Lengendary Warriors (1): Joan of Arc

I am going to try to enthrall you with my next series of posts entitled Legendary Warriors. My first presentation is on Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc). Oh I know what some of you might say: she was no warrior. But her strength of character, her determination and her strong belief in what she was accomplishing makes Joan of Arc a remarquable foe and as such a warrior in her own right. There is also the fact that she was French (from France) and that I am French Canadian first and English Canadian second. Jeanne D’Arc is also the most celebrated historical character in France and has her own celebration day on the 8th of May. She was eventually sainted by Pope Pie X on April 18th 1909 and was canonized by Pope Benoit XV on the 16th of May 1920. I first learned about Joan of Arc in primary school history classes and I was enthralled by her one goal in life and that was to put Charles V11 back on the French throne during the 100 year war that was raging between England and France. So here goes the story of Joan of Arc and I hope you enjoy it.

Joan of Arc was born apparently in 1412 although even she, herself, was not absolutely sure and there were no writtent records. She was born in the village of Domrémy-la-Pucelle in northeastern France in Lorraine. Below is a picture of the apparent house where Joan of Arc was born and resided most of her young life.

Joan’s father last name was d’Arc but as she said during the interrogation conducted by the Archbishop Cauchon, in her countryside the girls took on the name of their mother and she was not even sure of her age but stated nonetheless that she thought she was approximately 19 years old. Her mother’s name was Johannette de Vouthon or Johannette Romée. So Joan was really Johanne when she was younger and her name was later modernized to Joan (Jeanne). Also Joan was not a shepherdess of sheep although she did do this chore sometimes.

At about twelve or thirteen years old, in her father’s garden, Joan declared having heard voices and that they at first scared her. These celestial voices from the Archangel Michael and Saint Catherine and Saint Marguerite ordered her to bring back the heir apparent (Dauphin) on the French throne and to liberate France of the English dominance and presence. During about four years, Joan resisted to the calling of these voices until she relented and took on the divine call to arms.

At the beginning of the XVth century France and England were at war for some 60 years now with a few truces between hostilities in the conflict that would soon be known as the 100 Years War. After taking the decision to abide to the voices’ orders, Joan travels to Vaillancourt to meet with captain Robert de Beaudricourt who was the representative of Charles V11. She convinces him to help her obtain an audience with Charles. It was also predicted some time before that meeting that a young virgin maiden from Lorraine would save the French kingdom so Robert de Beaudricourt accepted readily because Joan had all the qualifications from that prophecy.

After, Joan travels to Chinon to meet the future Charles V11. She shares with him what the voices told her. Charles was distrustful and suspicious and has her interrogated by the religious Poitiers authorities which confirm within other thing her virginity. Joan told them four predictions of her own from the voices: 1) that the English would lift their siege on the city of Orléans, 2) that the king will be crowned in Reims, 3) that Paris will be returned into the French royal domain of Charles, 4) that the duke of Orleans would be returned from his English captivity. Armed with her conviction and determination and virginity, Joan is then given an army to first liberate the city of Orléans. With this new development, Joan adopts to cut her hair short and adorn men’s clothes and armour and to pick up a sword to better lead the French army. It was in 1429 that Joan, at the precocious age of seventeen years of age, started her very public life which would later be immortalized.

<a data-snax-placeholder="Source" class="snax-figure-source" href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3497614#/media/File:P1030129_Paris_VIII_Statue_de_Jeanne_d%27Arc_place_Saint-Augustin_rwk.JPG" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3497614#/media/File:P1030129_Paris_VIII_Statue_de_Jeanne_d%27Arc_place_Saint-Augustin_rwk.JPG</a>

Joan, nicknamed the Maiden or the Virgin goes to Orléans after sending a dictated missive or letter to the English command to warn them of her imminent arrival and demand that they leave Orléans (Roi d’Angleterre et vous duc de Bedford… faites raison au Roi du Ciel, rendez à la Pucelle qui est envoyée ici par Dieu, le Roi du Ciel, les clés de toutes les bonnes villes que vous avez prises et violées en France… Elle est toute prête à faire la paix, si vous voulez lui faire raison, en abandonnant la France et payant pour ce que vous l’avez tenue…) Of course, the English refused to leave and concede because they saw Joan simply as a witch. Joan, in the meantime, propulsed by her faith, was giving confidence to the French desperate troops. During the night of 7th and 8th of May 1429, Joan gains victory against the English and retakes Orléans. This news travels across all of France. She then carries her traveling by going toward Reims, all the while reclaiming the cities on her path from the English. On the 17th of july 1429, Charles V11 is crowned King of France in Reims’ cathedral in the presence of Joan. Joan has then fulfilled the first part of her mission. She now had to march and retake Paris. Below is a painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres showing Joan at the coronation of King Charles V11 which is at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

<a data-snax-placeholder="Source" class="snax-figure-source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc_at_the_Coronation_of_Charles_VII#/media/File:Ingres_coronation_charles_vii.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc_at_the_Coronation_of_Charles_VII#/media/File:Ingres_coronation_charles_vii.jpg</a>

Joan then starts to try to liberate Paris from the English but this attempt ends in failure. She is made prisonner in Compiègne on the 23rd of March 1430 by the Burgundy who sell her to the English for 10,000 pounds. She is then brought to Rouen to be judged in front a of English tribunal. She is accused of heresy and not of witchcraft. The English were trying to discredit her because her charisma gave hope to the French population.

Joan appears before a 40 members tribunal presided by the archbishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais who was also a partisan of the English. The first public session of the court was held on 21st of February 1431 in the royal chapel of the castle in Rouen where 70 charges were laid before her finally at the end of March. At each and every one of them, Joan refuted them and stayed straight and narrow in front of the members. At the beginning of May 1431, the possibility of torture was put in front of Joan and she just said something like this: do it if you must but I will never waiver in my testimony. So then, for the English the only alternative is the fact that Joan wears a man’s coat. On 24th of May 1431, Joan signs an abjuration and changes into women’s clothes to later on return to men’s clothes which causes the English clergy and Tribunal to consider that she relapsed and then appose the sentence of burning her alive on a pyre which was accomplished on the 30th of May 1431 In Rouen. It is noted that King Charles V11 did not attemps to rescue or help her in any way.

The death of Joan of Arc did not stop the French resistance at all. Rather the mission of Joan, her passion for the liberty of the French people started a mouvement that eventually ended the 100 year war.