The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 10

The only Jehanne who served Orleans in the siege was Jehanne d'Arc.

Here, then, she is, as Jehanne des Armoises, in Orleans for several days in 1439, feasted and presented with money by command of the town council. Again she returns and receives 'propine' on September 4.* The Leprestre who is paid for the wine was he who furnished wine to the real Maid in 1429.

*Quicherat, v. pp. 331-332.

It is undeniable that the people of Orleans must have seen the impostor in 1439, and they ceased to celebrate service on the day of the true Maid's death. Really it seems as if better evidence could not be that Jeanne des Armoises, nee Jeanne d'Arc, was alive in 1439. All Orleans knew the Maid, and yet the town council recognised the impostor.

She is again heard of on September 27, 1439, when the town of Tours pays a messenger for carrying to Orleans letters which Jeanne wrote to the King, and also letters from the bailli of Touraine to the King, concerning Jeanne. The real Jeanne could not write, but the impostor, too, may have employed a secretary.*

*Quicherat, v. p. 332.

In June 1441 Charles VII. pardoned, for an escape from prison, one de Siquemville, who, 'two years ago or thereabouts' (1439), was sent by the late Gilles de Raiz, Marechal de France, to take over the leadership of a commando at Mans, which had hitherto been under 'UNE APPELEE JEHANNE, QUI SE DISOIT PUCELLE.'* The phrase 'one styled Jehanne who called herself Pucelle' does not indicate fervent belief on the part of the King. Apparently this Jeanne went to Orleans and Tours after quitting her command at Mans in 1439. If ever she saw Gilles de Raiz (the notorious monster of cruelty) in 1439, she saw a man who had fought in the campaigns of the true Maid under her sacred banner, argent a dove on an azure field.**

*Quicherat, v. p. 333.

**She never used the arms given to her and her family by Charles VII.

Here public doc.u.ments about the impostor fall silent. It is not known what she was doing between August 9, 1436, and September 1439. At the earlier date she had written to the town of Orleans; at the later, she was writing to the King, from Tours. Here an error must be avoided.

According to the author of the 'Chronicle of the Constable of Alvaro de Luna,'* the impostor was, in 1436, sending a letter, and amba.s.sadors, to the King of Spain, asking him to succour La Roch.e.l.le. The amba.s.sadors found the King at Valladolid, and the Constable treated the letter, 'as if it were a relic, with great reverence.'

*Madrid, 1784, p. 131.

The impostor flies high! But the whole story is false.

M. Quicherat held at first that the date and place may be erroneously stated, but did not doubt that the False Pucelle did send her amba.s.sadors and letter to the King of Spain. We never hear that the true Maid did anything of the sort. But Quicherat changed his mind on the subject. The author of the 'Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna' merely cites a Coronica de la Poncella. That coronica, says Quicherat later, 'is a tissue of fables, a romance in the Spanish taste,' and in this nonsense occurs the story of the emba.s.sy to the Spanish King. That story does not apply to the False Pucelle, and is not true, a point of which students of Quicherat's great work need to be warned; his correction may escape notice.*

*Revue des Questions Historiques, April 1, 1881, pp. 553-566.

Article by the Comte de Puymaigre.

We thus discard a strong trump in the hand of believers that the impostor was the real Maid; had a Pucelle actually sent amba.s.sadors to Spain in 1436, their case would be stronger than it is.

Next, why is the false Pucelle styled 'Jeanne des Armoises' in the town accounts of Orleans in 1439?

This leads us to the proofs of the marriage of the false Pucelle, in 1436, with a Monsieur Robert des Armoises, a gentleman of the Metz country. The evidence is in a confused state. In the reign of Louis XIV.

lived a Pere Vignier, a savant, who is said to have been a fraudulent antiquary. Whether this be true or not, his brother, after the death of Pere Vignier, wrote a letter to the Duc de Grammont, which was published in the 'Mercure Galant' of November, 1683. The writer says that his brother, Pere Vignier, found, at Metz, an ancient chronicle of the town, in ma.n.u.script, and had a copy made by a notary royal. The extract is perfectly genuine, whatever the reputation of the discoverer may be.

This portion of the chronicle of the doyen of Saint-Thibaud de Metz exists in two forms, of which the latter, whoever wrote it, is intended to correct the former.

In the earlier shape the author says that, on May 20, 1436, the Pucelle Jeanne came to Metz, and was met by her brothers, Pierre, a knight, and Jehan, an esquire. Pierre had, in fact, fought beside his sister when both he and she were captured, at Compiegne, in May 1430. Jehan, as we have already seen, was in attendance on the false Maid in August 1436.

