received public testimonials at Orleans, while we have no reason to
suppose that she visited Paris. It may help to dispose of the objection
that she virtually disappears from history after the date of the tragedy
at Rouen.
Nevertheless, this last objection is a weighty one, and cannot easily
be got rid of. It appears to me utterly incredible that, if Jeanne d'Arc
had really survived, we should find no further mention of her than
such as haply occurs in one or two town-records and dilapidated
account-books. If she was alive in 1436, and corresponding with the
King, some of her friends at court must have got an inkling of the
true state of things. Why did they not parade their knowledge, to the
manifest discomfiture of La Tremouille and his company? Or why did not
Pierre du Lis cause it to be proclaimed that the English were liars, his
sister being safely housed in Metz?
In the mere interests of historical criticism, we have said all that we
could in behalf of Mr. Delepierre's hypothesis. But as to the facts upon
which it rests, we may remark, in the first place, that the surname Arc
or "Bow" was not uncommon in those days, while the Christian name Jeanne
was and now is the very commonest of French names. There might have been
a hundred Jeanne d'Arcs, all definable as pucelle or maid, just as we
say "spinster": we even read of one in the time of the Revolution. We
have, therefore, no doubt that Robert des Hermoises married a Jeanne
d'Arc, who may also have been a maid of Orleans; but this does not prove
her to have been the historic Jeanne. Secondly, as to the covering of
the face, we may mention the fact, hitherto withheld, that it was by no
means an uncommon circumstance: the victims of the Spanish Inquisition
were usually led to the stake with veiled faces. Thirdly, the phrase
"jusques a son absentement" is hopelessly ambiguous, and may as well
refer to Pierre du Lis himself as to his sister.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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