From this fact the editors of 1862 concluded that five thousand lines were prefixed to the primitive text subsequently, although they in no way differ from the rest, either in language, style, or prosody.
But may the rest of the poem be assigned to 1435 or 1439?
[Footnote 29: _Mistere du siege_, preface, p.

x.] That is not my opinion.

In the lines 12093 and 12094 the Maid tells Talbot he will die by the hand of the King's men.

This prophecy must have been made after the event: it is an obvious allusion to the noble captain's end, and these lines must have been written after 1453.
Six years after the siege no clerk of Orleans would have thought of travestying Jeanne as a lady of noble birth.
In line 10199 and the following of the "_Mistere du Siege_" the Maid replies to the first President of the Parlement of Poitiers when he questions her concerning her family: "As for my father's mansion, it is in the Bar country; and he is of gentle birth and rank right noble, a good Frenchman and a loyal."[30] [Footnote 30: Quant est de l'ostel de mon pere, Il est en pays de Barois; Gentilhomme et de noble afaire Honneste et loyal Francois.
_Mistere du siege_, pp.

397-398.] Before a clerk would write thus, Jeanne's family must have been long ennobled and the first generation must have died out, which happened in 1469; there must have come into existence that numerous family of the Du Lys, whose ridiculous pretensions had to be humoured.