ot expend any money in order to
obtain mention in the chronicles,[9] and that therefore he is omitted
from them. The earliest chronicle in which the Maid occurs is that of
Perceval de Cagny, who was in the service of the house of Alencon and
Duke John's master of the house.[10] It was drawn up in the year 1436,
that is, only six years after Jeanne's death. But it was not written
by him. According to his own confession he had "not half the sense,
memory, or ability necessary for putting this, or even a matter of
less than half its importance, down in writing."[11] This chronicle is
the work of a painstaking clerk. One is not surprised to find a
chronicler in the pay of the house of Alencon representing the
differences concerning the Maid, which arose between the Sire de la
Tremouille and the Duke of Alencon, in a light most unfavourable to
the King. But from a scribe, supposed to be writing at the dictation
of a retainer of Duke John, one would have expected a less inaccurate
and a less vague account of the feats of arms accomplished by the Maid
in company with him whom she called her fair duke. Although this
chronicle was written at a time when no one dreamed that the sentence
of 1431 would ever be revoked, the Maid is regarded as employing
supernatural means, and her acts are stripped of all verisimilitude by
being recorded in the manner of a hagiography. Further, that portion
of the chronicle attributed to Perceval de Cagny, which deals with the
Maid, is brief, consisting of twenty-seven chapters of a few lines
each. Quicherat is of opinion that it is the best chronicle of Jeanne
d'Arc[12] existing, and the others may indeed be even more worthless.

[Footnote 9: _Ne donnoit point d'argent pour soy faire mettre es
croniques._--Jean de Bueil, _Le Jouvencel_, ed. C. Fabre and L.
Lecestre, Paris, 1887, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 283.]

[Footnote 10: Perceval de Cagny, _Chroniques_, published by H.
Moranville, Paris, 1902, 8vo.]

[Footnote 11: _Le sens, memoire, ne l'abillite de savoir faire metre
par escript ce, ne autre chose mendre de plus de la moitie_, Perceval
de Cagny, p. 31.]

[Footnote 12: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 1.]

Gilles le Bouvier,[13] king at arms of the province of Berry, who was
forty-three in 1429, is somewhat more judicious than Perceval de
Cagny; and, in spite of some confusion of dates, he is better
informed of military proceedings. But his story is of too summary a
nature to tell us much.

[Footnote 13: _I