Joan of Arc: Teenage Heroine of France
Joan of Arc, a 14-year-old girl, led the French army to victories. She defied conventions and was later tried for heresy. Her courage and conviction changed European history forever.
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The Teenager Who Led an Army
In February 1429, a 17-year-old girl rode into the French royal court at Chinon. She was dressed in men's clothing. Her hair was cut short. She had come from the village of Domrémy, where she had been tending sheep a year earlier. She told the king, Charles VII, that she had been sent by God to save France. The English, allied with the Burgundians, had driven the French army from the field. The city of Orléans was under siege. The king was desperate. He gave the girl a horse, armor, and a banner.
Nine days after her arrival, she led the French army into battle. Within a week, the siege of Orléans was broken. The English withdrew. The French army, which had been on the verge of collapse, followed her to victory after victory. She was called the Maid of Orléans. She was 17. She had never led men before. She had never fought in a battle. She had been a peasant girl who heard voices, and the voices told her to save France.
What Everyone Knows
Joan of Arc is remembered as a symbol of French resistance, a martyr who was burned by the English and later canonized by the church. Her story is taught in schools, dramatized in films, and invoked in French politics. She is the patron saint of France. Her image is everywhere: in armor, on horseback, holding a banner.
What is less often emphasized is that she was a military leader who, in less than a year, reversed the course of a war that had been going badly for France for nearly a century. She was not a symbol who happened to be present at a few battles. She was the commander who decided where the army would go, how it would fight, and when it would attack. She was 17. She had no training.
What History Actually Shows
The Hundred Years' War had been fought since 1337. By 1429, the English controlled much of northern France. The French king, Charles VII, had not been crowned. The city of Reims, where French kings were traditionally anointed, was in English hands. The French army was demoralized. The French court was divided. The war seemed lost.
Joan arrived at Chinon in February 1429. She had been making her way through enemy territory for 11 days. She had been examined by church officials, who found her to be sincere. She had been given a small force to test her abilities. She had performed well. By April, she was leading the main army to Orléans.
The siege of Orléans had been underway since October 1428. The English had surrounded the city with a series of fortified positions. The French had tried to break the siege and failed. Joan arrived on April 29. On May 4, she led an attack on one of the English positions. She was wounded by an arrow but returned to the fight. By May 8, the English had withdrawn. Orléans was free.
The victory changed the war. Joan then led the army through English-held territory to Reims. The campaign was a series of sieges and skirmishes. Joan was at the front of every assault. She was wounded again. She kept fighting. On July 17, Charles VII was crowned king of France in Reims Cathedral. Joan stood beside him with her banner.
The Part That Got Buried
Joan's military career lasted less than a year. She was captured in May 1430 by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English. She was put on trial for heresy in Rouen. The trial was conducted by French clerics who were loyal to the English. The charges were about her voices, her clothing, her claim to have been sent by God. She was not allowed a lawyer. She was not allowed to appeal to the pope. She was questioned for months, trapped in a prison cell, threatened with torture.
The trial record shows that she answered her accusers with a composure that astonished them. When they asked if she knew she was in a state of grace, she replied: "If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may God keep me there." The question was a trap. Her answer was perfect. It did not save her.
She was convicted on May 30, 1431. She was led to the market square in Rouen and burned at the stake. She was 19 years old. Her ashes were thrown into the Seine.
The Ripple Effect
Joan's death did not end the war. It continued for another 22 years. But the momentum she had created did not dissipate. The French army, which had been on the verge of collapse before she arrived, never again lost the strategic initiative. By 1453, the English had been driven from all of France except Calais.
The church that had convicted her began to reconsider her case almost immediately. In 1456, a new trial, authorized by the pope, declared her innocent. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is now the patron saint of France, of soldiers, and of prisoners.
Her legacy is not just Catholic. She has been claimed by the French left and the French right, by nationalists and internationalists, by feminists and traditionalists. She was a peasant who became a commander, a woman who wore men's clothing, a teenager who led an army. She was burned for heresy and canonized as a saint. She was 19.
The Line That Says It All
Joan of Arc was 17 when she led the French army to break the siege of Orléans, 18 when she stood beside the king at his coronation, and 19 when she was burned alive by the English—and the church that condemned her as a heretic declared her a saint 500 years later, but by then, the army she had led had already won the war.
