the simple dress they proffered and
my own hypocrisy. I took
off the shift and donned the clothes more
natural to me. I knew then
I would face my death unafraid
and proud. If that meant that my
tunic would also be my shroud,
then I would enter Paradise
a bright and shining jewel, not an
abomination, but the way
that God has made me, His singular
creation.
AS it God prescribed to you the dress of a man?”
Joan: “I did not take it by the advice of any man in the world. I did not take this dress or do anything but by the command of Our Lord and of the Angels.”
* * *
Trial of Condemnation
Joan
How strange it is not to be confined
in my tower cell—where they have
imprisoned me well over a
long year—to feel the spring sun on
my skin! What is it that these angry
men so fear that they treat me like
a criminal? They say it was
a sin to stand up for Charles
and for France. Yes, I carried sword
and shield and lance onto the teeming
battlefield, but I have never
been untruthful or concealed my
true intentions. They say I am
a sorceress, but that is only
an invention to protect them
from their own dark villainy, their
unmanly apprehensions
and disguised anxieties. They
are angry that I would not give
them satisfaction by saying
I was guilty or signing a
retraction. But I will not let
them harvest the bitter seeds of
fear they’ve sown. I am not afraid
because I am not alone. Saint
Margaret and Saint Catherine will
never desert me. They will keep their
promise: No one can hurt me.
Fire
I will I will I will my darling
I will I will I will
I thrill I thrill I thrill my darling
I thrill I thrill I thrill
I burn I burn I burn my darling
I burn I burn I burn
I yearn I yearn I yearn my darling
yea I a rn
Saint Catherine
Barbers and bakers approach me in prayer,
and those who know their philosophy,
and lawyers and young girls with long, unbound hair
and wheelwrights and scribes, too, supplicate me,
and millers and preachers and potters feel free
to beg and beseech me. I do what I can,
but I am not now what I once used to be.
Saints are only human.
* * *
I would also like to make you aware
I converted to true Christianity
hundreds of pagans. I once had a flare
for debate, religion, theology,
was renowned for the skill of my oratory.
Oh, yes, I was quite the sesquipedalian.
But all that is gone. I’m exhausted. You see,
saints are only human.
* * *
There once was a princess with long, flowing hair,
lovely, and also quite scholarly.
But she was beheaded—a messy affair—
for refusing to take vows of matrimony.
In case you were wond’ring, that princess was me.
He was a repulsive, ridiculous man!
If I’m slightly resentful, I think you’ll agree,
saints are only human.
* * *
About this young Joan I’ve some sympathy,
but if I forgot her, reneged on the plan,
she’ll learn the hard way: There’s no guarantee.
* * *
Saints are only human.
Joan
The journey to Chinon—eleven
days and nights—was long and hard. I
had always to be on my guard,
for not only was I in the
company of men who were not
of my blood, but the rivers were
high, in spring flood, and we traveled
through countryside the English
consoled, by the voices of my
saints. My male escorts showed constraint
and never once approached me with
impure innuendos or dis-
honorable intentions. My
accusers often mention this
as proof that I’m a witch, a wicked
necromancer. They say the only
way they can explain why healthy
men remained aloof to what is
vital to their sex was I had
practiced conjuring to produce
unnatural effects. They insist
that I had cast a spell; they insist
my voices come from Hell. They insist
I am a zealot of the black
demonic arts. They insist on
evil everywhere but in the
darkness of their hearts.
T night, Jeanne slept beside Jean de Metz and myself, fully dressed and armed. I was young then; nevertheless I never felt towards her any desire: I should never have dared to molest her, because of the great goodness which I saw in her.
* * *
Bertrand de Poulengey, squire
Trial of Nullification
Lust
I was a snake
that would not strike,
a fawning tiger,
a blunted pike,
confused and
undirected.
* * *
I was hunger,
agitated,
always wanting,
never sated,
asking but neglected.
* * *
A fire
unlit,
ale
not drunk,
a ripened bud
that grew
then shrunk,
a belfry unerected.
She was ice.
She was flame.
She was goodness.
She was my shame,
iniquity
reflected.
Joan
Before we set out on our expedition,
I made another change. It is
the accepted tradition for
young women to arrange their hair
in long and flowing tresses. This
well-established custom expresses
they are of age and available
for marriage, and is a subtle
declaration to the opposite
sex. But I have never felt compelled
to do what everyone expects.
I took up a pair of shears. My
hair is now an easy length, cut
just below my ears.
ID you wish to be a man?”
* * *
Trial of Condemnation
Her Hair
I was
a flag,
a waving
splendor;
I was
a sign
to each
contender,
as full
of hope
as morning.
* * *
I am a wonder. I am ease.
I’m an avowal: I do what I
please. A fearless day aborning.
* * *
I was
encour-
agement.
I was
allure.
I was
a melody
flowing,
pure,
adorning.
* * *
I am a helmet on a strange head.
I am a
word that won’t be said,
a triumph, and a warning.
Joan
From the town of Fierbois, I relayed
my intention to see the dauphin,
a single day’s ride from where he
held court. My saints had supported
our long expedition, and while
we awaited the dauphin’s permission
to enter Chinon, I rested
and prayed, giving thanks to my voices
that we’d not been delayed by the
English or outlaws the war had
created. I was impatient
but also elated, for soon
I would kneel before the chosen
king of France, nevermore to tend
my father’s bleating sheep nor weed
the tender plants in my mother’s
kitchen plot. I welcomed who I
was and left behind who I was
not. The chapel at Fierbois was built
of stone and wood, and I
attended Mass there as often as
I could, finding happiness and
strength as I knelt before its altar.
Never once did I falter or doubt
I would succeed. My saints—they would
sustain me and give me everything
I need.
