Joan of Arc

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Joan of Arc

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Joan of Arc

REliGiOuS and MiliTARy lEADER

Janet Hubbard-Brown

Joan of arc

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Library of congress cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hubbard-Brown, Janet.

Joan of Arc : religious and military leader / Janet Hubbard-Brown.

p. cm. — (Women of achievement)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60413-710-1 (hardcover : acid-free paper)

ISBN 978-1-4381-3535-9 (e-book) 1. Joan, of Arc, Saint,

1412–1431—Juvenile literature. 2. Christian women saints—France—Biography—

Juvenile literature. 3. France—History—Charles VII, 1422–1461—Juvenile literature.

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Contents

1

A Coronation that Changed History

7

2

Childhood

14

3

Meeting the Future King

27

4

the Journey to Reims

37

5

Capture at Compiègne

51

6

sentenced to Death

60

7

Rehabilitation trial

74

8

saint Joan

84

9

Joan and the Arts

94

10

Legacy

106

Chronology

112

Notes

114

Bibliography

120

Further Resources

122

Picture Credits

123

Index

124

About the Author

132

1

A Coronation That

Changed History

On July 14, 1429, a young woman wearing a white silk

tunic over body armor stood beside Charles VII, the

dauphin, or crown prince, of France, as he waited to be

crowned king in the national cathedral of France in Reims.

The reputation of the 19-year-old woman, called Joan the

Maid by the French people, had preceded her. In the role

of an appointed knight of the king, she had won a major

victory against the English at Orleans two months earlier,

after which she and the king’s soldiers conquered every

town between there and Reims. To the many French citi-

zens witnessing it, the coronation was a miracle.

Joan and Charles, though worlds apart in terms of class

and culture, had both been born into an environment of

warfare and chaos. France and England had been fighting

• JOan Of arc

for many years by the time Joan was born. Today, historians

refer to this period as the Hundred Years’ War. In 1429, the

year Joan had beaten the English at Orleans, the English

were on the verge of victory, which meant that the kingdom

of France would become a part of the English empire. To

make matters worse, a civil war was raging between the

Burgundians of France, who had sided with England, and

the Armagnacs, who were fighting to keep France a separate

country. Joan’s village was fiercely loyal to the Armagnacs

and to their king, Charles.

In 1421, two descendants of royalty had been pro-

claimed king of France—one from England, Henry VI, who

was an infant at the time, and the other the crown prince

Charles, who was then 19. At the same time, three men

were claiming to be pope of the Catholic Church—one in

Avignon, France, another in Rome, and a third in Spain.

For centuries, the pope and the clergy, all highly educated,

not only had a spiritual influence on the followers of the

church, but also held tremendous political power through-

out much of Europe.

Though crowning the French king in Reims adhered

to tradition, the coronation itself was quite unusual

because of Joan’s presence. It was out of the ordinary for

a woman to be present, let alone be a commoner. She

was standing where a priest would normally stand. She

held her standard, the only one unfurled, beside her. The

white flag, 3 feet (0.9 meters) high and 12 feet (3.66 m)

long, was made from a material similar to canvas and was

decorated with raised lilies around the edges, a process

called embossing. A figure of Jesus Christ was painted in

the center, with an angel holding a fleur-de-lis, or lily. On

the reverse side was an azure blue shield and two angels

holding a dove. The dove held a scroll in its beak with

the words de par le Roi de Ciel (of the party of the king of

Heaven) written on it. When asked later why she had left

A Coronation That Changed History

•

An engraving showing Joan of Arc (standing with sword and flag) at the

coronation of Charles VII as king of France in 1429. The teenage girl

heard voices urging her to aid Charles and save France from conquest by

the English during the Hundred Years’ War.

her banner open during the ceremony, Joan answered, “It

had borne the burden, and it was right that it should have

the honor.”1

10 • JOan Of arc

The coronation was also unusual in that the crown prince

and his followers were in enemy territory. The citizens of

Reims had—up until the arrival of the dauphin’s party in

their city—supported the English and the Burgundians, yet

they showed little resistance when the French heir made his

entrance. Because of divided loyalties among the 12 nobles

and clerics who were normally in attendance at coronations,

some of the most important authorities, both civil and reli-

gious, were missing.

The Duke of Burgundy, a sworn enemy of Charles,

and the archbishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, were two

who refused to attend. Cauchon carried a special animosity

toward the girl who was being hailed as the savior of France.

Because of her actions, he had been forced out of his posi-

tion as archbishop of Beauvais. Moreover, he was firmly

on the side of the English. In 1420, he had been one of

the signers of the Treaty of Troyes, which had determined

that the infant Henry VI of England would be crowned

king of both countries when he came of age. The young

woman who would come to be known as Joan of Arc had

put a wrench into his plans. She did not know the intensity

of Cauchon’s feelings, but she was intuitively aware of the

symbolic value of having the French king crowned at Reims

in her war-torn country. It would cast the young Henry VI

of England into the shadows.

Joan’s supreme confidence had little to do with her

personal accomplishments. In her mind, her success was

God’s will. Still, she was human, and as she stood beside her

king, she looked out at the masses gathered to witness the

coronation—her parents, cousin, and two brothers among

them—she reflected upon her personal journey. Since the

age of 13, she believed that she heard the voices of saints.

At first she had been frightened, but eventually she came

to think of it as a calling, a miracle. The voices had led her

to a meeting with the crown prince when she was 16 or 17,

a coronation That changed History

11

•

where she had persuaded him that her mission—to end the

English siege at Orleans and to lead him to Reims for his

coronation—was divinely inspired.

Town criers had announced news of the coronation as

the king and his army conquered one town after another

on the way to the celebration, and on the big day the

Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims was packed. Even then

the cathedral, with its high arches over the nave reach-

ing tremendous heights, was considered an architectural

wonder. More than 2,000 statues adorned the interior and

exterior of the building. The stained glass, especially the

circular rose window, was the work of a master. Aside from

appearance, though, the cathedral had special meaning for

the 19-year-old Joan, a devout Catholic since childhood.

Biographers Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin

wrote, “What we can believe is that for her Reims was the

home on earth of St. Remi, a saint she had known as a child

. . . what mattered to Joan was her assurance of God’s pres-

ence and action there.”2

The ritual in the cathedral started at nine in the morn-

ing. The archbishop of Reims stood poised to perform the

most sacred part of the ceremony. Nobles sent by Charles

had ridden their horses to St. Remi abbey, where the holy

oil, called Sainte Ampoule, was kept. The four knights

accompanied the abbott, who carried the oil, to the city.

They entered the cathedral on horseback. The king recited

an oath of loyalty, and a benediction was held for the royal

insignia, which was made up of a crown, golden spurs, a

scepter, and a second scepter carved in ivory.

The archbishop placed a drop of the holy oil on the crown

prince’s head, shoulders, chest, and wrists as he lay facedown.

After he was anointed, Charles stood and put on a tunic and a

silk coat. He slipped on gloves, and then the ring that bound

him to his people was placed on his finger. Finally, the crown

was placed on his head. (Those in charge of the ceremony

12 • JOan Of arc

A photo of the house where Joan of Arc was born in 1412. Her home

vil age in France, original y named Domrémy, has since been renamed

Domrémy-la-Pucel e after Joan’s nickname, la Pucel e d’Orléans (“the

Maid of Orleans”).

had to use a different crown, as the traditional one was in

the English-controlled city of Paris.) According to tradition,

Charles VII, the new king of France, was now divinely blessed

by Christ.

Joan, deeply moved, knelt before her king when the

ceremony had ended and said, “Gentle king, now the will of

God has been accomplished, who wished that I should raise

the siege of Orleans and bring you to this city of Reims to

receive your solemn consecration, showing that you are the

a coronation That changed History

13

•

true king, that you are he to whom the kingdom of France

should belong.”3

After the ceremony ended, Charles rode around the

city on horseback, with Joan by his side. Though the story

conjures up a heroic figure, Charles was the opposite. He

was not physically attractive, nor did he exude the power

expected of a king. According to author Mary Gordon,

“He had small and squinty eyes. He had short legs and was

knock-kneed.”4 Author Marina Warner described him as

“restless, impatient, devious, and distrustful.”5 He was eas-

ily influenced and weak when it came to decision making.

“Though aware of his defects and weaknesses,” Warner

wrote, “Joan believed in the powers of ceremony to change

a private into a king.”6

As she and the new king made their way through the

city, people sought to touch the girl who had given them

hope that their country might be saved. After the corona-

tion, Joan was set on leading the king and his soldiers to

overthrow the English in Paris. She immediately tried to

persuade King Charles to move forward, but he, as was his

habit, turned to others for their opinions. He began to lean

toward negotiating with the English. Weeks passed. Joan

had confided to her closest comrades on the march to Reims

that she “feared nothing except treason.”7 At the same time,

many who supported the English king had grown to fear

and despise her. She worried that if King Charles continued

to wait, all would be lost. Not only her country’s fate, but

her own, hung in the balance.

2

Childhood

Joan of Arc was born either in 1412 or 1413, on or about

January 6. Her birth date is not known because few care-

ful records were kept in the Middle Ages, and most were

recorded by and for nobles. Joan’s father, Jacques d’Arc, and

her mother, Isabelle Romee, who attached the name Romee

to her given name after she made a religious pilgrimage to

Rome, were peasants in Domrémy-la-Pucelle, a village that

bordered Champagne and Lorraine in northeastern France.

Joan’s nickname in her village was Jhenette (little Joan);

today in France they refer to her as Jeanne. She never heard

herself called Jeanne d’Arc ( Joan of Arc), a name first used

in 1455, more than two decades after her death. Joan had

an older brother who left home when she was still a child;

a sister, Catherine, who died young; and two brothers,

14

childhood

15

•

Jean and Pierre. Her father had a leading role in the vil-

lage as a sergeant and was put in charge of collecting taxes.

Sometimes travelers boarded at the d’Arc house, which was

sizable. They owned approximately 50 acres (20.2 hectares)

of land in the village, as well as their house and their furni-

ture, and unlike many other peasants of the era, even had a

little money set aside.

No one is exactly sure what Joan looked like. No accurate

portraits done in her lifetime exist. Historians have guessed

at her height and weight based on armor that is believed to

have belonged to Joan. She is believed to have been around 5

feet (152 centimeters) tall. Her build is assumed to be slight,

and though often portrayed as fair and tall, she was in fact

dark haired and probably had an olive complexion.

Joan was like the other girls in her village, whose moth-

ers taught them household tasks. She learned to spin wool

and sew and probably helped tend the sheep. If anything set

Joan apart from her peers, it was her natural kindness and

her devotion to God. She loved the ringing of the church

bells, and many villagers recalled her attending mass at the

nearby church often. She was often described by those who

knew her as especially pious, or religious.

Joan’s World

Examining the world in which Joan was raised will help

us understand the religious, material, and political influ-

ences that shaped her life. During her youth, the kingdom

of France was split between the French and the English.

The people of France were divided by their loyalty to the

nation’s two kings. They were also divided by class. There

was the peasantry and the nobility, and little in between.

Language also divided the nation: Joan grew up speaking

French, but German was spoken north and east of her, and

Flemish or Dutch in the north.

16 • JOan Of arc

Some scholars believe this simple drawing of Joan of Arc is the

only il ustration made of her during her lifetime. Note that Joan

is portrayed carrying her standard and sword. The accompany-

ing text mentions the lifting of the siege of Orleans in 1429.

But land—the control of it, the desire by the nobility

to conquer more of it—was the major cause of divisions in

Joan’s France. Her village of Domrémy-la-Pucelle was on

the edge of the duchy (land owned by dukes) of Lorraine,

childhood

1

•

but was under the rule of the kingdom of France. The Duke

of Lorraine was the king of Germany and Bohemia. He

was also the overlord of one large section of Domrémy-la-

Pucelle, with the king of France considered the overlord in

the d’Arc family’s section. Burgundy was south of Lorraine,

and the Duke of Burgundy was in control of Flanders

(today partly in Belgium and partly in Holland), where both

French and Flemish were spoken.

Land was the greatest symbol of wealth and power in the

Middle Ages, and it was either acquired through conquest

or through gifts from the king or pope. Knights often rep-

resented more than one noble or king because they hoped

to have land bestowed on them. After a noble was granted

land from the king, he gave each of his vassals (the peasants)

a portion of land. In turn, the vassals pledged their loyalty

and armed service for the many battles that were necessary

to keep the land and the income it produced. Creating a

family dynasty was another method of claiming land, and

marriages were arranged around this concept. The system

produced great power and wealth among the aristocracy.

Like most other European nations of the period, France

had a social hierarchy with the king at the top. Below the

king were dukes, who ruled large provinces, followed by

counts, barons, and serfs. It was not uncommon for dukes

to be wealthier than the king. The people they protected

fought to conquer more land for their lord, the duke. The

greatest feudal lord of the era was the pope. Bishops and

abbots also sought and acquired land.

Starting in 1348 and continuing into Joan’s era and

beyond, nearly half the population of France perished from

the Black Death (widely thought to have been an outbreak

of bubonic plague), famine, poverty, and massacres.1 Because

of the loss of so much manpower, the traditional feudal hier-

archy was undergoing great change during Joan’s childhood.

The noblemen and the church, which had depended on

1 • JOan Of arc

household taxes of the peasantry for their wealth and power,

began to fight over land. Serfdom—a condition of bondage

like slavery through which nobles controlled peasants—was

disappearing. Knights were also decreasing in number, as it

was becoming the custom to pay soldiers, instead of simply

promising them a portion of conquered land.

The hundred Years’ War

The ongoing war with England, fought mostly on French

soil, took a terrible toll. The war started in 1339 when King

Edward III of England learned that King Philip of France

had taken over his French holdings. Edward’s mother, Isa-

bella, was the daughter of King Philip IV. As Edward saw

it, this meant he was the rightful heir to the French throne

especially since the current French king had no male heirs.

King Edward was determined to recover the territories

England had once held in France.

In August 1346, the English waged a mighty battle

against the French at a place called Crécy in northern

France. The French were certain of victory, as they were

known to be great fighters. The English, however, had the

advantage because of the development of a new style of

combat. Welsh knifemen, pikemen, and trained archers were

new additions to the military. The French were confused by

the new method of fighting. The Battle of Crécy started a

French losing streak in the war. After the English victory at

the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the Treaty of Troyes was

signed. The treaty gave the rule of France and England to

the future son of Henry V (1387–1422), who had agreed to

marry Catherine, the sister of the French king, Charles VII.

It is easy to see how the gloomy atmosphere in France

caused insecurity among the French people, especially in the

young. By the time Joan was a teenager, people in France

were convinced that the English had already won the war.

childhood

1

•

Civil War

Adding to the general feeling of hopelessness in France

was the fact that the nation was also in the midst of civil

war. In 1407, the Duke of Burgundy, known as John the

Fearless, assassinated his first cousin, Louis of Orleans,

and threw Louis’s body into the street. In response, Ber-

nard VII, comte d’Armagnac, started a faction called the

Armagnacs. This group set out to avenge the death of

Louis. Twelve years later, the dauphin, Charles VII, asked

for a meeting with John the Fearless, with the intention of

restoring peace between Burgundy and the royal family.

John agreed, and as they were in discussion on a bridge,

someone with an ax ran up and killed John in front of the

dauphin. The mystery of who planned the assassination

was never solved. The English saw the perfect opportunity

to step in and enlist the aid of the Burgundians in their

quest to control all of France. John’s successor, Philip

the Good, entered a joint war with the English against

Charles VI, father of the crown prince, who was consid-

ered insane. (Today he is thought to have suffered from

schizophrenia.)

Joan’s village of Domrémy-la-Pucelle was not exempt

from all the violence. One of the worst side effects of the

wars was the bands of dangerous mercenaries who roamed

the countryside, demanding money from people for protec-

tion and taking whatever they wanted. When Joan was 16,

the Burgundy governor of Champagne led an unsuccessful

attack, in which buildings in Domrémy-la-Pucelle were

burned, including the St. Remi church. In the chaos, Joan

and her family went to the nearby town of Neufchâteau

seeking protection. While they were waiting to return to

their village, Joan was accused of breaking a promise of

marriage. Joan claimed she had not done this, defended

herself in court, and won.

20 • JOan Of arc

An oil-on-panel portrait of John the Fearless (also known as also John II,

Duke of Burgundy, and John of Valois), whose actions helped spark a civil

war in France.

childhood

21

•

religion’s impaCT

The Roman Catholic Church also contributed to the chaos

of the era. The Church of France was part of the greater

Catholic Church. The spiritual leader was the pope in

Rome, and the French church was led by a conference of

French bishops. From the time the first French king, Clo-

vis I, was crowned, Catholicism had been the official state

religion. Since that time, the king of France was referred to

as His Most Christian Majesty; this happened almost 1,000

years before Joan’s birth. In 800, Charlemagne was crowned

emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III,

which set the foundation for a Christian French empire.

Then political differences and theological disputes began

to divide the Catholic Church. The so-called Great Schism

of 1054 caused a split between the Eastern and Western

Christian churches. In 1378, a second division, the Great

Western Schism, further fragmented the church. At the time

of Joan’s birth, three men were claiming to be pope of the

Roman Catholic Church. They were located in Rome, in

Avignon, France, and in Spain. Wars being fought in Italy

caused the pope in Rome to move to Avignon. France and

England were at war, and the rulers in England, along with

authorities of its allies Germany and Italy, were unhappy

about the pope’s move to France. They knew this meant that

money and power would flood into France. The allies put

pressure on the church to return the pope to Rome. When

an election for a new pope was held, the papacy returned

to Rome in 1378, and Romans demanded that an Italian be

elected. The church leaders elected Urban VI. They then

learned of his violent temper and claimed that he should

not be pope. The French cardinals that voted for Urban VI

blamed their hasty decision on the threatening crowd that

had gathered at the time of the election. The French car-

dinals tried to rectify the situation and elected a new pope,

claiming that Urban VI’s election was invalid.

22 • JOan Of arc

War in Spain also inspired several other figures to

claim the papacy. Clement VII, a Frenchman, was offi-

cially elected, but Urban would not step down. The

Great Western Schism was finally ended at the Council

of Constance (1414 –1418), but much doubt remained as

to which pope was the true authority. Both Urban VI and

Clement VII were finally deposed in favor of Martin V.

The church had been corrupt under the two former

popes, whose greed led to the rise of men who demanded

reform in the church. One of them, Jan Hus, a Czech

priest, became popular. Hus believed the Bible should be

translated from Latin into a language everyone could read.

For this and other then-radical beliefs, Hus was burned as

a heretic in 1416. Church officials were threatened by the

new popular movement, which was anti-authoritarian. Such

movements stressed “private inspiration and the primacy of

the individual conscience,”2 the exact opposite of what the

church then preached. In response, the church stepped up

its authoritarian rule. It also aligned itself with the country

they predicted to win the Hundred Years’ War—England.

hearing voiCes

The citizens of Joan’s village were barely affected by the

shifts occurring within the administration of the Roman

Church. They were good Catholics who believed in the

Eucharist (the bread and wine consumed during Holy

Communion), prayer, and frequent confessions. They had

“a love and respect for others, a willingness to welcome and

help strangers, and a joyously active daily life.”3 They also

practiced folk traditions that had been handed down from

pagan (pre-Christian) times. Joan, for example, joined other

girls in dancing around what was known as a fairy tree.

