St. John the Baptist's Day, 1419, and in consideration of a yearly rent of fourteen _livres tournois_[225] and three _imaux_ of wheat.[226] Besides the two tenants in chief there were five sub-tenants, of whom the first mentioned was Jacquemin, the eldest of Jacques d'Arc's sons.[227] [Footnote 224: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 66, 215.] [Footnote 225: In 1390 one _livre tournois_ was worth L7 5_s_ of present money; in 1488, L5. Cf. Avenel, _Histoire economique_, 1894 (W.S.).] [Footnote 226: "_Imal_," says Le Trevoux, "is a measure of corn used at Nancy." There are two _imaux_ in a quarter, and four quarters in a _real_, which contains fifteen bushels, according to the Paris measure.] [Footnote 227: The Archives of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, collection Ruppes II, No. 28. The farm lease, dated 2nd of April, 1420, was first published by M. J. Ch. Chappellier in _Le Journal de la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine_, Jan.-Feb., 1889; and _Deux actes inedits du XV siecle sur Domremy_, Nancy, 1889, 8vo, 16 pages. S. Luce, _La France pendant la guerre de cent ans_, 1890, 18mo, pp. 274 _et seq._ Lefevre-Pontalis, _Etude historique et geographique sur Domremy, pays de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. lvi, pp. 154-168.]