She travelled to Vancouleurs where she met Robert de Baudricourt and Jean De Metz, who accompanied her to Chinon to meet with the Dauphin. It was at this point she first began to wear men's clothing. In Chinon and Poitiers she was examined by theological scholars who were unable to debunk her claims, so Charles set her with troops to Orléans to lift the English seige.
After sending letters to the English beseeching them to lift their seige and return to England, the only remaining course of action was war. The French first took the fortress of Saint-Loup, then the Augustines. On May 7, 1429, Joan was wounded in the throat by a crossbow bolt, but her troops still fought bravely and the English siege was lifted the next day.
After a campaign in Loire, she accompanied the Dauphin to Reims where he was coronated as Charles VII, King of France. After an unsuccessful attempt to take Paris, in which Joan was again wounded, and a retreat to Saint Denis, Joan was captured by the Burgundians in May of 1430 at Compiègne and taken to Rouen to stand trial before the Bishop Cauchon.
The scope of the trial is too great to go into detail here, but earlier confusion in the nodes about Joan's refusal to wear women's clothing should be addressed. When asked if God commanded her to wear men's clothing, she replied:
"My clothing is a small matter, one of the least. But I did not put on men's clothing by the counsel of any man on earth. I did not put on this clothing, nor do anything else, except at the bidding of God and the angels.
Joan was kept from attending mass or hearing confession, but she would not recant her testimony... until the Bishop read her sentence in the Cemetery of Saint Ouen on Thursday, May 24th, 1431. When it was announced that she was to be burned, she produced a signed statement of abjuration. She was to put on women's dress and be placed in the eventually placed custody of the church. Whether or not she was raped is a subject of debate. It would appear naïve to think that she wasn't, although her words on the day of her death speak to the contrary: "that my clean body, never yet defiled, must this day be burnt and turn to ashes."
Four days after her abjuration, she recanted her statement, proclaiming "What I said, I said for fear of the fire." On Wednesday, May 30th, 1431, she was brought forth to the public and burned at the stake. Her last words:
"I pray you, go to the nearest church and bring me the cross, and hold it up level with my eyes until I am dead. I would have the cross on which God hung be ever before my eyes while life lasts in me.
Jesus, Jesus!"
A highly influencial indie rock band on Jade Tree records, based out of Chicago, Illinois. Joan of Arc (Core members: Tim and Mike Kinsella and Sam Zurick, all three formerly of Cap'n Jazz) stick to the rock 'n roll basics, but through abstract song structure and unique electronic soundscapes, such as tape looping and sampling, JOA grab immediate attention and leave even the most jaded (pun not intended) indie rawker craving more. It seems many indie fans either love 'em or hate 'em, but no one can question their success (relative success, that is).
Discography: Method and Sentiment: 7", 1996 A Portable Model Of: CD/LP, June 1997 How Memory Works : CD/LP, 1998 Live in Chicago : CD/Double LP, 1999 Gap : CD/LP, 2000 How Can Anything So Little Be : CD/LP, 2001
Cixous starts Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks / Ways Out / Forrays with binary oppositions, such as "Sun/Moon" to "Father/Mother." She makes the point that binary oppositions are heirarchical and patriarchial. One side of an opposition is always ranked better than the other and that side is identified as male. The most tangible duality that humans see everyday is male/female, but for some this is not a binary opposition. Transgendered people may switch sides or may reject the idea of an opposition altogether. Their actions are met with hostility and sometimes violence.
When Joan of Arc was young, she started to have visions, which told her to dress as a man and take up arms. Freud wrote in General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks that, "One may observe that it is just those girls who in the years before puberty showed a boyish character and inclinations who tend to become hysterical at puberty." In class, Professor Zieman remarked that at puberty, Joan of Arc kind of became a boy. In this reading, Joan crossed sides of the binary opposition from female to male, and from weakness to strength.
I would like to argue that she did not cross the opposition, but rather straddled it. While she did start to dress as a man and take on a male role, she made no effort to hide her identity as a woman. She did not change her name. In fact, she chose a title for herself that was explictly female and feminine. "Pucelle" is a word like "maiden." Furthermore, during her trial, she bragged that she excelled at all the womanly arts. One of the charges brought against her had to do with her telling a comrade that she would have three sons, one of whom would go on to become Pope. She did not transition fully to male, but held on to, and was proud of, her female-gendered activities and traits.
Readers don't often associate Mark Twain, the author of such classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, with the seventeen-year-old peasant girl who led and inspired the French army to several victories during the Hundred Years War. He did, however, compose a touching 'memoir-biography' of the French heroine, and considered it his most important work.
While this novel can be classified as historical fiction (as several elements of Joan's life have obviously been dramatized and fabricated), it's important to understand that Twain did an extensive amount of research about her as an individual and the times in which she lived. The novel should be enjoyed as a reasonably accurate profile of the "virgin warrior" -- but it's not exactly a scholarly resource.
Joan of Arc is masterfully written; Twain's prose demonstrates his command of the English language and his understanding of character development. That is the most important element of this novel; we all know what happens and how it ends. It isn't meant to be considered the definitive retelling of Joan's life, but the introduction of literary elements to this makes it easier to understand how such a young girl touched so many lives in such a short period of time.
The book is divided into three sections: 'Domremy' (which describes Joan's childhood), 'In Court and Camp' (which provides an interesting look into her military career) and 'Trial and Martyrdom' (the name of the section is self-explanatory).
Joan, the only daughter of farmers, begins to hear and see things that identify themselves as three Catholic saints at the age of 12. They tell her that she has been chosen by God to lead the French army to victory against the English, who currently occupy a large part of France. Joan's family and her fellow villagers are skeptical. de Conte also explains how he and several of her other childhood friends felt about these visions; Twain's inclusion of this is interesting because most of the more factual accounts focus primarily on the reactions of local clergy and Joan's family.
de Conte explains that Joan continued to hear what she referred to as "(her) Voices" for several years, but they warned her, at first, to be cautious. It was not until she was nearly 17 that she was told to travel to meet with the Dauphin, heir to the throne of France. She invited de Conte to travel with her and to serve as her secretary, as he had been taught to read and write as a child.
After meeting with the Dauphin, Joan managed to convince him to allow her to lead troops into battle. Remarkably, she was able to reclaim enough French land to allow the Dauphin to be crowned king. As she continued to lead the army into battle, she restored hope and a sense of patriotism to the people of France. Twain gives these events a personal touch by explaining how de Conte and Joan's other counterparts felt during these events.
Joan eventually fell into the hands of the English and was tried as a heretic. According to Twain's characterization of de Conte, her trial was a grueling experience. Though the life of Joan of Arc is reasonably well documented and most people know how it ends, this is as far as the synopsis can go without technically being riddled with "spoilers".
One has to question whether or not the text presents bias, even though it should be enjoyed as a work of literature and not as a historical resource. Though Twain was American, he presents the memoir from the point of view of a French person. Needless to say, it's reasonably "pro-Joan." The piece as a literary work doesn't suffer because Twain paints de Conte as being understandably loyal to Joan.
This is quite possibly one of the most thorough pieces of historical fiction ever written. There's no way to tell if some of the intrinsic details presented by Twain are accurate -- but there's no way to tell if they aren't.
Read it. It will give you an insight into the feelings and thoughts of one of the world's most intriguing and enduring historical figures. It will make you happy. It will make you sad. It will make you wonder why every other historical account of this girl's life leaves out the way she felt and the way she made others feel.
It will make you remember that this girl was more than a paragraph in a history textbook and a series of dates and accomplishments.
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