Saint Joan of Arc quotations

Quotes by and about Saint Joan of Arc

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A few Saint Joan of Arc and others' classic quotations, ordered chronologically, as best possible, and categorized by the general places in which hey were spoken.

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Joan of Arc in the Catechism

Joan of Arc is quoted four times in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. These are:

CCC Paragraph 223

It means coming to know God's greatness and majesty: "Behold, God is great, and we know him not." Therefore, we must "serve God first"

CCC Paragraph 435

The name of Jesus is at the heart of Christian prayer. All liturgical prayers conclude with the words "through our Lord Jesus Christ". The Hail Mary reaches its high point in the words "blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." The Eastern prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, says: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Many Christians, such as St. Joan of Arc, have died with the one word "Jesus" on their lips.

CCC Paragraph 795

A reply of St. Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer: "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter."

CCC Paragraph 2005

A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'"

Domrémy

"Had it pleased God"

I knew only one Burgundian at Domremy: I should have been quite willing for them to cut off his head—always had it pleased God.

Joan the spinner

“Yes, I learnt to spin and to sew; in sewing and spinning I fear no woman in Rouen."

Vaucouleurs

Prophesy fulfilled

Have you not heard that prophesy made that France would be lost by means of a woman, and would be restored by means of a virgin from the borderlands of Lorraine?

Sooner now than later

Jean de Metz, Knight who accompanied Joan to Chinon to meet the Dauphin:

Then I pledged my faith to her, touching her hand, and promised that, with God’s guidance, I would conduct her to the King. I asked her when she wished to start. “Sooner at once than to-morrow, and sooner to-morrow than later,”

"I was born to do this"

From testimony of Henri Leroyer, who spoke with Joan on her departure from her home region to cross to speak to the King to declare she was sent by God to save France:

When she spoke of leaving, she was asked how she thought she could effect such a journey and escape the enemy. "I fear them not," she answered, "I have a sure road: if the enemy are on my road, I have God with me, Who knows how to prepare the way to the Lord Dauphin. I was born to do this.”

Chinon & Poitiers

Testimony of Séguin de Séguin

During the investigation at Poitiers, Séguin relates,

Thereupon, Guillaume Aymerie put to her this question : "You assert that a Voice told you, God willed to deliver the people of France from the calamity in which they now are ; but, if God wills to deliver them, it is not necessary to have soldiers."

"In God's Name!" Jeanne replied, "the soldiers will fight, and God will give the victory."

With which answer Maître Guillaume was pleased.

Brother Séguin de Séguin, who spoke with an accent of the Limousin region, testified that,

"I, in my turn, asked Jeanne what dialect the Voice spoke?"

And she replied,

"A better one than yours."

If that weren't enough, Brother Seguin followed up with

Do you believe in God?

In  truth, more than yourself!

Examinations at Poiters

The wife of a counselor to the King of France testified that Joan told her "how she had been examined by the Clergy, and that she had made them the answer":

"There are books of Our Lord's besides what you have."

Orleans & Reims campaigns

Jean Dunois, The Bastard of Orleans:

On attacking the English:

“Have all of you good spurs?”

“What do you mean?” asked those present of her; “are we, then, to turn our backs?”

“Nay,” she replied, “it is the English who will not defend themselves, and will be beaten; and you must have good spurs to pursue them.”

To the Dauphin who hesitated to go to Rheims for his coronation:

“When I am vexed that faith is not readily placed in what I wish to say in God’s Name, I retire alone, and pray to God. I complain to Him that those whom I address do not believe me more readily; and, my prayer ended, I hear a Voice which says to me: ‘Daughter of God! go on! go on! go on! I will be thy Help: go on!’ And when I hear this Voice, I have great joy. I would I could always hear it thus.”

To the Dauphin who hesitated whether or not to attack Troyes:

“Noble Dauphin, order your people to come and besiege the town of Troyes, and lose no more time in such long councils. In God’s Name, before three days are gone, I will bring you into this town by favour or force, and greatly will the false Burgundy be astounded.”

I shall not fly away!

At Troyes, Joan met with "Brother Richard," a fiery, messianic preacher who was expelled from Paris by the Burgundians. On meeting Joan, he made the sign of the Cross and threw Holy Water on her. Joan wasn't impressed:

I said to him: "Approach boldly, I shall not fly away!"

Duke d'Alencon

On extended considerations and delays among the French commanders before the Battle of Patay, Joan told them,

"In God's Name! We must fight them at once: even if they were hanging from the clouds we should have them, because God has sent us to chastise them."

