Joan of Arc was executed on May 30, 1431. However, in the registers containing the accounts of the Fortress of Orleans for 1436, that is, five years later, it can be read that on August 9, two gold real was issued to Fleur de Lis (or Coeur de Lis), a military messenger, for the delivery of letters from Jeanne the Virgin to the city …
On August 21, Jeanne d'Arc's brother, who came to see the king and returned to his sister, received a run. On August 25, the messenger whom Jeanne had sent to Blois with letters also received some money, and at the end of July Fleur de Lys traveled with the city's funds to Jeanne in the city of Arlon, in Luxembourg. He received letters from her and, without stopping in Orleans, drove to Loches, where he handed the packages to the king, and returned to Orleans on 11 September. He received a tip, for, according to him, he was dying of thirst.
This document, the reliability of which there is no doubt, should obviously cause great surprise. The second passage from the same office books is even more extraordinary.
On July 28, 1439, that is, three years later and eight years after the official death of Jeanne, she appeared in Orleans in her own person. She was received as Joan of Arc, with great honors, from July 28 to August 1. However, she was named Jeanne des Armoise.
Judging again by the office books, her identity with the Virgin of Orleans was not in doubt, since she was given a significant amount "for the benefit that she brought to the city during the siege."
And yet the question arises whether Madame des Armoise's behavior did not give the impression of some haste, since the same accountant noted that when she dined with two noble townspeople, Jean Luillier and Tevanon de Bourget, and was offered wine, “she left earlier than they brought wine."
The mystery lies in these two facts. All others are secondary.
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There is no doubt that Orleans received letters in 1436 from Joan of Arc, who was believed to have been burned five years earlier. There is also no doubt that the authenticity of these letters was certified by Jeanne's brother. Finally, it is known for certain that in 1439 she visited Orleans in person and was received there under the name of Madame des Armoise.
This is the secret.
Is it any wonder that public opinion allows a new life for the heroine even after the trial and execution, which have received publicity? This fits well with traditional superstition. The people perceive the death of heroes badly and very often create legends about their new life on the very day of their death.
Is it necessary to list the numerous cases when popular rumor revived those whose death was stated, as well as impostors who used this faith and declared themselves miraculously saved?
So we went through the history of the false Warwick, the false Dmitri, the false Sebastian. Long believed in the new life of Friedrich Barbarossa. In 1830, many still did not believe in Napoleon's death, and long after 1945, many believed that Hitler was hiding somewhere on an American ranch.
As for the death of Joan of Arc, one can point to numerous texts that, starting from the 15th century, cast a shadow of doubt on her, since in 1436 a woman appeared who called herself the Virgin of Orleans, and in 1439 she came to Orleans under the name Madame des Armoise.
Jeanne des Armoise.
To establish the identity of this lady, it is necessary to turn to the chronicle compiled by the dean of the Cathedral of Saint-Thibault in Metz, where her appearance was first noted. It says that on May 20, 1436, the Virgin Jeanne appeared in La Grange-Oz-Orme, near Saint-Privile. She did not say where she came from, but she met her noble neighbors who knew her.
Her brothers, who were called in for identification, also recognized her. She was careful in her speeches, spoke mainly in parables and did not say anything about her intentions. She was equipped and escorted first to Marais-ville, then on a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame at Liès, then to Metz, and finally to Arlon, where she was received by the Duchess of Luxembourg.
Here the Duchess of Luxembourg is mistakenly confused with Madame de Luxembourg, who knew Joan of Arc at the beginning of her captivity. The Duchess of Luxembourg is Elizabeth, daughter of Jean of Luxembourg, Duke of Gerlitz, the niece of the Duke of Burgundy, and in fact the Empress of the Duchy.
And Madame de Luxembourg, who showed compassion for the prisoner of the castle of Beaurevoir, was Jeanne de Luxembourg, who died unmarried in 1430. She had two nephews, one of whom married his daughter to the Duke of Bedford, and the other, Jean, the owner of the castle of Beaurevoir, held Jeanne d'Arc prisoner.
It was through her nephew that Madame de Luxembourg was able to meet the prisoner. Thus, it is not true to say that Madame des Armoise's acquaintance with the Duchess of Luxembourg was significant, since this latter knew Jeanne before. We are talking about two different people who, perhaps, did not know each other and one of whom died six years before the events described.
When these documents were found, the study caused great excitement. You shouldn't think they were news. They were first published in November 1683 in Mercure Galan. The first phrase of the dean Saint-Thibault seemed decisive: "This year on the 20th of May, the Virgin Jeanne arrived, who was in France."
They attach great importance to this text. At the same time, they forget to say that he has lost all value since the second manuscript of the same chronicle was found. Dean Saint-Thibault, who was deceived at first, like the others, changed this phrase of his and wrote: “This year, a girl arrived who called herself the French Virgin and played her role so well that she misled many, and above all all the most significant persons.
Thus, nothing more can be learned from the Chronicle.
Let us also note that a critical analysis of these texts, which we now consider to be a novelty, was made for the first time in the 17th century by Symphorian Guyon, a priest from l'Oratoire.
No one knows where the person came from, who introduced herself at first under the name Claude. Her path can be traced very well, starting in 1436. Received by Elizabeth de Gerlitz, she was then taken to Cologne by the Count of Württemberg. She wore military armor and immediately began to meddle in politics.
If she was very restrained in explaining the way she managed to avoid execution, then she was eloquent in describing the well-known hostilities, and when two bishops challenged the episcopal chair in Treva, she resolutely sided with one of them.
