eprived the evidence of its original flavour.

Sometimes the clerk contents himself with saying that the depositions
of a witness were like those of his predecessor. Thus on the raising
of the siege of Orleans all the burgesses depone like the woollen
draper, who himself was not thoroughly conversant with the
circumstances in which his town had been delivered. Thus the Sire de
Gaucourt, after a brief declaration, gives the same evidence as
Dunois, although the Count had related matters so strikingly
individual that it seems strange they should have been common to two
witnesses.[69]

[Footnote 69: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 2 and 35.]

Certain evidence would appear to have been cut short. Brother
Pasquerel's abruptly comes to an end at Paris. This circumstance, if
we did not possess his signature at the conclusion of the Latin letter
to the Hussites, would lead us to believe that the good Brother left
the Maid immediately after the attack on La Porte Saint-Honore. It
surely cannot have chanced that in so long a series of questions and
answers not one word was said of the departure from Sully or of the
campaign which began at Lagny and ended at Compiegne.[70]

[Footnote 70: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 100 _et seq._]

We conclude, therefore, that in the study of this voluminous evidence
we must exercise great judgment and that we must not expect it to
enlighten us on all the circumstances of Jeanne's life.

Fourthly. On certain points of the Maid's history the only exact
information is to be obtained from account-books, letters, deeds, and
other authentic documents of the period. The records published by
Simeon Luce and the lease of the Chateau de l'Ile inform us of the
circumstances among which Jeanne grew up.[71] Neither the two trials
nor the chronicles had revealed the terrible conditions prevailing in
the village of Domremy from 1412 to 1425.

[Footnote 71: Simeon Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, recherches
critiques sur les origines de la mission de la Pucelle_, Paris, 1886,
in 8vo; _La France pendant la guerre de cent ans: episodes historiques
et vie privee aux xiv'e et xv'e siecles_, Paris, 1890, in 12mo.]

The fortress accounts kept at Orleans[72] and the documents of the
English administration[73] enable us to estimate approximately the
respective forces of defenders and besiegers of the city. On this
point also they enable us to correct the statements of chroniclers and
witnesses in the rehabilitation trial.

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