Joan's confessor, Jean Pasquerel

Pasquerel recalled,

there came to her a noble and valiant captain, whose name I do not remember. He told her that all the captains were assembled in Council; that they had taken into consideration the small number of their forces in comparison with the large forces of the English, and the abundant grace which God had granted them in the success already obtained: "The town is full of supplies; we could keep it well while we await fresh succour, which the King could send us; it does not seem," he ended by saying, "expedient to the Council that the army should go forth to-morrow." "You have been to your Counsel," Jeanne answered him," and I have been to mine; and believe me the Counsel of God will be accomplished and will succeed; yours on the contrary will perish."

Joan's angelic army

In late 1429, Joan was forced into a regional mop-up campaign along the Loire River, instead of taking the fight back to the English in the north as she wanted. At the first battle, Jean d'Aulon recalled finding Joan standing at the walls with only a few men while the French army retreated. He recalled,

he noticed that the Maid was left accompanied by very few of her own people and others ; and the Deponent, fearing that trouble would follow therefrom, mounted a horse, and went immediately to her aid, asking her what she was doing there alone and why she did not retreat like the others. She, after taking her helmet ["salade"] from her head, replied that she was not alone, and that she had yet in her company fifty thousand of her people, and that she would not leave until she had taken the town ; And the Deponent saith that, at that time — whatever she might say — she had not with her more than four or five men, and this he knows most certainly, and many others also, who in like manner saw her ; for which cause he told her again that she must leave that place, and retire as the others did. And then she told him to have faggots and hurdles brought to make a bridge over the trenches of the town, in order that they might approach it the better. And as she said these words to him, she cried in a loud voice : "Every one to the faggots and hurdles, to make the bridge!" which was immediately after done and prepared, at which the Deponent did much marvel, for immediately the town was taken by assault, without very great resistance ;

The Trial of Condemnation at Rouen, February 22 - May 30, 1430

You really don't want to mess with me..

On her first day of interrogation at the Trial, Joan warned the court:

If you were well informed about me, you would wish to have me out of your hands.

She told the head of the trial, Bishop Pierre Cauchon, directly (looking at him):

[Addressing the Bishop :] "I tell you, take good heed of what you say, you, who are my Judge f you take a great responsibility in thus charging me.

A prisoner's right to try to escape

Joan was kept in chains in an English men's military prison. The first day of the Trial, Wednesday, February 24, 1431, the Bishop of Beauvais, who led the Trial, ordered as a formality of jurisdiction that under the Trial court's authority, Joan was to be kept in the prison.

The Bishop read out the order,

And then did We forbid Jeanne to go out of the prison which hath been assigned to her in the Castle without Our permission, under pain of the crime of heresy.

Joan answered: '' I do not accept such a prohibition: if ever I do escape, no one shall reproach me with having broken or violated my faith, not having given my word to any one, whosoever it may be."

And as she complained that she had been fastened with chains and fetters of iron, We [the Bishop] said to her :

"You have before, and many times, sought. We are told, to get out of the prison, where you are detained ; and it is to keep you more surely that it has been ordered to put you in irons."

Joan replied: "It is true I wished to escape ; and so I wish still : is not this lawful for all prisoners?"

Annoying Oaths

Joan was offended and annoyed by the repeated demands for oaths before every session, and even multiple times in a row.

The second day of interrogations, Thursday, February 22, the transcript reads,

We warned and required her, on pain of law, to make oath as she had done the day before and to swear simply and absolutely to speak truth on all things. in respect of which she should be asked; to which she answered:

" I swore yesterday: that should be enough."

Again We required her to swear: we said to her, not even a prince, required to swear in a matter of faith, can refuse.

We can imagine the look on her face:

"I made oath to you yesterday, that should be quite enough for you: you burden me overmuch!"

On Saturday, February 24, after warning Cauchon to "take good heed", she told him,

"I should say that it is enough to have sworn twice."

From February 27: The transcript reads,

We required the said Jeanne to swear to tell the truth on everything touching her Trial.

"Willingly will I swear," she answered, "to tell the truth on everything touching the trial, but not upon all that I know.''

We required her again to speak the truth on all which should be asked of her.

Joan replied marvelously.

You ought to be satisfied, I have sworn enough.

As these "exhortations" to swear to tell the truth went on and on, on March 27, Joan put it all in perspective:

To Our exhortation, Jeanne replied in these terms :

"First, as to that on which you admonish me for my good and for our Faith, I thank you and all the company also; as to the counsel which you offer me, also I thank you; but I have no intention of desisting from the counsel of Our Lord. As to the oath that you wish me to make, I am ready to speak the truth on all that touches the Case."

And thus did she swear, her hands on the Holy Gospels.

Joan's inspired reply

Joan's interrogators at her "Condemnation Trial" went into the process self-certain that they'd just roll over this young woman, this illiterate country girl. Just a couple days into the Trial, on February 24, one of the chief interrogators, the "Promoter" Jean Beaupère, thought he could trap her into a severe theological error of affirming her own salvation, or "State of Grace." As happened to the Pharisees who tried to trick Jesus over Roman taxes, his trap question to Joan was met by a marvelous, "inspired" (as in inspired by the Holy Spirit) reply from Saint Joan:

"Do you know if you are in the grace of God?

