Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle): Difference between revisions

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Joan was simply and thoroughly Catholic.

[[File:Jeanne_et_ses_voix-2.jpg|thumb|Joan and her Voices, outside the Basilica of Saint Joan of Arc, Domrémy-la-Pucelle (Jeanne et ses voix, Wikipedia France)]]

== Joan and the Saints ==

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<blockquote>No; a hundred and even more of my people were wounded. I had said to them: "Be fearless, and you will raise the siege." Then, in the attack on the Bridge fortress, I was wounded in the neck by an arrow or cross-bolt; but I had great comfort from Saint Catherine, and was cured in less than a fortnight. I did not interrupt for this either my riding or work. I knew quite well that I should be wounded; I had told the King so, but that, notwithstanding, I should go on with my work. This had been revealed to me by the Voices of my two Saints, the blessed Catherine and the blessed Margaret. It was I who first planted a ladder against the fortress of the Bridge, and it was in raising this ladder that I was wounded in the neck by this crossbolt.</blockquote>

[[File:Domrémy-la-Pucelle_(88)_Basilique_du_Bois_Chenu_-_Intérieur_-_Peinture_murale_-_30.jpg|thumb|Interior mural of Joan at battle at the Basilica of Saint Joan of Arc, Domrémy-la-Pucelle (Wikicommons)]]

Heading the vanguard was pure leadership by example and exhortation, and she repeatedly led the charge at just about every battle she was in. It's easy to forget the physicality of what she did, and the bravery -- or confidence -- required for it. Across all that she accomplished her primary job was to get things moving and keep them moving, which she did by displaying total confidence in her mission and its outcome.

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Following the coronation, Joan endured more agonizing delays as Charles spent his triumphant moment in public adulation and under the assumption that the Duke of Burgundy would yield out of respect for his formal consecration. Instead, Charles and his ministers were baited into circular negotiations, temporary truces, and increasing demands from the Burgundians that included yielding back to them cities taken by the French.

Joan of Arc biographer Anatole France, an anti-clerical writer, claims that on insisting upon the Coronation at Reims Joan lost the moment to seize Normandy and thus Paris. The claim conflates Joan's mission of saving France with territorial conquest, something Joan understood simply as "to make war on the English."<ref>Trial of Condemnation, February 22, 1432 (Murray, p. 13)</ref> Joan knew -- was told -- that the Anointment must come first, although she had no idea that God's plan operated on a different timeline for its culmination in saving France, and, especially for her role in it, which wound through her capture by the Burgundians at a minor battle at ~~Compiegne~~ in Burgundian-held France.

Joan of Arc biographer Anatole France, an anti-clerical writer, claims that on insisting upon the Coronation at Reims Joan lost the moment to seize Normandy and thus Paris. The claim conflates Joan's mission of saving France with territorial conquest, something Joan understood simply as "to make war on the English."<ref>Trial of Condemnation, February 22, 1432 (Murray, p. 13)</ref> Joan knew -- was told -- that the Anointment must come first, although she had no idea that God's plan operated on a different timeline for its culmination in saving France, and, especially for her role in it, which wound through her capture by the Burgundians at a minor battle at Compiègne in Burgundian-held France.

Ironically, only the French court ignored her thereafter, declining to ransom her, and going on as if she had never existed. To the Burgundians and English, though, it was everything: the witch was defeated.

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We find greater details from a witness who was rather amazed by it all:<ref>Jornal of Cagny, per Pernoud, Her Story, p. 77.</ref>

<blockquote>The Maid took her standard in hand and with the first troops entered the ditches toward the swine market. The assault was hard and long, and it was wondrous to hear the noise and the explosion of the cannons and the culverines that those inside the city fired against those outside, and all manner of blows in such great abundance that they were beyond being counted. The assault lasted from about the hour of midday until about the hour of nightfall. After the sun had set, the Maid was hit by a crossbow bolt in her thigh. After she had been hit, she insisted even more strenuously that everyone should approach the walls so that the place would be taken; but because it was night and she was wounded and the men-at-arms were weary from the day-long assault, the lord of Gaucourt and others came to the Maid and against her will carried her out of the ditch, and so the assault ended. </blockquote>Must have seemed like another Orlėans or Jargeau about to happen -- ''the Maid is down! the Maid returns to the attack!'' Such was in Joan's mind, as well, for the next morning she went looking for d'Alençon to resume the attack<ref>Tell me, historians, what it's like to take a crude iron crossbow in the thigh? </ref>. But the King halted the campaign the night before, ordering d'Alençon to tear down a bridge he had hurriedly constructed to assist the next day's maneuvers. The retreat meant a return to the Loire, back to where it had all started, Orléans.

