Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured (53 page)

The seventh jury Joan faced, again in absentia, accused her of crimes she might have predicted, so familiar had they become. The first of three devil’s advocates said she’d
“boasted of her virginity … but she was not always careful of modesty or free of imprudence … nor did she keep herself from the anger that is customary of military persons.” She refused to share her visions and revelations with the Church, he said, and
“did not face death like a martyr, but suffered it with great anguish and fear.”

“What was heroic about her faith?” the second demanded. She’d jumped off the tower at Beaurevoir. She’d wept when she was wounded “and carried on in a way unbefitting” to a heroine. She admitted freely that she was afraid of going to prison, unlike
“the saints of history, who positively desired to suffer out of love for God.”

Witnesses were lacking, said the third. He took exception to her defenders’ producing sometimes-contradictory testimony from documents five centuries old, and he cited the opinion of an unidentified distinguished father who found it
“surprising to read that only Gabriel was sent to the Most Holy Virgin to announce the incarnation of the divine Redeemer, whereas two archangels, Gabriel and Michael, appeared to Joan, and in such a way that she really saw, heard, and even touched and adored them. Who knows whether she did not suffer some hallucination and cultivated it as consonant with her own genius.”

The charges didn’t stick. Joan of Arc was beatified on April 18, 1909, and canonized on May 16, 1920.

Who is it, Scripture asks,
“who makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire?”

“The voice was gentle,” Joan told the examiner. “The voice was soft and low.”

To view a full-size version of this image, click
HERE
.

To view a full-size version of this image, click
HERE
.

Chronology

1412

January: Joan of Arc is born.

1424

Summer: Joan first receives “a voice from God to help and guide her.”

1425

Burgundians raid Domrémy, whose inhabitants, including Joan’s family, flee to Neufchâteau.

1428

May 13: Joan travels with Durand Laxart to Vaucouleurs, on her first attempt to enlist support for her mission from Robert de Baudricourt.

July: Burgundian forces again raid Domrémy. Joan’s family takes refuge in Neufchâteau, where they remain for two weeks, at an inn owned by La Rousse.

October 12: The English lay siege to Orléans.

Joan is summoned to Toul, where the bishop of the local diocese dismisses a suit brought against her by a local youth.

1429

January: Joan accompanies Durand Laxart to his home in Burey, near Vaucouleurs, on the pretext of helping his wife during childbirth. Again she meets with Baudricourt.

February: Joan assumes male dress; she meets with Duke Charles of Lorraine.

February 12: Baudricourt has Vaucouleurs’s parish priest “exorcise” Joan before granting her an escort to Chinon.

February 22: Joan leaves Vaucouleurs for Chinon, three hundred miles west through enemy-occupied territory. She is accompanied by Jean de Metz, Bertrand de Poulengy, Richard the Archer, and their servants.

March 2–3: At Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, Joan awaits permission to approach the dauphin, in Chinon, twenty-five miles to the west.

March 4: Joan arrives in Chinon with her escort.

March 6: Joan meets, and convinces, the dauphin Charles, who has her housed in the Tour de Coudray.

March 7: The Duke of Alençon, upon seeing Joan’s riding skills, gives her a warhorse of her own.

March 10: Joan is interrogated by what few local theologians can be gathered promptly in Chinon. They advise the dauphin to have Joan more thoroughly tried at Poitiers.

March 11–22: A tribunal of eighteen renowned theologians examines Joan in Poitiers and find “no harm in her.”

March 27: Joan is officially presented to the wider court at Chinon.

April 6: Accompanied by her new squire, Jean d’Aulon, and her two pages, Louis de Coutes and the army’s new bursar, Jean de Metz, Joan arrives in Tours to be outfitted for battle; a standard is made to the specification of her angels; she is introduced to Jean Pasquerel, who becomes her confessor.

ca. April 10: At Joan’s request the sword of Charles Martel is retrieved from the shrine at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois.

April 21: Joan departs from Tour to Blois, where she joins the convoy of provisions for Orléans and meets Jean Dunois, Bastard of Orléans.

April 24: Joan sends her “Letter to the English” from Blois.

April 29: The citizens of Orléans welcome the Maid into their city.

May 4: Joan leads her army to victory at the battle for the bastille of Saint-Loup.

May 6: Joan’s army takes the bastille of the Augustins.

May 7: Joan is wounded by a crossbolt, returns to battle, and takes the Tourelles.

May 8: The siege of Orléans is lifted.

May 13: Joan goes to Loches (or possibly Tours) to petition Charles for more forces and provisions to attack Jargeau.

