The comparative obscurity in which she must have remained for the rest of her life, otherwise quite inexplicable on any hypothesis of her survival, is in harmony with the above-given explanation. The ingratitude of King Charles towards the heroine who had won him his crown is the subject of common historical remark. M. Wallon insists upon the circumstance that, after her capture at Compiegne, no attempts were made by the French Court to ransom her or to liberate her by a bold coup de main. And when, at Rouen, she appealed in the name of the Church to the Pope to grant her a fair trial, not a single letter was written by the Archbishop of Rheims, High Chancellor of France, to his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, demanding cognizance of the proceedings. Nor did the King make any appeal to the Pope, to prevent the consummation of the judicial murder. The Maid was deliberately left to her fate. It is upon her enemies at court, La Tremouille and Regnault de Chartres, that we must lay part of the blame for this wicked negligence. But it is also probable that the King, and especially his clerical advisers, were at times almost disposed to acquiesce in the theory of Jeanne's witchcraft. Admire her as they might, they could not help feeling that in her whole behaviour there was something uncanny; and, after having reaped the benefits of her assistance, they were content to let her shift for herself. This affords the clew to the King's inconsistencies. It may be thought sufficient to explain the fact that Jeanne is said to have 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.

These brief considerations seem to knock away all the main props of Mr. Delepierre's hypothesis, save that furnished by the apparent testimony of Jeanne's brothers, given at second hand in the Metz archives. And those who are familiar with the phenomena of mediaeval delusions will be unwilling to draw too hasty an inference from this alone. From the Emperor Nero to Don Sebastian of Portugal, there have been many instances of the supposed reappearance of persons generally believed to be dead. For my own part, therefore, I am by no means inclined to adopt the hypothesis of Jeanne's survival, although I have endeavoured to give it tangible shape and plausible consistency. But the fact that so much can be said in behalf of a theory running counter not only to universal tradition, but also to such a vast body of contemporaneous testimony, should teach us to be circumspect in holding our opinions, and charitable in our treatment of those who dissent from them. For those who can discover in the historian Renan and the critic Strauss nothing but the malevolence of incredulity, the case of Jeanne d'Arc, duly contemplated, may serve as a wholesome lesson.

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The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske, 1876