<blockquote>The Maid took her standard in hand and with the first troops entered the ditches toward the swine market. The assault was hard and long, and it was wondrous to hear the noise and the explosion of the cannons and the culverines that those inside the city fired against those outside, and all manner of blows in such great abundance that they were beyond being counted. The assault lasted from about the hour of midday until about the hour of nightfall. After the sun had set, the Maid was hit by a crossbow bolt in her thigh. After she had been hit, she insisted even more strenuously that everyone should approach the walls so that the place would be taken; but because it was night and she was wounded and the men-at-arms were weary from the day-long assault, the lord of Gaucourt and others came to the Maid and against her will carried her out of the ditch, and so the assault ended. </blockquote>

[[File:Domrémy-la-Pucelle_(88)_Basilique_du_Bois_Chenu_-_Intérieur_-_Peinture_murale_-_29.jpg|thumb|Mural at the Basilica of Saint Joan of Arc, Domrémy-la-Pucelle,likely depicting Joan pulled from her horse at her capture (Wikicommons)]]

Must have seemed like another Orlėans or Jargeau about to happen -- ''the Maid is down! the Maid returns to the attack!'' Such was in Joan's mind, as well, for the next morning she went looking for d'Alençon to resume the attack<ref>Tell me, historians, what it's like to take a crude iron crossbow in the thigh? </ref>. But the King halted the campaign the night before, ordering d'Alençon to tear down a bridge he had hurriedly constructed to assist the next day's maneuvers. The retreat meant a return to the Loire, back to where it had all started, Orléans.

Joan was certain about taking Paris. She had warned the English King and his regent, Bedford, in her [[Joan of Arc letter to the English|Letter to the English]],

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During and since Joan's time, French patriots have looked to Joan for glory of France. Until the French Revolution, she was a mark of glory for both the French monarchy and the Catholic Church. During the Revolution, the Jacobins suppressed any Catholic or monarchical associations, including her annual festival in Orléans that had centered around the Cathedral of Sainte-Croix, where Joan celebrated a Vespers Mass during the siege. Joan nevertheless remained useful for the Revolution as a symbol of the common people and "independence."<ref>There is much irony in the Revolution's relationship to Saint Joan. It's like Christmas: a great holiday, but all that religious stuff keeps getting in the way.

Here for a short essay on the hostility of the Jacobins towards the Church: [https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/01/12/the-dechristianization-of-france-during-the-french-revolution/ The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution - The Institute of World Politics]</ref>[[File:Panthéon_-_La_vie_de_Jeanne_d'Arc_(hlw16_0311).jpg|thumb|La vie de Jeanne d'Arc, Panthéon, Paris (~~wikicommons~~)]]

Here for a short essay on the hostility of the Jacobins towards the Church: [https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/01/12/the-dechristianization-of-france-during-the-french-revolution/ The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution - The Institute of World Politics]</ref>[[File:Panthéon_-_La_vie_de_Jeanne_d'Arc_(hlw16_0311).jpg|thumb|La vie de Jeanne d'Arc, Panthéon, Paris (Wikicommons)]]

Napoléon renewed the celebrations that the Jacobins had halted and also restored her birthplace at Domrémy as a national monument.<ref>For use of Joan's image before and after the French Revolution, see SEXSMITH, DENNIS. “The Radicalization of Joan of Arc Before and After the French Revolution.” ''RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review'' 17, no. 2 (1990): 125–99. <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630458</nowiki>.</ref> His embrace of Joan met several needs: French nationalism, especially anti-British French nationalism, reinforcement of the Concordat of 1801 between the French government and the Vatican that officially restored the Church in France, and legitimization of his own mission to glorify France and himself as her savior. Interest in Joan grew from there, leading to the publication of her Trials by Quicherat in 1840 << todo.