"If I am not, may God placeme there; if I am, may God so keep me."

Her response in Latin reads

Si ego non sim, Deus ponat me; si ego sim, Deus me teneat in illa.

More fully:

« Si ego non sim Deus ponat me; et si ego sim, Deus me teneat in illa. Ego essem magis dolens de toto mundo si ego scirem me non esse in gratia Dei. »

Elsewhere, the Latin Trial register records the exchange as:

si ipsa non sit, Deus ponat; et, si ipsa sit, Deus eam teneat

Of this exchange, one of the Trial notaries later recalled,

At this reply the questioners were much amazed, and broke up the sitting; nor was she further interrogated on that occasion.

Men's Clothes

The Court bugged her about wearing men's clothes, which she did for personal protection while held in a men's prison. When asked,

"Would you like to have a woman's dress?"

she sublimely replied,

"Give me one, and I will take it and begone;"

Answer them boldly!

The interrogation on February 27 continued on about her "Voices," the Angels and Saints:

"Did you hear them on Saturday in this hall, where you were being examined?"

"That is not in your Case. Very well, then — yes! I did hear them."

"What did your Voice say to you last Saturday? "

"I did not quite understand it; and up to the moment when I returned to my room, I heard nothing that I may repeat to you."

"What did it say to you in your room, on your return?"

"It said to me, 'Answer them boldly.'"

Divine light, duh

The interrogator, Beaupère, then asked Joan:

When you saw this Voice coming to you, was there a light?

"There was plenty of light everywhere, as was seemly."

then, addressing Beaupère, she said,

"It does not all come to you!"

Joan's Apparitions

Bishop Cauchon quizzed her on the appearance of the Saints:

"These saints who shew themselves to you, have they any hair?"

"It is well to know they have."

Then,

"Does not Saint Margaret speak English?"

"Why should she speak English, when she is not on the English side?"

Cauchon then asked Joan about her jewelry:

"Have you any rings yourself?" [Addressing herself to Us, the Bishop] "You have one of mine; give it back to me. The Burgundians have another of them. I pray you, if you have my ring, shew it to me."

and again about the Saints, this type the Archangel Michael"

"Was he naked?"

"Do you think God has not wherewithal to clothe him?"

March 13: What do you want me to say?

Asked again about the same topic, Joan responded in exasperation with a classic reply,

Will you be satisfied that I should perjure myself?

In a state of mortal sin

"I do not know of having committed mortal sin; but, if I were in mortal sin, I think that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret would abandon me at once. I do not think one can cleanse one's conscience too much."

March 14

I asked three things of my Voices : — 1. My deliverance ; 2. That God would come to the help of the French, and protect the towns under their control ; 3. The salvation of my soul.

and

Saint Catherine has told me that I shall have help ; I do not know if this will be to be delivered from prison, or if, whilst I am being tried, some disturbance may happen, by which I shall be delivered. The help will come to me, I think, in one way or the other. Besides this, my Voices have told me that I shall be delivered by a great victory ; and they add : Be resigned ; have no care for thy martyrdom ; thou wilt come in the end to the Kingdom of Paradise.' They have told me this simply, absolutely, and without fail. What is meant by my martyrdom is the pain and adversity that I suffer in prison ; I do not know if I shall have still greater suffering to bear ; for that I refer me to God.

March 15:

Joan's use of men's clothes was not why she was put to death, but it was a matter the English-backed Ecclesiastical court used against her constantly. On this day, the court tried to purchase her cooperation by offering her a Mass in exchange for wearing a dress. Joan put the logic to the test with her replies:

"And what say you, if I have sworn and promised to our King my Master, not to put off this dress? Well, I will answer you this : Have made for me a long dress down to the ground, without a train ; give it to me to go to Mass, and then on my return I will put on again the dress I have."

and

"Send me a dress like a daughter of your citizens — that is to say, a long 'houppeland.' I will wear it to go and hear Mass. I beseech you as earnestly as I can, permit me to hear it in the dress I wear at this moment and without changing anything!"

March 1: the Pope in Rome

Asked at her Condemnation Trial about a letter she had received from the Count of Armagnac asking her to pray to the Lord for clarification regarding competing claims on the Papacy, Joan replied,

"I did not know how to inform him on this question, as to whom he should obey, because the Count himself asked to know whom God wished him to obey. But for myself, I hold and believe that we should obey our Lord the Pope who is in Rome."

March 3: Intercessory prayer

Asked,

"Do you not know that the people of your party had services, masses, and prayers offered for you?"

she replied

" I know nothing of it ; if they had any service, it was not by my order ; but if they prayed for me, my opinion is they did not do ill."

