ings spread terror round his castles of Tiffauges and Machecoul, and
already the hand of the Church was upon him.

[Footnote 2669: Vallet de Viriville, _Notices et extraits de chartes
et de manuscrits appartenant au British Museum_, in _Bibliotheque de
l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. viii, 1846, p. 116.]

According to the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, la Dame des Armoises
practised magic; but it was not as an invoker of demons that the
Marechal de Rais employed her; he placed her in authority over the
men-at-arms,[2670] in somewhat the same position as Jeanne had
occupied at Lagny and Compiegne. Did she do great prowess? We do not
know. At any rate she did not hold her office long; and after her it
was bestowed on a Gascon squire, one Jean de Siquemville.[2671] In the
spring of 1440 she was near Paris.[2672]

[Footnote 2670: Abbe Bossard, _Gille de Rais_, p. 174.]

[Footnote 2671: Pardon, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 332-334.]

[Footnote 2672: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 335. Lecoy de la
Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574.]

For nearly two years and a half the great town had been loyal to King
Charles. He had entered the city, but had failed to restore it to
prosperity. Deserted houses were everywhere falling into ruins; wolves
penetrated into the suburbs and devoured little children.[2673] The
townsfolk, who had so recently been Burgundian, could not all forget
how the Maid in company with Friar Richard and the Armagnacs had
attacked the city on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady. There were
many, doubtless, who bore her ill will and believed she had been
burned for her sins; but her name no longer excited universal
reprobation as in 1429. Certain even among her former enemies regarded
her as a martyr to the cause of her liege lord.[2674] Even in Rouen
such an opinion was not unknown, and it was much more likely to be
held in the city of Paris which had lately turned French. At the
rumour that Jeanne was not dead, that she had been recognised by the
people of Orleans and was coming to Paris, the lower orders in the
city grew excited and disturbances were threatening.

[Footnote 2673: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 338 _et seq._
De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, pp. 384 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2674: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 270.]

Under Charles of Valois in 1440, the spirit of the University was just
the same as it had been under Henry of Lancaster in 1431. It honoured