those days even
the _Sorbonagres_ themselves were expurgating the martyrology and the
legends of saints. One of them, Edmond Richer, like Jeanne a native of
Champagne, the censor of the university in 1600, and a zealous
Gallican, wrote an apology for the Maid who had defended the Crown of
Charles VII[113] with her sword. Albeit a firm upholder of the
liberties of the French Church, Edmond Richer was a good Catholic. He
was pious and of sound doctrine; he firmly believed in angels, but he
did not believe either in Saint Catherine or Saint Margaret, and their
appearing to the Maid greatly embarrassed him. He solved the
difficulty by supposing that the angels had represented themselves to
the Maid as the two saints, whom in her ignorance she devoutly
worshipped. The hypothesis seemed to him satisfactory, "all the more
so," he said, "because the Spirit of God, which governs the Church,
accommodates himself to our infirmity." Thirty or forty years later,
another doctor of the Sorbonne, Jean de Launoy, who was always
ferreting after saints, completed the discrediting of Saint
Catherine's legend.[114] The voices of Domremy were falling into
disrepute.

[Footnote 108: Aug. Vallet, _Observation sur l'ancien monument erige a
Orleans_, Paris, 1858, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 109: See a curious project for the decoration of the
platform of the Pont-Neuf addressed to Louis XIV (B.N.V., p. zz'338,
in fol.). A Sieur Dupuis, Aide des Ceremonies, proposes that thereon
shall be erected statues to "those great and illustrious captains who
from reign to reign have valiantly maintained the dignity of the
crown.... Artus of Bretagne, Constable, Jean, Count of Dunois, Jeanne
Dark, Maid of Orleans, Roger de Gramont, Count of Guiche, Guillaume,
Count of Chaumont, Amaury de Severac, Vignoles, called La Hire...."
(Communications of M. Paul Lacombe, _Bulletin de la Societe de
l'Histoire de Paris_, 1894, p. 115, June 11, 1907. _Ibid._)]

[Footnote 110: _Puellae Aureliensis causa adversariis orationibus
disceptata auctore Jacobo Jolio_, Parisiis apud Julianum Bertant,
1609.]

[Footnote 111: Jean Hordal, _Heroinae nobilissimae Ioannae Darc
Lotharingae vulgo aurelianensis puellae historia_, Ponti-Mussi, 1612, in
8vo.]

[Footnote 112: Rabelais, _Gargantua_, chap. vi; Abbe Thiers, _Traite
des superstitions selon l'Ecriture sainte_, Paris, 1697, vol. i, p.
109.]

[Footnote 113: Edmond Richer, _Histoire de la Pucelle d'Orleans en 4
livres_, MS. Bibliot