It is undeniable that the people of Orleans must have seen the
impostor in 1439, and they ceased to celebrate service on the day of
the true Maid's death. Really it seems as if better evidence could
not be that Jeanne des Armoises, nee Jeanne d'Arc, was alive in
1439. All Orleans knew the Maid, and yet the town council
recognised the impostor.

She is again heard of on September 27, 1439, when the town of Tours
pays a messenger for carrying to Orleans letters which Jeanne wrote
to the King, and also letters from the bailli of Touraine to the
King, concerning Jeanne. The real Jeanne could not write, but the
impostor, too, may have employed a secretary.*

*Quicherat, v. p. 332.

In June 1441 Charles VII. pardoned, for an escape from prison, one
de Siquemville, who, 'two years ago or thereabouts' (1439), was sent
by the late Gilles de Raiz, Marechal de France, to take over the
leadership of a commando at Mans, which had hitherto been under 'UNE
APPELEE JEHANNE, QUI SE DISOIT PUCELLE.'* The phrase 'one styled
Jehanne who called herself Pucelle' does not indicate fervent belief
on the part of the King. Apparently this Jeanne went to Orleans and
Tours after quitting her command at Mans in 1439. If ever she saw
Gilles de Raiz (the notorious monster of cruelty) in 1439, she saw a
man who had fought in the campaigns of the true Maid under her
sacred banner, argent a dove on an azure field.**

*Quicherat, v. p. 333.
**She never used the arms given to her and her family by Charles
VII.