Jeanne d\' Arc

Youth

Jeanne was born with Domrémy, with the steps of the Lorraine, during the Guerre One hundred Year old opposing the France to the England. Girl of Jacques d' Arc and Isabelle Romée, it belonged to an family of five children: Jeanne, Jacques, Catherine, Jean and Pierre.

She was very pious, and liked to go, each Saturday, with the church of Bermont, close to Greux, to request.

Context

During the War One hundred Year old, the majority of the areas of north and south-west of the French territory are controlled since 1420 by the English.

The king Charles VI, known as Charles Fol , does not have all its mental faculties. The legitimacy of its last wire surviving, the Dolphin Charles, heir to the crown, is disputed, because of the adventures that would have had Isabeau of Bavaria, his/her mother (in particular with Louis of Orleans).

Since the Assassination of Louis of Orleans in November 1407, the country is torn by a Civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundian. Those dispute the capacity within the council of regency chaired by the Isabeau queen because of madness of her husband. Benefitting from this conflict Henri V, king d' Angleterre revival the hostilities and unloads in Normandy in 1415. The French Chevalerie undergoes a disaster with Azincourt, vis-a-vis the Archer S Welsh. Indeed, English, having a perfect control of the shooting to the arc (" longbow") and, sheltered well loads by piles laid out in advance, decimate under a rain of arrows the French knighthood from which the horses are not protected yet. They thus will become Masters of the battles with ground discovered in spite of their clear numerical inferiority, until the field artillery appears which will give the advantage to the French at the end of the conflict.

At the time of the Interview of Montereau on September 10th 1419, the dolphin Charles and Jean without Peur must be reconciled, to face the enemy. But unfortunately, during this meeting, Jean without Peur is stabbed by a man of the dolphin, probably Tanguy of Châtel. In réction of this assassination, the son of Jean without Fear, Philippe the Good, joins himself the English imitated in that by powerful the Université of Paris.

Combined to the powerful duke of Burgundy, the English can impose in 1420 the treated of Troyes, which is signed between the king Henri V of England and Isabeau of Bavaria, queen of France and regent. According to the terms of this treaty, Henri V Marie with Catherine, girl of Charles VI; to died from Charles VI, the crown must return to their descent, joining together the two kingdoms.

This treaty which despoils the Dolphin of its death tax (because illegitimate child and supposed assassin of the duke of Burgundy) is disputed by the French Noblesse. With died of Charles VI in 1422, France thus does not have any more a king crowned. The crown of France is then asserted by the still minor king of England, Henri VI which has just succeeded his/her father.

De Domrémy with Chinon: 1428 - February 1429

At 13 years, Jeanne affirms to have heard the celestial voices of holy the Catherine and Marguerite and of the holy archangel Michel asking him to be pious, to release the kingdom of France of the invader and to lead the Dolphin on the throne. After much of hesitations, at 16 years, it gets under way. Arrival at the close city, it requires to enlist in the troops of the Dolphin. Its request is rejected twice, but it returns one year later and Robert de Baudricourt, Capitaine of Vaucouleurs, agrees to give him an escort, resigned vis-a-vis the popular enthusiasm of the city where Jeanne had acquired a small notoriety, in particular while going to return visit to the sick duke Charles II of Lorraine. Before her departure for the kingdom of France, Jeanne will collect herself with the Basilique of Saint-Nicolas-of-Port, dedicated to patron saint of the Duché of Lorraine.

Wearing male clothes (what it will do until its death, except for its last Easter), it crosses incognito the Burgundian grounds and it goes to Chinon where it is finally authorized to see the Dolphin Charles, after reception of a letter of Baudricourt. The anecdote simply tells that it was able to recognize Charles, vêtu in the middle of its courtiers, and speaks to him about its mission. By superstition, Jeanne is placed in the tower of Coudray, that where Jacques de Molay was imprisoned and would have pronounced her famous curse. Jeanne announces four events clearly: release of Orleans, the Sacring of the king with Rheims, release of Paris and release of the duke of Orleans. After makehaving made it question by the ecclesiastical authorities with Poitiers where Matrone S note her virginity, and makes an investigation with Domrémy, Charles gives his agreement on his plan of release of Orleans besieged by the English. Jeanne begins a series of three summations intended for the English.