March 17: Joan settles the theological debate

The interrogators pushed her on obedience to the Church. Joan pushed back, pointing out that Christ and God are the higher powers, but, yeah, with their permission, she'd obey the Church:

"Will you refer yourself to the decision of the Church?" "I refer myself to God Who sent me, to Our Lady, and to all the Saints in Paradise. And in my opinion it is all one, God and the Church; and one should make no difficulty about it. Why do you want to complicate things?"

March 17: on the honor of her battle standard

Asked why here battle standard was given a prominent place at the coronation of Charles VII at Reims, Joan replied,

"It had shared the pain, it was only right it should share the honour."

March 17: does God hate the English?

"Do you know if Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret hate the English ? "

"They love what God loves: they hate what God hates."

"Does God hate the English?"

"Of the love or hate God may have for the English, or of what He will do for their souls, I know nothing; but I know quite well that they will be put out of France, except those who shall die there, and that God will send victory to the French against the English."

March 27: Joan messing with a rather tedious interrogation

Joan was subjected to two days of reading of the "Seventy Articles," or accusations against her. She was asked for her response to each. She generally replied, as she did to accusation Article V (i.e. no. 5 of 70):

"I refer to my previous answers. The rest, I deny."

or, as to Article X,

"I refer to what I said before."

and Article XXVI,

"I refer to what I said before."

For the last articles read out that day, she was asked,

"What have you to say on these Articles, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, which have been read to you with great care, from the first word to the last?"

Joan magnificently replied,

"I refer to what I answered on Article XXVI."

March 27, Article no. XI

Having become familiar with the said Robert, Jeanne boasted that, after having done and accomplished all that had been commanded her of God, she would have three sons, of whom the first should be Pope, the second Emperor, and the third King. Robert de Baudricourt, hearing this, said to her, "Would I could be father to one myself, if they are to be such great people ! my own value would thereby be the greater!" "Nay, nay, gentle Robert," replied Jeanne, "it is not time ; the Holy Spirit will accomplish it." This is the tale which the said Robert hath in many places often affirmed, told and published, and this in presence of prelates, lords, and high personages.

"What have you to say to this Article?"

"I refer to what I have already said. I never boasted that I should have three children."

March 28, Seventy Accusations, no. L

The query was about how she "invokes" her Voices:

"In what way shall you call them?"

" I beseech Our Lord and Our Lady that they will send me counsel and comfort, and then They send it to me."

"In what words do you beseech this? "

" I say ' Most sweet Lord, in honour of Thy Holy Passion I beseech Thee, if Thou lovest me, that Thou wilt reveal to me how I should answer these Clergy. I know well, as regards this dress, the command by which I have taken it ; but I do not know in what way I should leave it off: for this, may it please Thee to teach me.' And soon they come to me."

March 31, Easter Eve: God first, God foremost

"Do you not then believe you are subject to the Church of God which is on earth, that is to say to our Lord the Pope, to the Cardinals, the Archbishops, Bishops, and other prelates of the Church?"

"Yes, I believe myself to be subject to them; but God must be served first."

May 9: best reply to a threat ever

Threatening to torture her over what it considered her lies, "Then she was told that, if she would not tell the truth, she would immediately be put to the torture, the instruments of which were here, in this same tower, under her eyes." Joan replied,

"Truly if you were to tear me limb from limb, and separate soul and body, I will tell you nothing more; and, if I were to say anything else, I should always afterwards declare that you made me say it by force."

May 23: "Joan's response superb"

As the formal charges of heresy are read, the priest Pierre Maurice admonished her to save her soul:

“May Our Saviour Jesus Christ preserve you from all these evils!”

After being thus admonished and exhorted, Jeanne did reply:

“As to my words and deeds, such as I have declared them in the Trial, I refer to them and will maintain them.”

“Do you not, then,” We asked her, “think yourself bound to submit your words and deeds to the Church Militant, or to any other but God?”

She replied: “ What I have always said in the Trial, and held, I wish still to say and maintain. If I were condemned, if I saw the fire lighted, the faggots prepared, and the executioner ready to kindle the fire, and if I myself were in the fire, I would not say otherwise, and would maintain to the death all I have said.”

Then, We, the Judges, asked of the Promoter and of Jeanne herself if they had anything else to say. They replied, No. In consequence, We did proceed to close the Process, following the formula contained in a schedule

On the margin of the transcript, the scribe Manchon added, Responsio Johannæ superba ("Joan's response superb")

Joan the spy master

When asked about the way she signed letters,

"Are you in the habit of putting the Names ' Jhesus Maria,' with a cross, at the top of your letters ?"

she let out a little secret ploy she had used:

"On some I put it, on others not; sometimes I put a cross as a sign for those of my party to whom I wrote so that they should not do as the letters said."

Misc quotations

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