The Lives of the Saints through 100 Masterpieces

Joan of Arc

The Lives of the Saints 128 Joan of Arc May 30 It isn’t often that a supposed sorceress is canonized. And this is not the most perplexing aspect of the story of this shepherdess, burned alive at age 19, and exonerated 25 years later in 1456, at the conclusion of a second process. Contrary to the myth, one should not doubt the honesty of her first judges, Bishop Pierre Cauchon, former rector of the University of Paris, and Cardinal Henri Beaufort. The candid responses of the illiterate young girl and her quick rejoinders, however, made them suspect diabolical intervention. “Are you in a state of grace?” “If I am not, may God place me there; if I am, may God preserve me there.” Her judges’ objective, above all, was to have her renounce her “voices,” the peremptory affirmatio that her political mission was divinely inspired, as instructed by Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret, and Saint Michael. “Saint Margaret doesn’t speak English then?” “Why would she speak English, since she is not of the party of the English?” She was threatened with torture, but the court refused to employ such an extreme measure. At any rate, under such pressure, the Maiden of Orleans ended by abjuring her voices and was condemned to finishing her days in religious enclosure. A few days later, however, she rescinded—a relapse into heresy, which was considered a crime greater than heresy itself, and thus deserving of condemnation to the stake. She was also condemned to oblivion. After her exoneration, Saint Joan of Arc was only rarely remembered, and portrayed even less frequently , until republican nationalism in nineteenth century France, in search of historical legitimacy, made the shepherdess of Domremy the icon of the secular republic. N. M. Dyudin (ca. 1848) Joan of Arc Shadrinsk Regional Museum, Russia ...