Sometimes the girls hung garlands on the tree. All of these

traditional rituals were considered perfectly normal.

childhood

23

•

Peasants could not read or write, and Joan was no excep-

tion. News of war victories and defeats arrived via word of

mouth. Legends and prophecies were handed down and

were quite popular. One prophecy that held a special fascina-

tion among all classes in France, including the king and the

Catholic clerics, claimed that a maid would come from the

ancient wood to save France. Of this prophecy, Christine de

Pisan, a poet and historian who died in 1430, wrote:

It was found in the history records that she [ Joan]

was destined to accomplish her mission; for more

than 500 years ago, Merlin [the wizard in the leg-

ends of King Arthur], the Sibyl and Bede foresaw

her coming, entered her in their writings as some-

one who would put an end to France’s troubles,

made prophecies about her, saying that she would

carry the banner in the French wars.4

A prophet named Marie d’Avignon also spoke of a maid

who would deliver the kingdom of France from its enemies.

Since prophecy and mysticism were quite common as Joan

entered her teens, she was very aware of various women mys-

tics such as Catherine of Siena, who spoke of receiving visions

and hearing voices before her death in 1380. St. Colette of

Corbie was another. This was, according to Mary Gordon,

“one of the few ways by which medieval women could speak

with public authority, certain of being listened to.”5

In the summer of 1424, when she was around 12 years

old, Joan began hearing voices. She was playing with friends

when she was told by one of the voices to hurry home to

help her mother. Her mother said she had not sent for her.

According to a letter written to the Duke of Milan, when

Joan returned to her friends, “a shining cloud came down

before her eyes, and a voice speaking of the cloud told her:

‘Joan, you must lead another life and perform wondrous

24 • JOan Of arc

deeds; for you are she whom the King of Heaven has chosen

to bring reparation to the kingdom of France and help and

protection to King Charles.”6 Initially frightened by the

voices, Joan was left “stupefied by so many marvels.”7

Two MarTyrs and an archangel

When she first heard voices, Joan thought that it was God speak-

ing to her. Later, when she was imprisoned and was being tried

as a heretic, she gave the voices the names of saints she had

known as a child: St. Catherine, St. Margaret, and St. Michael.

According to Mary Gordon, author of Joan of Arc, “Female

saints have an especially important function for young girls,

since they provide examples of heroism outside the sphere of

the domestic; the simplest girl has access to models who defied

authority and made a place for themselves in the larger world.”*

The two saints Joan named were virgin martyrs who had

died in order to remain pure. St. Catherine of Alexandria lived

circa 310 a.d. She was born to a wealthy family and had been

converted to Christianity by a vision of Our Lady and the Holy

Child. The Roman emperor, Maximinus, persecuted Christians,

and offered to marry Catherine if she would deny her faith. She

refused, saying that she would remain a virgin bride of Christ.

Maximinus appointed 50 philosophers to convince Catherine to

marry him, but they were won over by her. Maximinus had the

philosophers burned to death. He then sentenced Catherine to

death. She was to be killed on a spiked wheel, but the wheel

broke. Ultimately, he had her beheaded. After her death, she

was recognized as a saint.

St. Margaret of Antioch’s father had driven her out of her

home when she became a Christian. A prefect named Olybrius

childhood

25

•

Joan later testified that it was summer, around noon,

when she heard a voice that seemed to come from the

church next door. It was accompanied by a “great light.”8

The third time she heard a voice, she knew it was an

tried to seduce her. When she refused him, he had her tortured

and imprisoned. Executioners tried to kill her by fire and by

drowning, but she lived. Thousands of spectators who witnessed

this miracle were killed before she was beheaded.

An archangel of God, St. Michael, or “Miycha’el” (mean-

ing “who is like God” in Hebrew), appears in both the Old

Testament and the New Testament. He defeated Lucifer and

the fallen angels in the war in Heaven described in the Book of

Revelation. St. Michael, a symbol of national resistance in France

during the Hundred Years’ War, was named the patron saint

of the royal army of France and patron of the island of Mont

Saint-Michel. The island was one of few places north of the

Loire River that “remained loyal to the French dauphin despite

repeated attempts to take it by storm.”** St. Michael had great

significance for France’s future. According to historian Timothy

Wilson-Smith: “After Charles VII’s son became king, he created

the order of St. Michael, and that island [Mont Saint-Michel]

was the center of his new order of chivalry.”***

*Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc. New York: The Penquin Group,

2000, p. 23.

**Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and History.

London: The History Press, p. 11.

***Ibid.

26 • JOan Of arc

angel’s. (When pressured later in her life to say to whom

the voices belonged, she claimed that the voices were those

of St. Catherine, St. Margaret, and St. Michael.) The

voices were specific in their commands. She was to find

the king, defeat the English at Orleans, and ensure that he

was crowned at Reims. Once this was accomplished, she

was to rescue the Duke of Orleans from imprisonment in

England and restore Paris to French rule.

FolloWing her voiCes

Joan did not want to worry her parents, so she decided not

to tell them about the voices. Her father had a dream that

may have caused her to hesitate. According to her mother,

he dreamed that Joan was a camp follower with an army,

and he told her brothers that if anything like that occurred,

he would direct them to drown her.

Later, Joan went to the home of her cousin by marriage,

Durand Laxart, where she stayed for a week. She convinced

Laxart that he should take her to Vaucouleurs, a few miles

away, and introduce her to the captain of the town. After

she explained her mission, Laxart felt compelled to help

her. When asked about his role years later, he said, “Was it

not said that France would be ruined through a woman, and

afterwards restored by a Virgin?”9 (The woman he believed

had destroyed France was the mother of the dauphin,

Queen Isabella of Bavaria, and the woman who would save

France was Joan of Arc.)

3

Meeting the

Future King

Once he agreed to help Joan, Durand Laxart told Joan’s

father that she should stay and help his wife, who was

then pregnant. In May 1428, Laxart and Joan traveled to

Vaucouleurs, where Robert de Baudricourt was captain of

the town. Joan wore a man’s red coat over her dress. De

Baudricourt, known for his womanizing and looting, prob-

ably agreed to meet with her out of curiosity. He was not

prepared for the feisty Joan, who approached him as an

equal and wasted no time in telling him that she had come

in the name of the Lord. The crown prince, Charles VII,

she announced, must meet with her. Annoyed, de Baudri-

court ordered Laxart to return Joan to her father’s house.

Undaunted, Joan returned to de Baudricourt a second

time in January 1429 and implored him once more to take

2

2 • JOan Of arc

her to the dauphin. Again he turned her away. What de

Baudricourt did not yet know was that some of his soldiers

had started to pledge loyalty to the maiden who kept declar-

ing she was there to save their country. They found her

presence and her words inspiring.

Two men, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy,

were especially drawn to her and her mission. De Metz

later wrote about his experience and recalled Joan’s reply

to de Baudricourt when he refused to believe her: “‘I must

be at the king’s side,’ she said, ‘though I wear my feet to

the knees. For indeed there is nobody in all the world, nei-

ther king nor duke, nor daughter of the King of Scotland,

nor any other who can recover the kingdom of France.’”1

De Metz, though approximately 57 years old at the time,

became Joan’s servant: “I had a great trust in what the maid

said, and I was on fire with what she said and with a love for

her which was, as I believe, a divine love. I believe that she

was sent by God.”2

At this time, Joan started introducing herself as Jeanne

La Pucelle, or Joan the Maid. Pucelle means “virgin,” but in

Old French it meant “a young girl,” and refers to innocence

and youth and desirability. Warner wrote that “she picked

a word for virginity that captured with double strength the

magic of her state in her culture. It expressed not only the

incorruption of her body, but also the dangerous border

into maturity or full womanhood that she had not crossed

and would not cross.”3

oFF To see The King

As Joan waited for de Baudricourt to make up his mind

about whether or not to support her, an old duke, Charles

of Lorraine, summoned her. He was ill and wanted the maid

to heal him. The duke had left his wife for another woman

years before. Together they had five children. Joan boldly

told him that he should return to his wife. To everyone’s

Meeting the future King

2

•

surprise, he humbly accepted her advice. He gave her a

black horse and four francs. Then Joan made a deal with

him. In return for the help of the duke’s son, the Duke

of Anjou, Joan would pray for Charles’s recovery. Charles

agreed to the terms.

When she returned from visiting the duke, Joan dressed

in her uncle’s clothes and went to find the dauphin on her

own. But after stopping to pray, she returned to Vaucouleurs.

The voices had clearly said that de Baudricourt should lead

her. On the way back to Vaucouleurs, the voices told Joan that

the English had overtaken Orleans, a beautiful port city situ-

ated on the Loire River. When Joan met with de Baudricourt

again, she told him about the English conquest of Orleans.

He agreed to persuade the king to meet with her.

Joan began to prepare for the meeting. When de Metz

asked her about her clothing, she said she preferred men’s

attire. The citizens of the town provided men’s clothes

and gave her a horse. Accompanied by the Duke of Anjou,

the knights who had decided to follow her, and soldiers

provided by de Baudricourt, on February 23, 1429, Joan

started the 350-mile (563-kilometer) journey to Chinon,

where she was to meet Charles VII. Surprisingly, the party

encountered no major setbacks or obstacles on their jour-

ney. As biographer Mary Gordon described it: “It’s as if

Dorothy got to Oz with no interference from the wicked

witch. As if a girl from the boondocks decided to see the

president and made her way to the Oval Office without

passing through metal detectors.”4

The travelers arrived in Chinon on March 6. Though

Charles VII had agreed to an interview with Joan, he was

not convinced that she had anything special to offer. Some

of his councilors were strongly opposed to helping her,

including Charles’s chamberlain (the officer in charge of

managing the household of a nobleman), Georges de La

Tremoille. The fabulously wealthy, unusually tall, obese

30 • JOan Of arc

An oil-on-panel portrait of King Charles VII of France, by Jean

Fouquet. In 1429, Charles was crowned in Reims with the aid

of Joan of Arc in order to free France from the English.

chamberlain had tremendous influence over the 26-year-

old dauphin.

Charles was “cunning, timid and superstitious”5 and eas-

ily swayed by others. The only surviving child of five boys,

he had an aura of sadness around him. “The most famous

surviving portrait of Charles, by Jean Fouquet, shows a

man with sorrowful eyes starting bleakly from either side

Meeting the future King

31

•

of a bulbous nose, a picture of world-weariness.”6 Charles’s

political position was precarious, as the English were win-

ning the Hundred Years’ War and France did not have

enough money or men to overtake them. He also carried

doubts about his legitimacy, as his mother claimed he was

the result of an affair. Charles was indecisive and often

procrastinated. He relied heavily on the advice of others to

make any decision.

La Tremoille saw the young maiden who came to crown

her king as a threat to his own authority with the dauphin.

And their advice to the dauphin could not have been more

different: La Tremoille’s policy was to negotiate with the

enemy rather than engage in battle. Joan was the opposite.

“She despised truces and felt that the Burgundians could

only be spoken to ‘at the end of a lance.’”7

Charles decided to test Joan. He dressed as a commoner

and stood with the hundreds of courtiers who had gathered

while someone else pretended to be king. Joan entered

with great fanfare and made her way directly to Charles.

She fell to her knees and said, “Very noble Lord dauphin, I

am come and sent by God to bring succor to you and your

kingdom.”8

The dauphin was impressed by this and asked Joan to

speak with him in private. No one overheard their conver-

sation, and the words that were exchanged have never been

revealed. What is known is that Charles appeared changed

afterward. Normally depressed and lethargic, he was now

enthusiastic. Joan, as a symbolic act, had Charles turn over

his kingdom to her, whereupon she put it in the hands of

God, who had directed her to “invest King Charles with

the kingdom of France.”9 According to Gordon, “She has

power over Charles, but it comes from God, and it is God

moving through her who will enable the actions that must,

if they are going to be effectual in this world, come from

the king.”10

32 • JOan Of arc

The moment Joan of Arc recognizes the disguised dauphin, later King

Charles VII of France, at Chinon in 1429 is captured in this nineteenth-

century wood engraving.

Meeting the future King

33

•

TesTs

In spite of Charles’s confidence in Joan, he and the mem-

bers of his council did not rush to provide an army. They

instructed her to go to Poitiers so the learned clergymen

at the university there could examine her. Charles needed

more proof that she was divinely inspired, and he also

sought the church’s approval. For 11 days, Joan answered

their questions with boldness, intelligence, and little tweaks

of humor. One question they asked was why, if it were

God’s will that she drive the English back to England, did

she need soldiers? Her response was curt. She said that “the

soldiers were to fight in God’s name and that God would

give the victory.”11 By the end of the interview, the clergy-

men were convinced that Joan was indeed the virgin who

had come to save France. Only a few written lines were ever

uncovered from the trial at Poitiers, but one conclusion is

known: “That in her is found no evil, but only good, humil-

ity, virginity, devotion, honesty, simplicity.”12

Joan left Poitiers on March 25, which was Good Friday

and the feast of the Annunciation, which celebrated the

angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would

become the mother of the Son of God. She set out on a pil-

grimage to Notre-Dame cathedral at Le Puy-en-Velay. She

was accompanied by six of her men, her mother, and Jean

Pasquerel, the lector at a nearby convent. Pasquerel became

Joan’s confessor and traveled with her everywhere.

The next step was for Joan to go to Tours, where it

would be confirmed that she was a virgin. This was an

important issue, as virginity was considered “the sign of

one who dedicates himself or herself wholly to God.”13 By

calling herself Jeanne La Pucelle, or Joan the Maid, she was

declaring her virginity. “The test of virginity was above all

a proof of sincerity.”14

Based on the positive reports from Poitiers and Tours,

Charles sent Joan to Orleans to fight the English. He

34 • JOan Of arc

agreed to provide everything she needed. She was fitted for

armor in Tours—a bassinet, or helmet, body armor, and leg

and arm harnesses. The helmet made for her had a small,

moveable visor and also protected her neck. A steel hat

with a wide brim, called a capeline, was useful when scaling

walls and being bombarded with stones. ( Joan preferred

riding with her head bare.) The body armor was made of

steel plates. The vest portion was called a brigandine. One

man who saw her said that she appeared “armed entirely in

Joan The Maid

Joan of Arc’s virginity had great significance to the people of

France. Contained within the prophecy that France would be

saved by a woman, it was stressed that she would be a virgin

savior. “Chastity was the touchstone of female virtue; it was

widely believed that the devil could not have commerce with a

virgin.”*

Joan was tested several times for proof of her virginity,

though there was then little scientific knowledge about the

female body. If she had been found not to be a virgin, she would

have been sent home, for it would have made her a liar. “In

Joan’s time, those men and women who consecrated themselves

to God showed their acceptance of the divine cal by remaining

virgin . . . total y at the Lord’s service in heart and body.”**

In fact, since the second century, Christians believed that

“the body of a woman was one of the holiest things possible in

creation, holier than the chastity of a man.”***

Jean d’Aulon, her good friend and companion, when testify-

ing in her behalf a year later, said that “although he had seen

Meeting the future King

35

•

white, except for the head, a little ax in her hand, seated on

a great black courser.”15

Robert de Baudricourt gave her a sword, but Joan asked

her men to retrieve another, which was hidden behind the

altar of the Sainte-Catherine de Fierbois church. When

the men found it and asked how she knew it was there, she

said that her voices had told her its location. She then asked

Scottish painter Hauves Poulnoir to design a standard and a

small pennon, which was a long, narrow flag often attached

her naked body, he had never felt any sexual desire for her.”****

He was not alone. There are many testimonies of brave young

men who experienced such reverence for her.

According to the men who were closest to her, Joan did

not menstruate. It was mentioned often that Joan ate and

drank little, which may have been the cause. (This is a com-

mon side effect of anorexia today, and women athletes, includ-

ing dancers, sometimes do not menstruate.) Whatever the

cause, it added to the purity and holiness that has been attrib-

uted to her.

*Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism, p. 14.

**Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, Joan of Arc: Her

Story, p. 31.

***Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism,

p. 24.

****Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and History,

p. 107.

36 • JOan Of arc

to the lances of medieval knights. The scene depicted on

her pennon was of the archangel Gabriel presenting the

Virgin Mary with a double lily.

The fleur-de-lis traditionally represented French roy-

alty. Tradition holds that Clovis, the first French king,

received a golden lily from an angel upon his conversion

to Christianity. A symbol of his purification, it later came

to symbolize perfection and light. Another legend said that

Clovis adopted the symbol when water lilies helped him

cross a river. In the twelfth century, either King Louis VI or

King Louis VII was the first French king to put the fleur-

de-lis on his shield. From that time forward, it was used

as the royal insignia. These banners were to have a huge

symbolic effect on her soldiers as Joan led them into war in

the name of God.

Jean d’Aulon served as Joan’s master of household, and

Etienne de Vignolles, called “La Hire,” which means anger,

was a ferocious soldier who was devoted to her. Joan was

treated as a warrior of high rank. She had pages and heralds

who delivered messages and five warhorses. Her brothers,

Pierre and Jean, joined her. They set off with horsemen,

men-at-arms, cattle, wagons, priests—and 4,000 men—to

Orleans to attack the British.

On April 21, 1429, they headed to a town called Blois.

Joan told the men that she did not want to hear foul lan-

guage and expected them to take communion regularly.

Even the mercenary soldier La Hire went to confession

and did not use vulgar terms in front of Joan. They were all

willing to oblige, for in their eyes she had offered them the

“hope of divine assistance.”16

4

The Journey

to Reims

Eighty miles (129 km) south of Paris, the city of Orleans

then had a population of 30,000. If the English were

to move further south into France, the English needed

to conquer Orleans. The Duke of Bedford, the regent of

England, planned the attack, assisted by Duke Philip the

Good of Burgundy, as Orleans was difficult to penetrate. It

had been attacked so many times that the citizens had built

strong fortifications around it. Five gates offered entry into

the city: the Burgundy Gate, the Paris Gate, the Bernier

Gate, the Renard Gate, and the St. Catherine Gate. “Each

gate was flanked by two towers protected by a heavy grat-

ing, called a portcullis, that could be lowered and raised.

Earthen embankments were the first line of defense.”1

3

3 • JOan Of arc

Towers situated on either side of every gate protected the

bridges into the city. To further protect themselves, the

citizens of Orleans had blocked three of the gates, leaving

only the Burgundy and St. Catherine gates open.

In October 1428, the English had begun a siege of

the city. Their goal was to make the inhabitants prisoners

in their own city. Food and other supplies could not be

brought in. The method the English used to isolate the city

was to set up bastides, or temporary fortifications, outside

each gate of the city. These could be small structures that

sometimes housed troops whose job was to ensure nothing

entered the city. There was continuous fighting over the

next months, and by March 1429 the city was ready to fall

to the English. After capturing Orleans, the plan was to

attack the dauphin at Bourges, in the center of France.

Twenty-five-year-old John, the Count of Dunois, Bastard

of Orleans, was acting as lieutenant governor when the

attacks started. His younger half brother, Charles, the Duke

of Orleans, would normally have been in charge. But Charles

had been a prisoner in England since October 25, 1415,

when he was wounded and captured during the Battle of

Agincourt. Another of Joan’s goals was to bring Charles back

to France.

The standard set by the code of chivalry was that a city

could not be besieged if the lord of that city was being held

prisoner. Dunois suggested to the Duke of Bedford that if the

English would refrain from attacking Orleans, the city would

remain neutral in the war. The Duke of Bedford would have

none of it. He replied, “I would be mighty angry to cut down

the bushes so that someone else could get the little birds

from the branches!”2 The negotiations broke down.

