According to the Metz chronicle, these two brothers of the Maid, on
May 20, 1436, recognised the impostor for their sister, and the
account-books of Orleans leave no doubt that Jehan, at least,
actually did accept her as such, in August 1436, four months after
they met in May. Now this lasting recognition by one, at least, of
the brothers, is a fact very hard to explain.

M. Anatole France offers a theory of the easiest. The brothers went
to Lorraine in May 1436, to see the pretender. 'Did they hurry to
expose the fraud, or did they not think it credible, on the other
hand, that, with God's permission, the Saint had risen again?
Nothing could seem impossible, after all that they had seen. . . .
They acted in good faith. A woman said to them, "I am Jeanne, your
sister." They believed, because they wished to believe.' And so
forth, about the credulity of the age.

The age was not promiscuously credulous. In a RESURRECTION of
Jeanne, after death, the age did not believe. The brothers had
never seen anything of the kind, nor had the town council of
Orleans. THEY had nothing to gain by their belief, the brothers had
everything to gain. One might say that they feigned belief, in the
hope that 'there was money in it;' but one cannot say that about the
people of Orleans who had to spend money. The case is simply a
puzzle.*

*Anatole France, 'La Fausse Pucelle,' Revue de Famille, Feb. 15,
1891. I cite from the quotation by M. P. Lanery d'Arc in Deux
Lettres (Beauvais, 1894), a brochure which I owe to the kindness of
the author.