Such is, however, hardly the case. Plausible evidence
has been brought to prove that Jeanne d'Arc was never burnt at
the stake, but lived to a ripe age, and was even happily married
to a nobleman of high rank and reputation. We shall abridge Mr.
Delepierre's statement of this curious case.
In the archives of Metz, Father Vignier discovered the following
remarkable entry: "In the year 1436, Messire Phlin Marcou was
Sheriff of Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the aforesaid year
came the maid Jeanne, who had been in France, to La Grange of
Ormes, near St. Prive, and was taken there to confer with any one
of the sieurs of Metz, and she called herself Claude; and on the
same day there came to see her there her two brothers, one of
whom was a knight, and was called Messire Pierre, and the other
'petit Jehan,' a squire, and they thought that she had been
burnt, but as soon as they saw her they recognized her and she
them. And on Monday, the 21st day of the said month, they took
their sister with them to Boquelon, and the sieur Nicole, being a
knight, gave her a stout stallion of the value of thirty francs,
and a pair of saddle-cloths; the sieur Aubert Boulle, a
riding-hood, the sieur Nicole Groguet, a sword; and the said
maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and said several things to
the sieur Nicole by which he well understood that it was she who
had been in France; and she was recognized by many tokens to be
the maid Jeanne of France who escorted King Charles to Rheims,
and several declared that she had been burnt in Normandy, and she
spoke mostly in parables.
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