Joan of Arc — The Most Glorious Girl in History

...This article on Joan of Arc was prompted by an article by the writer Nadira Sabbour of Cairo, which The Woman's Voice published in last April's issue under the title "Joan of Arc Is Not Fit to Be an Example for Women," in which the author expressed her view of woman's duty, saying: we cannot picture woman on the field of battle brandishing the sword...

Mrs. Kanaan shows a boundless admiration for the splendid personality of Joan of Arc, and of her long reply we content ourselves with presenting the life story of the great Joan of Arc.

"The Editors"

...Europe is floundering in the mire of the dark ages; France's people are being wasted by famine and her land laid barren by invasions and raids; the heir to the throne is a tool in the hands of the feudal lords, and the English enemy surrounds Paris and lays siege to Orléans, the last stronghold of the monarchy. The Dauphin, Charles VII, was but the son of a mad father and a scheming mother — Queen Isabeau — a prince who doubted his own parentage, beset by misgivings, torn among the designs of lords and bishops and chieftains.

And the people?... They were the majority, toiling for bread and for life. They submitted in silence, and in their submission were prayer and supplication.

In the village of Domrémy, in the district of Lorraine, on one of the blazing days of summer, while a girl of thirteen sought solitude in the garden of the house after finishing her household duties, a shimmering cloud rose before her eyes, and she heard voices calling to her, "Little Jeanne, daughter of God." And no wonder — for in that hour of supreme rapture Joan understood that the burden of the nation had been laid upon her shoulders, since God had chosen her to lift the siege of Orléans and to summon the heir to the throne to his coronation at Reims.

The saints' promptings did not come all at once, nor did Joan plunge straightway into battle. The visions and the "voices" stayed with her for four years, and the graver the matter grew, the more closely she kept it secret, until, when she reached seventeen, their urging drove her to leave her family, put on men's dress, cut her hair, and set out to the rescue of the besieged city. What duty is nobler than this duty? And what of it, if the selfsame duty was performed by a woman? Joan of Arc's guide was not adventure and the shedding of blood; she did not declare war on citadels and fortresses until she had declared war on vice, unbelief, and dissipation.

Under the sway of these burning forces of the spirit Joan of Arc, unlettered and simple as she was, went forth to demand an army and a king for her people and her country. She believed in the sanctity of a mission that the most learned and most upright men of her age laughed at. Logic denied success! Faith looked toward triumph! And it was not long before cold logic melted away in the heat of faith.

The Maid reached Chinon and stood before the Dauphin and confided to him the legitimacy of his descent from his father, and asked for an army to break the siege. How did she know the Dauphin's secret, which he dared not whisper even to himself? Nay, how did she know that Orléans lay under siege, when she had come from a distance nearly equal in length to half of France? All the while the glances of the ladies of the court were fixed upon the roundness of her arms and hips, upon the free and poised neck, upon her prominent breasts, wondering why one endowed with such attributes should have been chosen as God's messenger. The court was a theater for the lusts of the nobles, and they soon perceived that this virgin's coming among them was a danger to their artificial paradise, just as she was a danger to the pleasures of the army about her.

The army was made up of rough-natured, unruly soldiers, or of bands of

thieves and highwaymen, who made up for their paltry wages by plunder, and who knew of religion nothing but blasphemies and oaths. Behind the fighting army there followed an army in itself, parasitic in its function, in which the combatants found an outlet for the lusts of war: monks and libertines and hangers-on, herds of cattle, horses, and swine. The Maid's descent upon them was like a thunderbolt: she forbade them to utter blasphemies and to consort with harlots. She could be seen riding her horse among the libertines and the loose women, driving them from the camp with her staff, saying: "Trust in God and confess, and victory shall be yours."

Is this an example of disgrace to men? Not fit to be an example for women? Is she anything but a pious reformer, spreading purity wherever she went? The commanders swore, as she lay on her back at night in their midst, that never once did the thought of laying hands on her cross their minds. Now she is calling to the enemy, with her native boldness, from the top of the ladder, above the water-filled moat dividing the English garrison from the attacking army: "Obey God and surrender at once, and save your lives." And the English called back to her: "You harlot, you cowherd! If you fall into our hands, we shall burn you alive." They were crouching as the animal crouches before it springs. And so the enemy took her unawares. Joan heard nothing but the cry, "The English are betraying us." What had happened? Had her commanders mocked her, and not told her what they meant to do? Or is this what war is? But the blaze of patriotic fire left her no room for thought; she cried out as she buckled on her armor, "To horse! Mount!" Then, "Where is my standard?" And she devoured the ground, sparks flying from beneath her horse's hooves. Ah, that first hour, in which she beheld the field of battle drenched in blood — the stage of hot and telling combat had passed, and a listlessness had seized the army, as though the piled-up years of defeat had cramped its will, and it lay hostage to inevitable rout.

She paid no heed to those who fell back, and did not fear death, but plunged into the fray, shouting: "Hardiment! Attaquez les anglais!" Her cries were like the beating of the war trumpet; they worked like magic, and turned the course of the battle, flood after ebb; the French swept the field and razed the fortress to the ground, while Joan of Arc's standard — the standard of the liberation of France — fluttered above their heads. The army entered Orléans, and the church bells' peals of "Hosanna" filled the air.

Joan alone did not exult, did not rejoice. She knelt and prayed for the souls of the slain, and made her confession to the priest — though her pure hands had never left the flag, and her symbolic sword had not spilled a single drop of blood.

A year after the manifest victory of Orléans, Joan of Arc set out for the ill-fated siege of Compiègne, in which she fell a prisoner of war, and then a prisoner of the Church. The "voices" said to her: "Accept your fate with a willing heart, and God will help you." From behind the curtain the English brought forward Pierre Cauchon, promised him the bishopric of Beauvais, and bought a council of grandees from the University of Paris to persuade the world that Joan of Arc's deeds had been wrought by satanic power. Whatever may be said of her trial, it will never be anything but a brand of shame upon the brow of justice — to say nothing of the injustice and torture beyond imagining that she met with in prison. And despite her boldness and the whiteness of her record, the cage of the ecclesiastical Inquisition prevailed over that exemplar of patriotism and winged liberty, and she was led to the stake, above which was written: "Pretender, unbeliever, traitor, heretic."

Joan the woman died; but Joan the legend, Joan the victorious, lived on in the hearts of the French, like a firebrand of light scattering the gloom of the dark ages.