d and sentenced to be publicly exhibited. In the
Palais de Justice, leading up from the court called the Cour-de-Mai,
there was a marble slab on which malefactors were exhibited. La Dame
des Armoises was put up there and shown to the people whom she had
deceived. The usual sermon was preached at her and she was forced to
confess publicly.[2677]

[Footnote 2677: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, _loc. cit._]

She declared that she was not the Maid, that she was married to a
knight and had two sons. She told how one day, in her mother's
presence, she heard a woman speak slightingly of her; whereupon she
proceeded to attack the slanderer, and, when her mother restrained
her, she turned her blows against her parent. Had she not been in a
passion she would never have struck her mother. Notwithstanding this
provocation, here was a special case and one reserved for the papal
jurisdiction. Whosoever had raised his hand against his father or his
mother, as likewise against a priest or a clerk, must go and ask
forgiveness of the Holy Father, to whom alone belonged the power of
convicting or acquitting the sinner. This was what she had done. "I
went to Rome," she said, "attired in man's apparel. I engaged as a
soldier in the war of the Holy Father Eugenius, and in this war I
twice committed homicide."

When had she journeyed to Rome? Probably before the exile of Pope
Eugenius to Florence, about the year 1433, when the condottieri of the
Duke of Milan were advancing to the gates of the Eternal City.[2678]

[Footnote 2678: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355. Lecoy
de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574. G. Lefevre-Pontalis,
_La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 27.]

We do not find either the University, or the Ordinary, or the Grand
Inquisitor demanding the trial of this woman, who was suspected of
witchcraft and of homicide, and who was attired in unseemly garments.
She was not prosecuted as a heretic, doubtless because she was not
obstinate, and obstinacy alone constitutes heresy.

Henceforth she attracted no further attention. It is believed, but on
no very trustworthy evidence, that she ended by returning to Metz, to
her husband, le Chevalier des Armoises, and that she lived quietly and
respectably to a good old age, dwelling in the house over the door of
which were her armorial bearings, or rather those of Jeanne the Maid,
the sword, the crown and the Lilies.[2679]

[Footnote 2679: Vergnaud-Romagnesi, _De