@@ Line 418: / Line 418: @@
 Joan was simply and thoroughly Catholic.
+[[File:Jeanne_et_ses_voix-2.jpg|thumb|<small>Joan and her Voices, outside the Basilica of Saint Joan of Arc,  Domrémy-la-Pucelle (Jeanne et ses voix, Wikipedia France)</small>]]
 == Joan and the Saints ==
@@ Line 791: / Line 792: @@
 <blockquote>No; a hundred and even more of my people were wounded. I had said to them: "Be fearless, and you will raise the siege." Then, in the attack on the Bridge fortress, I was wounded in the neck by an arrow or cross-bolt;  but I had great comfort from Saint Catherine, and was cured in less than a fortnight. I did not interrupt for this either my riding or work. I knew quite well that I should be wounded; I had told the King so, but that, notwithstanding, I should go on with my work. This had been revealed to me by the Voices of my two Saints, the blessed Catherine and the blessed Margaret. It was I who first planted a ladder against the fortress of the Bridge, and it was in raising this ladder that I was wounded in the neck by this crossbolt.</blockquote>
+[[File:Domrémy-la-Pucelle_(88)_Basilique_du_Bois_Chenu_-_Intérieur_-_Peinture_murale_-_30.jpg|thumb|<small>Interior mural of Joan at battle at the Basilica of Saint Joan of Arc, Domrémy-la-Pucelle (Wikicommons)</small>]]
 Heading the vanguard was pure leadership by example and exhortation, and she repeatedly led the charge at just about every battle she was in. It's easy to forget the physicality of what she did, and the bravery -- or confidence -- required for it. Across all that she accomplished her primary job was to get things moving and keep them moving, which she did by displaying total confidence in her mission and its outcome.
@@ Line 950: / Line 951: @@
 Following the coronation, Joan endured more agonizing delays as Charles spent his triumphant moment in public adulation and under the assumption that the Duke of Burgundy would yield out of respect for his formal consecration. Instead, Charles and his ministers were baited into circular negotiations, temporary truces, and increasing demands from the Burgundians that included yielding back to them cities taken by the French.
-Joan of Arc biographer Anatole France, an anti-clerical writer, claims that on insisting upon the Coronation at Reims Joan lost the moment to seize Normandy and thus Paris. The claim conflates Joan's mission of saving France with territorial conquest, something Joan understood simply as "to make war on the English."<ref>Trial of Condemnation, February 22, 1432 (Murray, p. 13)</ref> Joan knew -- was told -- that the Anointment must come first, although she had no idea that God's plan operated on a different timeline for its culmination in saving France, and, especially for her role in it, which wound through her capture by the Burgundians at a minor battle at Compiegne in Burgundian-held France.
+Joan of Arc biographer Anatole France, an anti-clerical writer, claims that on insisting upon the Coronation at Reims Joan lost the moment to seize Normandy and thus Paris. The claim conflates Joan's mission of saving France with territorial conquest, something Joan understood simply as "to make war on the English."<ref>Trial of Condemnation, February 22, 1432 (Murray, p. 13)</ref> Joan knew -- was told -- that the Anointment must come first, although she had no idea that God's plan operated on a different timeline for its culmination in saving France, and, especially for her role in it, which wound through her capture by the Burgundians at a minor battle at Compiègne in Burgundian-held France.
 Ironically, only the French court ignored her thereafter, declining to ransom her, and going on as if she had never existed. To the Burgundians and English, though, it was everything: the witch was defeated.
@@ Line 1,255: / Line 1,256: @@
 We find greater details from a witness who was rather amazed by it all:<ref>Jornal of Cagny, per Pernoud, Her Story, p. 77.</ref>
-<blockquote>The Maid took her standard in hand and with the first troops entered the ditches toward the swine market. The assault was hard and long, and it was wondrous to hear the noise and the explosion of the cannons and the culverines that those inside the city fired against those outside, and all manner of blows in such great abundance that they were beyond being counted. The assault lasted from about the hour of midday until about the hour of nightfall. After the sun had set, the Maid was hit by a crossbow bolt in her thigh. After she had been hit, she insisted even more strenuously that everyone should approach the walls so that the place would be taken; but because it was night and she was wounded and the men-at-arms were weary from the day-long assault, the lord of Gaucourt and others came to the Maid and against her will carried her out of the ditch, and so the assault ended. </blockquote>Must have seemed like another Orlėans or Jargeau about to happen -- ''the Maid is down! the Maid returns to the attack!'' Such was in Joan's mind, as well, for the next morning she went looking for d'Alençon to resume the attack<ref>Tell me, historians, what it's like to take a crude iron crossbow in the thigh? </ref>. But the King halted the campaign the night before, ordering d'Alençon to tear down a bridge he had hurriedly constructed to assist the next day's maneuvers. The retreat meant a return to the Loire, back to where it had all started, Orléans.
