Joan of Arc

Nine Days to Break a Siege

Joan was born around 1412 in Domrémy, a village on the wrong side of the Hundred Years' War France had been losing to England for ninety years. From about thirteen she heard voices she identified as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. At sixteen she talked a garrison commander into an escort, crossed English-held territory in men's clothes, and got an audience with Charles, son of the reigning king and the rightful heir, whom a treaty with France's enemies had disinherited. Within months she was at Orléans, which had been besieged for seven months; it was relieved in nine days. In July 1429 she stood beside him while he was crowned Charles VII at Reims, which was the entire point of the exercise — a crowned king was a legitimate king. She was captured at Compiègne in May 1430 by Burgundian troops — French allies of the English — and sold to the English. Charles, crowned, did nothing.

Seventy Charges, One That Held

She was tried at Rouen on seventy charges and the one that held was wearing men's clothes. Threatened with fire she signed a recantation denying the voices and promising not to dress as a man, and days later put the clothes back on — tied tight against assault, accounts suggest — breaking that promise and making her a relapsed heretic. She was burned on 30 May 1431, aged nineteen. The English burned the body twice more so no relics could be kept, and threw what was left in the Seine. A retrial annulled the verdict in 1456. She was made a saint in 1920.