Jeanne the Virgin, war leader: April 1429 - May 1430

His/her brothers join it. One equips it with an armor and a struck white banner of the Fleur of lily, it registered there Jesus Maria , which is also the currency of the orders beggars (Dominican and the franciscains). In departure of Blois for Orleans, Jeanne expels or Marie the prostitutes of the army of help and makes precede her troops by ecclesiastics. Arrived at Orleans on April 29th, it brings the supply and meets there Jean of Orleans, said “the Bastard one of Orleans”, future count de Dunois. She is accommodated with enthusiasm by the population, but the captains of war are reserved. With its Faith, its confidence and its enthusiasm, she manages to insufflate with the desperate French soldiers a new energy and to force the English to raise the seat of the city in the night of the 7 to the May 8th 1429.

See also: Head office of Orleans, Battle of Patay

After this victory, celebrated each year in Orleans these two days, one calls it the “Maid of Orleans”. After the cleaning of the Loire Valley thanks to the victory of Patay (where Jeanne d' Arc did not take share with the engagements), the June 18th 1429 gained vis-a-vis the English, it persuades the Dolphin to go to Rheims to be made crown king de France.

To arrive at Rheims, equipped must cross cities under Burgundian domination which do not have reason to open their doors, and which nobody has the means of forcing militarily. According to Dunois, the blow of bluff to the doors of Troyes involves the tender of the city but also of Châlon and Rheims. Consequently, the crossing is possible.

The lawsuit in judgment: January 9th, 1431 - May 30th, 1431

She is shown of Hérésie and is questioned without care with Rouen. She is imprisoned in the keep of the castle of Philippe Auguste ; only a tower of construction arrived to us and called now Tour Jeanne d' Arc . The lawsuit begins the February 21st 1431. Judged by the Church, it remains nevertheless imprisoned in the English prisons, with the contempt of the Canon law. If its conditions of imprisonment are particularly difficult, Jeanne nevertheless was not subjected to the question to acknowledge, i.e. with torture.
However at the time, torture was a stage necessary to a " good procès". This surprising absence of torture was used as argument for an origin " noble" of Jeanne d' Arc. The torturers would not have dared to carry the hand on it.

Jeanne d' Arc with her lawsuit (the March 15th 1431)

The investigators, led by the bishop of Beauvais, Mgr Cauchon, do not manage to establish a count of indictment valable : Jeanne seems to be a good Christian woman, convinced of her mission, different from the heretics who pullulate in a climate of distrust with respect to the Church in these disturbed times. Especially the court reproaches him owing to lack of for wearing clothes of man, for having left his parents without them giving him leave, and systematically for relying on the judgment of God rather than to that of “the militant Church”, i.e. the terrestrial ecclesiastical authority. The judges also estimate that its “voices”, to which it refers constantly, in fact are inspired by the demon. The University of Paris (Sorbonne), then to the pay of Burgundian, delivers its opinion: Jeanne is guilty to be schismatic, apostate, liar, soothsayer, suspect of heresy, wandering in the faith, blasphemer of God and the saints. Jeanne calls some with the pope, which will be ignored by the judges.

May 24th, the judges put in scene a parody to rough-hew to frighten Jeanne and to press it to recognize its faults. Jeanne under the oral promise (thus unverifiable) of the court to imprison it in an ecclesiastical prison, signs of a cross (whereas it could write her name) the abjuration of her errors, grateful to have lied in connection with the voices and subjects herself to the authority of the Church. She is then returned in her prison with the hands of the English. Estimating itself misled, it retracts two days later, responsability again clothes of man (under obscure conditions).

Declared “relapse” (fallen down in its last errors), the court condemns it to roughing-hew and delivers it to the “secular arm”.

The following day, May 30th 1431, it is burned alive Place of the Old man-Market to Rouen. It returns the heart by shouting three times “Jesus”. According to testimonys, it is veiled and placed at more than three meters height.

The cardinal of Winchester had insisted that there remain nothing of his body. It wished to avoid any posthumous worship of the “virgin”. It had thus ordered three successive cremations. The first saw dying Jeanne d' Arc by intoxication with carbon monoxide, the second let in the center rough-hew the calcined bodies, and third it remained only osseous ashes and remains which were then dispersed by the torturer in the Seine (where was built later the Pont Jeanne-with Arc) so that one cannot make relics of them.

Preserved relics?

Alleged relics of Jeanne d' Arc are preserved at the Museum of Art and History of Chinon. Property of the archbishop's palace of Turns, they were placing on tip in this museum in 1963. The bottle of glass which contains them was discovered in Paris in 1867 in the attic of a pharmacy, located street of the Temple, by a student in pharmacy, Mr. Noblet. The parchment which closed the opening of the bottle was marked: “Remainders found under roughing-hew it of Jeanne d' Arc, Maid of Orleans”.