AVE you been to Sainte Catherine de Fierbois?”
Joan: “Yes and I heard there three Masses in one day.”
* * *
Trial of Condemnation
The Altar at Sainte Catherine De Fierbois
For hundreds of years, I’ve attended prayers of peasants and nobility, their earthly cares, their hopes, their needs, their gravest sins, so many secrets that it begins to encumber me. Stained with salt of countless tears for hundreds of years, I’m burdened by the solemn pleas, the quivering voices, the bruisèd knees of desperate, suffering penitents. They have repeated the same sentiments, intoned the same vows, or so it appears, for hundreds of years. The secrets I know, I keep interred; unforgivable sin and damning word are buried with other mysteries, swords left by knights to calm and please a vengeful god who saw their sins. Oh, the secrets I know are crushing me. But she was different from the rest. She asked for nothing, no fervent request. I was both purified and awed when, in emptiness, she offered herself to God and, baptized in her ecstasy, I surrendered and let go of the secrets I know.
Joan
To lift the siege at Orléans
was my initial charge. Henry
had the town surrounded, his army
large and well-supplied. The citizens
were starving but would not be
occupied by an invading foreign
power and so were forced to cower
in their homes like sparrows in a
storm when English arrows rained,
unable to maintain their lives
without the fear of death. The English
only had to hold their breath for
the town to fall. Saint Margaret and
Saint Catherine said that Orléans
must not be lost. I had to lift
the siege, whatever it might cost.
But first I had to gain the dauphin’s
confidence. For that I would rely
upon my holy saints and my
own intelligence. Word of our
mission traveled faster than we.
News had spread of the prophecy,
and when we rode into Chinon,
the narrow streets were crowded. I,
Joan, a peasant, a girl, was being
celebrated, lauded by the
townsfolk who were shouting, reaching
out to touch my arm or leg and
begging me to deliver France from
its English enemies. Was it so
wrong of me to feel pleased to
hear them calling out “The Maid!” as
our small cavalcade made its way
through the throng? Wrong of me to take
pride in how far I had come? Sinful
to take pleasure in the sweet hum of
hope that filled the air? Everywhere
I looked—faces smiling, laughing,
cheering! Cheering in a time of
misery and war! I loved these
people, the faithful poor. But we were
nearing the castle, the residence
of Charles, the gentle dauphin
and rightful king. I had never
seen anything so majestic
or so grand. Its towers and its
battlements fanned out on the very
top of the hill that overlooked
the town, like a protective helmet
or a shining, royal crown. My
voices whispered I would soon stand
on its parqueted and polished floors;
but they did not warn me of the
darkness lurking in its corridors.
FTER dinner, I went to the King, who was at the Castle. When I went to the room where he was I recognized him among many others by the counsel of my Voice, which revealed him to me. I told him I wished to go and make war on the English.
* * *
Joan
Trial of Condemnation
The Castle at Chinon
Only
a child trapped
in the thrall of palace
rooms that wind and sprawl—each
hung with gaudy tapestries whose func-
tion is to warm and please the noble folk
when winter’s squall explodes against the
tower wall and muffles the pathetic call of
courtiers begging on their knees—only a
child could not attend the pleading waul,
the pain, the misery, the pall, that radiate
and rise from these: the blood spills and
the treacheries that fester in these lurid
halls—only a child. Where kings reside,
the sleeping dust on gilded frames knows
not to trust anything a king might say. A
promise that he makes today, though
he proclaims it with robust sincerity, is
worthless. Just and wise men know that
greed and lust, deceit and treason, often
play where kings reside a game in which
the drag and thrust of power that is won
and lost leaves innocence to die, decay. It
is a virtue to betray where kings reside.
Joan
When finally I saw Charles—
after two days of waiting,
worrying, wondering, anticipating—
they tried to deceive me. His male
advisors did not believe me
and so they put him in disguise
and introduced another as
he. The look on their faces! The shock
and surprise when they saw that I
was not so easily misled.
How their jaws dropped when I smiled
and said, “But this man is false, a
giddy pretender.” And in the
splendor of the court went directly
to Charles and gave him my knee.
My voices told me it was he. I
then described for him my vision,
my saints, my voices, and my mission
to lift the siege at Orléans.
We went into a private room,
and there in the solemn and imposing
gloom, I gave my king a sign that
everything I’d said was true. I
told him something that only he
knew—the content of his secret prayers.
WAS at the Castle of the town of Chinon when Jeanne arrived there, and I saw her when she presented herself before the King’s Majesty with great lowliness and simplicity; a poor little shepherdess! I heard her say these words: “Most noble Lord Dauphin, I am come and am sent to you from God to give succor to the kingdom and to you.�
�
* * *
Sieur de Gaucort
Trial of Nullification
Charles VII
What an embarrassment to me—
this peasant wench dressed in men’s clothes!
To come before me! Royalty!
In tunic! Doublet! And in hose!
* * *
A reprehensible affront that goes
against all laws of propriety!
She says she is unschooled. It shows!
What an embarrassment to me!
* * *
To all the aristocracy!
She should be whipped! But then suppose . . .
suppose that her hyperbole—
this peasant wench dressed in men’s clothes—
* * *
suppose she speaks the truth. A Christian knows
that God’s work is a mystery;
she may well be the one He chose.
To come before me, royalty,
* * *
takes unusual bravery.
Can she defeat our English foes,
deliver France its victory,
in tunic, doublet, and in hose?
My noble courtiers oppose
her and her tale of prophecy.
Yet she was able to disclose
words I’d said in secrecy.
What an embarrassment!
Joan
Before I could set upon my
mission to roust the English, save
Orléans, and lift the siege, Charles,
the dauphin, my king, and my liege,