Joan of Arc: The Maid of Orléans
In the spring of 1429, a teenage peasant girl in armor rode at the head of a French army and lifted the siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War. Within two years she would be captured, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake. Within five centuries she would be canonized as a saint. The story of Jeanne d'Arc remains one of the most extraordinary and contested episodes in all of European history.
France in Crisis
To understand Joan's emergence, one must understand the desperation of France in the 1420s. The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) between England and France had been raging for nearly a century. The catastrophic French defeat at Agincourt in 1415, where Henry V of England destroyed the flower of French chivalry, had left France prostrate.
The 1420 Treaty of Troyes disinherited the French Dauphin (the future Charles VII) and declared that the English king would inherit the French crown. When Henry V and the French king Charles VI both died in 1422, the infant Henry VI of England was proclaimed king of both realms. The Dauphin, mocked as the "King of Bourges," controlled only a rump state south of the Loire.
"The kingdom of France was in such a pitiful state that there was no one who did not despair." — Jean Chartier, chronicler
By 1428, English and Burgundian forces had besieged Orléans, the last major stronghold blocking an advance into southern France. If Orléans fell, France as an independent kingdom might cease to exist.
The Voices
Into this crisis stepped an illiterate seventeen-year-old girl from the village of Domrémy in the borderlands of Lorraine. Joan later testified that from the age of thirteen, she had heard voices — which she identified as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret — commanding her to drive the English from France and bring the Dauphin to be crowned at Reims.
Joan's claim was audacious to the point of absurdity. A peasant girl claiming divine instruction to lead armies was, in medieval terms, either a saint or a heretic — and the distinction often depended on whether she succeeded.
After persistent efforts, Joan convinced the local garrison commander Robert de Baudricourt to provide her an escort to the Dauphin's court at Chinon. According to legend, she identified Charles despite his attempt to hide among his courtiers. After extensive theological examination at Poitiers — where a panel of clerics determined that nothing in her claims contradicted Catholic doctrine — Charles authorized her to accompany the relief force to Orléans.
The Siege of Orléans
Joan arrived at Orléans on April 29, 1429, and her impact was immediate and electrifying. The French garrison, demoralized after months of siege, found itself infused with a near-fanatical confidence. Joan did not command the army in a formal sense — experienced captains like Jean de Dunois (the "Bastard of Orléans") directed military operations — but her presence transformed morale.
Over the next nine days, the French launched a series of aggressive assaults on the English fortifications surrounding the city. Joan was present at the fighting, carrying her banner (which she later said she valued forty times more than her sword). On May 7, during the assault on the fortress of Les Tourelles, she was struck by a crossbow bolt between her neck and shoulder. She pulled the bolt out herself, had the wound dressed, and returned to the fight. The fortress fell that evening.
By May 8, 1429, the English had abandoned the siege. The deliverance of Orléans was hailed across France as a miracle. Joan became known as La Pucelle — the Maid.
The Coronation at Reims
Emboldened by the victory at Orléans, Joan urged Charles to march to Reims — the traditional coronation site of French kings — through English-held territory. It was a strategically risky but symbolically brilliant move. The coronation would legitimize Charles's claim and undermine the English position that the Treaty of Troyes had made their king the rightful ruler of France.
The march to Reims became a triumphal procession. Town after town opened its gates to the Dauphin. On July 17, 1429, Charles VII was crowned and anointed at Reims Cathedral, with Joan standing beside him holding her banner. She later said this was the moment her mission was fulfilled.
Capture and Trial
After the coronation, Joan's fortunes reversed. An attempted assault on Paris in September 1429 failed, and Joan was wounded again. Military momentum shifted as political intrigues undermined her position. On May 23, 1430, during a skirmish near Compiègne, Joan was captured by Burgundian forces, who sold her to the English for 10,000 livres.
Charles VII, whose crown Joan had secured, made no serious effort to rescue or ransom her — a betrayal that has haunted his reputation ever since.
The English arranged a trial for heresy before a church court at Rouen, presided over by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, a Burgundian partisan. The trial, which lasted from January to May 1431, is one of the most extensively documented judicial proceedings of the Middle Ages. The transcripts reveal a nineteen-year-old girl of remarkable intelligence and composure facing a panel of hostile theologians.
When asked whether she knew she was in God's grace, Joan delivered one of history's most famous responses: "If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me." This answer, which neatly avoided the theological trap (claiming certainty of grace was heretical, while denying it would be self-condemning), astonished the court.
The Burning
Joan was convicted of heresy, primarily on the grounds that her male clothing and her insistence on the authority of her voices constituted defiance of Church authority. On May 30, 1431, at the age of nineteen, she was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen. Witnesses reported that she called out the name of Jesus repeatedly as the flames consumed her.
The English executioner, Geoffroy Thérage, reportedly said afterward that he feared he was damned for burning a saint. Her ashes were thrown into the Seine.
Rehabilitation and Canonization
In 1456, a posthumous retrial ordered by Pope Callixtus III — and politically motivated by Charles VII's desire to legitimize his crown — overturned Joan's conviction and declared her innocent. The original trial was found to be riddled with procedural violations and conducted in bad faith.
Joan's legend grew over the centuries. She became a symbol of French national identity, invoked by monarchists and republicans alike. Napoleon promoted her cult. During World War I and II, both the Vichy regime and the Free French claimed her as their own.
In 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan of Arc as a saint of the Catholic Church. Her feast day is May 30 — the anniversary of her death.
Legacy
Joan of Arc's story transcends the medieval world. She has been the subject of works by Shakespeare, Voltaire, Schiller, Twain, Shaw, and Anouilh. She has been interpreted as a feminist icon, a nationalist symbol, a religious mystic, and a military genius.
What remains undeniable is that an illiterate peasant girl, acting on convictions that defied every social norm of her age, altered the course of European history. The Hundred Years' War continued for two decades after her death, but the coronation at Reims and the relief of Orléans ensured that France would survive as an independent kingdom. Whether one attributes her success to divine inspiration, personal charisma, or historical accident, Joan's story remains a testament to the extraordinary power of individual conviction.