Dunois, who was suffering from a wounded foot, wor-

ried that his city would end up like the besieged city of

Rouen. In 1417, its starving citizens had been forced to

eat dogs and rats before they surrendered their city to the

The Journey to Reims

39

•

In this il ustration of Joan of Arc in armor and riding horse, Wil iam Blake

Richmond portrays her as an inspirational military leader and French

heroine.

English. The situation could not have been worse. Dunois

began to hear rumors of the maiden sent by God to save

France. He sent two trusted men to Chinon to see if there

40 • JOan Of arc

was any truth to it. They returned and reported they had

seen a maid moving about Chinon as she waited to be

granted an audience with the king. They told him that she

demanded horses, men, and arms in order to “raise the

siege of Orleans and to lead the noble dauphin to Reims, so

that he could be anointed king.”3

arrival oF Joan

Joan and her soldiers, followed by a caravan of supply wagons,

left Blois and traveled toward Orleans along the south bank

of the Loire. The English were on the north bank. Joan real-

ized only after bypassing Orleans that Dunois wanted supplies

more than he wanted Joan of Arc to save his city. The sight

of Joan and her army approaching must have been a shock to

him. A biography of Joan written in the early 1500s states:

The Maid, arrayed in white armour, rode on horse-

back before the King, with her standard unfurled.

When not in armour, she kept state as a knight and

dressed as one. Her shoes were tied with laces to her

feet, her horse and doublet were shapely, a hat was

on her head. She wore very handsome attire of cloth

of gold and silk, noticeably trimmed with fur.4

Dunois rode out to meet Joan, who wasted no time in

demanding whether it was he who had caused the detour.

In a condescending voice, he told her that he and other wise

men had decided it was the safer way. Joan said, “I bring you

better help than ever came to you from any soldier to any

city, as it is the help of the King of Heaven. It comes not

from me but from God Himself.”5

Unconvinced that she was any kind of savior, Dunois

turned from her to focus on bigger worries. The sup-

plies Orleans so desperately needed had been loaded onto

boats that had to sail against the current. The fierce winds,

The Journey to reims

41

•

however, would prevent the voyage to his city. It was at that

moment that he witnessed what he believed was a miracle,

which, coupled with the fact that the English were ignoring

them, changed his mind about Joan. She stood calmly in the

gale force winds, which suddenly died down and allowed

the supplies to reach their destination.

On April 29, 1429, Joan entered Orleans carrying her

banner. Her two brothers rode with her. She was followed

by lords, squires, and men-at-arms. People of Orleans

emerged to catch a glimpse of Joan, overjoyed at the pros-

pect of being rescued, and reached out to touch this teen-

age girl and her horse as they rode by. On April 30, Joan

presented herself to Dunois, only to learn that he would

not fight until he received reinforcements from the king.

She walked out to view the enemy, some within hearing dis-

tance. She yelled at them to “go away in God’s name, other-

wise she would drive them out.”6 They hurled insults back

at her. She marched up to a rampart and told the English to

surrender. They shouted back at her that “they would burn

her if they ever got hold of her.”7

Joan stuck to the chivalric code of not fighting on a

Sunday, but it was getting harder to abide by such codes

because the enemy was not interested in following rules.

On May 4, after French reinforcements arrived, Dunois

and Joan dined together. He told her he had learned that

the English were sending a new army to Orleans, led by

John Fastolf, an accomplished soldier. Joan saw an even

greater challenge than she had imagined, and welcomed it.

She knew she would have to gain ground quickly in order

to encourage the French and gain their support. Her voices

awoke her in the middle of the night, and she decided to

act. There had been a skirmish near the Burgundy Gate.

When Joan got there, the English were preparing for an

active defense. When Joan appeared, the French fought

harder and soon had taken the bastide and fortress.

42 • JOan Of arc

In this oil-on-canvas painting by Jean-Jacques Scherrer, the triumphant

entrance of Joan of Arc into Orleans in 1429 is depicted.

Joan was distressed by the deaths that resulted from this

battle, both English and French. She immediately went to

confession, asking her soldiers to do the same and to thank

The Journey to reims

43

•

God for their victory. She also prayed for the dead. She

decided not to fight the next day, the Feast of the Ascension,

which is the Christian holiday that commemorates the day

Jesus Christ ascended into heaven in the presence of his

apostles after his resurrection. Instead, she dictated three

letters to the English, filled with orders for them to leave

or be prepared to take the consequences. The English

kidnapped her messenger, so she tied her next letter to an

arrow and commanded an archer to shoot it across enemy

lines. The English shouted insults at her.

Joan and Dunois disagreed on the next course of action.

He wanted to wait. She went ahead with her men to a bas-

tide, which they found deserted. She assumed the English

had moved to a stronger fortress. Joan and La Hire led the

way in a sneak attack against the English, overtaking the bas-

tide. Most of the English were killed. To Joan’s amazement,

the French captains of the city decided to delay any further

attacks because the English outnumbered them. Joan, how-

ever, was a girl of action. Preparing for battle, she told her

chaplain and confessor, Jean Pasquerel, to stay close to her

when they attacked, for she knew she would be wounded.

The following day, Joan and her men attacked the fortress of

Tourelles, and, as she had predicted, an arrow hit her above

her breast. It was a shallow wound that was treated with olive

oil and bacon fat, after which she raced back into battle.

Under Joan’s command, her men filled a barge with

tar and sticks, set it on fire, and sent it under the fortress

bridge. Dunois wanted the army to return to the walls of

the city, but Joan ordered them to stop and take some food

and drink, hoping that nourishment would give them a sec-

ond wind. She handed her standard to a squire, whom Jean

d’Aulon told to follow Joan and himself to a ditch. Joan did

not hear his order, and when she saw the squire in the ditch,

she grabbed her banner, which started to wave back and

forth. Her men thought it was a signal to attack and rushed

44 • JOan Of arc

to follow her command. They took the bastide, which the

English had abandoned during the assault.

On Sunday, May 8, the English exited their bastides and

stood in battle formation. Joan did the same with her army.

For an hour, the enemies stood facing each other. The

French, flush with their recent victory, were itching to fight

again. The English, however, “raised and totally abandoned

the siege that they had laid to Orleans from the twelfth day

of October 1428 up to this day.”8 They left behind food

supplies and weapons. Orleans was liberated. There was a

great celebration that night.

Joan went to see the dauphin, who was thrilled with her

achievements. He was not alone. Her victory at Orleans

had a huge impact on all French citizens. “The French . . .

had risen and countered the greatest military effort of their

conquerors by throwing them into the Loire—and this feat

was credited to a young girl of sixteen or seventeen. She

was an inspired virgin from whom one could expect almost

any miracle.”9

a speCial Friend

Joan was already thinking about what she would need to do

to fulfill the next order from her voices: The dauphin needed

to be crowned king. Charles’s advisers wanted him to march

to Normandy, but Joan was insistent that they go to Reims

for his coronation, which would make Charles the legitimate

king in the eyes of his people. Joan had a deep understanding

of symbolism and its power. As she herself was a symbol, she

knew that Charles, once crowned, would be seen as the right-

ful heir and a figure for the French to rally around.

Joan went to meet with John, the Duke of Alencon, who

had been freed after paying a huge ransom to his British

captor, the Duke of Clarence. To John’s great relief, now

that the Battle of Orleans had been a success, he would not

have to surrender two important territories to the English

The Journey to Reims

45

•

This stone plaque in Basilique Saint-Denis, France, shows the

type of armor worn by Joan of Arc. What Joan wore would later

become a source of controversy at her trial.

46 • JOan Of arc

Duke of Bedford. A member of the royal council, John had

been taken prisoner at Verneuil on August 6, 1424. His wife

had pawned her jewelry in order to free him, but it took

five years to settle the score with his captors. Ransom was a

common way to acquire money and land in the Middle Ages

when important men were captured in battle. It was far

more profitable than killing such wealthy prisoners, but it

could take years for the ransom amount to be agreed upon,

and then for it to be paid.

KnighTs

Biographer Marina Warner wrote, “The sacredness of the bond

between a knight and a lord cannot be overstressed.”* Charles

VII honored Joan by making her a knight. Joan’s village of

Domrémy-la-Pucelle held dear the ideals of knighthood, and it is

certain that Joan grew up hearing tales of knights.

Knights were held in the highest esteem during the Middle

Ages because they were considered Christian soldiers who

adhered to the code of chivalry. Knights considered self-sac-

rifice, generosity, and personal honor to be of the utmost

importance. According to Warner, “Leaders should be bold

and rash, careless of their lives, eager to lay themselves down

for their followers . . . a kind of bravura, of foolhardy reckless-

ness was prized as the badge of great courage.”** Knights

also loved rich clothing, and Joan of Arc was no exception.

According to Warner, “The imprisoned Duke of Orleans,

Charles, ordered a splendid costume for her [Joan] as a token

of his gratitude after the raising of the siege.”*** Ironically,

The Journey to reims

4

•

Joan and John had met in Chinon, when Joan had

visited the king. She had been curious and asked Charles

about him. She discovered that he was the godfather to

Charles’s son, the future Louis XI, and a close friend.

Joan replied that “the more the blood of France is gath-

ered together, the better it shall be.”10 From then on

she referred to John as “my fair Duke”11 and he became

devoted to her. She met his mother and his wife. When his

wife expressed concern about her husband going to battle,

Joan was later severely criticized for making a statement with

her clothes.

But, as Mary Gordon asks, was Joan “ever really a knight?

She refused ennoblement for herself, asking for it only for her

brothers.”**** Joan’s way of doing things was much simpler. Her

speech was direct, her gifts were not grandiose, and she did not

like ceremonies. She focused instead on battles and meeting her

military goals.

Even as Joan of Arc was bravely leading her soldiers to Paris,

the chivalrous ways of the knight were waning, soon to be

replaced by paid soldiers who used guns instead of swords.

*Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism,

p. 174.

**Ibid., p. 178.

***Ibid., p. 170.

****Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 80.

4 • JOan Of arc

Joan promised to send him back “in better shape than he

is now!”12

on To reims and The CoronaTion

Joan was prepared to fight the English all the way to Reims

if need be. The dauphin put the Duke of Alencon in charge

of the Loire campaign. He was given 2,000 men, a number

that doubled the next day when Dunois and another captain

brought their troops. Still, the captains worried about being

outnumbered by the English troops in Jargeau, who were

still under the command of John Fastolf.

The English drove back the French soldiers. The

Duke of Alencon recalled later: “Seeing this, Joan seized

her standard, rode into the fray and found the soldiers

displaying great courage.”13 As night approached, the

French retired with hope that they would win the next

day. Joan attacked early in the morning, and her men took

the Earl of Suffolk prisoner. Although Joan was hit by a

falling stone as she scaled a ladder, she was spared serious

injury because she was wearing a helmet. She then saved

the Duke of Alencon’s life by warning him to step away

from a certain area. (After he moved, a machine fell onto

that same spot, killing someone else.) The French were

victorious.

Joan moved her men on to Meung and then Beaugency,

which they captured quickly, driving the English into the

castle. But then she learned that English reinforcements,

under the command of Lord Talbot, were on their way.

On June 17, 1429, the two armies were in sight of each

other. The English called the French to fight, but Joan told

them to wait until the next morning. She assured her men

that they would defeat the English. Her prophecy proved

correct. During the Battle of Patay, which some historians

consider to be as important as the Battle of Orleans, the

English fled, but not before 4,000 of them were either

The Journey to reims

4

•

captured or killed. The English commander was taken,

along with about 200 other noblemen who could bring in

big ransoms. Since their defeat at the hands of the British

during the Battle of Agincourt, the French had suffered

many setbacks. But the Battle of Patay was theirs.

The news of the English defeat caused the Burgundians

in Paris, who were loyal to the English, to panic. They

began to further fortify their city. Joan would have had an

advantage if she had been able to move her army quickly

to Paris. Approximately 12,000 soldiers were gathered at

Gien waiting for Joan. And they had to be paid, which

made any delay costly. But the king, following the advice

of La Tremoille, chose to continue negotiation with the

Burgundians.

Joan could barely control her impatience. She had

to wait until June 29 before marching to Reims through

lands under Burgundian control. To their surprise, when

they entered Auxerre, a delegation came to announce

the town’s loyalty to the king, as well as the loyalty of

the towns of Troyes, Chalons-sur-Marne, and Reims.

However, Troyes, where Charles VII had been disinher-

ited, did not declare loyalty until Joan arrived with her

soldiers. The townspeople, worried about an assault, sur-

rendered on July 10, and from there Joan and her army

headed to Chalons-sur-Marne. The bishop presented the

king with the keys of the city. By the time they arrived in

Reims, a long column of followers was behind them, hop-

ing to witness the coronation.

The city of Reims offered the king complete obedi-

ence. Most of those who had collaborated with the English

quickly left town. Charles was anointed and crowned on

July 17, 1429. His friend the Duke of Alencon crowned

him, and he in turn knighted the duke. Joan’s family was

there to witness the grand spectacle.

50 • JOan Of arc

leTdoWn

Pierre Cauchon, a Reims native and former rector of the

University of Paris, was among those who left. Though

French, he was a strong supporter of the English. A self-

made man, he liked all the pomp and splendor associated

with the court of Burgundy and had little tolerance for the

old French aristocracy. He had become wealthy aiding the

Duke of Bedford of England and had been made bishop

of Beauvais as a gift from the Burgundian duke, Philip the

Good. The crowning of Charles VII at Reims struck hor-

ror into his heart and focused his attention on the young

woman who was transforming France.

Joan dictated a letter to the Duke of Burgundy on the

day of the coronation, which read in part:

[T]he Maid calls upon you by the King of Heaven,

my rightful and sovereign Lord, to make a firm

and lasting peace with the king of France. You two

must pardon one another fully with a sincere heart,

as loyal Christians should; and if it pleases you to

make war, go and wage it on the Saracens. Prince

of Burgundy, I pray you, supplicate, and humbly

request rather than require you, make war no more

on the holy kingdom of France . . . As for the gentle

king of France, he is ready to make peace with you,

saving his honor, if it has to do with you alone.14

Joan was not aware that Charles VII’s council members

were still negotiating with the English and the Burgundians.

She had continued to operate under the medieval code of

chivalry—either surrender or do battle to the end. As Joan

made plans for entering Paris, there were five men who

later recalled a remark she made as they were on their way

to Reims. Those words would come to haunt her.

5

Capture at

Compiègne

The English had taken Paris in 1417. The Duke of Burgundy

and his men had entered the gates of the city, took the

king prisoner, and killed as many Armagnacs (the faction that

opposed the English and Burgundians) as they could find. The

dauphin Charles, who was then 15, was then taken from his

bed by an Armagnac captain and moved to central France.

Paris had been under English control ever since, and

remained the cultural and political center of France. It had

the biggest population north of the Alps. The Parliament

of Paris supported the Treaty of Troyes, which had disin-

herited the dauphin. The University of Paris, whose faculty

and clerics were pro-English, was the oldest established

university in the kingdom. (The clerics loyal to the French

crown had fled to the University of Poitiers.)

51

52 • JOan Of arc

The English and Burgundians were stunned by Joan’s

successes throughout 1429. Though she was revered by

the French, she was despised and feared by her enemies.

The clergy loyal to the English and Burgundians consid-

ered her an enemy of the faith. The English were espe-

cially anxious after learning that the region of Champagne

had fallen to her and the land south of the Loire was also

under Charles VII’s control. Though Paris was already

strongly fortified, those in charge went to great lengths to

make sure Joan could not break through the walls protect-

ing the city. They also did all they could to convince the

people of the city to support the Anglo-Burgundian cause.

They believed that Henry was the true king of France.

Many Parisians had adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

After receiving Joan’s plea for harmony on the day of the

coronation, July 17, 1429, Philip, the Duke of Burgundy,

offered a 15-day truce. He promised that after that time he

would offer up Paris to Charles. Joan was suspicious, and

rightfully so, for the time wasted by the coronation and

negotiations had allowed the Duke of Bedford to make the

city more secure. Joan dictated a letter to the citizens of

Reims about the truce: “I am not content with the truce . . .

and do not know if I will keep it. But if I do keep it, it will

be only for the sake of the king’s honor.”1

Joan wanted to attack Paris directly, as it would be

impossible to conduct a siege against such a large city.

However, Charles’s adviser, Georges de La Tremoille,

insisted on using diplomacy instead. Some of his reasoning

was sound, as the king was worried about how to finance

his army; also, they were quite certain that the English

and Burgundians outnumbered them. Behind the scenes,

however, there was a conflict of interest—La Tremoille’s

brother was at the Burgundian court, so the king’s adviser

favored a Franco-Burgundian truce. The more the king and

La Tremoille held back, the more impatient Joan became.

Capture at Compiègne

53

•

In this nineteenth-century il ustration, Joan of Arc leads the French army against

the English defenders of the Les Tourel es gate during the siege of Orleans

on May 7, 1429. Victories such as this one stunned her enemies.

Her fierce independence was becoming a problem for

Charles and La Tremoille.

Cross PurPoses

The king finally gave Joan permission to march to Sois-

sons. She arrived on July 23. When Joan started to cross the

bridge into the town, she was stopped by the town captain,

who was in the process of selling it to the Burgundians. Joan

and her army stayed in a field with no provisions. From

there, they traveled to Château-Thierry, where they stayed

until August 1. While there, Joan asked the king to exempt

the villages of Domrémy-la-Pucelle and Greux from taxa-

tion, and he agreed.

54 • JOan Of arc

The arrival of the Duke of Lorraine gave Joan a great

boost, and the army continued to the northern end of Paris,

where they set up camp. On August 15, the Duke of Bedford

rode out and proposed battle. Joan was ready to fight but

was also wary of a trap. The 8,000 to 9,000 English soldiers

and 6,000 to 8,000 Burgundian soldiers were hidden behind

ditches and wagons. Approximately 7,000 French soldiers

watched Joan try to entice the English out into the open,

but they could not be lured. At daybreak the following day,

the English left for Paris.

King Charles went to his comfortable residence in

Compiègne, a few miles northeast of Paris. Joan pleaded with

him to take Paris, but La Tremoille had become insistent that

Charles listen to him. Charles still remembered the awful

massacre of 5,000 people in Paris when the Burgundians took

over the city and was likely unwilling to see such a repeat.

Joan was given permission to travel south to Paris with

La Hire and the dukes of Alencon and Bourbon. Little did

she know that Charles, in his negotiations with Philip the

Good, had agreed to vacate the towns she had just captured

in exchange for a four-month truce. Philip, in the mean-

time, was negotiating with the English for titles to Brie and

Champagne in exchange for more of his soldiers.

On September 8, the king finally allowed Joan to attack

Paris. It was Joan’s most unsuccessful day in battle. During

the long wait, her troops had lost some of their enthusiasm,

and she could not seem to rally them. Then, when she was

hit in the leg by an arrow, the king ordered her to withdraw.

Mary Gordon wrote, “Because [Charles] had no real per-

sonal loyalty to her, because he was interested only in what

she could represent, when her representations failed to be

of use to him, she ceased to exist as important, or perhaps,

even real.”2

When Joan’s army was forced to disband on September

21, instead of going home to Domrémy-la-Pucelle she stayed

capture at compiègne

55

•

with the court. The waiting was awful. In late November,

Charles told her she could try to take the town of La

Charité-sur-Loire, but first she had to conquer the small

village of Saint-Pierre-Le-Moûtier. She had few men with

her. Although they eventually took Saint-Pierre-Le-Moûtier,

the siege at La Charité was long and unsuccessful. She did,

however, have some good news at this time: Her family had

been ennobled. While she had never pursued such honors,

and had in fact refused ennoblement for herself, she accepted

it for her brothers. The king’s act, however, worried her.

