ars, 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.

We have devoted so much space to this problem, by far the most
considerable of those treated in Mr. Delepierre's book, that we have
hardly room for any of the others. But a false legend concerning Solomon