lled the Fortress
of the Island. The last of the lords having died without children, his
property had been inherited by his niece Jeanne de Joinville. But soon
after Jeanne d'Arc's birth she married a Lorraine baron, Henri
d'Ogiviller, with whom she went to reside at the castle of Ogiviller
and at the ducal court of Nancy. Since her departure the fortress of
the island had remained uninhabited. The village folk decided to rent
it and to put their tools and their cattle therein out of reach of the
plunderers. The renting was put up to auction. A certain Jean Biget of
Domremy and Jacques d'Arc, Jeanne's father, being the highest bidders,
and having furnished sufficient security, a lease was drawn up between
them and the representatives of Dame d'Ogiviller. The fortress, the
garden, the courtyard, as well as the meadows belonging to the domain,
were let to Jean Biget and Jacques d'Arc for a term of nine years
beginning on St. John the Baptist's Day, 1419, and in consideration of
a yearly rent of fourteen _livres tournois_[225] and three _imaux_ of
wheat.[226] Besides the two tenants in chief there were five
sub-tenants, of whom the first mentioned was Jacquemin, the eldest of
Jacques d'Arc's sons.[227]

[Footnote 224: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 66, 215.]

[Footnote 225: In 1390 one _livre tournois_ was worth L7 5_s_ of
present money; in 1488, L5. Cf. Avenel, _Histoire economique_, 1894
(W.S.).]

[Footnote 226: "_Imal_," says Le Trevoux, "is a measure of corn used
at Nancy." There are two _imaux_ in a quarter, and four quarters in a
_real_, which contains fifteen bushels, according to the Paris
measure.]

[Footnote 227: The Archives of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle,
collection Ruppes II, No. 28. The farm lease, dated 2nd of April,
1420, was first published by M. J. Ch. Chappellier in _Le Journal de
la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine_, Jan.-Feb., 1889; and _Deux actes
inedits du XV siecle sur Domremy_, Nancy, 1889, 8vo, 16 pages. S.
Luce, _La France pendant la guerre de cent ans_, 1890, 18mo, pp. 274
_et seq._ Lefevre-Pontalis, _Etude historique et geographique sur
Domremy, pays de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des
Chartes_, vol. lvi, pp. 154-168.]

The precaution proved to be useful. In that very year, 1419, Robert de
Saarbruck and his company met the men of the brothers Didier and
Durand at the village of Maxey, the thatched roofs of which were to be
seen opposite Greux, on the other bank of the Meuse,