My Friend Joan of Arc

When I was 19 years old and a student at the Universite de Geneve in Switzerland I first encountered Joan. Unlike my studies at Smith which were broad and all encompassing this course dealt solely with the trial of Joan of Arc. In the nineteenth century the trial minutes were published in Latin and Old French. It was our task to translate the medieval French into modern French. The first semester we had done the same with The Enterprises of the Duke of Burgundy Against the Swiss.

By second semester medieval French was almost a no-brainer. Instead of accent marks which were the tombstones of dead letters we had the actual dead letters, alive and well, if unpronounced. The French Academy would freeze the language in the 17th and 18th century regularizing the spelling and pronunciation. What we had were the Trial minutes reported each day in Latin and translated into French both copies signed by a notary to guarantee the accuracy of the reportage.

Joan was the youngest commander of a royal army, younger than Alexander the Great. She appeared at a time in France when all hope had disappeared. The English had devastated the countryside. The English army laid siege to Orleans. No goods or persons entered or left Orleans For a very fine picture from the British point of view one might watch Kenneth Branagh in Shakespeare's Henry V. Unlike Henry the French Dauphin was a terrified little man holed up at his court in Chinon south of Paris. Joan through a series of adventures presented herself to Charles and convinced him to outfit her as a Captain with an army, her purpose to end the blockade of Orleans.

After she had accomplished the end of the siege, had the Dauphin crowned and anointed King at Reims, she became an embarrassment to the French Court. The voices which she heard were no longer of use to Charles. The politics of the Court found Joan too strict too religious at odds with the mores of high society. She went on several other missions less successful than the siege of Orleans eventually was captured and sold to the British who were at home in Rouen, in Normandy.

Joan demanded an ecclesiastical trial. Actually she wanted the Pope (which one Avignon or Rome?) to hear her case. She was accused of wearing men's clothing and being a witch. Half starved on a diet of bread and weak wine she defended herself nobly and without counsel against a tribunal of the eminent clerics of the day. For weeks they asked her questions out of context worded to catch her in a lie. Eventually on the promise of freedom she recanted her testimony and denied her voices. At this point the vultures announced she would be incarcerated the rest of her life. Not to see the sun or hear the birds was more that she could tolerate and she denied her abjuration and was handed over to the British to be burned at the stake.