*The petition 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 documents 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 noble 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 Bastard 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 passed 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 God, 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.
If any deserved punishment, the Maid’s brothers did, but they rather flourished and prospered, as time went on, than otherwise.
It appears, then, that in 1439-1441 the King exposed the false Pucelle, or another person, Jeanne la Feronne. A great foe of the true Maid, the diarist known as the Bourgeois de Paris, in his journal for August 1440, tells us that just then many believed that Jeanne had not been burned at Rouen. The gens d’armes brought to Paris ‘a woman who had been received with great honour at Orleans’—clearly Jeanne des Armoises. The University and Parlement had her seized and exhibited to the public at the Palais. Her life was exposed; she confessed that she was no maid, but a mother, and the wife of a knight (des Armoises?). After this follows an unintelligible story of how she had gone on pilgrimage to Rome, and fought in the Italian wars.* Apparently she now joined a regiment at Paris, et puis s’en alla, but all is very vaguely recorded.