Was he trying to rid himself of her by paying her off? She

returned to court feeling like a failure. Her power was on the

wane. The soldiers were unpaid or underpaid and did not

have enough provisions. Many had deserted.

The voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret had told

her that she would be captured before midsummer. Joan

must have been distressed, but she carried on and went to

Lagny. A miracle occurred at Lagny that would be passed

down through the ages and led to her eventual canoniza-

tion: Joan brought a baby back to life long enough for it to

be baptized and buried in consecrated ground.

Also in Lagny, she captured a man named Franquet

d’Arras, who was a known Burgundy sympathizer. Joan

decided to exchange him for another man and offered him

up for ransom. When she learned that the other man had

died, she changed her mind and took d’Arras to trial. After

confessing to his crimes, he was decapitated. Joan had bro-

ken a promise, which in the unwritten laws of chivalry, was

a terrible wrong. To many she had acted out of character,

and it became a mark against her.

CapTure aT Compiègne

By March 1430, King Charles was beginning to understand

that the Duke of Burgundy was not acting in good faith,

but the king still did not change his tactics. Charles had

56 • JOan Of arc

promised his cousin the Duke of Burgundy to give up Com-

piègne, which had a good vantage point for attacking Paris.

The duke, in exchange, was supposed to vacate Paris, which

he had not done. Charles was being duped, of course, which

he later admitted in a letter dated May 6, 1430.

Rumor spread that the townspeople of Compiègne

were going to fight the English rather than face being

turned over to them. They were under siege and desper-

ate. Joan, moved that they were willing to risk their lives

in order to remain French, rushed to their aid, reaching

the town on May 15. After eight days, the standoff with

the Burgundians was proving to be too much. They had

thousands of soldiers to Joan’s hundreds. She planned a

surprise attack when they were resting, which gave her a

slight advantage for a short time.

The Burgundian captain, Jean de Luxembourg, sent

his troops to meet the maid. Despite having only a hand-

ful of men, Joan kept making assaults against the town. In

the meantime, Burgundy’s men joined de Luxembourg,

as did a large number of fresh English troops. Joan’s men

begged her to retreat, but it only made her angry. Because

she could not rally them the way she had months before,

they fled to the safety of the town. Once they were within

the gates, the governor, in a panic, raised the drawbridge.

Joan was left outside the gate with only a few of her men.

She and her horse became mired in a muddy field, and an

archer grabbed the flaps of her “beautiful gold and scarlet

surcoat”3 and yanked her from her horse. Joan had worried

about treason, and many wondered if someone had turned

against her. The truth would never be known.

Joan was captured by the Bastard of Wandomme and

taken to Margny, along with her brother Pierre, Jean

d’Aulon, and a few others. The Duke of Burgundy went

to see her and put her in the care of Jean de Luxembourg.

From there she was taken to a prison at Beaulieu.

capture at compiègne

5

•

Shown above, The Peasant Maid of Orleans in the Hands of the English,

by Ronald Wheelwright. Captured by the Burgundians and sold to the

English, Joan would find herself not being ransomed as a prisoner of war

(as was then the custom), but put on trial as a heretic.

For a year—from late April 1429 until the end of May

1430—Joan of Arc’s remarkable success on the field of battle

had given hope to the French and struck fear in her enemies.

Now, her capture was proof to her enemies that she was not

invincible. De Luxembourg was willing to have her ran-

somed if she would agree to stop fighting the Burgundians.

One witness said that she refused. The English wanted her

badly. The vicar general of the Inquisition, a high-ranking

official in the Catholic Church who favored the English,

asked that she be sent to Paris for trial on grounds of her-

esy—a religious crime in which the accused is believed to

hold beliefs that defy the teachings of the church. The day

after her capture, faculty members of the University of Paris

5 • JOan Of arc

wrote to the Duke of Burgundy to ask that she be handed

over for trial as a heretic. Though the word sorceress, or witch,

was not used in their request, it was implied.

“It was among the richest, the most learned, the most

privileged, the highest of England and of France that the

terror of heresy and the practice of witchcraft took its firm-

est hold,”4 according to biographer Marina Warner. Joan’s

victories, the rumors of her voices and her prophecies, and

the great influence she had over Charles and the French

frightened them. In their minds, the devil was at work in

the form of Joan the Maid.

ransomed

Jean de Luxembourg decided to ransom Joan, though he

took his time. Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais,

saw an opportunity to retaliate against the maid who had

inspired thousands. He offered various sums of money, and

de Luxembourg eventually settled on £10,000. While the

negotiating continued, Joan was allowed to have her stew-

ard Jean d’Aulon with her, but after she attempted to escape

by lifting up the floorboards in her room, she was put in a

dark cell alone. There, she again acted against the code of

chivalry by attempting escape. It was understood that if one

gave one’s word (in this case not to escape), it must be hon-

ored. She defended herself by saying that she had not given

her word that she would not attempt escape. The truth was

that she would rather have died than become a prisoner of

the English.

Jean de Luxembourg then moved Joan to his château at

Beaurevoir, where she met his wife, Aunt Jeanne, and pos-

sibly his stepdaughter, all of whom became her supporters.

She tried to escape again by leaping out of a tower window

and fell 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 m). She did not break any

bones, but she was badly bruised. Mary Gordon wrote,

“This is another proof of Joan’s incredible health, strength,

capture at compiègne

5

•

and powers of recuperation. It could also be another

instance of her youthful belief that she could take great risks

and not be hurt by them.”5 She was also full of remorse for

her action, for her voices had told her not to attempt it.

Was Jean de Luxembourg hoping that King Charles

would bid against the English and save the maid? If so, it

was not to be. Charles, true to his character, did not act.

No counteroffer was made. Joan was sent to the Duke of

Luxembourg’s city home at Arras, and handed over to the

English in November 1430. On November 21, the rectors

of the University of Paris wrote to King Henry VI to say

that she was in their power. Cauchon arranged to have

her tried as though she were in his territory in Beauvais,

which was against the laws that were in place, but no one

heeded them.

On January 3, 1431, Joan was officially taken by the

English. Her trial, however, was to be not a military trial

but an ecclesiastical, or religious, one, and Pierre Cauchon

was to conduct the interrogation and the hearing. This

was bad news indeed. The future did not bode well for

Joan the Maid.

6

Sentenced

to Death

The trial was held in Rouen, an English-controlled city

in Normandy. It took eight months for the preliminary

trial to begin in the chapel of Rouen Castle. Before the

trial, Joan had to undergo another virginity test, with the

Duchess of Bedford, Anne of Burgundy, in charge. It is

likely that she forbade the guards from raping Joan. Cau-

chon sent scouts to Joan’s hometown to find anything the

judges could use against her, but they returned with glow-

ing reports of the girl, which he made sure were not put in

the records.

When the trial finally began in February 1431, the inter-

rogation segment did not get off to a good start; in fact, parts

of it were embarrassing for Pierre Cauchon. The inquisitor,

Jean Graverent, was not present; the information that was

60

Sentenced to Death

61

•

going to be used against Joan came from anonymous sources,

which meant it could have been made up; and Joan had not

yet been formally charged with anything. It was up to the

judges to decide what charges to bring against her.

poliTiCs and religion

It was obvious that Cauchon wanted to rid himself of the

girl who had caused so many problems for him and for

his allies in the church, but there was more involved than

his own personal agenda. Although the Great Western

Schism had ended in 1415 and Pope Martin V in Rome

was now the only pope, it did not keep the University of

Paris from trying to win back the power they had with the

pope in Avignon. In fact, the University of Paris faculty

wanted their General Council to rule the entire Catho-

lic Church alongside the papacy and wanted the French

national assembly to become as powerful as the British

Parliament. But their plans were ruined because Joan’s vic-

tories not only gave power to Charles but also weakened

the council’s already waning influence on the papacy.

The Judges’ invesTigaTion Begins

In 1184, the Catholic Church began using trials known

as Inquisitions to investigate and punish heresy. Later, as

these investigations grew, the use of torture was employed

to force suspected heretics to confess their crimes or to con-

vert nonbelievers. Like other Inquisitions, the purpose of

Joan’s trial was to determine if she had broken church laws.

Mary Gordon wrote, “By the time he was ready to begin,

Cauchon had assembled one cardinal, six bishops, thirty-

two doctors of theology, sixteen bachelors of theology,

seven doctors of medicine, and one hundred other clerical

associates.”1 All were sympathetic to the Anglo-Burgundian

cause, not to the papacy in Rome. Joan viewed the men

62 • JOan Of arc

In this 1824 painting by Paul Delaroche, Joan of Arc is interrogated in her

cel by the cardinal of Winchester, who sought to brand her as a fraud for

political reasons.

before her as Burgundians and English, not as the authority

of the church. They were, in fact, her enemies. In her mind,

the pope in Rome was the sole authority.

Sentenced to Death

63

•

Joan was the only female present. She started by stating

her name, that she was born in Domrémy, that her father

was Jacques d’Arc and her mother Isabelle, and that she

was about 19 years old. It was obvious from the beginning

that she was not afraid. She refused to swear on the Holy

Gospels that she would be truthful in her answers. When

ordered to say the Pater Noster (the Our Father, a basic

Christian prayer), she cleverly answered the bishop that if

he would hear her in confession she would oblige. At one

point she said she would tell the pope everything, but they

said he was too far away. They also recognized that the pope

would likely not hear her for fear that he would anger the

English.

Told by the judges to swear on the Holy Gospels that

she would tell the truth, she replied, “I do not know on

what you may wish to question me. Perhaps you may ask

such things as I will not answer.”2 She was proving to be a

challenge for the judges with her stubbornness, her quick

answers, and her lack of self-pity. Cauchon worried that she

would gain sympathy.

her voiCes

It was during this phase of the trial that Joan named St. Cath-

erine and St. Margaret as the voices that had directed her.

St. Catherine of Alexandria, Egypt, was a Christian maiden

who was beheaded by Emperor Maximinus for converting

the Romans to Christianity and for refusing his hand in mar-

riage. Joan grew up hearing about her, as she was the patron

saint of young girls and also the patron of Maxey-sur-Meuse,

a parish near her hometown. St. Margaret of Antioch was

a maiden who also tried to convert the Romans to Chris-

tianity and was beheaded for her work. Joan had no doubt

seen her statue in Domrémy-la-Pucelle many times. Later,

Joan added St. Michael the archangel. She said, “It was St.

Michael whom I saw before my eyes, and he was not alone

64 • JOan Of arc

but was well accompanied by angels of heaven . . . I saw them

with the eyes of my body as well as I see you; and when they

left me I wept and wished that they would have taken me

with them.”3

Did Joan not know that she was putting herself in danger

when she spoke of communicating with the world beyond?

She was clear in her testimony that God was speaking directly

to her. What she did not understand was that the church had

wiTches and hereTics

As much as they might have liked, the judges at Joan of Arc’s

trial could not declare her a witch or sorceress because they did

not have enough evidence. They were terrified of sorcery or

witchcraft: “The Catholic Church had established in the early

1300s that they should try those who were practitioners of ritual

magic, as well as heretics.”* Two women were burned at the

stake in Paris in 1390–1391 for having dealings with the devil,

which they only confessed to after being tortured. In the next

century, witch trails became common across Europe.

“Witches were believed to gather together and conjure

supernatural phenomena in a group . . . female sorcery was

considered to be a communal activity.”** During her trial, the

judges made note of the fact that Joan believed in sharing her

visions. Necromancy (speaking with the dead), sorcery, alchemy,

and even astrology were all considered crimes punishable by the

Catholic Church.

Joan’s judges started out trying to prove that she had practiced

magic by asking her questions based on information their scouts

had col ected. They wanted to know about the children’s ritual of

Sentenced to Death

65

•

very specific teachings about angels and demons. Angels did

not have substance, and if they could be touched and smelled,

they belonged to the lower realm of demons. Further, the

church had specific teachings about hearing voices. Because

Joan had never confessed to a priest or higher authorities

about her voices, she was listening to them without church

permission. The judges remained fixated on sorcery and

witchcraft. The trial was turning into a witch hunt.

dancing around the fairy tree in her vil age. Fairies, always consid-

ered female, could tel a person’s fate. The judges claimed that it

was a sin that she had reportedly brought a baby back to life. They

were even suspicious of the butterflies that were said to have flown

around her banner during a battle. “Butterflies, like toads and liz-

ards, symbolized dead souls.”*** Because Joan’s battle wounds never

slowed her down, this too made the judges suspicious. The word

got back to them that she had predicted that she would be wound-

ed, which added to their belief that she was a sorcerer. They accused

her of carrying lucky charms and amulets, which she denied.

From the moment it was decided to try Joan as a heretic,

she stood little chance of saving her life. They were terrified of

her power, and that fear made them despise her. After Joan’s

death, many other women would be burned at the stake for the

same reason.

*Marina Warner, The Trial of Joan of Arc, p. 18.

**Ibid., p. 17.

***Ibid., p. 22.

66 • JOan Of arc

Cross-dressing

The next line of questioning concerned Joan’s masculine

attire. There was a clause in church laws that allowed

women to dress in men’s clothes in order to protect them-

selves, but the judges viewed Joan’s outfit that resembled

that of a knight as offensive. Her hair was cut short, and she

wore a man’s jacket, long laced leggings, a short mantel that

went to her knees, a cap, and thick boots. Because of this,

she was accused of making an idol of herself.

Joan had been wearing men’s clothing since she stayed

in Vaucouleurs. No one at the time had objected to her

clothes or that she called herself Joan the Maid—not even

the king. The most obvious reason for wearing men’s

clothing was to protect herself, both when she formed her

army and now in prison. She was terrified of being sexu-

ally assaulted while incarcerated. She even gave up what

was most precious to her—attending Mass and receiving

Communion—in order to avoid the possibility of being

violated. She was barely successful, as attempts were made.

She also never was allowed a minute alone. Finally, she

agreed to wear women’s clothes if allowed to go to Mass,

but would not do so when in her cell. Later she said that

she would “not for anything take the oath that she will not

take up arms or wear male dress to do our Lord’s will.”4

She began to contradict herself, saying at one point that

her voices had commanded her to wear male dress and later

that the issue was unimportant.

Aware that her interrogators were her enemy, Joan

knew she had to concentrate deeply on their questions, as

her responses might save her life. It was hard to prepare,

however, for there were many trick questions. For example,

when they asked her who the true pope was, she replied,

the pope who was in Rome. It was an honest answer, but

one that may have been a mark against her, as the English

judges had always been on the side of the Avignon pope.

Sentenced to Death

67

•

The tower in Rouen, constructed in 1205 by King Philip II of France, was

where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and tortured during her trial. It has

since become known as the Joan of Arc tower. During one of her escape

attempts, she leaped from a similar tower.

6 • JOan Of arc

Joan slept and ate little, as circumstances at the prison

were horrible. She should have been put in the archbishop’s

prison, where she would have been guarded by women and

given better treatment. Cauchon got around that rule by

having three court members, all clerics, hold the three keys

needed to unlock her cell door. Contrary to the standards

set for a church trial, Joan was treated as a prisoner of war,

forced to wear leg irons and guarded by five men, three of

whom stayed inside her cell and two outside the door. She

had to remain focused during hours and days of intense

questioning, in spite of her time spent in a dark cell, placed

in irons, and in danger of being raped. She was completely

alone, with no one to defend her.

Under these extraordinary circumstances, she never

veered from her one absolute truth: God was her supreme

authority. Her judges, however, believed they were the

intermediaries of God and that she did not have the right

to go directly to God. As evidence of their authority, they

pointed to a new hierarchy of the church that had been cre-

ated by the University of Paris. The rules stated that “the

Church Militant was the Catholic Church on earth; the

Church Triumphant was the church in heaven; the Church

Suffering was those of its members in purgatory.”5 The

men before her were the Church Militant. They could not

make an error or a false judgment. In essence, she must put

them first. If she refused, she could be accused of not sub-

mitting to the church. Joan maintained that she was in the

hands of God: “It is my sense that it is all one, God’s and

the church’s, and that there should be no difficulty about it.

Why do you make difficulties about its being one and the

same thing?”6

When asked if she thought she was in a state of grace,

which meant that God had forgiven her sins, she answered,

“If I am not, may God put me there. And if I am, may God

keep me there, for I would be the most sorrowful woman

Sentenced to Death

6

•

in the world if I knew that I was not in the grace of God.”7

Gordon wrote, “It is remarkable that she kept her com-

posure, her good humor, her health, and her freshness of

thought and diction.”8

After three weeks, little progress had been made.

Cauchon grew impatient. Anyone sitting in the courtroom

must have been impressed with Joan’s performance, which

further infuriated Cauchon. On March 10, he decided to

make the trial private and moved the questioning to her

cell. This was an effective move, because Joan began to

lose focus. On March 17, Joan was asked if God hated the

English. She replied, “Of the love or hate which God has

for the English and of what He does to their souls, I know

nothing; but well I know that they will be driven out of

France, excepting those who will die there, and that God

will send victory to the French over the English.”9

The judges became more accusatory than questioning.

They asked about her going to battle on the Feast of the

Ascension; they brought up the fact that she had put a man

to death after promising him life. Her attempted suicide

came up. The constant questioning soon wore Joan down.

On March 13, when an interrogator named Jean de

La Fontaine asked, “Why you, rather than another?” Joan

replied, “It pleased God to do so through a simple maiden,

to humble the king’s enemies.”10

Throughout the judges’ investigation, clerics recorded

statements made in French and translated them into Latin.

The judges intervened even here, changing the clerics’ logs

as they saw fit. Some of the clerks left out Joan’s answers

as they recorded the trial. Still, many remarked on Joan’s

extraordinary clarity and memory throughout her ordeal.

neW aCCusaTions

The second phase of the inquiry, the ordinary trial,

started on March 26. Seventy articles of accusation were

0 • JOan Of arc

brought up, but they were reduced to 12 key crimes.

Some of them were:

[H]er visions of the saints and their speaking to her

in French and promising to lead her to paradise; the

sign the crown prince had received when she spoke

with him in private; her predictions of future events;

her insistence on wearing male attire; her leap from

the tower; and her statement that she had done

everything in God’s name.11

Still, the court members were not unanimous in what the

charge should be. Some thought that wearing men’s clothes

was a “thin basis for condemnation,”12 as was lack of sub-

mission to the Church Militant, which was a new law, and

one they suspected Joan did not fully understand.

in her own words

A prayer Joan uttered during her trial is an example of the way

she communicated with God:

Very sweet God, in honor of Your Holy Passion, I beg You,

if You love me, that You reveal to me how I should answer

these men of the church. I know well, regarding my

clothes, the command that I received, but I do not know

anything about the manner in which I should drop it. On

that, may it please You to instruct me.*

* Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan of Arc: Her

Story, p. 121.

