Consider this unique and imposing distinction. Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a na...

Authorities examined in verification of the truthfulness of this narrative: J. E. J. Quicherat, Condamnation et Réhabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc. J. Fabre, Procès de Condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc. H. A. ...

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lo...

The details of the life of Joan of Arc form a biography which is unique among the world’s biographies in one respect: It is the only story of a human life which comes to us under oath, the only one wh...

This is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age. The things I am going to tell you are things which I saw myself as a child and as a youth. In all the tales and songs and histories of Joan of Arc,...

I, the Sieur Louis de Conte, was born in Neufchâteau, on the 6th of January, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was born in Domremy. My family had fled to those distant regions...

I, the Sieur Louis de Conte, was born in Neufchâteau, on the 6th of January, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was born in Domremy. My family had fled to those distant regions...

Our Domremy was like any other humble little hamlet of that remote time and region. It was a maze of crooked, narrow lanes and alleys shaded and sheltered by the overhanging thatch roofs of the barnli...

Speaking of this matter reminds me of many incidents, many things that I could tell, but I think I will not try to do it now. It will be more to my present humor to call back a little glimpse of the s...

All children have nicknames, and we had ours. We got one apiece early, and they stuck to us; but Joan was richer in this matter, for, as time went on, she earned a second, and then a third, and so on,...

They were peaceful and pleasant, those young and smoothly flowing days of ours; that is, that was the case as a rule, we being remote from the seat of war; but at intervals roving bands approached nea...

All through her childhood and up to the middle of her fourteenth year, Joan had been the most lighthearted creature and the merriest in the village, with a hop-skip-and-jump gait and a happy and catch...

I heard my name called. It was Joan’s voice. It startled me, for how could she know I was there? I said to myself, it is part of the dream; it is all dream⁠—voice, vision and all; the fairies have don...

Human nature is the same everywhere: it defies success, it has nothing but scorn for defeat. The village considered that Joan had disgraced it with her grotesque performance and its ridiculous failure...

The 5th of January, 1429, Joan came to me with her uncle Laxart, and said: “The time is come. My Voices are not vague now, but clear, and they have told me what to do. In two months I shall be with th...

The 5th of January, 1429, Joan came to me with her uncle Laxart, and said: “The time is come. My Voices are not vague now, but clear, and they have told me what to do. In two months I shall be with th...

After a few days, Laxart took Joan to Vaucouleurs, and found lodging and guardianship for her with Catherine Royer, a wheelwright’s wife, an honest and good woman. Joan went to Mass regularly, she hel...

We were twenty-five strong, and well equipped. We rode in double file, Joan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz at the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear...

We were called to quarters and subjected to a searching inspection by Joan. Then she made a short little talk in which she said that even the rude business of war could be conducted better without pro...

We rested and otherwise refreshed ourselves two or three hours at Gien, but by that time the news was abroad that the young girl commissioned of God to deliver France was come; wherefore, such a press...

Well, anything to make delay. The King’s council advised him against arriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a decision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of prie...

We were doomed to suffer tedious waits and delays, and we settled ourselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting the slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when Go...

When Joan told the King what that deep secret was that was torturing his heart, his doubts were cleared away; he believed she was sent of God, and if he had been let alone he would have set her upon h...

It was indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see. She had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other ill-wishers to let her hold court those nights. The commission of priests sent to Lorr...

Joan’s first official act was to dictate a letter to the English commanders at Orleans, summoning them to deliver up all strongholds in their possession and depart out of France. She must have been th...

Noël and I went back together⁠—silent at first, and impressed. Finally Noël came up out of his thinkings and said: “The first shall be last and the last first⁠—there’s authority for this surprise. But...

We were at Blois three days. Oh, that camp, it is one of the treasures of my memory! Order? There was no more order among those brigands than there is among the wolves and the hyenas. They went roarin...

We marched out in great strength and splendor, and took the road toward Orleans. The initial part of Joan’s great dream was realizing itself at last. It was the first time that any of us youngsters ha...

She was ready, but must sit down and wait until there was an army to work with. Next morning, Saturday, April 30, 1429, she set about inquiring after the messenger who carried her proclamation to the ...

We of the personal staff were in fairyland now, during the few days that we waited for the return of the army. We went into society. To our two knights this was not a novelty, but to us young villager...

This episode disagreed with me and I was not able to leave my bed the next day. The others were in the same condition. But for this, one or another of us might have had the good luck that fell to the ...

When we got home, breakfast for us minor fry was waiting in our mess-room and the family honored us by coming in to eat it with us. The nice old treasurer, and in fact all three were flatteringly eage...

About noon I was chatting with Madame Boucher; nothing was going on, all was quiet, when Catherine Boucher suddenly entered in great excitement, and said: “Fly, sir, fly! The Maid was dozing in her ch...

Being worn out with the long fight, we all slept the rest of the afternoon away and two or three hours into the night. Then we got up refreshed, and had supper. As for me, I could have been willing to...

The next day Joan wanted to go against the enemy again, but it was the feast of the Ascension, and the holy council of bandit generals were too pious to be willing to profane it with bloodshed. But pr...

To get away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan went with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied together, and there they took their supper and there the wound w...

We were up at dawn, and after Mass we started. In the hall we met the master of the house, who was grieved, good man, to see Joan going breakfastless to such a day’s work, and begged her to wait and e...

In the earliest dawn of the morning, Talbot and his English forces evacuated their bastilles and marched away, not stopping to burn, destroy, or carry off anything, but leaving their fortresses just a...