+<blockquote>The Maid took her standard in hand and with the first troops entered the ditches toward the swine market. The assault was hard and long, and it was wondrous to hear the noise and the explosion of the cannons and the culverines that those inside the city fired against those outside, and all manner of blows in such great abundance that they were beyond being counted. The assault lasted from about the hour of midday until about the hour of nightfall. After the sun had set, the Maid was hit by a crossbow bolt in her thigh. After she had been hit, she insisted even more strenuously that everyone should approach the walls so that the place would be taken; but because it was night and she was wounded and the men-at-arms were weary from the day-long assault, the lord of Gaucourt and others came to the Maid and against her will carried her out of the ditch, and so the assault ended. </blockquote>
+[[File:Domrémy-la-Pucelle_(88)_Basilique_du_Bois_Chenu_-_Intérieur_-_Peinture_murale_-_29.jpg|thumb|<small>Mural at the Basilica of Saint Joan of Arc, Domrémy-la-Pucelle,likely depicting Joan pulled from her horse at her capture (Wikicommons)</small>]]
+Must have seemed like another Orlėans or Jargeau about to happen -- ''the Maid is down! the Maid returns to the attack!'' Such was in Joan's mind, as well, for the next morning she went looking for d'Alençon to resume the attack<ref>Tell me, historians, what it's like to take a crude iron crossbow in the thigh? </ref>. But the King halted the campaign the night before, ordering d'Alençon to tear down a bridge he had hurriedly constructed to assist the next day's maneuvers. The retreat meant a return to the Loire, back to where it had all started, Orléans.
 Joan was certain about taking Paris. She had warned the English King and his regent, Bedford, in her [[Joan of Arc letter to the English|Letter to the English]],
@@ Line 1,359: / Line 1,362: @@
 During and since Joan's time, French patriots have looked to Joan for glory of France. Until the French Revolution, she was a mark of glory for both the French monarchy and the Catholic Church. During the Revolution, the Jacobins suppressed any Catholic or monarchical associations, including her annual festival in Orléans that had centered around the Cathedral of Sainte-Croix, where Joan celebrated a Vespers Mass during the siege. Joan nevertheless remained useful for the Revolution as a symbol of the common people and "independence."<ref>There is much irony in the Revolution's relationship to Saint Joan. It's like Christmas: a great holiday, but all that religious stuff keeps getting in the way.
-Here for a short essay on the hostility of the Jacobins towards the Church: [https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/01/12/the-dechristianization-of-france-during-the-french-revolution/ The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution - The Institute of World Politics]</ref>[[File:Panthéon_-_La_vie_de_Jeanne_d'Arc_(hlw16_0311).jpg|thumb|La vie de Jeanne d'Arc, Panthéon, Paris (wikicommons)]]
+Here for a short essay on the hostility of the Jacobins towards the Church: [https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/01/12/the-dechristianization-of-france-during-the-french-revolution/ The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution - The Institute of World Politics]</ref>[[File:Panthéon_-_La_vie_de_Jeanne_d'Arc_(hlw16_0311).jpg|thumb|La vie de Jeanne d'Arc, Panthéon, Paris (Wikicommons)]]
 Napoléon renewed the celebrations that the Jacobins had halted and also restored her birthplace at Domrémy as a national monument.<ref>For use of Joan's image before and after the French Revolution, see SEXSMITH, DENNIS. “The Radicalization of Joan of Arc Before and After the French Revolution.” ''RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review'' 17, no. 2 (1990): 125–99. <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630458</nowiki>.</ref> His embrace of Joan met several needs: French nationalism, especially anti-British French nationalism, reinforcement of the Concordat of 1801 between the French government and the Vatican that officially restored the Church in France, and legitimization of his own mission to glorify France and himself as her savior. Interest in Joan grew from there, leading to the publication of her Trials by Quicherat in 1840 << todo.