The girl history would come to know as Joan of Arc was the youngest of 5 children born in Domrémy, Duchy of Bar (which passed to Louis XV from his father-in-law and the Duchy's last ruler, Stanislaus Leszczynski, the deposed king of Poland, in 1766). She was 13 years old when she began to hear voices, then saw visions of Saints Catherine, Margaret, and Michael directing her to seek out the Dauphin. It was around this time that her father was having the same dream of Joan leaving home with a group of soldiers -- which at the time meant only one thing. The dream was so vivid, he instructed his sons to kill her if she ever tried to leave home and if they didn't, then he would.Ironically, it was her father contracting a marriage for Joan with a neighbor's boy which made her decide to accept her mission. When the boy sued for breach of contract, she traveled alone to Tours, the nearest diocese, to defend herself. Fortunately, the law was on her side: a woman could not be forced to marry against her will. In ruling in her favor, the judge called Joan "an extraordinary child". She returned to Tours a year later as Commander of the French Army.In February 1429, the now-17-year-old used the pretense of traveling to Burey-le-Petit to care for her aunt into persuading her aunt's husband to take her to Vaucouleurs to attempt for a second time to gain an audience with the captain of the garrison, Robert de Baudricourt, whom, after increasing pressure from the townsfolk, agreed to provide her an escort to the Dauphin. The men Baudricourt provided, Jéan de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, would become two of her generals.What happened when she arrived at Chinon on March 6, 1429 became legend. The Dauphin disguised himself as a courtier and had another courtier dressed as the Dauphin, however, she identified the real Dauphin immediately. After an examination by his clerics, the Dauphin furnished Joan with a small force and sent her to Orléans to assist in lifting the Siege, which his army had been contending with since October 1428.Arriving on April 29th, she proceeded to whip the troops into shape: no more pillaging, profanity, or "camp followers", and each man was to attend Mass at least once a week. Since their humiliating loss at Agincourt (1415), the French had fought from a defensive posture; Joan wanted to go on the offensive. The commanders regarded her at first as little more than a glorified cheerleader, yet the rank-and-file loved her: she belonged to the same class as they, and was willing to take the same risks she asked them to take. Her brothers Jéan and Pierre, sent by their father to bring her home, found themselves instead fighting under their sister's banner. In what came to be known as "The Audacious Attack", Joan snuck a small group into the town, then ordered them to regroup for an assault on the Siege Post, saving Orléans from capitulation.The lifting of the Siege in just 9 days brought new recruits from all over France. She scored victories at Jargeau (June 11-12), Meung-sur-Loire (June 15), Beaugency (June 16-17), and Patay (June 18). After The Battle of Patay ended (the most disastrous English defeat since the Battle of Baugé in 1421, with over 2,000 killed), Joan came across an English soldier, who asked if she would hear his confession. Colleagues, fearing her among the dead, searched for her, finding her cradling the now-dead young man in her arms and weeping uncontrollably.Accepting the peaceful surrender of every town along her path, Joan, her army, and their Scottish allies escorted the Dauphin to Reims, deep within English territory, where he was crowned Charles VII at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims on July 17th. The English did not win another major engagement for the rest of the Hundred Years' War.This marked the height of her career, as Joan found herself stymied repeatedly by the apathetic Charles, who would rather negotiate with the English and their Burgundian allies than capitalize on the momentum her victories. Charles gave Joan just one day to liberate Paris -- an impossible task, made worse by Charles ordering the pontoons her general Jéan of Alençon had ordered built destroyed. The fighting at the Porte Saint-Honoré, the main entry to Paris from the West, was brutal, even by medieval standards: Joan was wounded twice, and her standard bearer was killed. Alençon had to literally drag Joan away from the battle as she continued to direct action. Her "failure" to take Paris pummeled her standing at court. She was forced to abandon the Siege of La Charité (November 24-December 25) after her pleas for supplies and artillery fell on deaf ears. Joan and her family were ennobled on December 29th, officially, in acknowledgment for