Now a political force, Jeanne became a recognized leader of the court faction favoring
renewed war over negotiations with the Anglo-Burgundians. Failure in war soon
destroyed her influence. When she was defeated and wounded in an ill-considered assault
on Paris in September, Charles arranged a truce and disbanded his army. Though her
family had been ennobled, Jeanne was politically isolated and left the court in the spring
to bolster Compiègne’s resistance to a Burgundian siege. She was captured there on May
24, 1430, and, to his eternal discredit, abandoned by Charles. Jeanne’s cross-dressing,
claims to divine guidance, and success had aroused suspicions of sorcery, but her
subsequent trial and execution for heresy were acts intended primarily to discredit the
Valois cause. In response to an accusation by representatives of the University of Paris,
her Burgundian captors delivered her for trial at Rouen under the direction of Bishop
Pierre Cauchon. Eloquent in testimony and steadfast when threatened with torture, Jeanne
submitted only when weakened by illness and faced with execution. Sentenced to a life of
imprisonment and penance, she relapsed and was condemned. Courageous to the end, she
insisted on her innocence and asked the executioner to hold the cross high so she could
see it through the flames. Jeanne remained a controversial figure, and in 1456 Charles VII
arranged the annulment of her conviction mainly to clear himself of a suspect association.
Shrouded in myth and exalted by unceasing artistic glorification, Jeanne endures as a
figure inspiring even the most skeptical. Her historical importance could be narrowly
construed: she was essentially a military figure whose inspirational leadership and
ephemeral battlefield success helped restore the prestige of the Valois dynasty, ensuring
its survival but not its eventual triumph. Few, however, would restrict themselves to such
a reductive assessment. Jeanne’s courageous example and her martyrdom assure her an
enduring role in modern life, not unlike that played by Roland in the Middle Ages. She
has become a symbolic figure emblematic of many and varied hopes. Above all, she is
the symbol of 20th-century France at war with both itself and its German invaders. In the
late 19th century, the “Maid of Orléans” become a popular heroine who inspired
generations of French conservatives in the struggle against the secularism of the Third
Republic and reminded all Frenchmen of the need to regain the lost provinces of Alsace
and Lorraine seized by Germany in 1870. This popular devotion led to her canonization
in the aftermath of the First World War and final confirmation that her greatness
transcends if not defies historical analysis.
Paul D.Solon
[See also: CAUCHON, PIERRE; CHARLES VII; CHRISTINE DE PIZAN; RAIS,
GILLES DE; WOMEN, RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF]
Doncoeur, Paul, and Yvonne Lanhers, eds. Documents et recherches relatifs a Jeanne la Pucelle. 5
vols. Vols. 1–4, Melun: Librairie d’Argences, 1921–58; Vol. 5, Paris: De Brouwer, 1961.
Tisset, Pierre, and Yvonne Lanhers, eds. Procès de condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc. 3 vols. Paris:
Klincksieck, 1960–71.
Gies, Frances. Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.
Margolis, Nadia. Joan of Arc in History, Literature, and Film: A Select, Annotated Bibliography.
New York: Garland, 1990.
Vale, Malcolm G.A. Charles VII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.
Warner, Marina. Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. New York: Knopf, 1981.
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