Sentenced to Death

1

•

At the same time, frustration mounted over Joan’s insis-

tence that she obeyed only God. On May 9, the authorities

took her to the tower of the castle and threatened to torture

her. She flatly told them that under no circumstances would

she tell them anything else, but if she did, she would say it

had been forced out of her. This caused confusion as some

of the men did not want to go through with it, but then their

confusion fueled their anger. Around this time, Cauchon

received word from his superiors that the trial was taking

too long. On May 19, Cauchon told Joan that the masters

of the University of Paris had rendered their verdict. After a

14-month trial, she was found guilty for wearing masculine

dress and for heresy because she claimed she answered to

God and not to the Catholic Church. In her defense, she

said, “As for my words and deeds, which I declared in the

trial, I refer to them and will maintain them.”13 She added

that if “she saw the fire and the faggots lit and the execu-

tioner ready to kindle the fire, and she herself were in it, she

would say nothing else and would maintain till death what

she said in the trial.”14

Joan relenTs

On May 24, the verdict was publicly announced. Joan was

led outside for the first time in months, where she was to

be excommunicated, but first she had to listen to a sermon.

She had asked that her report be sent to Rome, but that

request was denied. Dressed in women’s clothes, she stood

on a high scaffold as her head was shaved. She was asked

if she would repent, give up men’s clothes, and stop fight-

ing. Additionally, she would have to submit to the Catho-

lic Church. This repentance was called an abjuration, a

document she would have to sign. Joan laughed—whether

because she was nervous or defiant will never be known.

In the past, when her signature was needed, she had been

known to draw a cross—a symbol that the document should

2 • JOan Of arc

be considered null and void. This time she drew a circle,

but someone took her hand and made her draw a cross,

though she knew how to write her name. Joan thought her

repentance would set her free. Instead, Cauchon sentenced

her to life in the same prison where she had spent the last

five months, which was a living nightmare. She was a young

woman, a woman of God, doomed to a living hell.

Once a prisoner had signed an abjuration, if she com-

mitted the same error again, she could be condemned to

death. Cauchon knew that the chances of Joan remaining

in women’s clothing were slender, for to do so would invite

sexual assaults. A few days later, Joan was seen in men’s

clothing. A commonly held belief is that someone stole her

dress and she had no choice but to don the male clothing

that had been left for her.

relapse Trial and deaTh

After hearing of Joan’s supposed defiance, Cauchon and the

vice inquisitor went to the prison. Cauchon demanded to

know if she had heard her voices. Joan admitted that she

had. He wanted to know what they said. She replied, “God

has expressed through St. Catherine and St. Margaret His

great sorrow at the strong treason to which I consented in

abjuring and making a revocation to save my life, and said

that I was damning myself to save my life.”15

The assessors were called together on May 29 to deter-

mine Joan’s fate for being insubordinate to the Church

Militant. Of the 42 men gathered, 39 of them thought the

cedula, a document explaining the definitions of the Church

Militant, should be read to her again. Only three voted to

turn her over to a secular court. Because Cauchon consid-

ered the three mere consultants, he refused to go to a secu-

lar court and delivered Joan to be burned at the stake.

When Friar Martin Ladvenu announced her fate, Joan

“began to cry out sorrowfully and pitiably to tear and pull her

Sentenced to Death

3

•

hair.”16 Surprisingly the bishop of Beauvais allowed her to

take Communion. According to Gordon, “If she was excom-

municated [from the church], she would have been denied

the sacraments . . . proof that Cauchon knew he was acting

in bad faith.”17 Dressed in a long black shift, she walked in

chains to the marketplace in Rouen on May 30. On her head

was a hat with words that read, “heretic, relapsed apostate,

idolator.” The crowd, which included 700 to 800 soldiers,

jeered. She cried when she saw the high mound of sticks.

The guards led her up a flight of stairs, where she was tied

to the stake. She requested that a crucifix be held before her

eyes, and “an English soldier tied together two sticks for her,

which she kissed, and put in her garment.”18

Friar Ladvenu ran up with a golden crucifix he had

found in a nearby church and held it in front of her. As the

flames crept up around her she cried out “Jesus!” six times.

The excited mob, after hearing her cries, grew sober. The

executioners, who sometimes stabbed prisoners to death

rather than have them endure the pain of burning, had been

instructed to keep her as far from the flames as they could

to make her death more painful. She suffered horribly.

After she was declared dead, her charred body was dis-

played before those who wanted to see for themselves if she

was indeed a female. Once they were satisfied, the execu-

tioners started a big fire around her body, and her remains

were burned to ashes. Brother Ysambard de la Pierre, a

Dominican friar, reported what he saw years later at her

rehabilitation trial:

And the executioner said and affirmed that, in spite

of the oil, the sulphur, and the charcoal which he

had applied to the entrails and heart of the said Joan,

in no way could he burn them up, nor reduce them

to ashes either the entrails or the heart, which he

found amazing, like an obvious miracle.19

7

Rehabilitation

Trial

When her many supporters learned that Joan had been

burned at the stake, they were deeply grieved. But

little was known about exactly what had occurred during

her trial at Rouen, as the city was under English rule. As

far as her French supporters knew, the church had con-

ducted the trial in a traditional way. The English, natu-

rally, were relieved to have it all over and done.

In December 1431, the Duke of Bedford organized a

coronation for Henry VI at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The Duke of Burgundy refused to attend the coronation, a

sure indication that if he had not already shifted his loyalty

to the French he was considering it. In fact, he had signed a

six-year truce with King Charles’s ambassadors. To the Duke

of Bedford’s surprise, Henry’s uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, who

4

rehabilitation Trial

5

•

had anointed him, demanded that Bedford resign as regent

of England and France. The inner structure of the English

political system was undergoing change, but no one was quite

sure if it meant a reversal of fortune for the French.

The city where Joan had died, Rouen, continued to be

held by the English, until an uprising occurred on February

3, 1432. Led by a man called Ricarville, 104 men, believing

they would receive support from French reinforcements

who never arrived, sought to kick the English out of the city.

They were all later beheaded. On the French end of things,

Georges de La Tremoille, whose advice kept the king in a

state of apathy and indifference, was stabbed in the stomach

by a distant relative of the king who thought his assassination

would have positive results for Charles. The overweight La

Tremoille survived because his size prevented the sword from

hitting an organ. He then fled the court in 1433.

After peace was announced between France and

Burgundy on September 20, 1435, the French sought to rid

their nation of the English.

In 1436, an armed revolt against the English govern-

ment occurred in Paris. Arthur de Richemont and Joan’s

old friend Dunois placed the city under siege; eventually

supporters inside the city let down ladders to allow them

in. They entered Paris on April 13, 1436, as Joan’s prosecu-

tor, Pierre Cauchon, fled. Joan’s prophecy that the English

would lose everything in France within a seven-year period

was unfolding.

Life improved for France, in fits and starts. King

Charles arrived in Paris a year later, on November 12, 1437,

accompanied by his son, the dauphin Louis. The conquest

of Paris, however, did not mark the end of the fighting

between the two nations. Then, between 1438 and 1439, a

plague broke out in Paris, killing 50,000 citizens. The Duke

of Orleans’s ransom was paid, at last, in 1440, as another of

6 • JOan Of arc

Joan’s goals had come to pass. Although King Charles’s sol-

diers captured some small cities in 1441, Charles, discour-

aged, began to focus on a new mistress and a life of pleasure.

In 1444, Henry VI married Margaret of Anjou, the daugh-

ter of the Duke of Anjou, and a truce was signed with

England, which would turn out to be temporary. Joan’s old

companions, La Hire and Dunois of Orleans, began a suc-

cessful campaign in Normandy in 1444. In 1449, Charles,

newly inspired, started a siege in Louviers, an important

town. Then an insurrection against the English in Rouen

that same year overthrew them after 30 years of occupation.

Charles entered the capital of Normandy on October 29, 18

years after Joan was burned at the stake.

In the meantime, Henry VI was trying to raise the

funds—even going so far as to pledge the crown jewels—

to raise another army to enter France. But Arthur de

Richemont’s army was ready when the English army entered

Cherbourge in 1450. On April 15 of that year, the English

in her own words

Before her death, Joan of Arc prophesized the end of the English

conquest of France:

And before seven years are done the English will have left

behind a greater stake than they did before Orleans; they

shall lose everything in France. And the English will have a

greater loss than they ever had in France. And that will be

through a great victory which God will send the French.*

*Joan of Arc Quotes/Joan of Arc Resource. http://www.joan-of-

arc-resource-com/quotes.html.

rehabilitation Trial

•

were defeated, and northern France finally belonged to King

Charles. When Bordeaux fell to French forces in 1451, the

nation was entirely free of the English.

Tension BeTWeen seCular

and spiriTual groups

Popular sentiment around Joan grew as time passed. People

spoke of her heart that could not be burned to ashes and of

a dove that was seen flying over her as she died. Joan, more

than anyone before her, had made the people feel patriotic

toward France. Then, Pope Nicholas V sent a lawyer to

King Charles in August 1451, suggesting a rehabilitation

trial for Joan.

The king asked a man named Guillaume Bouille to

investigate. In 1452, he reported, “What a disgrace for the

royal throne it would be if in the future our adversaries

could repeat that the king of France had kept a heretical

woman in his army!”1 Like many other medieval mon-

archs, King Charles sought to diminish the power of the

church in his kingdom and to strengthen his own power

and that of his loyal nobles. Despite this, Charles opened

an inquiry into Joan’s death, but it was short-lived. The

church could not admit that killing Joan had been a mis-

take, even if it had been done for obvious political reasons.

The church was considered the highest authority, and

could, theoretically, also decide if Charles was a legitimate

king. But there was another problem. Because Joan had

been tried for heresy, the clerics who judged her found

themselves in a peculiar situation, for if they admitted

they had been wrong, it would force them to acknowledge

their unfairness and prejudice. Pope Nicholas V realized

that he and the king needed each other. They decided to

give amnesty to all who testified, which meant they would

not be held accountable for their actions during Joan’s

earlier trial.

• JOan Of arc

The long nulliFiCaTion Trial

Most of the original judges who had condemned Joan were

dead, including Pierre Cauchon and Joan’s prosecutor, who

had drowned in a sewer. In April 1452, 21 people testified

on Joan’s behalf. The initial inquiry demonstrated that the

degree of prejudice displayed during her original trial was

so great that it was suggested that that trial could be voided.

It had been “a political trial in which, by convicting Joan of

heresy, the English had successfully sought to destroy the

woman in whom they saw, not without reason, the instru-

ment of Charles VII’s victories and coronation.”2 The pope,

however, was not happy with the outcome and asked the

French inquisitor, Jean Brehal, to reopen the trial instead.

Brehal came up with the idea to appeal to Joan’s mother and

her two sons, making it a private trial. This trial was to be as

weighted in Joan’s favor as her own trial had been weighted

against her.

An inquest, however, was delayed another three years,

during which time Pope Nicholas died. He was replaced by

Pope Calixtus III, who, in 1455, agreed to the petition of

the d’Arc family. The goal again was to annul Joan’s previ-

ous sentence.

The case was opened on November 7, 1455. Joan’s

mother, Isabelle Romee, was brought from Orleans, where

she and her sons were living under the protection of

the king. Isabelle was asked to introduce the case in the

Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. She wanted her family’s

name to be cleared, and King Charles cleverly used her

request to reopen the case. By using Joan’s family to make

the case a private one, if the outcome was positive, both

Joan’s honor and the king’s would be restored.

Joan’s mother’s opening speech was full of emotion—so

much so that after she finished speaking, she fainted. She

said, in part:

rehabilitation Trial

•

By my legal marriage, I brought into the world a

daughter, whom I duly caused to receive the hon-

our of the sacraments of baptism and confirmation,

whom I brought up in the fear of God, respect-

ful and faithful . . . Then, although she had not

thought, or plotted or done anything not according

to the faith . . . envious persons wishing her evil . . .

embroiled her in an ecclesiastical trial . . . wickedly

condemning her at the last and burning her.3

It was December 12 before the trial started. After five

days, the actual minutes of the 1431 trial were produced.

The archbishops of Paris and Reims, along with the inquisi-

tor, agreed to be judges. Months passed as 101 articles to be

discussed were written up and submitted, and then boiled

down to 27. They called over 100 witnesses, all of whom

gave favorable accounts of Joan.

What was at issue at Joan’s previous trial, along with

the heretical act of wearing men’s clothes, was “her willing-

ness to trust her voices rather than what her judges told

her she should believe.”4 If those voices were viewed by the

judges as opposed to Catholic doctrine, then those ques-

tions should have been addressed to the pope, which did

not happen in Joan’s case. In the 24 years since Joan’s death,

a change in church doctrine stated that “a devout Catholic

has a duty to obey the Holy Spirit,”5 especially when that

person’s life was judged to be holy.

The case brought by Isabelle Romee and Joan’s broth-

ers, Pierre and Jean d’Arc, was pronounced in the name of

the Holy Trinity on July 7, 1456. The accusations against

Joan were deemed false. The archbishop of Reims, vari-

ous bishops, and the Dominican priest, Jean Brehal, one

of two inquisitors in France, recommended that the case

against Joan of Arc be annulled. A general procession

0 • JOan Of arc

Tried for heresy and sorcery, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the

marketplace of Rouen on May 30, 1431. In this il ustration, she holds a

makeshift cross of two sticks tied together while a priest holds a crucifix.

followed, and the decision posted in two squares in Rouen,

including Vieux-Marche, where Joan had been burned at

the stake.

rehabilitation Trial

1

•

The decision meant that Charles VII had been right to

believe in Joan. Following the verdict, the king granted a

coat of arms to her brothers. It was “an enduring mark of

his esteem, which sealed his approval and created a faction

deeply interested in rescuing her name.”6 Two years after

the trial, Joan’s mother died on November 28, 1458, know-

ing her daughter’s name had been cleared.

Joan’s Friends and Foes aFTer her deaTh

King Charles, though considered by many to be a traitor to

Joan of Arc and an ineffective king, did mature somewhat

after Joan died. In 1435, he signed the Treaty of Arras,

which helped to reconcile the Burgundians and the Armag-

nacs. He also consented to the nullification trial of 1450 to

1456, which cleared Joan’s name—and his. He then created

an army that would become the gendarmes of France and

reduced the political influence of the Catholic Church in

his nation. His son, Louis XI, would rule France from 1461

to 1483 and would grow into a more effective leader than

his father had been.

In 1458, John, the Duke of Alencon, was found guilty

of treason to the king and was locked away. When Charles

VII died in 1461, John was freed by the king’s son, Louis XI.

Louis, however, wanted the control of the duke’s children,

to marry them off as he saw fit, and he wanted three of the

duke’s fortresses. After the duke refused, he was kept in

prison, where he died on July 18, 1474. Joan’s old comrade,

John, the Count of Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, went on to

win many battles in the name of the king, but he quarreled

with Louis XI and was dismissed from court. He died on

November 23, 1468.

Joan’s brother, Pierre, was taken prisoner before Joan

was and had to sell his wife’s inheritance to pay his ransom.

He followed a woman named Madame des Armoises, who

claimed to be the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, during part

2 • JOan Of arc

In this miniature portrait from circa 1630, John, the Count of

Dunois, is shown. The French patriot and martyr was a loyal

companion of Joan of Arc.

of 1436, probably hoping to receive some money from the

king, but she confessed to being an imposter, and that ended

it. Pierre then moved to Orleans, where the duke gave him

a home to make up for his years in captivity and offered

him financial help. Joan’s other brother, Jean, went back to

Domrémy-la-Pucelle and married his niece. He held impor-

tant posts in various towns and lived a relatively long life.

rehabilitation Trial

3

•

After his downfall in 1433, Georges de La Tremoille

was banished from court in 1453 and died in 1466. John,

the Duke of Bedford and former regent of England, died

in Rouen in 1435. Though he was known to be merciful

to prisoners, he did nothing to help Joan, and in fact sup-

ported everything Pierre Cauchon did. Up until the very

end, he had the power to save her life, but he chose not to.

King Henry VI of England married Margaret of Anjou

in 1445, and they had one son, Edward, who was killed

in battle. Henry tried to hold on to the dual monarchy

of France and England but failed. In 1453, his inherited

mental illness made him unable to lead. In 1460, Richard,

the Duke of York, captured the king and forced the king to

acknowledge him as the rightful heir to the English crown.

Richard’s son, Edward IV, eventually became king after

defeating Henry’s army in 1461, and Henry and his wife

were exiled to Scotland but were later captured and locked

in the Tower of London until 1470. He managed to rule

again for a very short period, but after Edward died, he was

sent back to the Tower of London, where he was murdered

on May 21, 1471.

Cauchon went to Rouen, where, because the clergy did

not like him, he was given a much lesser role as bishop of

Lisieux in 1432. He went on to a moderately successful

career and remained loyal to the English. He died while

being shaved at his home on December 18, 1442. After

his death, he was rejected by all the descendants he left

behind, who publicly declared their innocence in regard to

Cauchon’s part in Joan of Arc’s trial.

8

Saint Joan

Joan’s reputation rode the political and religious tides in

France for decades. The power of the Catholic Church

continued to wane in France as the country’s political system

went from monarchy to republic. The French Revolution,

which started on July 14, 1789, culminated in the first French

republic in 1792. Joan’s star faded during this era. Timothy

Wilson-Smith wrote, “The French Revolution swept away

its royal family in the year that it swept away the cult of

Joan.”1 She was perceived as Catholic and royalist, and not at

all in step with the new secular and democratic republic. It

was during this time that a bronze statue of her in Orleans

was melted down to build a cannon.

Another outcome of the French Revolution was that

priests who remained loyal to papal authority were persecuted.

4

Saint Joan

5

•

Pope Pius VI was forcibly brought to France from Rome in

1798, when the French Republican army occupied that city.

Then in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte became first consul of

France after staging a coup d’etat (overthrow of govern-

ment). He reinstated Roman Catholicism as the state religion.

Napoleon assured Catholics that they could practice their

faith, but he made sure in an 1803 agreement with the pope

that his own power remained strong. Soon known as Napoleon

I, he became the self-proclaimed emperor of France in 1804,

even taking the crown from Pope Pius VII and placing it on

his own head. By 1809, Napoleon tried to bring the church

completely under his control, but Pope Pius, who remained in

exile in France until 1814, refused to cooperate.

an appeal For sainThood

In 1803, the bishop of Orleans requested of Napoleon that

the festival of Joan of Arc be revived. Napoleon wrote that

there is no miracle that French genius cannot

achieve when national independence is threatened

. . . the French nation has never been vanquished,

but our neighbors . . . constantly sowed in us the

dissension from which came the calamities of the

period in which the French heroine lived.2

Napoleon’s answer was a resounding yes. With the revival

of the festival of Joan of Arc, a new interest in medieval his-

tory took hold.

In 1815, after Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of

Waterloo, the French monarchy was reestablished. Various

Bourbon kings—Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis-

Philippe, the Duke of Orleans—ruled for a short time. The

July Monarchy, which lasted from 1830 to 1848 under Louis

Philippe, arose after Charles X gave up his power in 1820.

6 • JOan Of arc

The French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, is shown in this 1812 painting

by Robert Lefèvre. During his reign, Napoleon revived the Joan of Arc

festival, after the radical government during the French Revolution had

banned it.

Saint Joan

•

Under the constitutional monarchy that Louis-Philippe

established, politics became more liberal as he tried to

dissolve some of the power of the aristocracy in order to

give more to the growing bourgeoisie, or middle class.

