accompanied me to Poitiers,
where the learnèd scholars of the
day convened to test and question
me. Their knowledge of theology
would tell the king with certainty
if my suit was false or true.
For three long weeks they put me through
a ceaseless and a silly trial.
Question after question, and all
the while Orléans was bleeding.
The proceedings of the trial
even called for rough and intimate
examinations to make sure
I was intact. I endured this
humiliation. If not, they
would have said that I had made a
pact with Hell. I know them well, these
men, always looking for the worst.
The world is cursed with them, but my
king needed their assurance, their
trust, their word that I was who I
said I was, and so with my
saints and my virginity, I
submitted and endured. I did
not let them see that I was
disquieted and bored. Instead, I sent
an urgent message to Fierbois,
asking for another sword, a
blade that I thought suited me very,
very well—a hero’s sword from
long ago, the sword of Charles Martel.
SENT to seek for a sword which was in the Church of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois, behind the altar; it was found there at once; the sword was in the ground, and rusty; upon it were five crosses; I knew by my Voices where it was. . . . I wrote to the Priests of the place, that it might please them to let me have this sword, and they sent it to me. It was under the earth, not very deeply buried, behind the altar, so it seemed to me.
* * *
Joan
Trial of Condemnation
The Sword at Fierbois
Joan
I know that swords are necessary
things: Without them there can be no
war. But what they were invented
for is not a skill that I revere.
No matter how it may appear,
though I have ridden into fierce
and violent campaigns and have
suffered stinging losses and enjoyed
exalted gains that come with
any great hostility, neither
in the revenge of defeat nor
the madness of victory have
I used a sword to take another’s
life. I’ve never made a widow
of an Englishman’s wife, never
caused a soldier’s blood to flow and
spill. I was born to lead and to
inspire, not to maim and kill.
* * *
These illusions and distracting
memories help to ease the pain
and fear of the burning present.
The sun, which I used to love, I
now lament, for he is now my
fiercest adversary. With every
second he climbs higher and brings
me closer to his functionary:
fire.
Fire
I soar I soar I soar my darling
I soar I soar I soar
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 arn y I ea y rling
yea I a rn
Joan
Time was squandered at Poitiers.
As day followed day followed day
followed day, the king was anguished,
in despair, as despondent as
a frightened hare caught in an English
trap. He was young and had no guide,
no recourse, no map to tell him
what to do. Each hour that passed brought
him closer to the day when Orléans
would capitulate. He was anxious,
moody, desperate. But finally
the decision came. The priests could
find in me “no blame.” They assured
the king they could discern no harm.
And though it maddened and alarmed
his aides, he paid to have me fitted
with the hard accouterments
of war.
HE King gave her a complete suit of armor and an entire military household.
* * *
Louis de Contes
The Armor
I did my job;
I did my very best
to shield her from the pain of injury. But it was all in vain. She
would not rest until she had been captured and oppressed.
She’d always been her own worst enemy. But I did
my job. I did! My very best plate against her legs
and back and chest, my chain protecting neck and
wrist and knee. But it was all in vain. She would not
rest while Henry’s English army still possessed
a single hectare of French land. Still, don’t you
see, I did my job? I did my very best to slow
her down, but she could not be suppressed
by the weight of steel or by rationality.
My work was all in vain; she would not rest.
I did my job, but she? She was possessed by
some internal fire, consumed, obsessed. I did my job
and did my very best, yet my ambition was in vain.
She would not rest.
Joan
Orléans was to be my test.
If I could lift the siege and
arrest the progress of the English
there, bait and defeat them the way
the hunter does a savage bear,
the king would know that I was not
a charlatan or fraud, that in
truth, I had been sent by God to
save France from its English enemies,
to chase them from our homeland and
to bring Henry to his knees. Orléans
had been surrounded for eight long
and trying months. Charles had tried
more than once to liberate the
town, but each time he’d been defeated.
His meager resources now depleted,
his enemies grew stronger, his
most accomplished knights no longer
able to break the might of the
filthy English scourge, or purge them
from their fortified positions.
I sent the English captains a
warning with grave admonitions
that unless they withdrew before
another morning’s dew had fallen
on French soil, they would find themselves
in the turmoil of defeat. They
laughed and called me whore. I was just
a girl. No more than sixteen with
no experience of war and
no military training. They
must have thought me very entertaining.
That was their mistake. At daybreak
I led my army into Orléans,
unopposed and undetected.
The way the town greeted me, cheering
and calling for the Maid, reflected
the long and bloody price they’d paid,
their anguished months of suffering, their
awful desperation. I told
them to take heart. Their liberation
had arrived. They had survived in
order to be saved. How they wept
and laughed and cheered and waved while their
great relief and happiness drifted
on the air! And how my spirits
lifted with their steadfast faith in me.
Where are they now, those shining
hours,
those brilliant days of victory?
Victory
I am a pail
that will not hold.
I am a fire
that soon burns cold,
the first half
of a story.
* * *
I am a bird
that won’t be held,
a godhead’s name
that’s been misspelled.
Both truth
and allegory.
* * *
A paramour
who will not wake,
a round of bread
that will not bake.
A trickster’s repertory.
* * *
I am a war cry,
bold and brash.
I am kindling.
I am ash,
an evanescent glory.
