She was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly true to an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal dignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation.1
—Mark Twain
She died enveloped in smoke and flame and remains forever shrouded in a fog of otherworldly mystique. Joan of Arc has captivated the artistic imagination as the subject of operas, novels, paintings, plays, films, and more. Mark Twain dubbed her “by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced.”2 Each generation transposes her identity to conform to their own hearts, yet still, it is near impossible for our modern sensibilities to comprehend her unwavering devotion to mission. Her short life was certainly one well-lived. Unflinching, steady, ignited, resolved, driven.
Courageous.
Around the year 1412, Jeanne d’Arc was born in Domrémy, a village near Lorraine in northeastern France. Her father was a farmer, and her mother taught her daughter how to sew, spin wool, and care for their animals while also instilling within her a fervent Catholic faith.
In 1420, France was embroiled in what would later become known as the Hundred Years’ War. England’s Henry V had achieved significant military victories, putting them in a strong position when negotiating the Treaty of Troyes, which stipulated that King Henry V and his heirs would inherit the French throne upon the death of the French King Charles VI, who suffered from mental instability. The treaty would effectively unite England and France under one ruler, but with it, the French dauphin Charles of Valois was disinherited by his father Charles VI. He fled and set up his own court in central France.
Many of the people of Domrémy were forced to flee their homes upon the succession of the king’s son, Henry VI. It was clear that peace would only be achieved once the English and their Burgundian allies were removed from the territory.
One day while working in the garden, the thirteen-year-old Joan was startled by a blinding light that revealed the archangel Michael, along with martyred saints Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria. They told Joan that they were sent by God to inform her of her divine mission to lead an army to drive the English out of France and crown Charles the king at Reims Cathedral. Terror turned to resolution as the young Joan accepted this unparalleled mission to save her country. She embraced their instruction with the same ready confirmation of the Theotokos: “Let it be done to me” (see Luke 1:38). She would continue to hear the saintly voices throughout her life.
Let us pray for the courage that necessarily extends beyond our understanding so as to achieve the true freedom only attainable through trust in God and a selfless drive to accomplish our earthly missions.
She took a vow of chastity before journeying to Vaucouleurs to seek an escort to Chinon where Charles was stationed. She explained, “Fear not: what I do, I do by commandment. My brothers in Paradise tell me what I must do.”3 They were moved by the fierceness of her devotion to her mission from God and came to believe she was the virgin from the borders of Lorraine prophesied to save France. She was finally granted passage accompanied by two knights on the dangerous path through enemy territory to Chinon. For protection, she cut her hair and dressed like a man with clothes given by the townspeople.
Charles had heard about Joan and her mission from God. To test her when she arrived, he and one of his courtiers switched positions, but Joan was able to identify the real dauphin in the crowd immediately. Intrigued, Charles granted Joan a private audience, and she convinced him to give her an army to lead to Orléans, which was under siege by the English. She promised him that with her assistance, he would be crowned at Reims.
First, Joan was examined at length as well as secretly surveilled to confirm that she was of true moral character, purity, and faith. She was unshakeable and earnest in the interrogations, even charming and impressing the scrutinizers with her wit. She was confirmed in their verdict.
Unsurprisingly, the French commanders were initially disgruntled at being led by a peasant teenage girl, but her mystifying charisma and strength prevailed, and she won their confidence. They saw in Joan the embodiment of the prophecies in which they all placed their hope.
Before the battle, Joan sent a dauntless and foreboding letter to the English and signed it “La Pucelle” (the Maid). At the age of sixteen and with no prior military experience—nor much life experience at all—Joan dressed in white armor, rode upon a white horse, carried a white banner, and led the army into triumphant battle at the Siege of Orléans after four bloody days. With her impassioned cries of “Au nom de Dieu” (In the name of God), she led several more assaults, forcing the English and their Burgundian allies to retreat and regaining the south bank of the Loire River for the French.
Hope was renewed as the French regained their way into the north. Joan’s reputation spread with zeal as the blessed warrior maiden proceeded to lead the French into victory after victory. Charles’ confidence in Joan also grew. After a decisive victory at the Battle of Patay in July 1429, Charles was crowned king at Reims Cathedral with Joan at his side.
Joan wanted to proceed with an attempt to regain the city of Paris. Charles grew increasingly worried as some at his court warned of her becoming too influential. The attack was unsuccessful, allowing the Anglo-Burgundians to strengthen their hold on Paris.
Months later in 1430, while Joan was defending Compiègne against a Burgundian assault, she fell from her horse and was captured. She was imprisoned in a tower at Beaurevoir Castle for months. King Charles made no attempt to rescue her or pay a ransom. She was under constant threat of molestation by her guards, so she continued to dress in men’s clothes. Finally, the Burgundians sold Joan to the English, and she was put on trial in Rouen, an English military headquarters and administrative capital in France, with charges of heresy, witchcraft, idolatry, and cross-dressing.