The bottle contains a 10 cm length human coast covered with a noirâtre layer, a piece of fabric of flax of about fifteen centimetres length, a Fémur of cat and charcoal fragments.

The French doctor-legist Philippe Charlier, specialist in Pathographie, which analyzed the remainders as from February 2006 with its team of the Raymond-Poincaré Hospital to Garches (Hauts-de-Seine), concludes that they are remainders of mummies, at the same time human mummy and animal mummy, of Egyptian origin the Low time and who could have formed part either of the collection of a cabinet of amateur or of the pharmacopeia of a Apothicaire before being employed with the clothes industry of these pseudo-relics.

A microscopic and chemical analysis of the fragment of coast shows that it was not flaring, but impregnated of a crop product and mineral of black color. Its composition is connected more with that of the bitumen or pitch that to that of organic residues of human or animal origin having been reduced to the state coal by cremation.

The “noses” of large perfumers (Guerlain and Jean Patou) in particular detected on the piece of coast a vanilla odor. However this perfume can be produced by “the decomposition of a body”, like in the case of a momification, not by its cremation.

The flax cloth, as for him, was not burned, but was dyed and has the characteristics of that used by the Egyptians to wrap the mummies.

In addition, concerning pollen, it was noted a great richness of pollens of pine, probably in connection with the use of resin in Egypt during the embalming.

Lastly, a study with carbon-14 dated the remainders between, and a spectrometric examination of the coating on the surface of the bones showed that it corresponded to those of Egyptian mummies of this late period.

Documentary point by point reporting the whole of these scientific investigations will be diffused on France 2 at the beginning of 2008.

The lawsuit in rehabilitation: 1455-1456

When Charles takes again Rouen, a second lawsuit, at the request of the mother of Jeanne and on decree of the Spanish pope Calixte III, breakage in 1456 the first judgment for corruption, fraud, calumny, fraud and mischievousness . The Pope ordered with Thomas Basin, bishop of Lisieux and adviser of Charles VII, to study in-depth the acts of the lawsuit of Jeanne d' Arc. Its report was the legal condition of the lawsuit in rehabilitation. After having recorded the depositions of many contemporaries of Jeanne, whose notaries of the first lawsuit and certain judges, he declares the first lawsuit and his conclusions null, nonwhich occurred, without value nor effect and entirely rehabilitates Jeanne and her family. It also orders it honest affixing cross for the perpetual memory of the late one with the place even where Jeanne died. Majority of the judges of the first lawsuit, whose Cauchon bishop, died meanwhile.

See on Wikisource it (July 7th 1456).

Jeanne d' Arc and her time: Stakes and problems

Jeanne d' Arc and her contemporaries

Jeanne d' Arc was very popular of alive sound, the ride towards Rheims makes known it also abroad. She starts to receive mails on theological questionings coming from many regions. One will ask him for his opinion on which popes, then in competition, is truth. Jeanne approaches the Ordres beggars. She one of many the Prédicateur S in this time being directly said was sent of God. Even if the main object of its mission is the restoration of the throne of France, the Virgin takes party in fact on the level theological and made debate. The conflicts of interests around it exceed the political competition between the English and the partisans of the Dolphin.

Thus the University of Paris, which “was filled of the creatures of king d' Angleterre” does not see it good eye, contrary to the theologists of Poitiers, composed of the Parisian academics exiled by the English, and also contrary to the archbishop of Spray, the bishops of Poitiers and Maguelonne, Jean Gerson (before chancellor of the University of Paris), general Inquisiteur of Toulouse, or Inquisiteur Jean Dupuy which saw only like stakes “with knowing the restitution of the king to his kingdom and the eviction or the crushing very right of very stubborn enemies”. This clergy, and others, supported the Virgin. For the eminent religious authority which was then the Sorbonne, the religious behavior of Jeanne exceeds the stake of reconquest of the kingdom, and the Doctors of Divinity of this institution regard it as a threat against their authority, in particular because of the support of the rivals of the University for Jeanne, and for what it represents in the fights of influence inside the Church.

Jeanne did not have either that friends at the court of the Dolphin, the party of the favorite Trémouille (whose Gilles de Rais was) placed herself regularly in opposition, with the council of the Dolphin, vis-a-vis her initiatives.

Its role in the One hundred Year old war

Jeanne d' Arc neither influenced with it only the final stage of the war, which was completed in 1453, nor be non-existent in the tactical and strategic role of her countryside. Dunois speaks about a gifted person of a good sense undeniable and completely able to place at the key points the parts of Artillerie of the time. The feats of arms are thus to carry to its credit even if certain battles were regulated partly by curious events. It was unquestionably moreover a charismatic chief .

