said
regarding his niece he had also told Charles VII.--probably at the
time of the coronation, for Laxart was then at Rheims. Laxart was
followed by the couple with whom Joan of Arc lodged when living at
Vaucouleurs, Henry and Joan le Royer (or le Charron). After this
worthy pair appeared the two brave knights who had guarded the Maid of
Orleans during her perilous journey to Chinon--John de Novelem-hont,
commonly called John de Metz, aged fifty-seven, and the other, named
Bertrand de Poulangy--one of the King's esquires--aged sixty-three.

Three other knights were heard after them--namely, Albert d'Ourche,
from Ourche, near Commercy, aged sixty; Geoffrey du Fay, aged fifty;
and Louis de Martigny, living at Martigny-les-Gerboneaux, a village
near Neufchateau, aged fifty-four. These were followed by two curates
and a sergeant. 'Discrete personne Messire Jean le Fumeux,' of
Vaucouleurs, canon of the Church of Sainte Marie in that village, also
curate of the parish church of d'Ugny, aged only thirty-eight, was, as
he admitted, a mere child when Joan of Arc came to Vaucouleurs; but he
remembered distinctly having seen her praying in the church at
Vaucouleurs, and kneeling for a long time in the subterranean chapel
of Sainte Marie's Church before an image of the Blessed Virgin.

The other priest, named John Colin, was the curate of the parish
church of Domremy, and a canon of the collegiate church of Saint
Nicolas de Brixey, near Vaucouleurs. His age was sixty-six. The last
of these thirty-four witnesses was the sergeant, Guillot Jacquier,
aged thirty-six: why he was called as a witness does not appear. As a
child he had heard Joan of Arc spoken of as 'une brave fille, de bonne
renommee, et de conduite honnete,' which opinion was the general one
given in their evidence by all the other witnesses, whose names only
we have been able to give.

Relating to the period in the life of the heroine between the time of
the King's coronation and that of her capture, the facts told by the
various persons examined are few and far between. In the trial for the
rehabilitation of the Maid of Orleans, the story of her deeds in the
field was not of much importance to the commissioners. What they
principally desired to ascertain was the fact that no taint of heresy
could attach to the life of the heroine. It was for this reason that
all those persons who could throw any light upon Joan's early days and
the actions of her childhood had bee