In 1849, Felix Dupanloup was named bishop of Orleans,

a position he held for 29 years. He took charge of the Joan

of Arc festival. He preached in 1869:

In her I find everything that moves me, including

the name of Orleans, that has become mine since

God called me to be the bishop of your souls; I like

the peasant simplicity in her origins, the chastity

in her heart, her courage in battle, her love for the

land of France, but above all the holiness in her life

and death.3

He had even heard an English Protestant call Joan a

saint. Dupanloup sent a petition to Rome, requesting saint-

hood for Joan. Timothy Wilson-Smith wrote, “Joan stood

for a stable national destiny . . . Joan symbolized the nation

at its best.”4

Ironically, as the power of the Catholic Church was

weakening, Joan of Arc provided a much-needed lift for

it. Since about 1859, the power of the Catholic Church

had been challenged by “modernism, a habit of mind that

was secular, rationalist, and anti-hierarchical.”5 The church

thought Joan could bring back many who had gone astray.

She was a great example of all a true Christian could be.

FranCo-prussian War

Before Dupanloup’s request could be granted, Napoleon III

and the French army entered into a war with Prussia and the

German states on July 15, 1870. They were defeated by Otto

von Bismarck, who had cleverly united the Germans in their

hatred of France. The Germans had suffered defeat during

• JOan Of arc

the Napoleonic Wars, and they wanted revenge. Though

it was a short war ( July 15, 1870, to February 1, 1871), it

changed European history, creating a strong and united

German Empire. It also marked the end of France’s Second

Empire. To the horror of the French, Alsace-Lorraine, land

of Joan of Arc, now belonged to the Prussians. The French

vowed to get it back, no matter how long it took. The Third

Republic of France, based at Versailles, with Napoleon III

in power, lasted 70 years. The constitutional laws of the new

republic were established in February 1875.

saCré-Coeur

In 1873, after its defeat to the Prussians, the conservative

French government decided to build a church dedicated to

the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which would be called the Basi-

lique du Sacré-Coeur . They wanted to honor their pledge

to build a church if Paris was not damaged by the Prus-

sians. With a striking Roman-Byzantine design, it was also

a guilt offering, as their belief was that France’s defeat by

the Prussians was due to the sins of the people. The French

had a much stronger national identity as a result of their

humiliating defeat, and who better to represent them than

Joan of Arc?

The church is situated majestically at Montmartre, the

highest point in Paris. A mosaic called Christ in Majesty,

which includes Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary, is one

of the largest in the world. Two large bronze equestrian

statues dominate the church entrance—Joan of Arc strides

one horse, and King Louis IX, who was born in 1215 and

became a saint, the other.

As early as the 1870s, people had begun to make pil-

grimages to Joan’s home in Domrémy-la-Pucelle. The

number of printed works about her had increased dramati-

cally, and more people were reading her inspiring and tragic

story. Even French soldiers were taught the story of Joan

Saint Joan

•

of Arc. In 1874, Dupanloup again started to make inquiries

about making Joan a saint of the Catholic Church.

The same year, a sculptor named Emmanuel Frémiet

designed and erected a statue of Joan of Arc in Paris at

Place des Pyramides, which represented Joan’s new place

in the consciousness of the French people. The main

home of France’s rulers, Tuileries Palace, had been burned

down during the Prussian invasion, and the statue of Joan

on a horse holding high her banner had a huge impact:

“Glistening in the sun, it would inspire the nation to recap-

ture Lorraine, and, if Joan could not yet be called a saint,

she was the heroine who would ride out to inspire the sol-

diers of France,”6 wrote Timothy Wilson-Smith. Joan of

Arc became an obsession of the French people.

sainT Joan

The man who succeeded Dupanloup, Bishop Couillie,

picked up where Dupanloup had left off. All through the

1880s, he sent inquiries to Rome about making Joan a saint.

The cardinals in Rome passed them on to Pope Leo XIII.

On January 27, 1894, he signed the so-called introduction

of her cause for beatification.

Couillie was replaced by Bishop Touchet, who went to

Rome in 1896, and a year later was asked to begin a study

of Joan’s sanctity, or virtues. There were problems. In rec-

ommending someone for sainthood, Mary Gordon wrote,

“emphasis is placed upon the three theological and four

moral virtues: it is assumed that the candidate would have

kept the Ten Commandments of Moses and the six com-

mandments of the church—the latter having to do with

questions of fidelity to worship.”7 She continues, “The

three virtues are faith, hope, and charity; the four morals

are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.”8

The devil’s advocates, whose job was to argue against

the canonization, were torn. ( Devil’s advocate is a term used

0 • JOan Of arc

to refer to someone who offers an opposing view from the

one being spoken or written.) Some argued that Joan was

admired for political rather than religious virtues, which

sainThood

Beatification is a term used by the Catholic Church to refer to

the church’s recognition of someone who lived a holy life. It

is usually the first step toward becoming a saint. Canonization

is the process by which someone is found to be a saint. Pope

John XV developed the official canonization process in the

tenth century. It was revised most recently by Pope John Paul

II in 1983. He took out the “devil’s advocate” part of the pro-

cess. It can take centuries to become a saint, which was the

case with Joan of Arc. Until Mother Teresa, whose canonization

process began two years after her death in 1997, the mini-

mum amount of time in which sainthood could be bestowed

was five years.

Other steps include the following: A local bishop looks

for heroic virtue in the candidate’s life and writings, and that

information is sent to the Vatican. Theologians and cardinals

evaluate the life of the candidate. The pope declares that the

candidate is a role model of Catholic virtues. In order to be

a candidate for beatification, the honored person must be

responsible for a posthumous miracle. (Those who died for a

religious cause, or martyrs, do not have to bestow a miracle.)

To become a saint, there must be proof of a second posthu-

mous miracle. Joan was responsible for a miracle that hap-

pened on August 22, 1909, in Lourdes, France, during the

Blessed Sacrament. A woman named Therese Belin lay uncon-

scious, desperately ill with a form of tuberculosis. Monsignor

Leon Cristiani, who wanted to see Joan canonized, obtained

permission from the bishop of Orleans to bring forth Joan of

Saint Joan

1

•

was a legitimate concern. She was accused of being disobe-

dient to her parents for not telling them about her voices,

the advocates were concerned that various men had seen

Arc during the blessing of the sick. “At the first invocation to

Blessed Joan of Arc, Therese opened her eyes, at the second she

sat up on her stretcher and at the third she felt she had been

cured.”* Another woman was healed of “perforating plantar

affliction,”** a condition that had caused a hole to form in the

sole of her foot.

Mary Gordon wrote in an article titled “Desperately Seeking

Joan” that “ ‘saint’ connects immediately to ‘goodness.’ ”***

People go to saints because they feel a special connection

with them, or because they feel like someone is cheering them

on. Saints offer inspiration. Approximately 3,000 people have

been canonized by the Catholic Church. “It’s not the pope

who makes a person a saint,” Gordon wrote. “He recognizes

what God has already done.”**** She summed up Joan of Arc’s

saintliness: “Joan of Arc was a virgin and she died for what she

believed, but she does not fit the type of the virgin martyr.

Ardent, impatient, boastful, resistant, implacable, she is like all

great saints, a personality of genius.”*****

*“What Were the Miracles That the Vatican Accepted to Raise

Joan of Arc to the Official Rank of Canonized Saint?” St. Joan

Center. http://www.stjoan-center.com/FAQ/question7.html.

**Ibid.

***Mary Gordon. “Desperately Seeking Joan—Woman Behind

the Hype—Joan of Arc.” Commonweal, March 10, 2000.

****Ibid.

*****Ibid.

2 • JOan Of arc

In this oil-on-canvas portrait from 1865 by Sir John Everett Mil ais, the spiritual side of Joan of Arc is highlighted. Cal s for Joan’s canonization

grew steadily during the nineteenth century.

Saint Joan

3

•

her breasts, and they were uncomfortable with her boasts

about her chastity. They even brought up her refusal to

answer questions the judges had asked at her trial and won-

dered whether her jump off a seven-story tower had been

an act of suicide. Could her voices have been the “result of

a hysterical delusion?”9 Again, in order for Joan to achieve

beatification, she had to be a model for the faithful.

The devil’s advocates questioned whether or not she had

saintly fortitude. She had attempted to escape from prison,

complained when given her sentence, and cried when she

was brought to the stake. She was definitely not a martyr in

their eyes, because she did not want to die, especially when

she abjured, or repented.

rome deCides

Bishop Touchet took the results of his research back to

Rome, where the conclusion reached by the bishops of

Orleans was studied. The Roman bishops then dismissed

negative evidence. They saw a virtuous young woman

“who would bring the wandering sheep back into the fold

. . . they forgot their devotion to obedience and confor-

mity and created a saint who is full of contradictions and

imperfections that make, if not a saint, then a great and

lovable human being.”10 On January 6, 1904, Pope Pius X

proclaimed that Joan of Arc was beatified. The formal cer-

emony took place on April 18, 1909, at St. Peter’s Basilica

in Rome. Joan had passed the first step in her journey to

sainthood.

Touchet wanted her to be canonized, and he spent all of

his time and energy to make it happen. Touchet presented

his findings on April 17, 1914. Pope Pius X died shortly

afterward. On September 3, 1914, Pope Benedict XV agreed

to a canonization trial. He approved the results on July 6,

1919, and the ceremony took place on May 16, 1920.

9

Joan and

the Arts

Over centuries, Joan of Arc has been exhaustively

depicted in the arts. By 1894, more than 400 plays and

musical works had been created. Much of what was written

in the century after Joan’s death was biased, depending on

the author’s point of view. For example, Joan is featured in

William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part I, written between

1592 and 1594, as a holy woman who turns into a witch.

Biographer Mary Gordon wrote, “Her sorcery is the only

possible explanation for British defeat at the hands of the

militarily inferior and generally spineless French.”1 At the

end of the play, she tries to save her skin by claiming to be

pregnant.2

In France, however, Christine de Pizan wrote “Song

in Honor of Joan of Arc” when Joan was still alive, and

4

Joan and the arts

5

•

the Story of the Siege of Orleans was dramatized in Orleans

four years after her death. At the end of the fifteenth cen-

tury, Augustinian friar Philip of Bergamo wrote of Joan’s

many wonderful qualities. One engraver even made a

small woodcut portrait of Joan as a Greek maiden. Because

Homer and Virgil and Ovid were widely read by the edu-

cated during the medieval era, the women depicted in these

stories, such as the goddess Diana in Virgil’s Aeneid, helped

to make Joan “the most modern and the most famous

of European heroines,”3 according to historian Marina

Warner. She added, “Feminism was more alive then than it

would be for 300 years.”4

“The representation of Joan’s image in painting, sculp-

ture, literature, music and popular culture from the Age

of Enlightenment to the Second Republic will be shown

to offer a brilliant, if perhaps at times distorted, mirror of

the forces in French society that called forth her memory

according to their bidding,”5 wrote Nora Heimann, author

of Joan of Arc in French Art and Culture (1700–1855): From

Satire to Sanctity.

By the eighteenth century, Joan was the object of politi-

cal satire. It was the era of the Enlightenment, a movement

in Western Europe that stressed reason and science in

philosophy. French philosopher Voltaire wrote a mocking

poem called The Maid of Orleans, which outraged many,

but was widely read. Of Voltaire’s poem, reviewers Alia

Nour-Elsayed and Petra ten-Doesschate Chu of Seton Hall

University wrote:

Joan is an illegitimate stable girl who is protected

by a saint and his winged companion against many

suitors and sexual assailants, including members of

the church and both British and French royalty. It

was his way of criticizing the French monarchy and

6 • JOan Of arc

the Catholic Church and the emphasis they placed

on virginity as a virtue.6

By the time the Bourbon monarchy was reestablished

in 1815, Joan had been transformed from the classi-

cal woman warrior into “the embodiment of heroic and

pious suffering” in literature and sermons and paintings

and had a “high symbolic value for the restored mon-

archy and the Catholic Church.”7 From 1830 to 1848,

artists became obsessed with the image of Joan of Arc.

King Louis-Philippe decided to make the grand palace

of Versailles a museum, and one of the paintings selected

was The Consecration of Charles VII at Reims, 17 July, 1429

by Auguste Vinchon. Joan of Arc stands in the center of

the painting. The king’s daughter, Marie d’Orleans, had

also created several sculptures of Joan. Then in the 1840s,

French scholars began the first honest analysis of Joan of

Arc. Soon after, French historian Jules Michelet began

writing an accomplished biography of Joan. Through his

work, Joan was again perceived as a French heroine.

In America, Mark Twain wrote a fictional memoir that

was published in 1896 titled Personal Collections of Joan of Arc by The Sieur Louis de Conte (Her Page and Secretary), which

he considered his favorite work. While it never had the suc-

cess of his other books, it helped introduce Joan of Arc to

American audiences.

TheaTer

Between 1800 and 1870, 34 plays based on Joan of Arc’s life

were written. Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller’s work

The Virgin of Orleans was first performed in 1801 in Leipzig,

Germany, and influenced many writers over the next century.

He made Joan into a romantic heroine. In von Schiller’s

story, an enchanted helmet prevents Joan from falling in love,

but she falls for an English soldier anyway. Once captured by

Joan and the arts

•

the English, she casts off her chains, rushes back into battle,

and is fatally wounded. Needless to say, playwrights of the

day ignored historical facts when creating their heroines. In

1896, Charles Peguy—a resident of Orleans who had turned

away from the Catholic Church and had heard the stories of

Joan all his life—completed the first part of a three-part play

about her, which was not successful. Peguy returned to the

church in 1909 and revised the play.

Seventeen plays were written about Joan in 1909, the

year she was beatified. Twenty-nine plays were written about

her between the two world wars. Irish playwright George

Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan, which was performed in

New York in 1923. Shaw presented an entirely different

Joan, one who was young, sure of herself, and filled with high

spirits. In the play, Joan struggles against church and state, a

theme that related to Shaw’s own life in Ireland.

In 1930, German expressionist author Bertolt Brecht

wrote the Marxist-themed drama Saint Joan of the Stockyards.

Although based on Joan’s life, the play was set in working-

class Chicago. In 1953, Jean Anouilh wrote The Lark,

about the French collaboration with the Germans during

World War II. Music in the film was composed by Arthur

Honegger. In other lesser-known works, Joan has been por-

trayed as an alien sexual being and has been the subject of a

fantasy novel, action/adventure novels, psychological nov-

els, a one-woman lesbian play, and a science-fiction novel.

painTings and sCulpTure

We are reminded by biographer Mary Gordon that “art-

ists’ choices are based on what suits their gifts and their

convictions about what is important in the world.”8 In an

essay, Mark Twain wrote:

How strange it is!—that almost invariably the art-

ist remembers only one detail—one minor and

• JOan Of arc

meaningless detail of the personality of Joan of Arc:

to wit, that she was a peasant girl—and forgets all

the rest; and so he paints her as a strapping middle-

aged fishwoman, with costume to match, and in her

face the spirituality of a ham . . . The artist should

paint her spirit—then he could not fail to paint her

body aright. She would rise before us, then, a vision

to win us, not repel: a lithe young slender figure,

instinct with “the unbought grace of youth,” dear

and bonny and lovable, the face beautiful, and trans-

figured with the light of that lustrous intellect and

the fires of that unquenchable spirit.9

A large number of portraits of Joan exist, many of which

use the same themes in depicting the French heroine. Most

center around one of three images: “the visionary, the war-

rior, or the martyr.”10 The first likeness of Joan was a small

pen sketch drawn by Clement de Fauquembergue in 1429.

He was the Burgundian notary of the Parliament of Paris,

and obviously hostile toward the maid, whom he had never

seen in person. He created a sexy Joan, wearing a low-cut,

tight-fitted dress, with her hair falling loosely down her

back. She held a sword and a standard. Nora Heimann

pointed out that “for a woman to wear her hair loose indi-

cated an immodest woman. Prostitutes were portrayed with

unbound and uncovered hair. It could also mean an unmar-

ried status.”11 The image served as a standard, however, all

through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Peter Paul Rubens painted Joan of Arc at Prayer in

1620 with flowing red hair down to her waist. He could be

excused for his mistake, for the public did not have access

to her records until the 1840s, when it was learned that

Joan wore her hair cropped above her ears. Jean-Auguste-

Dominique Ingres, however, knew Joan wore her hair short

Joan and the arts

•

like a boy’s when he painted the coronation of Charles VII

in 1854, yet he put her in a skirt and gave her long hair,

making her more goddess than soldier. Called Joan of Arc

at the Coronation of Charles VII at Reims, Joan stands at the

composition’s “still centre, her soft flesh set against the

hard, gleaming armour, her lustrous eyes cast up to heaven,

standing with one hand on the altar, the other holding her

standard.”12 Another famous painter, John Everett Millais,

painted her in prayer in 1865. All the artists seemed resistant

to a Joan of Arc with cropped hair wearing men’s clothes.

Joan of Arc museums can be found in Vaucouleurs and in

Chinon, which was the king’s residence while he waited to

be crowned king.

Seventeen sculptures of Joan stand in places such as

the Jardin du Luxembourg; Place des Pyramides; Place

St. Augustin in Paris and Reims, France; Fairmount Park

in Philadelphia; Riverside Park in New York City; French

Market and St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans; in Portland,

Oregon; Montreal, Canada; and the Smithsonian American

Art Museum. The first monument to her was erected on

the bridge in Orleans in 1502. Public sculptures of her were

common between 1870 and 1940, the most famous being

Emmanuel Frémiet’s equestrian statue at the Place des

Pyramides. As with portraits, after Joan was canonized in

1920, thousands of statues of her appeared all over France.

did

did you

y

ou Know?

o

The Bible discusses women’s hair in the First Letter of Paul to

the Corinthians, 11:3–15. St. Paul stated that “Christian women

wear their hair long and veiled as a sign of their obedience,

modesty, and submission to man.”

100 • JOan Of arc

musiC

Joan was also a natural subject for opera, where charac-

ters are larger than life. In 1803, Jacques Offenbach wrote

an opera about her; then in 1845, Giuseppe Verdi wrote

perhaps the most famous of the operas using Joan as the

subject, Giovanna d’Arco. Charles Gounod wrote the opera

Jeanne d’Arc in 1873 and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky dedicated

La Pucelle d’Orleans to Joan in 1879. In 1945, Paul Claudel

wrote the text and composer Arthur Honegger composed

the music for an oratorio titled “Joan at the Stake,” which

has been performed all over the world.

Film

Directors started making films about Joan of Arc in 1898.

Cecil B. DeMille made Joan the Woman in 1917, and another

film, starring the English actress Sybil Thorndike and based

on the play by George Bernard Shaw, was made in 1927. But

it was the silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, made in 1928

by Danish director Carl Dreyer, that is, according to one

critic, “the greatest film about suffering ever made.”13 The

camera shifted to show in stark reality the evil faces of Joan’s

prosecutors as they wore her down. The beautiful, tormented

face of the Italian actress playing Joan, Maria Falconetti, in

a series of close-ups, is unforgettable. According to Mary

Gordon, the actress was “nearly psychologically destroyed”14

by the filming of it, and in fact never made another film. La

Passion de Jeanne d’Arc did not meet with critical success, but

in 1995 “it was named by the papal paper Osservatore Romano

one of the greatest religious films of all time.”15

In 1948, Ingrid Bergman played Joan in Victor Fleming’s

Joan of Arc. Another film, Saint Joan, based on the George

Bernard Shaw play, was made in the United States in 1957.

