Imagine with me, for a moment, a teenage girl insisting that she can change the world. And no, in case you were wondering, my speech is not on Greta Thunberg. Now imagine that the time for Presidential elections has rolled around and the United States is at war with Iran. This same girl barges into the White House, demands an audience with President Trump, and insists that God sent her to help the United States win the war and secure Trump’s reelection. All she needs is an army under her command.
You would probably agree with me that this adolescent is a little naive and does not know what she is talking about. Yet, when a situation like this happened in 1429, French leaders took this girl seriously.
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It all began when a baby girl was born in the middle of the Hundred Years’ War between France and England. At that point in time, both France and England were in turmoil as to who would take the empty French throne. France supported the French crown prince, Dauphin Charles VII, while the English and their allies, the Burgundians, supported the infant English prince Henry VI.
That baby girl’s name was Jeanne d’Arc, or, as you may know her, Joan of Arc. Today I will relate to you the story of Joan’s childhood, mission, and death, and I want you to see how she changed the fate of France in a miraculous way.
Joan was born in 1412, to a peasant couple who lived in the small village of Domrémy. Bestselling author Eric Metaxas, in his 2015 book, 7 Great Women and the Secret of Their Greatness, tells us that she spent the customary childhood of a peasant girl at that time…she helped her father in the fields and on the farm, worked in the family garden, helped her mother around the house, and became a master of sewing and spinning. Since girls in the 15th century usually received no education, she never learned to read and write. Yet according to Eric Metaxas, she had a “passionate interest in the church and in God.” 1 (Eric Metaxas, 7 Women and the Secret to Their Greatness)
Metaxas goes on to say, that at age twelve, Joan began to hear voices in her head and have visions. She believed that heavenly beings were visiting her while she worked in her father’s garden. She looked forward to those conversations, and called them her “voices.” But over time, these meetings became more mysterious. The beings began telling her over and over again that she was to save France, defeat the English, and take the crown prince Dauphin Charles VII, to the city of Reims to be crowned king.
Joan was a little frightened, and felt very, very under-qualified. She was barely old enough to help her father in the fields. How could a young peasant girl lead an entire army against the English? But, since she truly believed these were heavenly messengers straight from the throne of God, she took the mission seriously.
When Joan was nearing her sixteenth birthday, her “voices” told her that the time had come for her mission. They told her to go to the nearby town Vacouleurs and ask the Governor Robert de Baudricourt to provide an armed escort to the castle of Chinon, where the Dauphin was residing. Afraid to tell her parents the truth, Joan said she wished to visit her cousin, Jeanne, who lived near Vaucouleurs. They gave their consent.
Metaxas says that although Joan did visit Jeanne, she privately asked Jeanne’s husband, Durand, to take her to Governor Baudricourt. The governor mercifully listened to her confusing story of how God had sent messengers to me, telling me to lead the French army and drive the English from France and then crown the Dauphin as the king of France. When Joan had finished her story, Baudricourt understandably told Durand to take Joan home and discipline her.
Frustrated, Joan returned home, but upon her arrival, Burgundian soldiers had burned the entire village of Domrémy to the ground. She and her fellow villagers fled to a nearby town. A few months later, the worst news possible reached the refugees’ ears. The English had completely surrounded Orléans and were laying siege to the greatest of the French cities.
The situation in France was becoming rocky, and Joan’s possibility for success in her mission was slipping away. Now seventeen, she returned to Vaucoulers in an attempt to meet again with Governor Baudricourt.
In Mark Twain’s retelling of Joan’s conversation with the governor in his revised 2007 book Joan of Arc2, Joan tells Baudricourt that her voices had related to her that the Dauphin’s army had lost another battle near Orléans that very day. The governor, knowing that there was no way a peasant girl could have received such news so quickly, told her that if she was correct, he would send her to Charles VII. Word arrived several days later. The French had lost the battle. The astonished governor immediately sent the teenager on the 350-mile journey to Chinon, where she would meet with the Dauphin. (Mark Twain, Joan of Arc)
In order to see if the foresight stories were true, Charles VII disguised himself as a regular nobleman, knowing that a farm girl would have never known what the Dauphin looked like. When Joan arrived at Chinon, she was ordered to find which noble in the crowded castle was the Dauphin. In Pernoud and Clin’s 1999 book Joan of Arc: Her Story, they write that the girl made a beeline towards Charles VII and knelt, saying, “God give you life, gentle king.” 3 (Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, Joan of Arc: Her Story).