According to the Metz chronicle, these two brothers of the Maid, on May 20, 1436, recognised the impostor for their sister, and the account-books of Orleans leave no doubt that Jehan, at least, actually did accept her as such, in August 1436, four months after they met in May. Now this lasting recognition by one, at least, of the brothers, is a fact very hard to explain.

M. Anatole France offers a theory of the easiest. The brothers went to Lorraine in May 1436, to see the pretender. 'Did they hurry to expose the fraud, or did they not think it credible, on the other hand, that, with G.o.d's permission, the Saint had risen again? Nothing could seem impossible, after all that they had seen.... They acted in good faith.

A woman said to them, "I am Jeanne, your sister." They believed, because they wished to believe.' And so forth, about the credulity of the age.

The age was not promiscuously credulous. In a RESURRECTION of Jeanne, after death, the age did not believe. The brothers had never seen anything of the kind, nor had the town council of Orleans. THEY had nothing to gain by their belief, the brothers had everything to gain.

One might say that they feigned belief, in the hope that 'there was money in it;' but one cannot say that about the people of Orleans who had to spend money. The case is simply a puzzle.*

*Anatole France, 'La Fausse Pucelle,' Revue de Famille, Feb. 15, 1891. I cite from the quotation by M. P. Lanery d'Arc in Deux Lettres (Beauvais, 1894), a brochure which I owe to the kindness of the author.

After displaying feats of horsemanship, in male attire, and being accepted by many gentlemen, and receiving gifts of horses and jewels, the impostor went to Arlon, in Luxembourg, where she was welcomed by the lady of the duchy, Elizabeth de Gorlitz, Madame de Luxembourg. And at Arlon she was in October 1436, as the town accounts of Orleans have proved. Thence, says the Metz chronicle, the 'Comte de Warnonbourg'(?) took her to Cologne, and gave her a cuira.s.s. Thence she returned to Arlon in Luxembourg, and there married the knight Robert des Hermoises, or Armoises, 'and they dwelt in their own house at Metz, as long as they would.' Thus Jeanne became 'Madame des Hermoises,' or 'Ermaises,' or, in the town accounts of Orleans, in 1439, 'des Armoises.'

So says the Metz chronicle, in one form, but, in another ma.n.u.script version, it denounces this Pucelle as an impostor, who especially deceived tous les plus grands. Her brothers, we read (the real Maid's brothers), brought her to the neighbourhood of Metz. She dwelt with Madame de Luxembourg, and married 'Robert des Armoize.'* The Pere Vignier's brother, in 1683, published the first, but not the second, of these two accounts in the 'Mercure Galant' for November.

*Quicherat, v. pp. 321-324, cf. iv. 321.

In or about 1439, Nider, a witch-hunting priest, in his Formicarium, speaks of a false Jeanne at Cologne, protected by Ulrich of Wirtemberg, (the Metz chronicle has 'Comte de Warnonbourg'), who took the woman to Cologne. The woman, says Nider, was a noisy la.s.s, who came eating, drinking, and doing conjuring feats; the Inquisition failed to catch her, thanks to Ulrich's protection. She married a knight, and presently became the concubine of a priest in Metz.* This reads like a piece of confused gossip.

*Quicherat, v. pp. 324-325.

Vignier's brother goes on to say (1683) in the 'Mercure Galant,' that his learned brother found the wedding contract of Jeanne la Pucelle and Robert des Armoises in the charter chest of the M. des Armoises of his own day, the time of Louis XIV. The brother of Vignier had himself met the son of this des Armoises, who corroborated the fact. But 'the original copy of this ancient ma.n.u.script vanished, with all the papers of Pere Vignier, at his death.'

Two months later, in the spring of 1684, Vienne de Plancy wrote to the 'Mercure Galant,' saying that 'the late ill.u.s.trious brother' of the Duc de Grammont was fully persuaded, and argued very well in favour of his opinion, that the actual Pucelle did not die at Rouen, but married Robert des Armoises. He quoted a genuine pet.i.tion of Pierre du Lys, the brother of the real Maid, to the Duc d'Orleans, of 1443. Pierre herein says he has warred 'in the company of Jeanne la Pucelle, his sister, jusqu'a son absentement, and so on till this hour, exposing his body and goods in the King's service.' This, argued M. de Grammont, implied that Jeanne was not dead; Pierre does not say, feue ma soeur, 'my late sister,' and his words may even mean that he is still with her. ('Avec laquelle, jusques a son absentement, ET DEPUIS JUSQUES A PRESENT, il a expose son corps.')*

*The pet.i.tion is in Quicherat, v. pp. 212-214. For Vienne-Plancy see the papers from the Mercure Galant in Jeanne d'Arc n'a point ete brulee a Rouen (Rouen, Lanctin, 1872). The tract was published in 100 copies only.