Directed by Otto Preminger and with Jean Seberg in the

lead role, Joan is depicted as courageous and faithful, but

Joan and the arts

101

•

The actress Renee Maria Falconetti is shown in a scene from La Passion

de Jeanne d’Arc, a 1928 French film directed by Carl Dreyer. The film is

considered one of the great adaptations of Joan’s life.

for many, the acting was not up to par. Between 1989 and

2005, nine feature films or television movies were made

featuring Joan of Arc. As recently as 1999, Leelee Sobieski,

Peter O’Toole, and Olympia Dukakis were in Christian

Duguay’s Joan of Arc. Perhaps the most dramatic is The

Messenger, directed by Frenchman Luc Besson, which did

not win favorable reviews. Joan is represented as “a rebel-

lious, sacrilegious, deluded, short-tempered and argumen-

tative teenager.”16 Mary Gordon quoted the film’s star Mila

Jovovich, who played Joan: “Joan was really a mover and a

shaker. She was a real Tasmanian devil.”17

102 • JOan Of arc

FesTival oF orleans, FranCe

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Joan of Arc is the commem-

oration of her at Orleans. From the time she saved Orleans

from the British, who departed on May 8, 1429, she has

been celebrated and honored, except for one brief lapse of

18 years. Once Joan’s trial was officially nullified, the car-

dinal of the city was enthusiastic about the celebration that

traditionally took place on May 8. In fact, Orleans provided

for Joan’s mother, Isabelle, until her death in 1458.

The mystery play The Siege of Orleans, thought to be

written by Jacques Millet, was first performed in Orleans

in 1435. It boasts 146 speaking parts and takes at least two

days to perform. It is a pageant beyond comparison. As

previously mentioned, between the French Revolution and

1803, the festival was not held. When Napolean allowed it

to be held again, the mayor requested that a new monument

be built in Joan’s honor. Traditionally, the part of Joan had

been played by a boy, le puceau, or boy virgin; it was 1912

before a young woman was given the privilege of playing

Joan of Arc.

poliTiCal sYmBol

America was an ally to France during World War I, which

started in 1914, and during that time U.S. soldiers became

fascinated by the woman warrior. It was not long before

she became an icon for American war purposes. In a print

ad that was popular at the time, a shapely woman wearing

a helmet and holding up a sword encourages “women of

America” to buy savings stamps to support the war effort. At

the top of the ad the words “Joan of Arc Saved France” are

printed. Joan’s image was also used to “attack the Germans

for bombarding Reims and damaging the cathedral where

Charles was crowned king.”18 By the end of World War I in

Joan and the arts

103

•

Shown here, people in medieval costumes march in an annual procession

celebrating the feast of Joan of Arc in Orleans, France.

1918, the German republic had to return lands, including

Alsace-Lorraine, to France. Joan again became a symbol of

national unity.

During World War II, Joan of Arc became a figurehead

for both sides within France—the Free French and the

puppet Vichy French government living under German

rule. One poster that was pro-German showed the city of

Rouen burning under attack from Allied bombs, with Joan

104 • JOan Of arc

replica of Joan of arc

sTaTue in new orleans

An exact replica of the Joan of Arc statue at Place des Pyramides

in Paris was sent to New Orleans in 1958 as a gift from the peo-

ple of France. It was put in storage because New Orleans could

not come up with the $35,000 needed to erect it. When French

president Charles de Gaul e visited New Orleans in 1960, he per-

sonal y got involved and had four French cities and the people

of New Orleans raise the money together. By 1972, a 17-foot

(5-m) base pedestal had been built in the Place de France, and

the statue of Saint Joan was put on top of it. In 1999, the statue

was moved to the French Market, or Vieux Carré, on the cor-

ner of Saint Philip and Decatur streets. Three flags—American,

French, and the state flag of Louisiana—fly behind it.

In October 1998, a playwright and event planner named Amy

Kirk came up with the idea of having a procession to honor the

unofficial patron saint of New Orleans, Joan of Arc. It was to take

place on Twelfth Night, or January 6, Joan of Arc’s birthday, and

the start of New Orleans’s Carnival season. Kirk explained that

Joan of Arc represents “defiance, courage, virtue . . . and, especial-

ly since Hurricane Katrina, she represents strength and tenacity.

It’s a perfect time for a warrior saint to come lead our city.”*

The first procession in Joan’s honor was held on January 6,

2009. The Joan of Arc Project was founded to great fanfare on

May 8, 2009, commemorating Joan lifting the siege of Orleans,

France. It is a secular organization that presents an annual

parade, celebrates French holidays, keeps an active Joan of Arc

book club going, and inspires the public to visit the statue.

Since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005,

photographer John Michael Craven has called the New Orleans

statue of Saint Joan of Arc “Beacon of Hope.”

*Molly Reid. “A New Parade Honoring Joan of Arc Joins the

Phunny Phorty Phellows to Kick Off Carnival,” Nola.com. http://

blog.nola.com/mollyreid/2008/12/a_new_parade_honoring_

joan_of.html.

Joan and the arts

105

•

of Arc burning at the stake. The French Resistance (an

underground operation fighting the Germans) had as its

symbol Joan of Arc holding the cross of Lorraine. Charles

de Gaulle, who would become president of France after the

war ended, carried the cross of Lorraine with him.

10

Legacy

Timothy Wilson-Smith summed up the paradoxes in

Joan of Arc’s life. He said:

A girl condemned in 1431 by a French court was

rehabilitated by the nullification of that verdict

in 1452–56, and then, after a much longer pro-

cess, in 1920 canonized as a saint of the Catholic

Church. . . . This belatedly canonized saint was

also declared by the Church to be the patroness of

France and given a public holiday by the secular

French State, while at the same time she was greatly

admired in the English-speaking world, where in

her lifetime she would have found her most deter-

mined enemies.1

106

Legacy

10

•

Though Joan’s feats were superhuman, she was com-

pletely human. Like any teen today, she had a streak of

stubbornness, and at times was impatient and impulsive.

She was also kind and compassionate, radiating a qual-

ity of grace that had even the toughest knights dropping

everything to follow her. Perhaps it was they—especially

Jean d’Alencon and La Hire—who knew her better than

anyone. They slept near her at night when on the battle-

fields, and they watched her incredible bravery as she went

forward to meet the enemy. Her faith and her courage

when she was held captive helped her through a trial that

had doomed her before it started.

her voiCes

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Joan of Arc is

her obedience to her voices. It is also the part of her that

is most often analyzed: Was she insane? Was she deluded?

Was she schizophrenic? Francoise Meltzer, professor and

chair of comparative literature with an appointment in the

Divinity School at the University of Chicago, said, “It [the

1400s] was a time when there was no division between the

body and the mind, when martyrs like Joan had a conviction

which they enacted through their bodies as if they were ves-

sels for their beliefs.”2

Joan heard her voices and acted. In Joan of Arc: From

Heretic to Saint, Donald Spoto wrote:

Many people, even those sympathetic to Francis

[St. Francis of Assisi] and Joan, maintain that in

a new age informed by depth psychology, such

things as stated simply do not happen. The lives

of Francis of Assisi, and Joan of Arc—indeed, the

lives of Isaiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, and

Muhammad—make little sense without reference

10 • JOan Of arc

to the world of the spirit, with reference to the liv-

ing God, who may disclose Himself as He wishes,

to whom He wishes, under what circumstances He

wishes. All were addressed by what might be called

the world beyond—by a presence that could not be

ignored. . . . The ordinary limitations of language,

which describe common experiences, have to be

broken; there is, after all, no direct equivalent for

an inner experience of such overwhelming power—

invariably so overwhelming, in fact, that it alters

one perception of life and its purpose. Such was the

experience of Joan of Arc.3

Freedom

The strong faith of the people in the countryside of France

in the 1400s made miracles quite acceptable. Children were

imbued with religious faith. Joan, like the other children,

was trained in the teachings of the church when she was

a child and heard many stories from the Bible and other

sources that spoke of miracles.

To Joan, freedom of the individual was important. The

ability for an individual to choose right from wrong is a

basic part of Christianity. One aspect of her that infuriated

the men chosen to judge her was her insistence that she was

free to communicate directly with God, which they believed

she was not allowed to do. Freedom was a strong theme

in Joan’s life, involving both personal and social liberty.

According to Jane Marie Pinzino in “The Condemnation

and Rehabilitation Trials of Joan of Arc,” it is freedom in

three senses: “the political freedom of a people, the spiri-

tual freedom of the individual, and the perfect freedom of

God.”4 When she was at Poitiers, she wanted to liberate the

French people; at her own trial, “her own spiritual liberty

was at stake.”5 At the rehabilitation trial, “belief in the free-

dom of God to save his people was foundational. Moreover,

Legacy

10

•

A sculpture in Domrémy-la-Pucel e, Lorraine, France, depicting Joan of

Arc. The Roman Catholic Church recognized the French national heroine

as a saint in 1920.

the heart of the matter was faith in God’s freedom to choose

a simple young woman, instill in her a passion for human

freedom and grant her the power to make it real.”6

Joan is no longer “in the forefront of French minds,”7

according to Wilson-Smith. He added, “In 1948 11 per

cent of those asked put her [ Joan] in a list of famous French

men and women; in 1980 that figure was 2 per cent, in 1989

zero per cent of the French people in general, however,

take Joan for granted, and the young scarcely know her.”8

She is thought to be better known in the United States

110 • JOan Of arc

than in Europe. Perhaps university and college curriculums

across the United States that include women’s studies have

something to do with it. Wilson-Smith wrote, “She is now a

figure of universal significance as a feminist model, if not a

model feminist.”9 Young women are aware, even today, that

the qualities of self-confidence and independent judgment

in women can cause suspicion, and sometimes punishment.

Françoise Meltzer said Joan of Arc “blurred the bound-

aries between masculine and feminine, between obedience

and incredible courage, and we live in a time when we are

very interested in that.”10 She added that she believes the

answer to Joan’s continuing popularity “lies in the uncer-

tainty of the times in which we live.”11 Jeremy du Quesnay

Adams wrote in his preface to the book Joan of Arc: Her

Story, “One need not be a French nationalist, or a Christian,

or a feminist to find Joan of Arc fascinating and her treat-

ment by the several male establishments of her time an

outrage.”12

did

did you

y

ou Kno

n w?

o

The television series Joan of Arcadia, which ran from 2003 to

2005, was about a teenage girl’s conversations with God. The

teen, played by Amber Tamblyn, finds herself wondering if she

is sane as she tries to follow God’s directives while trying to live

a normal American teenage life. The writer and creator of the

show, Barbara Hall, was obsessed with Joan of Arc as a child

growing up in Virginia. Brought up a Methodist, both she and

her sister eventually converted to Catholicism as adults.

Rose Pacatte. “Joan of Arcadia: An Interview with Its Catholic

Producer.” American Catholic. http://www.americancatholic.

org/Messenger/Mar2005/Feature1.asp.

Legacy

111

•

Régine Pernoud, who has written several books on Joan

of Arc, wrote in Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses:

“It remains true that, for us, Joan is above all the saint

of reconciliation—the one whom, whatever our personal

convictions, we admire and love because, over-riding all

partisan points of view, each one of us can find in himself a

reason to love her.”13

CHRonoLogy

1412 or 1413 Joan of Arc born in Domrémy-la-Pucelle,

France, on or about January 6.

1424 First heard voices at age of 12.

1428 Joan goes to Vaucouleurs, meets Robert de

Baudricourt; attack on Joan’s village; Joan

accused of breaking a vow of marriage.

1429 Second meeting with de Baudricourt on

February 12; departs for Chinon to meet

dauphin Charles on February 22; arrives in

Chinon and meets Charles in early March;

Joan enters Orleans on April 29; English

raise the siege and depart Orleans on May

8; Joan on Loire campaign on way to

Reims on June 8; Battle of Patay on June

18; Joan convinces Charles to be crowned

in Reims on June 25; Charles VII’s

coronation on July 17; attack on Paris

on September 8; Joan told to abandon

attack on September 9; army breaks up on

September 21.

1430 Capture of Joan at Compiègne on May

23; from May to November, Joan held

prisoner in various castles; Burgundians

turn Joan over to English for ransom in

November; arrives as prisoner in Rouen,

an English stronghold, in late December.

1431 Joan appears for the first time in court on

February 21; explanation of charges on

May 23; abjuration, or repentance, on May

24; wears men’s clothes and relapse trial

opens on May 27; Joan burned at stake on

May 30.

112

Chronology

113

1449 Charles VII decides to ask for new trial for

Joan.

1453 The Hundred Years’ War ends.

1455 Pope Calixtus III authorizes new trial.

1456 Former trial nullified. The Catholic

Church overturns Joan’s conviction and

declares her to be a martyr.

1909 Joan of Arc officially beatified by Pope

Pius X.

1920 Joan recognized as a saint by Pope

Benedict XV on May 16.

notes

ChapTer 1

1. Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc. New York: The Penguin

Group, 2000, p. 64.

2. Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan of

Arc: Her Story. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998,

p. 44.

3. Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981, p. 71.

4. Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 35.

5. Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism,

p. 62.

6. Ibid., p. 70.

7. Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan of

Arc: Her Story, p. 64.

ChapTer 2

1. Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 35.

2. Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 11.

3. Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan of

Arc: Her Story, p. 162.

4. Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 25.

5. Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 15.

6. Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 119.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., p. 122.

9. Ibid., p. 26.

ChapTer 3

1. Régine Pernoud, Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Wit-

nesses. Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1982,

p. 35.

114

Notes

115

2.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 37.

3.    Marina Warner,  Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 23.

4.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 39.

5.    Timothy Wilson-Smith,  Joan of Arc:  Maid, Myth and

History. London: The History Press, 2008.

6.    Allen Williamson, “Biography of Joan of Arc.”

http://www.joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_biography.

html.

7.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 35.

8.    Ibid., p. 40.

9.    Ibid., p. 43.

10.    Ibid.

11.    Timothy Wilson-Smith,  Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and

History, p. 31.

12.    Ibid.

13.    Régine Pernoud,  Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her

Witnesses, p. 58.

14.    Ibid.

15.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin,  Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 31.

16.    Ibid., p. 225.

Chapter 4

1.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin,  Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 220.

2.    Ibid., p. 13.

3.    Ibid., p. 14.

4.    Marina Warner,  Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, pp. 160–161.

5.    Timothy Wilson-Smith,  Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 35.

6.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin,  Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 41.

116

Notes

7.    Ibid.

8.    Ibid., p. 49.

9.    Ibid., p. 55.

10.    Ibid., p. 172.

11.    Ibid.

12.    Ibid.

13.    Ibid., p. 59.

14.    Ibid., pp. 67–68.

Chapter 5

1.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 69.

2.    Ibid., p. 70.

3.    Ibid., p. 79.

4.    Marina Warner,  Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 97.

5.    Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 100.

Chapter 6

1.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 105.

2.    Ibid., p. 107.

3.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin,  Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 113.

4.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 116.

5.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin,  Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 122.

6.    Ibid.

7.    Ibid., p. 112.

8.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 120.

9.    Régine Pernoud,  Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her

Witnesses, p. 174.

10.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 118.

11.    Timothy Wilson-Smith,  Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 74.

Notes

117

12.    Ibid., p. 126.

13.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 129.

14.    Ibid., p. 133.

15.    Ibid.

16.    Ibid.

17.    Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 128.

18.    Ibid., p. 129.

19.    Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 127.

Chapter 7

1.  Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 188.

2.  Régine Pernoud, Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her

Witnesses, p. 259.

3.  Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 133.

4.  Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 86.

5.  Ibid.

6.  Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 176.

Chapter 8

1.  Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 172.

2.  Ibid., p. 176.

3.  Ibid., p. 183.

4.  Ibid., p. 180.

5.  Mary Gordon, “Desperately Seeking Joan: Woman

Behind the Hype, Joan of Arc.” Commonweal,

March 10, 2000.

6.  Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 187.

118

Notes

7.    Mary Gordon, “Desperately Seeking Joan.”

8.    Ibid.

9.    Ibid.

10.    Ibid.

Chapter 9

1.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 161.

2.    Timothy Wilson-Smith,  Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 162.

3.    Marina Warner,  Joan of Arc: The Image of Female

Heroism, p. 202.

4.    Ibid., p. 219.

5.    Nora M. Heimann,  Joan of Arc in French Art and

Culture (1700–1855): From Satire to Sanctity.  Surrey,

UK: Ashgate Publishers, 2005, p. 12.

6.    Alia Nour-Elsayed and Petra ten-Doesschate Chu,

“H-France Review: Joan of Arc in French Culture

(1700–1855): From Satire to Sanctity.” http://www.

h-france.net/vol6reviews/nourelsayedandchu.html.

7.    Ibid.

8.    Mary Gordon,  Joan of Arc, p. 149.

9.    Mark Twain,  Joan of Arc. San Francisco: Ignatius

Press, 1896, appendix, p. 452.

10.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin,  Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. 242.

11.    Nora M. Heimann,  Joan of Arc in French Art and

Culture (1700–1855): From Satire to Sanctity, p. 12.

12.    Timothy Wilson-Smith,  Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 181.

13.    Mary Gordon, p. 149.

14.    Mary Gordon, p. 150.

15.    “Saint Joan of Arc.” http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/

WS5/JoanofArc/essayonjoan.html.

16.    Ibid.

Notes

119

17.    Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc, p. 165.

18.    Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 207.

Chapter 10

1.  Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 48.

2.  Françoise Meltzer, “Joan of Arc Fever.” http://

magazine.uchicago.edu/0012/research/invest-joan.

html.

3.  Donald Spoto, Joan of Arc: From Heretic to Saint. San

Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007, pp. 24–25.

4.  Jane Maria Pinzino, “The Condemnation and Reha-

bilitation Trials of Joan of Arc,” International Joan

of Arc Society. http://smu.edu/ijas/pinzino.html.

5.  Ibid.

6.  Ibid.

7.  Timothy Wilson-Smith, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth

and History, p. 216.

8.  Ibid., p. 221.

9.  Ibid.

10.    Françoise Meltzer, “Joan of Arc Fever.”

11.    Ibid.

12.    Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, Joan

of Arc: Her Story, p. xv.

13.    Régine Pernoud, Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her

Witnesses, p. 277.

bibliography

Gordon, Mary. Joan of Arc. New York: The Penguin

Group, 2000.

Heimann, Nora M. Joan of Arc in French Art and Culture

(1700–1855): From Satire to Sanctity. Surrey, UK: Ash-

gate Publishers, 2005.

Pernoud, Régine. Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses.

Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1982.

Pernoud, Régine, and Marie-Véronique Clin. Joan of Arc:

Her Story. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Spoto, Donald. Joan of Arc: From Heretic to Saint. San

Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007.

Twain, Mark. Joan of Arc. San Francisco: Ignatius Press,

1896.

Warner, Marina. Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981.

———. “Introduction.” In The Trial of Joan of Arc. Eve-

sham, UK: Arthur James, 1996.

Wilson-Smith, Timothy. Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and His-

tory. Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2006.

Web SiteS

“Joan of Art Quotes.” Joan of Arc Resource. Available

online at http://www.joan-of-arc-resource.com/quotes.

html.

Lanhers, Yvonne, and Malcolm G.A. Vale. “Joan of Arc,

Saint.” History.com. Available online at http://www.

history.com/topics/saint-joan-of-arc.

Pinzino, Jane Marie. “The Condemnation and Rehabili-

tation Trials of Joan of Arc.” International Joan of Arc

Society. Available online at http://smu.edu/ijas/pinzino.

html.

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Reid, Molly. “A New Parade Honoring Joan of Arc Joins

the Phunny Phorty Phellows to Kick Off Carnival.”

NOlA.com. December 30, 2008. Available online at

http://blog.nola.com/mollyreid/2008/12/a_new_parade_

honoring_joan_of.html.