Like Joan of Arc, who was instrumental in the coronation of Charles VII at Reims, she decided to elevate her bishop to the rank of bishop. This behavior quite rightly attracted the attention of the authorities, and inquisitor Heinrich Kaltizer summoned her to his court and was going to arrest her.
All these facts, together with the claims made, were listed in the Fornicarium by Jean Nieder, a famous Dominican who was a contemporary of these events. He died in 1440. It's a shame that there are no links or even hints to these materials.
The girl escaped court and returned to Arlon, where she later married Robert des Armoise. It is believed that a marriage contract was concluded, which no one has ever seen and which was reported only in the Mercure Galan of 1683. There is no mention of this anywhere, except in P. Vigne, a specialist in literary fraud.
It also reproduces the bill of sale concluded by Robert des Armoise and a woman named Jeanne de Lis, Virgin of France. But, extracting this material from the history of Lauren de Dom Calmet, they forget to say that the author accompanied this fact with the remark: "This is the Maid of Orleans, or rather an adventurer who took her name and married Senor Robert des Armoise."
Her goal was to get a meeting with Charles VII. She found support from the brothers Jeanne d'Arc, and this support is the only mysterious place in this story. Were they victims of deception or accomplices?
We tend to think of them as accomplices, since it is difficult to imagine that they mistakenly mistook the impostor for their sister. It is logical to assume that, since their sister was primarily a profitable business for them, they tried to resume the adventure.
The validity of this opinion is confirmed by another, very similar fact. 16 years later, in 1452, another adventurer posed as Joan of Arc and attracted Joan's two cousins as witnesses. The Curé of Sermez, summoned as a witness during the inquest in 1476, said that they were all the more accommodating since the authorities, out of courtesy, had arranged a "big and cheerful feast" during her stay.
Considering that for the delivery of a letter from the so-called sister to Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc's brother received twelve livres from the city authorities and that a few parties were enough for the other impostor to be recognized as Jeanne's cousins, you will inevitably become a skeptic. Anatole France, more condescending than we, concluded: "They believed it to be true because they wanted it to be true."
Madame des Armoise, having received no answer from Charles VII, left for Italy. Here her trace is a little lost, but from her later confession it follows that she offered her services to the Pope. What she did for three years, nothing definite is known.
She reappeared in Orleans in July 1439. One must think that in this city they did not really believe in its authenticity, because, contrary to the letters she sent in 1436, in the city registers you can find records of the payment in May 1439 for the masses served for the repose of her soul.
Three months later, she herself appeared. I must admit that they received her well. Who took it? We do not know this. It is hinted that she met the one with whom she lived during the siege. This is just a guess. It is also believed that her mother, Isabella Rome, lived in the city.
There is no basis for such a statement, since the first mention that we have of the presence of Joan of Arc's mother in Orleans dates back to July 7, 1440, that is, dates from a year later.
It should be noted that her so-called brothers did not accompany her and did not appear to interfere with her affairs anymore. They are no longer mentioned in this connection at all.
Without going beyond the bounds of reliable information, we can only say that the fact that Madame des Armoise was mistaken for the Virgin of Orleans is already extraordinary in itself. This is the only moment worth investigating, but it is psychological rather than historical.
Robert and Jeanne des Armoise. Medallions in the Zholni castle.
Ten years have passed since the liberation of the city, and many people who saw the real Joan were still alive. How mass gullibility - which, by the way, there were examples before - allowed the impostor to force her to admit - this is a worthy subject for the research of psychologists.
Let this remark not seem like an admission of defeat and a desire to evade discussion. Fraud in this case is exposed by indisputable documents, and there is no choice but to turn to psychologists for an explanation of these facts.
In fact, Madame des Armoise, being forced to leave Orleans with some haste, in early August, without even finishing the dinner offered to her, wanders for some time.
She appears in Type, from where she sends a letter to the king with a messenger whose travel expenses are paid by the municipality. She does not receive an answer, disappears for several months and reappears in Paris, where she tries to repeat the maneuvers that she succeeded so well in Orleans.
In the newspaper Journal d'en Bourgeois de Paris, in August 1440, the news was published: "Recently, an imaginary Virgin arrived, who was received with great honor in Orleans." The last words leave no doubt that we are talking about Madame des Armoise.
As the Parisian public began to worry, the university and parliament decided to arrest des Armoise and bring her to trial, where she was rather severely interrogated, in front of the public, on a marble stone. The result was stunning. The adventurer admitted her deception, her marriage and the birth of two children.
Unmasked and therefore no longer dangerous, she was expelled from Paris. Very little is known about her subsequent adventures. It is possible that she was the very fake Joan of Arc who managed to get an audience with Charles VII and who had to admit her deception. One polymath, Monsieur Lesois de la Marche, eventually found a precious document that seems to complete the story.
In 1457, King René signed a petition to pardon an adventurer arrested in Saumur for various fraud. She was at this time the widow of Robert des Armoise and married a second time to a certain Jean Douillet from the city of Angers.
This document says that "for a long time she called herself Jeanne the Virgin, deceiving or forcing to deceive many other people who at one time saw the real Jeanne, who liberated the besieged Orleans from the enemies of the king." We have no right to ignore this text.
This is the story, which has been known for a very long time. This plot is exhausted, and there is no point in revising it, except in order to paint a picture of a hoax …
Author: Nikolai Nepomniachtchi