One of the theories popular with revisionists is the notion that Joan escaped execution and continued her exploits as a noblewoman named Claude des Armoises. A particularly unusual version of this was popularized in the ineffably surreal book "Operation Shepherdess", which combines a great many revisionist theories all in one package.

While there are many variations on the theme, the basic theory is ultimately derived from the fact that - as with many other famous figures throughout history - a series of "Joan impostors" who all physically resembled the real Joan (but, curiously, bore different names) began appearing some years after her death, and were each exposed as frauds in turn. Claude des Armoises was the most famous of these (Jehanne de Sermaize being another example of a successful impostor); but Claude herself admitted her imposture in 1440, both to Charles VII and publicly at Paris. Revisionists have carefully ignored the latter point while focusing on Claude as if she had been the only such impostor, which they use as an excuse to claim that she therefore must have been the genuine article. In some cases, revisionists will even claim that Jules Quicherat himself - who laid the foundation of so much of current Johannic studies - allegedly supported the theory, although Quicherat's series specifically refers to Claude as "the fake Joan of Arc" ("la fausse Jeanne d'Arc"), which rather clearly indicates his actual views on the matter.

While the various arguments which these authors use are legion - and not always terribly consistent - let's examine a few of the more prominent claims:

• Joan's alleged survival is typically "proven" by manipulating the eyewitness accounts of her death until these accounts are made to say precisely the opposite of the actual text; or, alternately, these authors mistranslate certain words so that it can be claimed that Joan's appearance or presence was in some fashion obscured from the eyewitnesses as she went to her death. These eyewitnesses actually said, repeatedly, that they did in fact see her die, in some cases speaking with her after she was tied to the stake. As for the notion that her appearance was obscured: this is based on various muddled interpretations of the original language: words such as "embronché" (which occurs in a secondhand account) are interpreted based on their modern, rather than 15th century, definition, and then used as the basis for elaborate theories claiming that no one could have seen Joan's face and therefore could not have determined whether it was she who was killed. Alternately, some authors have invented the notion that Joan was surrounded by wood bundles - despite the clear statements to the contrary in the eyewitness accounts - therefore, so the theory goes, no one could tell whether it was her within the circle of wood. This is a case of rejecting evidence in favor of fiction, while additionally ignoring the fact that since some of the eyewitnesses spoke with her - and would therefore have been able to recognize her voice - the issue of "visual identification" is not the only relevant factor in the first place.
• Her alleged escape is usually supposed to have been achieved with the help of the English themselves (!) via a "secret passage" which conveniently connected her cell to the outside. Archaeological studies have never found any such tunnel, but these authors, undaunted, have recourse to manipulating the text again: the Latin phrase "in quodam loco secreto" ("in a certain hidden place") in the Rehabilitation testimony is interpreted to refer to the necessary underground passage, although no such implication is ever made - the witnesses said that Bedford had hidden in this place on one occasion when Joan was being examined in her cell. No mention is ever made of a tunnel, much less the rest. As for the idea that Joan was sprung from prison by her captors themselves - Bedford, Warwick, etc, as well as her judge, Pierre Cauchon - this is inevitably justified by inventing the usual conspiracy theory. The motives and nature of this conspiracy vary from author to author, but the important point is that all variations are fictional.
• As for the alleged reappearance of Joan which is used as the ultimate basis for all the above speculation: revisionists will triumphantly point out that Claude des Armoises, as with Jehanne de Sermaize, briefly succeeded in fooling some of Joan's acquaintances - but only those, it should be noted, who had not personally witnessed her death and were therefore susceptible to accepting the possibility of her survival. Revisionists will especially point to two of these acquaintances as significant: Joan's brothers Jean and Pierre; but anyone who has lost a loved one without the closure of seeing the body will recognize the desperate hope that could well lead these two men to accept an impostor who physically resembled their sister. Additionally, it could be noted that since her brothers had last seen her when she was still a teenager, an adult impostor who showed up over half a decade later would have a still easier time convincing people that she was an older Joan returning after a long absence. Revisionists will erroneously add even Joan's mother Isabelle to the list of those who were fooled, but this is mere speculation: there is no evidence that Isabelle ever saw Claude, since Isabelle's presence at Orleans cannot be established earlier than 1440, by which point Claude was no longer in the city and in fact had been revealed as a fraud. As a final comment on this issue, it should be noted that since Jehanne de Sermaize had also convinced some of those who had known the real Joan, Claude was not even unique in this respect. Evidently, we are asked to believe that Joan had not only escaped execution, but also multiplied.
• There are a set of military campaigns which Claude is supposed to have taken part in - located all over the map, from Poitou to Italy - and this is cited as further evidence that Claude was the genuine article returned to continue her mission. Evidently the mission had changed somewhat.

As a final note, let's take a brief look at the details by which Claude herself admitted that she was a fraud. According to Pierre Sala, she had made the mistake of meeting with Charles VII, who promptly asked her to reveal the "secret" that had been between himself and the real Joan, at which point Claude admitted her charade and begged for mercy. She additionally - according to the author of the "Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris" - admitted the same before a public audience at Paris.

All of the above should suffice as a few examples of the evidence showing the theory - in its numerous forms - to be baseless.