her service, but, in reality, to get her to go home.On May 23, 1430, Joan and Pierre were captured by the Burgundians during the Siege of Compiègne, with Joan commanding 400 volunteers. Having ordered a retreat, she ushered her group through Compiègne's city gates, but the gates were closed before she, Pierre, and the rest of the rear guard could enter. Historians are divided as to if the gate were closed to prevent the Burgundians from entering the city, or it was an act of treachery by Compiègne's governor. Pierre was released after his ransom was paid, eventually marrying the daughter of the man who raised it.Sold to the English after Charles did not pay her ransom, Joan was put on trial, paid for by the Duke of Bedford (regent for his and Charles's nephew, Henry VI of England). The judges were pro-English French clerics from the University of Paris, led by Bishop Pierre Cauchon (who was forced to flee his seat at Beauvais when Joan took the town). At the time of her capture, Joan was the most-famous person in Christendom, so everything was meticulously recorded: Cauchon wanted to prove that she was not what she claimed to be. In something of an irony, Bedford's wife confirmed Joan's virtue, which prevented Cauchon from trying her as a witch. After 15 interrogations in less than a month, followed by a "trial" which rubber-stamped the foregone conclusion, she was convicted of heresy and turned over to secular authorities. Bedford signed her death warrant, and she was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431 at the Vieux-Marché in Rouen before a crowd of 10,000, including 800 English soldiers who escorted her to the venue. One soldier gave her a cross fashioned from twigs and twine as his comrades wept, despite orders from their superiors to show no emotion.It wasn't until 1450 that Charles ordered an inquiry into the "faults and abuses" committed by the judges whom "brought about her death iniquitously and against right reason, very cruelly". He knew that he owed Joan his throne, and if she was indeed a heretic, then that made him a heretic as well. Hence, the inquiry had nothing to do with clearing her name and everything to do with legitimating his rule. Meanwhile, Joan's mother petitioned Pope Nicholas V for redress. Jéan Bréhal, inquisitor-general of France, was charged by the papal legate, Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville with reviewing the case, and later urged the new pope, Callixtus III, to take up Joan's cause. Cauchon failed to dig up any dirt on Joan, and Bréhal found even less. On July 7, 1456, after a "retrial" at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Bréhal declared Joan a martyr, victim of a political vendetta which violated canon law, and cleared her of all charges. Callixtus excommunicated the now-deceased Cauchon in 1457.Over the centuries, her popularity grew, yet not everyone was a fan: Shakespeare depicted her as a witch in "Henry VI, Part I"; Voltaire mocked her in his poem "The Maid of Oranges"; the Revolutionaries who overthrew Louis XVI banned the yearly celebration of Joan lifting the Siege of Orléans, destroyed her relics, and turned her statues into cannons. It was only after Napoléon declared her a national symbol of France that she was on her way to becoming universally revered. On May 16, 1920, Joan was canonized by Pope Benedict XV. A gold halo was placed over the head of her statue at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris as Parisians, whose ancestors fought Joan at Porte Saint-Honoré, crammed the streets in celebration.In the immediate years following her death, several women came forward claiming to be Joan; in 1434, Jéan and Pierre recognized a woman name Claude. For the next 6 years, the brothers and their "sister" traveled from town to town, receiving lavish gifts from Joan's many admirers, all of whom were desperate to believe she had escaped her fate. Then the trio made the mistake of visiting court. Unable to tell Charles the "secret" Joan had told him, which proved to him that she had been sent by God to defeat the English, Claude confessed to the subterfuge, and begged his forgiveness. Jéan's fate is unknown. Pierre continued to serve in the Army. His descendant, Clotilde Forgeot d'Arc, played Joan in the 2022 celebration commemorating her liberation of Orléans (Clotilde's lineage is disputed: the October 1973 Bulletin de L'alliance Française stated "there is no longer any known descendants of the brothers of the Maid"; and her maternal great-grandfather Henri Gauttier renamed his children "d'Arc" in 1827 after claiming to have traced his ancestry to Pierre). Claude married a knight and had two children.Joan's birthplace Domrémy was renamed Domrémy-la-Pucelle ("The Maid") in 1578.
