The village folk decided to rent it and to put their tools and their cattle therein out of reach of the plunderers.

The renting was put up to auction.

A certain Jean Biget of Domremy and Jacques d'Arc, Jeanne's father, being the highest bidders, and having furnished sufficient security, a lease was drawn up between them and the representatives of Dame d'Ogiviller.

The fortress, the garden, the courtyard, as well as the meadows belonging to the domain, were let to Jean Biget and Jacques d'Arc for a term of nine years beginning on St.John the Baptist's Day, 1419, and in consideration of a yearly rent of fourteen _livres tournois_[225] and three _imaux_ of wheat.[226] Besides the two tenants in chief there were five sub-tenants, of whom the first mentioned was Jacquemin, the eldest of Jacques d'Arc's sons.[227] [Footnote 224: _Trial_, vol.i, pp.

66, 215.] [Footnote 225: In 1390 one _livre tournois_ was worth L7 5_s_ of present money; in 1488, L5.Cf.Avenel, _Histoire economique_, 1894 (W.S.).] [Footnote 226: "_Imal_," says Le Trevoux, "is a measure of corn used at Nancy." There are two _imaux_ in a quarter, and four quarters in a _real_, which contains fifteen bushels, according to the Paris measure.] [Footnote 227: The Archives of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, collection Ruppes II, No.28.The farm lease, dated 2nd of April, 1420, was first published by M.J.Ch.Chappellier in _Le Journal de la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine_, Jan.-Feb., 1889; and _Deux actes inedits du XV siecle sur Domremy_, Nancy, 1889, 8vo, 16 pages.