ow could the Maid and Blue Beard be
associated in a heroic action? It is hard to answer such a question,
because we cannot possibly tell how much of that kind of thing could
be tolerated by the barbarism of those rude old times. Perhaps our
text itself, if properly examined, will be found to contain internal
evidence as to whether it is of an earlier or later date than 1440.

The bastard of Orleans was created Count of Dunois on July 14,
1439.[29] The lines of the mystery, in which he is called by this
title, cannot therefore be anterior to that date. They are numerous,
and, by a singularity which has never been explained, are all in the
first third of the book. When Dunois reappears later he is the Bastard
again. From this fact the editors of 1862 concluded that five thousand
lines were prefixed to the primitive text subsequently, although they
in no way differ from the rest, either in language, style, or prosody.
But may the rest of the poem be assigned to 1435 or 1439?

[Footnote 29: _Mistere du siege_, preface, p. x.]

That is not my opinion. In the lines 12093 and 12094 the Maid tells
Talbot he will die by the hand of the King's men. This prophecy must
have been made after the event: it is an obvious allusion to the
noble captain's end, and these lines must have been written after
1453.

Six years after the siege no clerk of Orleans would have thought of
travestying Jeanne as a lady of noble birth.

In line 10199 and the following of the "_Mistere du Siege_" the Maid
replies to the first President of the Parlement of Poitiers when he
questions her concerning her family:

"As for my father's mansion, it is in the Bar country; and
he is of gentle birth and rank right noble, a good Frenchman
and a loyal."[30]

[Footnote 30:

Quant est de l'ostel de mon pere,
Il est en pays de Barois;
Gentilhomme et de noble afaire
Honneste et loyal Francois.

_Mistere du siege_, pp. 397-398.]

Before a clerk would write thus, Jeanne's family must have been long
ennobled and the first generation must have died out, which happened
in 1469; there must have come into existence that numerous family of
the Du Lys, whose ridiculous pretensions had to be humoured. Not
content with deriving their descent from their aunt, the Du Lys
insisted on connecting the good peasant Jacquot d'Arc with the old
nobility of Bar.

Notwithstanding that Jeanne's reference to "her father's mansion"
conflicts with