Great personalities

Joan of Arc

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” - Joan of Arc
The French patriot and martyr, Joan of Arc, was born the daughter of well-off peasants at Domrémy, a hamlet on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne, January 6, 1412. The English conquered the area in 1421 but their forces withdrew in 1424. Joan received no formal education but was endowed with an argumentative nature and shrewd common sense.

At thirteen

At the age of thirteen she thought she heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret bidding her to rescue the Paris region from English domination. She presented herself before the local commander, Robert de Baudricourt, and persuaded him, after he had had her exorcised, to take her across the English-occupied territory to the dauphin at Chinon, which they reached March 6, 1429. According to legend, Joan was called into a gathering of courtiers, among them the dauphin in disguise and her success in identifying him at once was interpreted as divine confirmation of his previously doubted legitimacy and claims to the throne. She was equally successful in ecclesiastical examination to which she was subjected at Poitiers and was consequently allowed to join the army assembled at Blois for the relief of Orleans. Clad in a suit of white armour and flying her own standard, she entered Orleans with an advance guard on April 29 and by May 8 forced the English to raise the siege and retire in June from the principal stronghold on the Loire.

Aiding the French

To further aid French resistance, Joan took the dauphin with an army of 12,000 through English-held territory to be crowned Charles VII in Rheims cathedral on July 17, 1429. She then found it difficult to persuade him to undertake further military exploits, especially the relief of Paris. At last she set out on her own to relieve CompiŠgne from the Burgundians, was captured in a skirmish and sold to the English by John of Luxembourg for 10,000 crowns. She was put on trial (February 21-May 17, 1431) on charges of heresy and sorcery by an ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition, presided over by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais.

Death

Most of what we know about Joan’s brief life is those preserved in the records of her trial. She was found guilty, taken out to the churchyard of St. Ouen on May 24 to be burnt, but at the last moment broke down and made a wild recantation. This she later abjured and suffered her martyrdom at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen on May 30, faithful to her “voices”. It is said that over 10,000 people came to see her execution by burning. Her ashes were scattered in the Seine. One legend tells how her heart remained unaffected by the fire.
26 years later the English were finally driven from Rouen and in a later inquest she was declared to be officially innocent and was officially designated to be a martyr. She was canonised a saint in 1920 and remains the patron saint of France.
Joan of Arc achieved a remarkable achievement in her short life of 19 years. In particular she embodied religious devotion with great bravery and humility, her life helped change the course of French history. -The History Guide-