408.] [Footnote 174: _Ibid._, p.

423.] In those days it was not unprecedented for village maidens to know their letters.

A few years earlier Maitre Jean Gerson had counselled his sisters, peasants of Champagne, to learn to read, and had promised, if they succeeded, to give them edifying books.[175] Albeit the niece of a parish priest, Jeanne did not learn her horn-book, thus resembling most of the village children, but not all, for at Maxey there was a school attended by boys from Domremy.[176] [Footnote 175: E.Georges, _Jeanne d'Arc consideree au point de vue Franco-Champenois_, p.115.De La Fons-Melicocq, _Documents inedits pour servir a l'histoire de l'instruction publique en France et a l'histoire des moeurs au XV'ieme siecle_, in the _Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de la Morinie_, vol.iii, pp.

460 _et seq._] [Footnote 176: _Trial_, vol.i, pp.

65-66.