Several impostors claimed to be Jeanne d’Arc after the execution date. The most successful was Claude des Armoises. Claude des Armoises married the knight Robert des Armoises and claimed to be Jeanne d’Arc in 1436. She gained the support of Jeanne d’Arc’s brothers. She carried on the charade until 1440, gaining gifts and subsidies. One chronicle states, “In this year there came a young girl who said she was the Maid of France and played her role so well that many were duped by her, and especially the greatest nobles.” Claude finally confessed she was a fraud after Charles VII asked her to repeat the secret which the real Jeanne had revealed to him when they first met at Chinon in March 1429, which Claude could not do.
Some modern authors attempt to revive this claim by asserting that some other victim was substituted for Jeanne d’Arc at the stake. The likelihood of this is extremely thin, since the trial of nullification records sworn testimony from numerous witnesses who were present at the execution and confirmed her identity.
Dr. Cobham Brewer wrote in his nineteenth century volume Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
M. Octave Delepierre has published a pamphlet, called Doute Historique, to deny the tradition that Jeanne d’Arc was burnt at Rouen for sorcery. He cites a document discovered by Father Vignier in the seventeenth century, in the archives of Metz, to prove that she became the wife of Sieur des Armoise, with whom she resided at Metz, and became the mother of a family. Vignier subsequently found in the family muniment-chest the contract of marriage between “Robert des Armoise, knight, and Jeanne D’Arcy, surnamed the Maid of Orleans.” In 1740 there were found in the archives of the Maison de Ville (Orléans) records of several payments to certain messengers from Jeanne to her brother John, bearing the dates 1435, 1436. There is also the entry of a presentation from the council of the city to the Maid, for her services at the siege (dated 1439). M. Delepierre has brought forward a host of other documents to corroborate the same fact, and show that the tale of her martyrdom was invented to throw odium on the English.
The revisionist theory described by Brewer has been criticized on a number of grounds, including the significant number of eyewitnesses to Jeanne’s execution, as well as the fact that Claude des Armoises subsequently confessed before a number of witnesses on multiple occasions to being an impostor.
Graeme Donald argues that much of the story of Jeanne d’Arc is a myth. He says there are no accounts or portraits of Jeanne d’Arc’s victories during her time period, nor is she mentioned as a commander of the French army by Chastellain. He also states that the most definitive work of her life was written by Jules Quicherat between 1841 and 1849, after he discovered a cache of documents relating to her trial. Donald argues that she was most likely not burned.
Historians have contradicted this view by pointing out that there is a wealth of information about Jeanne d’Arc’s campaigns and life from her contemporaries, including eyewitness accounts of the battles which frequently mention Jeanne’s presence. Many of these were written during the campaigns themselves, such as Guy de Laval’s letter on 8 June 1429.
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