BIOGRAPHY
Jeanne d'Arc (Saint Joan of Arc) was born on 6 January 1412.
Around 1424 she began having visions of the Archangel Michael and Saints
Catherine and Margaret.
In May of 1428 a family relative, Durand Lassois, brought
her to the garrison commander at Vaucouleurs, Robert de Baudricourt, to ask
for an escort to take her to king Charles VII. She finally
convinced Baudricourt the following February, and was escorted through territory held
by troops loyal to the English and Burgundians (i.e., supporters of the Duke of
Burgundy, who was allied with the English at that time) in order to speak with
Charles VII at Chinon on March 6, 1429. She told him that God supported his
claim to the throne over that of his English relative Henry VI, and had ordered
her to serve the Armagnacs (a French faction opposed to the Duke of
Burgundy and which supported Charles VII by that point). During the month of
March, Charles had her examined by clergy at Poitiers to test her orthodoxy.
She was accepted as valid, and then brought to Blois, where the Royal army was
preparing to march to the relief of the besieged city of Orleans. Joan entered
the city on April 29th, where her troops lifted the siege after a series of
assaults on May 4th, 6th, and 7th. Joan's role during these assaults was
typical of her later involvement: she said she preferred to carry her banner
(rather than fighting), and had never killed anyone. She was shot by an arrow
on the 7th, but returned to encourage the troops to finally take the crucial
fortress of Les Tourelles, which induced the English to abandon their siege on
the 8th. Her army then took the English-held cities of Jargeau and Beaugency
on June 12th and 17th, and defeated an English army at Patay on the 18th. After
convincing Charles to march on Rheims for his coronation, her army accepted the
neutrality of the Burgundian city of Auxerre on July 3rd, induced the surrender
of the Burgundian-held town of Troyes on the 9th, and then entered Rheims on
July 16th. The coronation took place the next day, with Joan standing beside
the King, holding her banner.
The army then moved west, accepting the surrender of cities in the Isle-de-France while the Royal Court conducted ill-advised negotiations with the Burgundians. Nevertheless, Joan and some of the commanders marched their troops to Paris, where the commanders launched an assault on September 8th (against Joan's judgment, since it was the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary). Joan nevertheless tried to encourage the troops, and was shot by an archer while looking for a place for the soldiers to cross Paris' inner moat. The attack was called off, and Charles then ordered the army to withdraw, against the protestations of Joan and many of the commanders. The army was disbanded at Gien-sur-Loire on the 21st.
A minor campaign against Burgundian-held towns in the Loire Valley then followed: the town of St-Pierre-le-Moutier was taken by Joan's troops on November 4th, followed by a siege of La-Charite-sur-Loire which failed due to a lack of funding from the Royal Court. Shortly after, Charles VII granted noble status to Joan and her family on December 29th.
As the Court was attempting to negotiate a permanent peace with the Duke of Burgundy, resulting in a several-month truce, Joan was prevented from any further action until she left secretly along with her confessor (Friar Jean Pasquerel), bodyguard (Jean d'Aulon), her brother Pierre and a small contingent of troops, and headed for Lagny-sur-Marne, where fighting had continued despite the truce. Her army subsequently defeated a pro-Anglo-Burgundian mercenary named Franquet d'Arras near Lagny, and then slipped into Compiegne to try to lift the siege laid to it by the Duke of Burgundy. By this point the Royal Court had admitted that they'd been duped into a false truce, but failed to send adequate forces to help Joan. She was captured by Burgundian troops on May 23, 1430, while leading a sortie which was ambushed and then trapped outside the city. Sources on both sides (contrary to the popular misconception) indicate that Charles VII did try to force the Burgundians to ransom her back to her own side, but they refused, instead transferring her to their English allies in exchange for 10,000 livres as compensation for the ransom that would have been gained otherwise.
After being brought to Rouen (seat of the English occupation government in Normandy), Joan was put on trial by clergy who had long been in the pay of the English government, or had otherwise supported or cooperated with them in the past. Eyewitnesses confirmed that the English controlled the trial, and made sure that their partisans handed down a conviction. A number of the tribunal members themselves admitted, in their later recollections, that she had been convicted on false charges.
She was executed on May 30, 1431. Eyewitnesses said that she called out "...in a loud voice the holy name of Jesus, and implored and invoked without ceasing the aid of the saints of Paradise" until she died. The English government enthusiastically issued a letter announcing her execution, although some of their officials were less exultant: Jean Tressard, Secretary to the King of England, had witnessed her death and was seen returning from the event in an agitated state, exclaiming "We are all ruined, for a good and holy person was burned".
After Rouen was retaken by the French in November of 1449, an investigation and formal appeal of her case was begun (generally known today as the "Rehabilitation" or "Nullification" trial). The clergyman Guillaume Bouille conducted the initial investigation in 1450, followed by another under Inquisitor-General Jean Brehal in 1452, followed by a formal retrial in 1455-1456 which was overseen by clergy from throughout Europe. After looking at the evidence, the Inquisitor ruled that she had been wrongly convicted by partisan clergy who had acted in a spirit of, quote: "manifest malice against the Roman Catholic Church and indeed of heresy", and he described Joan as a martyr. She was officially declared innocent on July 17, 1456, with the three surviving members of her family in attendance: her mother Isabelle, and her brothers Jean and Pierre. The religious festival in her honor at Orleans was declared a pilgrimage site meriting an indulgence for those who attended, although as usual with most saints the formal canonization process was not initiated until much later, in the mid-19th century. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.