onnabelle, _Notice sur la ville de Vaucouleurs_, Bar-le-Duc, 1879, in
8vo, 75 pages.]

Only the river divided Maxey on the right bank from Domremy. The
Domremy and Greux children went there to school. There were quarrels
between them; the little Burgundians of Maxey fought pitched battles
with the little Armagnacs of Domremy. More than once Joan, at the
Bridge end in the evening, saw the lads of her village returning
covered with blood.[237] It is quite possible that, passionate as she
was, she may have gravely espoused these quarrels and conceived
therefrom a bitter hatred of the Burgundians. Nevertheless, we must
beware of finding an indication of public opinion in these boyish
games played by the sons of villeins. For centuries the brats of these
two parishes were to fight and to insult each other.[238] Insults and
stones fly whenever and wherever children gather in bands, and those
of one village meet those of another. The peasants of Domremy, Greux,
and Maxey, we may be sure, vexed themselves little about the affairs
of dukes and kings. They had learnt to be as much afraid of the
captains of their own side as of the captains of the opposite party,
and not to draw any distinction between the men-at-arms who were their
friends and those who were their enemies.

[Footnote 237: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 65, 66. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a
Domremy_, pp. 18 _et seq._]

[Footnote 238: N. Villiaume, _Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, 1864, in 8vo,
p. 52, note 1.]

In 1429 the English occupied the bailiwick of Chaumont and garrisoned
several fortresses in Bassigny. Messire Robert, Lord of Baudricourt
and Blaise, son of the late Messire Liebault de Baudricourt, was then
captain of Vaucouleurs and bailie of Chaumont for the Dauphin Charles.
He might be reckoned a great plunderer, even in Lorraine. In the
spring of this year, 1420, the Duke of Burgundy having sent an embassy
to the Lord Bishop of Verdun, as the ambassadors were returning they
were taken prisoners by Sire Robert in league with the Damoiseau of
Commercy. To avenge this offence the Duke of Burgundy declared war on
the Captain of Vaucouleurs, and the castellany was ravaged by bands of
English and Burgundians.[239]

[Footnote 239: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. iii.]

In 1423 the Duke of Lorraine was waging war with a terrible man, one
Etienne de Vignolles, a Gascon soldier of fortune already famous under
the dreaded name of La Hire,[240] which he was to leave afte