Though no copy of the marriage contract of Jeanne and des Armoises exists, Quicherat prints a deed of November 7, 1436, in which Robert des Armoises and his wife, 'La Pucelle de France,' acknowledge themselves to be married, and sell a piece of land. The paper was first cited by Dom Calmet, among the doc.u.ments in his 'Histoire de Lorraine.' It is rather under suspicion.

There seems no good reason, however, to doubt the authenticity of the fact that a woman, calling herself Jeanne Pucelle de France, did, in 1436, marry Robert des Armoises, a man of ancient and n.o.ble family.

Hence, in the town accounts of Tours and Orleans, after October 1436, up to September 1439, the impostor appears as 'Mme. Jehanne des Armoises.'

In August 1436, she was probably not yet married, as the Orleans accounts then call her 'Jehanne la Pucelle,' when they send their pursuivants to her; men who, doubtless, had known the true Maid in 1429-1430. These men did not undeceive the citizens, who, at least till September 1439, accepted the impostor. There is hardly a more extraordinary fact in history. For the rest we know that, in 1436-1439, the impostor was dealing with the King by letters, and that she held a command under one of his marshals, who had known the true Maid well in 1429-1430.

It appears possible that, emboldened by her amazing successes, the false Pucelle sought an interview with Charles VII. The authority, to be sure, is late. The King had a chamberlain, de Boisy, who survived till 1480, when he met Pierre Sala, one of the gentlemen of the chamber of Charles VIII. De Boisy, having served Charles VII., knew and told Sala the nature of the secret that was between that king and the true Maid. That such a secret existed is certain. Alain Chartier, the poet, may have been present, in March 1429, when the Maid spoke words to Charles VII.

which filled him with a spiritual rapture. So Alain wrote to a foreign prince in July 1429. M. Quicherat avers that Alain was present: I cannot find this in his letter.* Any amount of evidence for the 'sign' given to the King, by his own statement, is found throughout the two trials, that of Rouen and that of Rehabilitation. Dunois, the famous b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Orleans, told the story to Basin, Bishop of Lisieux; and at Rouen the French examiners of the Maid vainly tried to extort from her the secret.** In 1480, Boisy, who had been used to sleep in the bed of Charles VII., according to the odd custom of the time, told the secret to Sala. The Maid, in 1429, revealed to Charles the purpose of a secret prayer which he had made alone in his oratory, imploring light on the question of his legitimacy.*** M. Quicherat, no bigot, thinks that 'the authenticity of the revelation is beyond the reach of doubt.'****

*Quicherat, Apercus Nouveaux, p. 62. Proces, v. p. 133.

**For the complete evidence, see Quicherat, Apercus, pp. 61-66.

***Quicherat, v. p. 280, iv. pp. 258, 259, another and ampler account, in a MS. of 1500. Another, iv. p. 271: MS. of the period of Louis XII.

****Apercus, p. 60, Paris, 1850.

Thus there was a secret between the true Maid and Charles VII. The King, of course, could not afford to let it be known that he had secretly doubted whether he were legitimate. Boisy alone, at some later date, was admitted to his confidence.

Boisy went on to tell Sala that, ten years later (whether after 1429 or after 1431, the date of the Maid's death, is uncertain), a pretended Pucelle, 'very like the first,' was brought to the King. He was in a garden, and bade one of his gentlemen personate him. The impostor was not deceived, for she knew that Charles, having hurt his foot, then wore a soft boot. She pa.s.sed the gentleman, and walked straight to the King, 'whereat he was astonished, and knew not what to say, but, gently saluting her, exclaimed, "Pucelle, my dear, you are right welcome back, in the name of G.o.d, who knows the secret that is between you and me."'

The false Pucelle then knelt, confessed her sin, and cried for mercy.

'For her treachery some were sorely punished, as in such a case was fitting.'*

*Quicherat, v. p. 281. There is doubt as to whether Boisy's tale does not refer to Jeanne la Feronne, a visionary. Varlet de Vireville, Charles VII., iii. p. 425, note 1.