After several more tests, the Dauphin and his court were convinced. Joan was treated like a true French commander. She was given an entire army of well-trained soldiers, a specially designed suit of female armor, and a high-bred horse by the Dauphin himself. The teenager was now ready to lead her men to Orléans for the upcoming battle.
Aided by another French platoon, Joan forced the English to retreat and she regained Orléans. When the English fled to the nearby city Jargeau, Joan followed and defeated them there. At last, the girl could complete her mission. Accompanied by her men, she and the Dauphin and set out for the city Reims, where the prince was crowned King Charles VII. Peasant and noblemen alike traveled from all over, including Joan’s family. Joan was paraded around as the Maid of Orléans, hero of France.
In the months to follow, more battles were fought and won by Joan and her victorious army. She is most known for her bravery at the Battle of Les Tourelles where she had foretold that she would be wounded underneath her left collarbone. During the battle, Joan was indeed shot with an arrow in the same location, but she yanked it out and continued to fight. All seemed promising for the Maid of Orléans.
But on May 23rd, 1430, in the battle for Compiègne, Joan was captured and held prisoner under the Duke of Burgundy’s control. Metaxas says that for a ransom of sixteen thousand francs, the duke handed Joan over to his ally, the bloodthirsty English, who believed killing the girl would end France’s victory.
King Charles did nothing to save the Maid of Orléans, although she had sacrificed her life to place the crown upon his ignoble head. Joan was betrayed by her own king.
She was taken to Rouen, where she was tried for heresy, blasphemy, and witchcraft. While in the prison, Joan was terribly mistreated by her five male prison guards, and so in order to make it harder to be mistreated, she wore men’s clothes. After an unjustly lopsided trial in which she was allowed to have no witnesses, Pernoud and Clin, as previously cited, write that Joan was finally charged with being “an apostate, a liar, a schismatic, and a heretic.” 4 She was given two choices: sign the document that her judges handed her, or die by burning at the stake. Joan signed the document, but because she couldn’t read, she was unaware that it contained a vow to never wear men’s clothes again. Having come to a “confession” of sorts, the trial was over and the English prepared to send Joan back to her family in Domrémy. But when the girl returned to her cell, she was again severely threatened by her guards, and she resumed wearing men’s clothes for her own protection. When the bishop found out that Joan had broken her vow to not wear men’s clothes, he condemned her to death at the stake. (Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, Joan of Arc: Her Story)
And so at age nineteen, on May 30th, Joan was escorted by two hundred guards to the marketplace, where a stake had been prepared. The English soldiers helped the girl climb the wood piled around the base of the stake and tied her down with chains. When she asked for a cross, a compassionate soldier created a crude one made of sticks and handed it to her. Joan kissed it and cried out forgiveness to her enemies. As the flames engulfed the teenager’s body, she screamed her last word. “Jesus!” 5 (Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, Joan of Arc: Her Story)
When the fire had killed Joan, the soldiers burned the girl’s body two more times until there was nothing left but ashes, which were cast into the Seine.
From peasant girl to victorious commander, Joan never wavered from what she felt was God’s call to save France. Even though you might not be sure that Joan’s visions were actually from Heaven itself, and that her leading an army of men might have been biblically questionable, you must acknowledge that if it wasn’t for her, France would have never been liberated from the English, and the Dauphin Charles VII would have never become King Charles VII. And yet, Joan was condemned to the stake, never to be recognized for her impact on French history until later in 1449, where her trial was nullified as unjust, and 1920 when she was given the name Saint Joan of Arc.
Barbara Beckwith, in her 2007 book Joan of Arc: God’s Warrior, writes, “Joan of Arc is like a shooting star across the landscape of French and English history...Women identify with her; men admire her courage. She challenges us in fundamental ways. Despite the fact that more than 500 years have passed since she lived, her issues of mysticism, calling, identity, trust and betrayal, conflict and focus are our issues still.” 6 (Barbara Beckwith, Joan of Arc: God’s Warrior)
When young Joan strode up to the governor all those years ago, insisting she could change the fate of France, no one expected that she would succeed. Yet she did. As you listened to my short biography of Joan’s childhood, her mission, and her death, I hope you were able to see that Joan changed the fate of France in a miraculous way.
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