An edict in the name of England’s King Henry was issued to his subjects:
For some time, a woman who calls herself Joan the Maid has put off the habit and dress of the female sex, which is contrary to divine law, abominable to God, condemned and prohibited by every law; she has dressed and armed herself in the habit and role of a man, has committed and carried out cruel murders and it is said, has led the simple people to believe, through seduction and deceit, that she was sent from God, and that she had knowledge of His divine secrets, together with several other very dangerous dogmas, most prejudicial and scandalous to our holy catholic faith.4
She was forced to endure grueling questioning by over forty pro-English clerical judges. Leading the proceedings was the French Catholic bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, who “had been appointed by means of certain procedural artifices to judge the case: his whole past, a consistent story of attachment to the English cause.”5 Joan was examined and harassed for hours about her faith, her clothing, and her claims of hearing voices from God, but she remained stouthearted. She stunned the judges with her unshrinking responses of boldness and biting wit. At one instance, she retorted, “You say that you are my judge. Take care what you do, for in truth I am sent by God, and you put yourself in great danger.”6
King Charles did not want to put his new reign in jeopardy. His recent coronation was secured because of this alleged heretic and witch. Additionally, paying a high ransom could sabotage the war efforts. He also believed that “it could not be permitted to cast a shadow over the mandate from heaven that had been confirmed so powerfully by the king’s consecration at Reims. . . . There was every reason to leave the Maid to whatever fate God had designed for her.”7 He chose to stand “supine and indifferent,”8 forsaking the warrior maiden to whom he owed his victory and crown.
Joan’s judges continued trying to catch her in falsehoods or heresies, scrutinizing her actions according to the articles of the faith. She remained defiant and impenetrable. When warned that if she did not submit, the Church would abandon her and leave her soul to be consumed by hell, “All the certainty of her mission was distilled into each word of her response. ‘You will not do what you are saying against me . . . without evil seizing upon you, body and soul.’”9
Finally, after being captive for a year and withstanding the nearly five-month trial, Joan faced its culmination and was confronted with the twelve articles of accusation. After hastily signing a submission, she quickly recanted, “I did not say or mean to revoke my apparitions. . . . All I have done I did for fear of the fire and I revoked nothing but it (the revocation) was against the truth.”10 Upon confirming everything she said in the trial, she was found guilty, and the secular authorities took control of her execution. In Rouen, on the morning of May 30, 1431, nineteen-year-old Joan was burned alive at the stake until her body was reduced to ashes and thrown in the Seine River.
The usher who accompanied and supported Joan to the scaffold remembers,
With great devoutness she asked to have the cross. Hearing that, an Englishman who was present made a little cross of wood from the end of a stick, which he gave her and devoutly she received and kissed it. . . . And she put this cross into her bosom between her flesh and her clothes, and furthermore asked humbly that I enable her to have the cross from the church so that she could have it continually before her eyes until death.11
An onlooker recalled, “In the fire she cried more than six times ‘Jesus,’ and above all with her last breath she cried in a loud voice ‘Jesus!’ so that all present could hear her.”12
Joan embraced the flames of her fate. She was continuously offered freedom from the burden of her mission and an escape from the terrors that accompanied it. Instead, she simply sought refuge in Jesus from those tormenting and unrelenting forces. She gave herself to him entirely—her trust, her obedience, her passion, her allegiance, and, in the end, her body. In turn, he empowered her with a boundless courage to accomplish her mission and be a bold and unwavering witness of the faith.
George Bernard Shaw proclaimed that Joan exemplified the “unaveraged individual representing life possibly at its highest actual human evolution.”13 A life truly well-lived is not a life we live for ourselves; a well-lived life is one for Jesus and his mission for us. Our challenge is to harness the courage we need to accomplish it, and this requires surrendering to Jesus. The only way to be strengthened by the courage we require is through surrendering our lives. Gertrud von Le Fort confirms, “Surrender to God is the only absolute power that the creature possesses.”14
Let us pray for Jeanne d’Arc’s courage of surrender. May our hearts, too, be filled with humility, our ears receptive to the voices from God and the saints, our eyes fixed and steady in any battle and interrogation. Let us pray for the courage that necessarily extends beyond our understanding so as to achieve the true freedom only attainable through trust in God and a selfless drive to accomplish our earthly missions.
Sainte Jeanne d’Arc, priez pour nous!
1 Mark Twain, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (North Charleston, SC: Jazzybee Verlag, 2017), 1.
2 Twain, Personal Recollections, 1.
3 Willard Trask, Joan of Arc in Her Own Words (New York: Turtle Point Press, 1996), 18.
4 Helen Castor, A History of Joan of Arc (New York: HarperCollins, 2016), 164.
5 Régine Pernoud, Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses, trans. Edward Hyams (Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1994), 165.
6 Castor, History, 171.
7 Castor, 160–161.
8 Twain, Personal Recollections, 2.
9 Castor, History, 185.
10 Pernoud, Joan of Arc, 222.
11 Pernoud, 231.
12 Pernoud, 231.
13 Anna Ballan, “Joan of Arc, Warrior-Muse,” Commonweal, December 28, 2023.
14 Gertrud von Le Fort, The Eternal Woman (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2010), 18.
This piece first appeared in Issue XXII: “Courage” of the Word on Fire Institute’s award-winning Evangelization & Culture journal.