On the plan Géopolitique, the kingdom of France, even private from all that was located at the north of the Loire, was given human and material resources quite higher than those of England, four times less populated. The strategy of Charles V, which misait over time, by avoiding the engagements and by besieging the fortified towns one by one, showed the limits of the English invasion perfectly.

However, before the intervention of Jeanne d' Arc, the English profited from an extremely important psychological advantage related to several reasons:

reputation of invincibility of their troops;
the treaty of Troyes which disinherited the Charles dolphin and questioned his filiation with regard to the king Charles VI;
a state of abatement and resignation of the population;
alliance with Burgundy.

The numerical advantage of the kingdom of France weighed little. This situation made that in 1429 dynamics was English.

Jeanne had unquestionably the merit to reverse the ascending psychological one in favor of France, by going up moral armies and populations, by legitimating and crowning the king, and by beating the English. Charles VII had, him, the initiative to mend itself with the Burgundian ones, essential stage for the reconquest of Paris. Jeanne d' Arc obviously did not carry the Burgundian ones in her heart because of their proximity with her village of Domrémy and the clashes that it could there have had.

Stake of its virginity

By being called openly the “Virgin”, Jeanne accredited the idea that it was sent of God and not a witch, her Virginité symbolizes the purity of Jeanne clearly, as well physically as in her religious and political intentions. Consequently to check its virginity becomes an important issue, being given the political importance of the projects of Jeanne: to restore the legitimacy of Charles, and to bring it to the sacring.

By twice, the virginity of Jeanne was noted by matrons, with Poitiers in March 1429, but also with Rouen, on January 13rd 1431. Pierre Cauchon (that one even which made it burn) had ordered this second examination to find a count of indictment against it, in vain.

It is on the other hand difficult to know what it occurred between the judgment and the report from relaps, period when Jeanne was maltreated hard by its geôliers, disfigured. According to Martin Ladvenu, an English Lord would have tried to force it in his prison, in vain.

Problems of the historical sources

The two primary sources on the history of Jeanne d' Arc are the lawsuit in judgment of 1431, and the lawsuit in rehabilitation of 1455-56. Being legal documents, they have the immense advantage of being the most faithful retranscriptions of the depositions. But they are not only: notes, chronicles were also written of alive sound, such as the Geste of noble François , the Chronique of the Virgin , the Chronique of Perceval de Cagny, or the Journal of the head office of Orleans and the voyage from Rheims . It is necessary to also add the reports/ratios of the diplomats and other advisers. It is Jules Quicherat which will gather in an quasi-exhaustive way johannic historiography between 1841 and 1849, in 5 volumes. Between XVe century and the XIXe century, a crowd of writers, politicians, of monk adapted Jeanne d' Arc, and their writings are numerous. It is thus necessary to be careful in the handling of the sources: little is contemporary for him, and they often reinterpret the original sources in the context of their interpreter.

The lawsuits are legal documents. The two lawsuits have the characteristic to have been subject to an obvious political influence, and the method inquisitoire very often supposes that the defendant and the witnesses answer only the put questions. Moreover the lawsuit of 1431 was retranscribed in Latin (probably without the knowledge of Jeanne), whereas the interrogations were in French.

Philippe Contaminates, during his research, noted an abundance of writings since 1429, and the “formidable repercussion with the international level” to which this abundance testifies. He also notices that Jeanne d' Arc was from the start put in controversy and made debate by her contemporaries. Lastly, as of the beginning “of the legends, concerning its childhood, its prophecies, its mission, the miracles or the wonders ran about it of which it was the author. At the beginning was the myth. ”

It thus appears that no contemporary document of the time - except the minutes of the lawsuits - is safe from deformation resulting from the imaginary collective. During the lawsuit of rehabilitation, the witnesses tell their memories 26 away years. The majority of the depositions are however supported in addition.

Its recognition

Relaps before heroin

Christine de Pisan is one of the rare contemporary authors to have spoken in praise of Jeanne d' Arc, the new Judith . Villon mentions in two worms, among the Dames of time formerly , “Jeanne good Lorraine/That Anglois burned in Rouen”. Before the 19th century, the image of Jeanne d' Arc is disfigured by the literature. Only the note of Edmont Richier, especially prolific on the theological level, brings a historical shutter however sullied with inaccuracies. Chaplain, poet official of Louis XIV, devotes an epopee unfortunately very poor to him in the literary plan. Voltaire devotes only one worms and half to the glory of Jeanne d' Arc in her Henriade , song VII “… And you, the honest Amazon, the shame of the English, and the support of the throne. ” and more than twenty thousand to dishonor it.

