JOAN OF ARC (Darc), Saint. - Heroine of the purest national vindications of France at one of the most tragic moments of its history.
In 1415 Henry V of England invaded France, whose throne he disputed with Charles VI; the Franco-English war became intertwined with the civil war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. The assassination of the Duke of Burgundy at Montereau (1419) drove Burgundy into alliance with England: Henry V married a daughter of Charles VI, whose successor on the throne of France he would claim to be, eliminating the dauphin Charles, guilty of the assassination of Montereau and suspected of being illegitimate. In 1422 Henry V succeeded Charles VI in Paris, and now the English forces prepared to occupy all of France, driving out the dauphin Charles, who was at Bourges with few forces and was mockingly called the king of Bourges. In 1428 the English besieged Orléans; the fall of the city could decide the conflict. At this desperate moment, to the rescue of France, which was about to disappear as an independent power, came J. of A.
She was a peasant girl of Domrémy (French Barrois), born of Jacques d'Arc (or Darc) and Isabelle Romée, on Jan. 6, 1412, perhaps; she had brothers and sisters. She had no education whatever (she would sign with a sign of the cross), but she had a profound religious feeling. In 1425, at the age of 13, in her father's garden, she heard the first supernatural "voice"; then on various occasions she had luminous visions: St. Michael, St. Margaret, St. Catherine. The "voices" encouraged her to go to the rescue of France. Only in 1428, under the impression of terrible events, did she decide to obey the "voices." An uncle accompanied her to the royal captain of Vaucouleurs, but she met with derision there: she returned a second time, and now Robert de Baudricourt, impressed by the energetic tone of the seventeen-year-old shepherdess, communicated the matter to Charles VII and received orders to send the girl to him. J. left Vaucouleurs on Feb. 23, 1429, dressed as a man, with a small escort; she reached Chinon on March 6; introduced by the King, she recognized him among the courtiers and calmed his doubts about his birth: he was truly the son of Charles VI.
After the religious examination by a commission of prelates, some matrons verified her virginity, which she had already offered to God at Domrémy. No one doubted J.'s sincerity any longer when she announced that she had a divine mission to fulfill. Certainly there were many who hesitated about what a girl could do, but very many became her zealous collaborators. The moment was grave: only an intervention beyond the natural could save the country. The Maid ordered the expedition to Orléans after having written to the English generals to abandon the enterprise. Dressed as a warrior, with a white standard on which she had had Christ enthroned among angels painted, on Apr. 27 she left Blois with a troop of armed men escorting a column of carts with provisions: on the 28th the convoy entered Orléans, on the 29th the Maid appeared there, welcomed as a liberator. In the following days there was hard fighting to drive the enemy back; J. was wounded in the chest, but on May 8 the English definitively abandoned the siege. Now the Maid, with the Duke of Alençon, made an expedition to eliminate the English from the banks of the Loire; then she insisted on accompanying the king to Reims for the coronation; only in this way would the "gentle dauphin Charles," as she called him, truly become the king of France.
The Maid left on June 27 with the vanguard for Reims. Charles VII followed her two days later; only at Troyes was resistance encountered, and J. directed the attack and forced the population to yield. On July 17 the consecration and coronation of the King took place in Reims; the Maid was at his side during the ceremony with her standard. "Gentil roi, maintenant est fait le plaisir de Dieu" she said to the King after the coronation.
J. of Arc had now accomplished the mission that the "voices" had entrusted to her and thought of returning to Domrémy: we do not know why she stayed instead. Was it an order of the "voices" or the insistence of her companions in arms? She was already known everywhere: the most varied legends were already circulating about "Jeanne la Pucelle envoyée de Dieu." She insisted that Paris be attacked; on Aug. 26 she occupied St-Denis, but she came up against the indolence and distrust of the King and his counselors. In the attack of Sept. 8 at the Porte St-Honoré she was wounded again, but she remained all day encouraging the combatants. Then the enterprise was postponed to the following year. In May 1430 she was at Compiègne: faced with an attack by the enemy she left the city to fight, and on her return she was captured by the Burgundians (May 23). She was taken to Beaulieu, to Beaurevoir, to Arras, then the English bought her for 10,000 livres tournois and took her to Rouen; most hated, as a witch destined for the stake, she was chained by the neck, hands and feet.
In Jan. 1431 the trial was begun under the direction of the Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, who acted on behalf of English interests; he had himself flanked by the representative of the Inquisition. The aim was to extract from J. the confession that the story of the "voices" was nothing but her own deception and that all her actions were due only to sorcery. In this way the honor of English arms and interests would have been forthwith rehabilitated. From Feb. 21 to March 17 J., chained, was subjected to exasperating interrogations; the acts of the trial show how much simplicity, how much honesty there was in the Maid, how much malice and determination to condemn her in her inquisitors. It concluded by accusing her of lies, superstition, blasphemies, impiety, idolatry. Not even the threat of torture induced J. to deny what she sincerely believed. On May 24 at the cemetery of St-Ouen, with the most terrible threats, the Maid was induced to abjure what were said to be her errors; she declared that she wished to obey the Church. But having realized that the freedom promised her was a trap to make her admit that she had sinned, she immediately returned to declaring her faith in the "voices." As a result, as a "relapsed" heretic, she was handed over to the secular arm, and on May 30, 1431, she went to the stake in the Place du Vieux-Marché. Her ashes were thrown into the Seine.
Charles VII remained inert in the face of the Maid's capture and trial. Only in 1455, at the official request of J.'s mother, and at the impulse of the government, did Pope Callixtus III authorize a papal commission to proceed with the revision of the trial and its annulment for grave defects of form and substance. On June 6, 1456, the sentence of rehabilitation appeared.
Declared blessed by Pius X on Apr. 18, 1909; Benedict XV proclaimed J. a saint on May 9, 1920. Feast on May 30. In France a law of July 10, 1920, proclaimed the anniversary of the Maid's martyrdom a national holiday.
Bibliography14 works
Francesco Cognasso
ICONOGRAPHY
From the documents of the trial of G. d'A. it is known that she never had herself portrayed: there exists, therefore, no image that faithfully reproduces her facial features. Among the oldest depictions, probably contemporary, is a tapestry of German origin, preserved in the Museum of Orléans, in which one sees the arrival of G. d'A. at the castle of Chinon, welcomed by Charles VII. From the 15th century onward, however, sculptors, painters and engravers have exalted the divine mission of G.; indeed in a painting of the period she appears beside the Virgin and St. Michael, with shield, standard and halo. The standard of G. is reproduced, together with the flag and the pennant, in a manuscript of 1484 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. frg. no. 5054); the motto was « Jesus Maria »; golden lilies on a white field and God blessing. In the 16th and 17th centuries G. d'A. appears often either as an ancient heroine, or as a lady with a plumed hat, sword and cuirass.
Thus in a panel of 1581 in the Museum of Orléans and in a roundel by the Lorrainer Deruet of the 17th century, which is found in Nancy. Among the numerous works of the 19th century are remembered the statues of Chapu (Luxembourg Museum) and of Rude (Louvre), in which G. d'A. as a girl listens to the celestial voices; the painting by Ingres in the Louvre and the bronze bas-reliefs by M. Vital - Dubray for the statue of G. d'A. in Orléans.
Bibliography
Serena Madonna Setti