May 22: In Selles-en-Berry (now Selles-sur-Cher), Joan meets Guy and André de Laval.

ca. May 27–29: Joan visits the Duke of Alençon at his home in Saint-Laurent, where she meets his mother, Mary of Brittany, and his wife, Jeanne.

May 29–June 6: In Selles-en-Berry, Joan mobilizes for Jargeau.

June 11–12: Joan’s army takes Jargeau in heavy fighting.

June 15: The French recapture the ridge at Meung-sur-Loire.

June 16–17: The French take Beaugency.

June 18: At Patay, a stag surprises and scatters the English army; France prevails.

June 19: Joan and her captains return to Orléans, where they await the dauphin’s permission to approach the court at Gien.

June 25: Joan and her forces arrive at Gien, from which Joan dispatches a circular announcing the triumph of her Loire campaign.

June 27: Joan, her army, the dauphin, and the French court set out for Reims.

June 29–July 16: The Loire towns of Cravant, Bonny, Lavau, Saint-Fargeau, Coulanges-la-Vineuse, Auxerre, Saint-Florentin, Brinon, and Saint-Phal welcome Charles as the King of France.

July 17: In Reims, Charles is anointed the King of France.

July 21–23: Charles touches for scrofula at Corbeny.

July 29: Joan mobilizes her troops at Château-Thierry.

July 31: Charles declares the citizens of Domrémy and Greux exempt from taxation.

August 7: The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Burgundy declare Charles’s anointing invalid.

August 14: Joan and her troops skirmish with the English forces at Montépilloy.

August 28: Charles signs a four-month truce, of which Joan is unaware, with the Duke of Burgundy.

September 8: Joan’s thigh is pierced by a crossbow in a failed attack.

September 9: In gratitude for having not lost her life or freedom, Joan makes the offering of a suit of armor on the altar at Saint-Denis.

October: Joan recuperates from the wound in her thigh in Bourges, where she challenges Catherine de La Rochelle to produce her “White Lady.”

November 4–8: Joan besieges Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier.

November 24–December 24: Joan attempts and fails to besiege La Charité.

December 25: Joan retreats to Jargeau, where she receives letters from Charles conferring nobility on her and her family.

1430

January 19: Joan attends a banquet in her honor at Orléans.

February–March: Joan is detained at Sully-sur-Loire.

March 29: Joan takes Lagny.

April: According to witnesses, Joan raises an infant from the dead.

May 23: Joan is captured at Compiègne by a liege of Jean of Luxembourg-Ligny with her brother Pierre and squire, Jean d’Aulon.

May 24–July 10: Joan is held captive at Beaulieu-les-Fontaines, from which she nearly succeeds in freeing herself and her fellow prisoners.

July 11–early November: Joan is held captive at Beaurevoir.

October: In an attempt to escape, Joan leaps from the top of the tower at Beaurevoir.

November 9–11: Joan is held in Arras.

November 21–December 20: Joan is held in Le Crotoy.

December 23: Joan arrives in Rouen.

1431

January 9: The first day of the trial of condemnation. Preliminary investigations into Joan’s character begin in Domrémy and Vaucouleurs.

January 13: The assessors consider what evidence they have against Joan thus far.

February 13: Bishop Cauchon appoints his officers of the court.

February 21: Joan is presented to her judges at the first public session of the trial of condemnation.

February 21–March 1: The judges examine Joan in public.

March 4–9: Bishop Cauchon holds a closed meeting; it is decided that Joan’s public appearances have been so disruptive as to necessitate a private venue.

March 10: The trial sessions are moved to Joan’s cell, into which only the bishop’s cadre can fit.

April 15: Joan falls seriously ill after eating fish sent to her by Cauchon.

April 18: Cauchon delivers a “charitable exhortation” in her cell.

May 1: Martin Ladvenu, Jean de la Fontaine, and Isambart de la Pierre secretly advise Joan to make an appeal to the pope.

May 2: Joan is publicly admonished for failing to submit to the Church Militant, persisting in wearing male clothing, and practicing witchcraft.

May 9: Disappointed by having failed to crack Joan’s composure, Cauchon has her threatened with torture, to no effect.

May 13: The Earl of Warwick escorts a handful of dinner party guests, including Cauchon, to Joan’s cell, where her old captor Jean of Luxembourg-Ligny taunts her.

May 14–19: Joan’s inquisitors draw up twelve articles of condemnation against her.

May 23: The judges assemble to hear the canon of Rouen, Pierre Maurice, formally charge Joan for heresy and witchcraft.

May 24: Joan appears before a crowd gathered in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, where she is publicly accused and where she allegedly abjures. Taken back to prison, she puts on the dress of a woman.

May 28: Joan resumes dressing as a man and is subsequently accused of being a relapsed heretic.

May 29: The judges deliberate.