The virgin becomes that which saved France

Since the 19th century, the exploits of Jeanne d' Arc are usurped to be used certain political intentions for the contempt of the history. The mysteries of this exploitation of a heroin which symbolizes mythical France of way, even mystical, are explored in Jeanne d' Arc: birth of a myth.

Jeanne d' Arc was rehabilitated in 1817, in the book of Philippe-Alexandre the Brown one of Charmettes: History of Jeanne d' Arc, called the Maid of Orleans, drawn from its own declarations, one hundred forty-four depositions of eyewitnesses, and the manuscripts of the library of the king of the tower of London (in 4 volumes, edition Arthus Bertrand, Paris). The scrupulous work of this historian, based on rigorous investigations, and the study of original documents, with often re-used as work by French and foreign writers bases, such Jules Quicherat, which contributed to give again its titles of nobility to the Maid of Orleans. One finds on the site of the National library of France on line literary criticisms of 1818 on the exit of this work hinge: general Newspaper of the literature of France or methodical Repertory 1818 , pages 13,49 and 79.

Jeanne d' Arc is canonized in 1920, and Pie XI proclaims it holy owner secondary of France in 1922.

Divergent theses

Several women presented themselves as being Jeanne d' Arc affirming to have escaped with the flames. For the majority, them Imposture was quickly detected, but two of them managed to convince their contemporaries who they were really Jeanne d' Arc: it is of Jeanne of Armoises and Jeanne de Sermaises, which was perhaps only one and even nobody.

According to a late source (found in 1686 with Metz), Jeanne of Armoises appeared for the first time on May 20th, 1436 in Metz where it meets the two brothers of Jeanne d' Arc, who recognize it for their sister. It is impossible to determine if they really believed that she was their sister or not. At all events, Jeanne d' Armoise remains the most serious case of imposture on the character of Jeanne d' Arc.

In 1456, after the rehabilitation of the Virgin, Jeanne de Sermaises appeared in Anjou. She was shown to be itself made call the Maid of Orleans, to have worn men's clothes. She was imprisoned until February 1458, and was released in the condition which she would get dressed “honestly”. She disappears from the sources after this date.

Certain researchers deny the thesis of imposture. In " The business Jeanne d' Arc" , the authors think that Jeanne would be the illegitimate girl of Isabeau of Bavaria and Louis of Orleans and thus sister of Charles VII. She would have been entrusted to her birth with the family of Arc discreetly charged to raise it. She would never have been shepherdess (as she twice specifies it very clearly at the time of her lawsuit) and the only voices which she would have heard would be those of the envoys of the crown requiring of him to cooperate with a mission of rescue of Charles VII.

This noble origin would explain why she spoke very good French and not the local patois about Domrémy where very few people were expressed in French. Its statute of noble would have also enabled him to learn how to overlap impetuous Destrier S, to handle the sword, to make the war and with being received without difficulties by Robert de Baudricourt. All unthinkable things for a simple shepherdess.

According to this same thesis, Jeanne would not have died in 1431. Its body would have been replaced by another woman on roughing-hew it and Jeanne would have married Robert of Armoises. She would have finished her days with the Château of Jaulny in Lorraine then would have been buried with Pulligny.

(on Wikisource)

“Colleagues”

Jeanne d' Arc was not a single case at her time. The Journal of a middle-class man of Paris brings back a sermon heard on July 4th, 1431 referring to three others femmes :

Still dist it of its sermon that ilz estoient IIII, of which the III avoit esté prinses, it is to assavoir ceste Pucelle, and Perronne and its compaigne, and one which is with Arminalx (Armagnacs), named Katherine of the La Rochelle; … and disoit that all these four pouvres woman Richart brother the cordelier (…) avoit all thus controlled; (…) and that the Christmas Day, downtown of Jarguiau (Jargeau), it yawned with ceste Jehanne lady the Virgin three foys the body of Nostre Seigneur (…) ; and the yawned avoit with Peronne, that day, twice (…

Of these three other women, same the Bourgeois of Paris reports the execution of Pieronne which “estoit of Breton-speaking Bretaigne” was burned on the square of Notre-Dame on September 3rd, 1430. And if it does not name it, the Formicarium of the brother Jean Nider seems to describe the same execution.

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