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During his travels through France in 1580, Montaigne and his party were travelling the road from Vaucouleurs to Neufchateau, which takes one through Domremy --- the little town on the Meuse where Jeanne d'Arc was born. There he found her father's house covered with murals depicting scenes from Jeanne's short but amazing career. Reading from his travel journal:
From Mauvages we set out Tuesday [September 13, 1580] in the morning and came to dine at Vaucouleurs, one league from there; and we passed along the river Meuse to a village called Domremy, on the Meuse, three leagues from the said Vaucouleurs, the native village of the famous Maid of Orleans, whose name was Jeanne Darc or Dallis. Her descendants were ennobled by the favor of the king, and they showed us the arms that the king gave them, which are azure, a straight sword crowned and with a hilt of gold, and two gold fleurs-de-lys at the side of the said sword. A receiver of Vaucouleurs gave an escutcheon thus painted to Monsieur de Cazalis [a member of Montaigne's party, possibly a brother-in-law]. The front of the little house where she was born is all painted with her exploits; but age has greatly damaged the painting. There is also a tree beside a vineyard which they call the Maid's Tree which has nothing else remarkable about it. We came to sleep this evening at Neufchateau, five leagues...
The "Maid's Tree" was, of course, the Fairy Tree around which the Domremy children danced and sang on Fountain Sunday during mid-Lent, and which the clergy of Rouen tried to use to prove that Jeanne was a witch. The nearby vineyard was still there in the early 19th century, and was then called the Vignoble de la Pucelle, or Vineyard of the Maid. It subsequently died out due to disease. The name Dallis is a distortion of du Lys --- the name given by Charles VII at the enoblement of Jeanne.
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