Joan
On the first morning of the fight
as light fell just after dawn, an
English arrow struck deep between
my neck and shoulder. The sight of
my own blood sickened me, but it
also made me bolder. Though I
was bleeding badly, I did not
leave the field of battle but
continued leading my brave men,
shouting we were not chattel of
the English but the liberators
of all France. “Advance!” I cried out
through the pain.
“Advance!”
* * *
“Advance!”
* * *
“Advance!”
HE twenty-seventh of May, very early in the morning, we began the attack on the Boulevard of the bridge. Jeanne was there wounded by an arrow which penetrated half-afoot between the neck and the shoulder; but she continued nonetheless to fight, taking no remedy for her wound.
* * *
Jean, bastard of Orléans, count of Dunois
Trial of Nullification
The Arrow
It
makes
no sense.
She should
have died. I saw
my mark and I
went deep. My gift
ignored. My joy denied.
It makes no sense. She
should have died. The pain she
seemed to brush aside: She was a
vow I could not keep. It makes no
sense. She should have died. I saw
my mark and I
went deep.
Joan
Then as now I was guided by
my voices. All the choices I
made in the bloody days that followed
came from my hallowed saints, including
the constraints I put on my men
when the English gave up and departed.
Some thought me weak or tenderhearted,
for I had spoken to Henry’s
captains, promising their safe retreat.
* * *
The English defeat had shown the
king that I was his protector
and salvation. My success was
irrefutable, a clear and
certain confirmation that faith
in me would lead him to triumphant
victory. I did not want to
stain this gift with needless butchery.
At the siege of Orléans, I
finished what I started. My
strategy was simple: We would
fight until we won. And in eight
short days, I, Joan, a peasant girl,
did what in eight long and crimson
months no clever man had done.
T was said that Jeanne was as expert as possible in the art of ordering an army in battle, and that even a captain bred and instructed in war could not have shown more skill; at this the captains marveled exceedingly.
* * *
Maître Aignan Viole
Trial of Nullification
Joan
We went on to be victorious
in other towns the English held.
Word spread; my forces swelled. Farmers
joined my army with nothing more
than spikes; some had only pitchforks,
some only wooden pikes. They asserted
as much chivalry as any
royal knight. In all, I had six
thousand men, each eager to be
led by me. We took Jargeau,
Meung-sur-Loire, and long-bridged
Beaugency.
EANNE assembled an army between Troyes and Auxerre, and found large numbers there, for everyone followed her.
* * *
Gobert Thibaut, squire to the king of France
Trial of Nullification
The Pitchfork
Joan
I loved the military life,
though it was often rife with
peril, the men I fought with nearly
feral when their blood was up. I
shared their food. I shared their cup.
When they slept depleted on the
unforgiving ground, I lay there
too, surrounded by the sound of
soldiers in their dreams. The moan, the
muttered word, the restlessness, the
sigh, were as comforting to me
as any lullaby and proof I
was not mending seams or tilling
rocky land. Instead I was in
firm command of brave and fighting
men. The war is not yet over,
but I will not see those thrilling
days or know that happiness again.
Fire
I roar I roar I roar my darling
I roar I roar I roar
I soar I soar I soar my darling
I soar I soar I soar
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 bu b rn I n my ling
rn n I bu
I arn y I ea y rling
yea I a rn
Joan
My saints were always there beside
me, to counsel, cheer, console, and
guide me. And they helped in other
ways: We were marching in the summer
haze toward the commune of Patay,
where English captains, bold and sly,
had set a snare, their men concealed
among the trees. With ready bows
and hungry swords they waited to
attack. But before this black plan
could be enacted and embraced,
a stag raced from a clearing.
Appearing from nowhere, large and wild,
he charged into the woods where the
Englishmen were hiding. I was,
as always, riding at the head
of my troops and saw frightened groups
of Henry’s soldiers scatter, the
clatter of their swords as good a
warning as an alarm. They knew
the fatal harm the stag’s sharp
antlers could impose. A clever
ambush was thus exposed. Four thousand
English died that day, the awful
price they had to pay for their flagrant
treachery, but their agonizing
loss was our tremendous victory.
Who but my saints would send that stag,
as sure a signal as a flag
alerting me to jeopardy?
I know this as surely as I
know my father’s cattle graze
unshod: The stag was sent to me
by Heaven; the stag was sent to
me by God.
THINK that Jeanne was sent by God, and that her behavior in war was a fact divine rather than human. Many reasons make me think so.
* * *
Jean, bastard of Orléans, count of Dunois
Trial of Nullification
The Stag
She says it was Heaven. I say it was Hell
that morning in the woodland glade
when unannounced and unafraid
I charged those soldiers. Who can tell?
* * *
Four thousand men died in that dell.
I can’t forget the serenade
of dying screams, the acrid smell
of bitter blood beneath the blade
* * *
on the soft ground where they fell.
They’d gone to Mass, confessed and prayed,
and still transformed from man to shade,
the clash of swords their clanging knell.
She says it was Heaven. I say it was Hell.
Joan
After victory at Orléans
and the Battle of Patay, the
king had confidence that I, and
I alone, could rescue France. My
voices said to take the king to
Reims, where he would at last be
consecrated by the holy
oil with which French kings must be
anointed. The men around him
were pointed in their discouragement
of this dangerous endeavor,
for we would ride through land that
Henry’s soldiers held. They were clever,
these advisors, warning that the
English would never be expelled
if Charles were caught and in their
hands. But even as they spoke, Henry’s
men were thriving on French lands,
growing fatter every day. In
this matter, I told Charles he