How about Joan? Installment #2

by Denise Novaky on 06/24/13

Dear Nick,

This is your mother speaking:

I wrote about Howard Hughes two (2) posts ago because he was cool, successful, smart, and unafraid to take reasonable risks although his reputation was battered through history.  Another individual who I think fits the category:  Joan of Arc.  Joan's legacy bore the brunt of the historical stick that battered her to be remembered as insane.  I would like to set the record straight.

Joan of Arc was born in a French peasant village in 1412.  Historical documents report her assertion that she began hearing the voices of God and the Saints when she was 12 years old.  Historians make the interesting point that her behavior was similar to that of other visionaries of the time.  That is, she was extremely faithful to God, reported direct communication with Him, and depended upon her own individual spiritual experiences as opposed to reliance upon the Church. 

In 1428, French and English royalty were arguing about land possession.  Joan's village was caught in the cross hairs of the fight and many villagers evacuated their homes.  Joan tried to fight for her village when she was a mere 16 years of age but was sent home.  I can only imagine that the warriors of the time laughed her back to some dirt road from whence she came ending the night with ale and lewd comments.  Apparently, Joan neither shrank away to cry into her pillow nor posted some angry come-back with the town crier. Undaunted, she returned ready for battle the next year.  She convinced the French ruler to provide her with an army and weapons; perhaps the war was progressing poorly and no further laughter was to be heard.  Truly pre-dating Frank Sinatra's claim to "My Way," Joan refused to rely upon the conventional warfare strategies used by the French at the time.  She believed they were ineffectively cautious and under-aggressive. That little point of view must have raised some eyebrows!  At any rate, Joan led the military to success in three (3) battles.  She was shot through the neck in the third battle but returned to fight. 

After some political manipulation and deception, Joan was captured.  French attempts to save her were unsuccessful and the English refused to trade her for money. It would appear that Joan's talent for strategic warfare was too valuable to send back to the enemy; she was, it would seem, priceless.  Unlike other female prisoners who were guarded by nuns, Joan was kept in a secular prison with male guards.  She wore trousers that were well-tied in layers in an attempt to protect herself from rape.  I think her attempts were likely unsuccessful; the warriors who she had previously stunned into submission probably needed some way to regain their ego and foolhardy feeling of mastery. 

Joan was convicted of cross-dressing after a trial fraught with payoffs and an agenda of revenge.  She was burnt at the stake when she was 29 years old.

"One life is all we have and we live as we believe in living it.  But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying." -- Joan of Arc.

And I bet you thought she was just some crazy chick!

Forever, the mom to Ben and Nick.