It was vexatious to see what a to-do the whole town, and next the whole country, made over the news. Joan of Arc ennobled by the King! People went dizzy with wonder and delight over it. You cannot ima...

The days began to waste away⁠—and nothing decided, nothing done. The army was full of zeal, but it was also hungry. It got no pay, the treasury was getting empty, it was becoming impossible to feed it...

This time, as before, the King’s last command to the generals was this: “See to it that you do nothing without the sanction of the Maid.” And this time the command was obeyed; and would continue to be...

We made a gallant show next day when we filed out through the frowning gates of Orleans, with banners flying and Joan and the Grand Staff in the van of the long column. Those two young de Lavals were ...

The troops must have a rest. Two days would be allowed for this. The morning of the 14th I was writing from Joan’s dictation in a small room which she sometimes used as a private office when she wante...

I knew she had seen the vision of the Tree. But when? I could not know. Doubtless before she had lately told the King to use her, for that she had but one year left to work in. It had not occurred to ...

When the morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th of June, there was no enemy discoverable anywhere, as I have said. But that did not trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that we sho...

Joan had said true: France was on the way to be free. The war called the Hundred Years’ War was very sick today. Sick on its English side⁠—for the very first time since its birth, ninety-one years gon...

The great news of Patay was carried over the whole of France in twenty hours, people said. I do not know as to that; but one thing is sure, anyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting and glorify...

Yes, Orleans was in a delirium of felicity. She invited the King, and made sumptuous preparations to receive him, but⁠—he didn’t come. He was simply a serf at that time, and La Tremouille was his mast...

The campaign of the Loire had as good as opened the road to Rheims. There was no sufficient reason now why the Coronation should not take place. The Coronation would complete the mission which Joan ha...

It was here that we saw again the Grand Master of the King’s Household, in whose castle Joan was guest when she tarried at Chinon in those first days of her coming out of her own country. She made him...

We mounted and rode, a spectacle to remember, a most noble display of rich vestments and nodding plumes, and as we moved between the banked multitudes they sank down all along abreast of us as we adva...

Now these were nobles, you know, by decree of the King!⁠—these precious old infants. But they did not realize it; they could not be called conscious of it; it was an abstraction, a phantom; to them it...

In my double quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the council. She entered that presence with the bearing of a grieved goddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was enc...

It was away past midnight, and had been a tremendous day in the matter of excitement and fatigue, but that was no matter to Joan when there was business on hand. She did not think of bed. The generals...

Courier after courier was despatched to the King, and he promised to come, but didn’t. The Duke d’Alençon went to him and got his promise again, which he broke again. Nine days were lost thus; then he...

Yes, it was as I have said: Joan had Paris and France in her grip, and the Hundred Years’ War under her heel, and the King made her open her fist and take away her foot. Now followed about eight month...

I cannot bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of the summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was not much troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan ha...

I cannot bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of the summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was not much troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan ha...

My wound gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of October; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength. All this time there were reports drifting about that the King was ...

It was necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for Noël and myself; and when the Pierrons found that I knew how to write, the applied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for me...

On Tuesday, the 20th of February, while I sat at my master’s work in the evening, he came in, looking sad, and said it had been decided to begin the trial at eight o’clock the next morning, and I must...

I give you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor the facts of this miserable trial. No, I will give them to you honestly, detail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down daily ...

That night Manchon told me that all through the day’s proceedings Cauchon had had some clerks concealed in the embrasure of a window who were to make a special report garbling Joan’s answers and twist...

The third meeting of the court was in that same spacious chamber, next day, 24th of February. How did it begin work? In just the same old way. When the preparations were ended, the robed sixty-two mas...

The court met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it? The Bishop ignored the contract limiting the examination to matters set down in the procès verbal and again commanded Joan to take the oath...

The next sitting opened on Thursday the first of March. Fifty-eight judges present⁠—the others resting. As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She showed no temper this time...

The court rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third of March. This was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out of patience; and with good reason. These threescore dis...

A halt was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight, Joan was gaining it. There were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being softened toward Joan by her courage, he...

Now, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a thing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to speak of it with patience. In the beginning of her commerce with ...

So the second trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite result. The character of it I have described to you. It was baser in one particular than the previous one; for this time the charges h...

We were now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was growing worse when the scene which I have just described...

Two weeks went by; the second of May was come, the chill was departed out of the air, the wild flowers were springing in the glades and glens, the birds were piping in the woods, all nature was brilli...

The brilliant weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made everybody’s heart to sing, as I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling lighthearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break...

Another ten days’ wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all valuable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris, were still weighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies. I ...

Toward the end of the ten-day interval the University of Paris rendered its decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan was guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors ...

Joan had been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in Cauchon’s hands at last. He could send her to the stake at onc...

In the morning I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised the height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On this same platform was a crowd of priests and important ci...

There is no certainty that anyone in all Rouen was in the secret of the deep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal of Winchester. Then you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of...

Friday and Saturday were happy days for Noël and me. Our minds were full of our splendid dream of France aroused⁠—France shaking her mane⁠—France on the march⁠—France at the gates⁠—Rouen in ashes, and...

The young can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noël and me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it was so with ours. We called back that vague promise of th...

At nine o’clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in the grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her life for the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King tha...

Joan’s brother Jacques died in Domremy during the Great Trial at Rouen. This was according to the prophecy which Joan made that day in the pastures the time that she said the rest of us would go to th...

This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in the past four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La Hire, and the fact is of official record in the National Archives of Fran...