“Sacré-Coeur Basilica, Paris,” Sacred Destinations, August

23, 2009. Available online at http://www.sacred-

destinations.com/france/paris-sacre-coeur.

S.A.S. “Joan of Arc Fever.” University of Chicago

Magazine. December 2000. Available online at http://

magazine.uchicago.edu/0012/research/invest-joan.html.

Williamson, Allen. “Biography of Joan of Arc (Jehanne

Darc).” Joan of Arc.org. Available online at http://www.

joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_biography.html.

———. “St. Joan’s Notable Quotations: French to English

Translations of the Famous Sayings of Joan of Arc.” St.

Joan Center. Available online at http://www.stjoan-

center.com/quotable/.

FuRtHeR ResouRCes

Discover France

http://www.discoverfrance.net/France

The French Society

http://www.understandfrance.org/France/Society/html

Kathleen Kudlinski, Joan of Arc: A Photographic Story of a

Life. New York: DK Publishing, 2008.

122

piCtuRe CReDits

page

9: Getty Images

80: © The Print Collector/

12: © Lourens Smak/Alamy

Alamy

16: The Art Archive/Gianni

82: The Art Archive/Centre

Dagli Orti

Jeanne d’Arc Orléans/

20: © The Art Gallery

Gianni Dagli Orti

Collection/Alamy

86: Apsley House, The Wel-

30: Bridgeman Art Library

lington Museum, London,

32: The Granger Collection

UK/© English Heritage.

39: Mansell/Time Life

NMR/The Bridgeman Art

Pictures/Getty Images

Library

42: Bridgeman Art Library

92: © Peter Nahum at

45: Getty Images

The Leicester Galleries,

53: Private Collection/Ken

London/The Bridgeman

Welsh/The Bridgeman Art

Art Library

Library

101: Henry Guttmann/Getty

57: Bridgeman Art Library

Images

62: Getty Images

103: © Michael Juno/Alamy

67: The Art Archive/Gianni

109: Bridgeman Art Library

Dagli Orti

123

inDex

a

Berkshire Theatre Festival

Adams, Jeremy du Quesnay

100

Joan of Arc: Her Story 110

Bernard VII, Comte

Aeneid (Virgil) 95

d’Armagnac 19

Agincourt, Battle of 18, 38,

Besson, Luc 101

49

Bismark, Otto von 87

Alsace-Lorraine 88, 103

Black Death 17

Anne of Burgundy 60

Blois 36, 40

Annunciation 33

Bohemia 17

Anouilh, Jean

Bonaparte, Napoleon 85, 102

The Lark 97

Bordeaux 77

archangel 24–25

Bouille, Guillaume 77

archangel Gabriel 36

Bourbon monarchy 96

Armagnacs 8, 19, 51, 81

Bourges 38

Armoises, Madame des 81–82

Brecht, Bertolt

Arras 59

Saint Joan of the Stockyards

Arts 94–105

97

film 97, 100–102

Brehal, Jean 78–79

literature 95–96

Brie 54

music 95, 100

Buddha 107

paintings and sculpture

Burgundians of France 8, 10,

95–99

19, 31, 49–53, 81, 98

theater 94–97, 102

soldiers 54–57

Auxerre 49

Burgundy 50

Avignon 21, 61

Duke of 17, 19, 37, 51–52,

55–56, 58, 62, 74

B

peace 75

Basilique du Sacré-Coeur 88

Bastard of Wandomme 56

c

Baudricourt, Robert de 27,

Calixtus III, Pope 78

29, 35

canonization 89–91, 93, 106

soldiers 28

Catherine 18

beatification 90, 93, 97

Catherine of Alexandria, Saint

Beaufort, Cardinal 74–75

24–25, 55, 63, 72

Beaugency 48

Catherine of Siena 23

Beaulieu

Catholic Church 97, 106,

prison at 56

108, 110

Beaurevoir 58

corruption 22

Beauvais 59, 73

division of 21

archbishop of 10, 50, 58

devil’s advocates 89–91, 93

Belgium 17

impact of 21–22

Belin, Therese 90–91

and Joan 10–11, 33

Benedict XV, Pope 93

leaders 21–22, 57, 61, 68,

Bergman, Ingrid 100

70, 72, 79, 93, 96

124

Index

125

political power of 8, 21,

Chu, Petra ten-Doesschate 95

77–78, 81, 84, 87

Claudel, Paul 100

popes 8, 21–22, 61–62, 66,

Clement VII 21–22

77–78, 84–85, 89–91, 93

Clin, Marie-Véronique 11

reform 22

Clovis I, King of France 21,

trials 61–66, 68–72, 74

36

Cauchon, Pierre 10, 50

Colette of Corbie, St. 23

capture and trial of Joan

Compiègne

58–61, 63, 68–69, 71–73,

capture at 51–59, 107

75, 83

“Condemnation and Rehabili-

death 78, 83

tation Trials of Joan of Arc,

Chalons-sur-Marne 49

The” (Pinzino) 108

Champagne 14, 19, 52, 54

Consecration of Charles VII at

Charlemagne 21

Reims, 17 July, 1429, The

Charles VI, King of France

(Vinchon) 96

19

Couillie, Bishop 89

Charles VII, King of France

Council of Constance 21

18–19, 46, 61

Craven, John Michael 104

character 13, 30–31, 75, 81

Crécy, Battle of 18

coronation of 7–8, 10–13,

Cristiani, Leon 90

31, 40, 44, 48–50, 52, 78,

cross-dressing 66, 68–69

99, 103

D

councilors 29–30, 33, 44,

47, 50, 52–55, 59, 74–75

d’Arc, Catherine (sister) 15

death 81

d’Arc, Isabelle Romee

enemies of 10, 51, 55–56,

(mother) 14, 26, 33, 63

58, 77

death 81, 102

life of pleasure 76

speech 78–79

meeting 27–36

d’Arc, Jacques (father) 14,

protection to 23

26–27, 63

soldiers 76

work 15

son 25, 76

d’Arc, Jean (brother) 15, 36,

Charles X, King of France 85

41, 55, 78–80, 82

Charles, the Duke of Orleans d’Arc, Pierre (brother) 15, 36,

38

41, 55–56, 78–82

Charles of Lorraine 28–29

d’Arras, Franquet 55

Château-Thierry 53

d’Aulon, Jean 34, 36, 43, 56,

Cherbourge 76

58, 107

childhood 14–26

dauphin’s party 10

birth 14

death 65, 73–77, 93, 105

family 14–17

after 79–82, 94–95

Chinon 29, 39–40, 47

de Gaulle, Charles 104–105

museum in 99

De Luxembourg, Jean 56–59

Christ in Majesty (mosaic) 88

de Metz, Jean 28–29

126

Index

DeMille, Cecil B. 100

Fauquembergue, Clement de

“Desperately Seeking Joan”

98

(Gordon) 91

Feast of Ascension 43, 69

d’Avignon, Marie 23

festival of Joan of Arc 85, 87,

Domrémy-la-Pucelle 53, 82

102

birthplace 14, 16–17, 19,

festival of Orleans 102

54, 60, 63, 88

Flanders 17

peasants in 14, 22

Fleming, Victor 100

Dreyer, Carl 100

Fouquet, Jean 30

Duguay, Christian 101

France

Dukakis, Olympia 101

at war 7–8, 10–13, 18–19,

Duke of Alencon 44, 48–49,

21–23, 25, 29, 31, 37–52,

54, 81

54, 58, 69, 75–77, 87–89,

Duke of Anjou 29, 76

94, 103

Duke of Bedford 37–38, 46,

civil war 8, 10, 19

50, 52, 54, 74–75, 83

government 31, 51, 61, 74–

Duke of Bourbon 54

75, 78, 81, 83–85, 87–89,

Duke of Clarence 44

97–98, 102–103, 105–106

Dunois, John, the Count of

land 16–18

38–41, 43, 75–76, 81

language 15

Dupanloup, Felix 87, 89

people of 7, 10, 15, 18–19,

E

34, 52, 56, 74, 77, 88–89,

Edward III, King of England

104, 108–110

18

royalty 36, 46, 77, 84–85,

Edward IV, King of England

95–96

83

savior of 10

England 15, 60, 87, 95

social classes 15, 17–18, 22,

army 29, 31, 33, 36–44, 48–

50, 87, 95

49, 54, 56, 59, 73, 76–77,

soldiers 7–8, 11, 13, 18, 25,

83, 94, 96, 102

28–29, 33, 36, 41, 42, 44,

at war 7–8, 10–13, 18–19,

46–49, 54–57, 73, 75–77,

21–22, 29, 31, 33, 36–44,

81, 85, 87–89, 94

48–49, 51–52, 54, 56–59,

Francis of Assisi 107

69, 75–77, 94

Franco-Prussian War 87–88

control of Paris 12–13, 26,

Frémiet, Emmanuel 89, 99

49–52, 54, 57, 75

French Resistance 105

government 61–63, 74–75,

French Revolution 84, 102

78, 83

G

f

Germany 17, 21, 87–88,

Fairmont Park, Philadelphia

96–97, 102–103, 105

99

Gien 49

Falconetti, Maria 100

Giovanna d’Arco (Verdi) 100

Fastolf, John 41, 48

Gordon, Mary

Index

12

“Desperately Seeking Joan” Isabella, Queen of Bavaria 18,

91

26

writings of 13, 23, 29, 31,

Italy 21

47, 54, 58, 61, 69, 73, 89,

J

91, 94, 97, 100–101

Gounod, Charles

Jardin du Luxembourg 99

Jeanne d’Arc 100

Jargeau 48

Graverent, Jean 60

Jeanne d’Arc (Gounod) 100

Great Schism of (1054) 21,

Jesus of Nazareth 107

61

Joan of Arc (film) 100–101

Greux 53

Joan of Arcadia (television

series) 110

H

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of

Hall, Barbara 110

Charles VII at Reims (Ingres)

Heimann, Nora 98

98–99

Joan of Arc in French Art and Joan of Arc at Prayer (Rubens)

Culture (1700-1855): From

98

Satire to Sanctity 95

Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her

Henry V, King of England 18

Witnesses (Pernoud) 111

Henry VI, King of England 8, Joan of Arc: From Heretic to

10, 52, 59, 74, 76, 83

Saint (Spoto) 107–108

Henry VI (Shakespeare) 94

Joan of Arc: Her Story (Adams)

heretic

110

tried as 24, 61, 64–66,

Joan of Arc in French Art and

68–73, 77–78, 93, 102,

Culture (1700-1855): From

106–108

Satire to Sanctity (Heimann)

Holland 17

95

Holy Roman Empire 21

Joan of Arc Project 104

Homer 95

Joan the Woman (film)

Honegger, Arthur 97, 100

100

Hundred Years’ War

John XV, Pope 90

events of 8, 18, 21–22, 25,

John the Fearless 19

31

John Paul II, Pope 90

Hurricane Katrina 104

Jovovich, Mila 101–102

Hus, Jan 22

July Monarchy 85

I

K

imprisonment 24

King Arthur 23

Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Domi-

Kirk, Amy 104

nique

knights

Joan of Arc at the Corona-

appointed 7

tion of Charles VII at Reims

armor 33

98–99

and Joan 29, 34–36, 46–47,

Inquisition 57, 60–61, 78–79

66

Ireland 97

and land 17–18

12

Index

L

Maximinus, Emperor of

La Charité-sur-Loire 55

Rome 24, 63

Ladvenu, Martin 72–73

Meltzer, Francoise 107,

La Fontaine, Jean de 69

110

Lagny 55

Merlin 23

La Hire 43, 54, 76, 107

Messenger, The (film) 101

Lark, The (Anouilh) 97

Meung 48

La Tremoille, Georges de

Michael, Saint 24–25, 63

83

Michelet, Jules 96

and King Charles VII

Middle Ages 14

29–31, 49, 52–54, 75

Milan, Duke of 23

Laxart, Durand 26–27

Millais, John Everett 99

legends 22, 36

Millet, Jacques

Leo III, Pope 21

The Siege of Orleans 102

Leo XIII, Pope 89

Montmarte 88

Le Puy-en-Velay 33

Montreal, Canada 99

Lisieux 83

Mother Teresa 90

Loire 40, 44, 48, 52

Muhammad 107

Lorraine 14, 16, 89, 105

n

Duke of 17, 54

Napoleon III 87–88

Louis VI, King of France 36

Napoleonic Wars 88

Louis VII, King of France 36

Neufchâteau 19, 60

Louis IX, King of France 88

New Orleans

Louis XI, King of France 47,

statue in 99, 104

75, 81

Nicholas V, Pope 77–78

Louis XVIII, King of France

Normandy 44, 76

85

Notre-Dame Cathedral 11,

Louis of Orleans 19

33, 74, 78

Louis-Philippe, King of

Nour-Elsayed, Alia 95

France 85, 87, 96

Nullification trial 78–81, 102,

Lourdes 90

106

Louviers 76

O

M

Offenbach, Jacques 100

Maid of Orleans, The (Voltaire) Olybrius 24–25

95

Orleans 78, 82, 95, 99

Margaret of Anjou 76, 83

Battle at 33, 37–50, 104

Margaret, Saint 24–25, 55,

bishop of 85, 87, 90, 93

63, 72

commemoration of 102

Margny 56

Duke of 26, 46, 75, 85

Marie d’Orleans 96

English conquest of 29,

Martin V, Pope 22, 61

36–40

martyrs 24–25

five gates of 37–38, 41

Maxey-sur-Meuse 63

people of 38, 40, 97

Index

12

victory against English at

Pius VI, Pope 85

7–8, 11–12, 44, 76, 102

Pius VII, Pope 85

O’Toole, Peter 101

Pius X, Pope 93

Ovid 95

Pizan, Christine de

P

“Song in Honor of Joan of

Paris 37, 64, 78, 88

Arc” 94

archbishop of 79

Place des Pyramides 89, 99,

attack of 52–54, 56

104

conquest 75

Place St. Augustin 99

England’s control of 12–13, Poitiers 33, 108

26, 49–52, 57, 75

Portland, Oregon 99

plague in 75

Poulengy, Bertrand de 28

statues in 89, 99, 104

Poulnoir, Hauves 35

Pasquerel, Jean

Preminger, Otto 101

Joan’s confessor 33, 43

prophecies

Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, La

and Joan 22–23, 34–35, 39,

(film) 100

48, 58, 75–76

Patay, Battle of 48–49

Prussia 87–89

Peguy, Charles 97

Pucelle d’Orleans, La (Tchai-

Pernoud, Régine 11

kovsky) 100

Joan of Arc: By Herself and

r

Her Witnesses 111

Rehabilitation Trial 74–83,

Personal Collections of Joan of

108

Arc by The Sieur Louis de

Reims 99

Conte (Her Page and Secre-

archbishop of 79

tary) (Twain) 96

Charles coronation at 7–8,

personality 98, 107

10–13, 40, 44, 48–49, 103

and God’s will 10, 15, 27,

citizens of 10, 52

31, 33, 68, 71, 79

journey to 37–50

independence 53

national cathedral in 7, 11

kindness 15

Remi, St. 11

supreme confidence 10, 91,

church 19

93

Richard, Duke of York 83

Philip IV, King of France 18

Richemont, Arthur de 75

Philip of Bergamo 95

Riverside Park, New York

Philip the Good 19, 37, 50,

City 99

54

Rome 14, 24, 71, 85

Pierre, Ysambard de la 73

pope in 8, 21, 61–63, 66,

Pinzino, Jane Marie

89, 93

“The Condemnation and

Rouen 76, 83, 105

Rehabilitation Trials of

trial in 60–66, 68–75, 77,

Joan of Arc” 108

80

Pisan, Christine de 23

uprising in 75

130

Index

Rubens, Peter Paul

La Pucelle d’Orleans 100

Joan of Arc at Prayer 98

Thorndike, Sybil 100

S

Touchet, Bishop 89, 93

Sacré-Coeur 88–89

Tourelles 43

Sainte Ampoule 11

Tours 33–34

Sainte-Catherine de Fierbois

Tower of London 83

church 35

Treaty of Arras 81

Sainthood 84–93, 106

Treaty of Troyes 10, 18,

appeal for 85, 87

51

Saint Joan (Shaw) 97, 100

Troyes 49

Saint Joan (film) 100

Tuileries Palace 89

Saint Joan of the Stockyards

Twain, Mark 97–98

(Brecht) 97

Personal Collections of Joan

Saint-Pierre-Le-Moûtier

of Arc by The Sieur Louis

55

de Conte (Her Page and

saints 11

Secretary) 96

voices of 10, 22–26, 29, 35, U

44, 55, 58–59, 63–65, 70,

United States 109–110

72, 79, 91, 93, 107–108

government 102

Seberg, Jean 101

military 102

serfdom 18

University of Paris 50–51,

Shakespeare, William

58–59, 61, 68, 71

Henry VI 94

University of Poitiers 51

Shaw, George Bernard

Urban VI 21–22

Saint Joan 97, 100

V

Siege of Orleans, The (Millet)

102

Vaucouleurs 26–27, 29

Smithsonian American Art

museums in 99

Museum 99

Verdi, Giuseppe

Sobieski, Leelee 101

Giovanna d’Arco 100

Soissons 53

Verneuil 46

Spain 8, 21

Versailles 88, 96

Spoto, Donald

Vieux-Marche 80

Joan of Arc: From Heretic to

Vinchon, Auguste

Saint 107–108

The Consecration of Charles

standard 8–9, 35–36, 41, 48,

VII at Reims, 17 July, 1429

99

96

Story of the Siege of Orleans 95

Virgil

St. Peter’s Basilica 93

Aeneid 95

Virgin Mary 36

T

Virgin of Orleans, The (von

Talbot, Lord 48

Schiller) 96–97

Tamblyn, Amber 110

Voltaire

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

The Maid of Orleans 95

Index

131

von Schiller, Johann Chris-

89, 106, 109–110

toph Friedrich

witches 64–65

The Virgin of Orleans 96–97

World War I 102–103

W

World War II 97, 103

Warner, Marina 13, 28, 46,

wounds and illnesses

58, 95

bruises 58–59

Waterloo, Battle of 85

from an arrow 43, 54

Wilson-Smith, Timothy 87,

About tHe AutHoR

JanET HUBBarD-BrOWn has written more than a dozen books

for Chelsea House, the majority of them biographies.

Jumping from Joan of Arc to Tina Fey (her other recent

biography) was somewhat disorienting, but the author

found many similarities in the two women born half a mil-

lennium apart—for example, they shared an ironic sense

of humor, a strong intelligence, and a self-confidence that

allowed them to succeed in a traditionally man’s world. A

resident of Vermont, Hubbard-Brown works as a writer,

editor, and teacher.

132

Document Outline

- Contents

- 1: A Coronation That Changed History

- 2: Childhood

- 3: Meeting the Future King

- 4: The Journey to Reims

- 5: Capture at Compiegne

- 6: Sentenced to Death

- 7: Rehabilitation Trial

- 8: Saint Joan

- 9: Joan and the Arts

- 10: Legacy

- Chronology

- Notes

- Bibliography

- Further Resources

- Picture Credits

- Index

- About the Author

Table of Contents

Contents

1: A Coronation That Changed History

2: Childhood

3: Meeting the Future King

4: The Journey to Reims

5: Capture at Compiegne

6: Sentenced to Death

7: Rehabilitation Trial

8: Saint Joan

9: Joan and the Arts

10: Legacy

Chronology

Notes

Bibliography

Further Resources

Picture Credits

Index

About the Author