Horse Statues of Washington, DC - Joan of Arc

s e u t a t S e s Hor of C D , n o t g n i h s a W By Keats Kennelly

Issue #3

December 2024

Joan of Arc in Merdian Hill Park

Issues JUNE 2024 THE ULYSSES S. GRANT MEMORIAL AUGUST 2024 THE ANDREW JACKSON MEMORIAL DECEMBER 2024 THE JOAN OF ARC STATUE

PHOTOGRAPHY, WRITING, & PUBLICATION BY

Keats Kennelly EDITED BY

PJ Gohel Deb COPYRIGHT

2024 BY KEATS KENNELLY

The Statue of Joan of Arc “One life is all we have and we live it 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 In an age where the church was God and those who ran it were infallible, a young girl, not even old enough to vote in today’s world, listened to her soul, the spirit within, the voices that came to her, in defiance of those lauded authorities. Those supreme men.

What possessed a girl of 17 to leave her family, her home, her life, to ride with an army, defy the odds, and crown a king? What drew a poor, illiterate peasant girl who had never worn armor, held a sword, or even ridden a horse to ride in all her feminine glory onto a deadly battlefield? The statue of Joan of Arc in Meridian Hill Park measures 9 feet high. Far larger than the girl was in real life, but everything about Joan has been enlarged beyond conception since her death in 1431. The story of Joan of Arc has many more questions than answers. It speaks to us all in ways that a young girl probably never imagined or thought about. What is a legacy when you are 17? What is life at that age? How could she possibly comprehend the end that came to her? An end that was as fiery as it was fierce.

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Joan of Arc was a symbol in life and has remained a symbol more than anything else in death. But, what of the girl beyond the banner? What of the child behind the battle cry? The girl encased in steel riding among men who could have easily demolished her? Was it divine intervention? Was it the fulfillment of a prophecy? What is just charismatic madness? The men who acted as gods on earth condemned Joan knowing that for someone as devout as she, the pain of being burned alive wouldn’t be the part Joan took issue Joan of Arc with. The pain of having her body reduced to ash, and therefore, being refused resurrection in line with her faith was the greater issue. An insult added to injury that even sainthood could not reverse. The story of Joan isn’t just Joan’s; it is also her mother’s. Isabelle, known as Romeé, a nickname given to those who had undertaken a long religious pilgrimage, worked for 25 years to clear her daughter’s name of heresy. Joan’s story is one of supreme trust, of unimaginable faith in the unbelievable, and a mother’s undying love for her child in a world too cruel to recognize her greatness as anything other than a threat.

Joan of Arc was born Jeanne on January 6, 1412 in the village of Domrémy in northeastern France. No actual last name was ever recorded.

Domrémy has, since Jeanne’s time, been renamed to Domrémy-la-Pucelle in Jeanne’s honor. La Pucelle d’Orléans, or “the maid of Orléans” in English, was the name given to Jeanne during her lifetime after her successful win at the Siege of Orléans.

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Understanding Jeanne, if one even could, must come through truly understanding the context of the times she lived in. What she did is and remains an impossibility to all but her in this world. Still, it is easier to see why she did it when one considers the backdrop of her immense gravity. Jeanne has pulled innumerable people towards her story and into her world, a world where war was everpresent. It is both surprising, and, at the same time, not so surprising that she was pulled into it.

During Jeanne’s trial, which was overseen by the clergy of the Catholic Church and the clergy of the Sorbonne in Paris, Jeanne gave sparse details of her early life. During the retrial, which occurred 25 years later, more testimonies were collected from the people that knew her prior to her military career to give insight into who Jeanne really was beyond “the Maid of Orléans.” Jeanne was born amidst the Hundred Years’ War, a war she’d fight in towards the end of her short life. The Hundred Years’ War was a war started due to disputable succession with the French Crown. In actuality, the English king had a stronger claim to the French throne, but it was through his mother, and the French weren’t too keen on an English king, nor female succession. Three years after Jeanne’s birth, in 1415, was the Battle of Agincourt which was a major victory for the English. It ushered in the last and third phase of the war, which would last until 1453 continuing through a peace treaty, the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, which never fully took effect.

In 1425, when Jeanne first started hearing the voices of three saints, Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch, Jeanne’s village was pillaged and the village church burned to the ground by Burgundian soldiers. The Burgundians were a section of the French who had chosen to 3

support the English Crown within France, after the assassination of the Duke of Burgundy by the Dauphin’s faction, the Valois. In truth, both sides of the war ransacked and destroyed villages for goods and food they needed to survive, as neither side was able to pay or outfit the armies they had raised. Another raid in 1428, which ultimately destroyed the village for a time, precipitated Jeanne leaving her family and home for good on her quest to crown the then Dauphin, Charles, as the rightful King of France. With these events seemingly inciting Jeanne towards her destiny, one must question, was it a supreme mission to crown a King or was it a mission to secure some safety and security in her own world?

What happened next is well documented in the annals of history.

Jeanne left her family without a word and went with a neighbor to the closest member of the French aristocracy. She convinced him to take her to the Dauphin. Imagine, a 17 year old during the Middle Ages convincing a local land-owning man to take her to crown the prince a king. Implausible as it is, some say it’s a miracle it happened. Upon meeting with the Dauphin, he disguised himself, having a courtier welcome Jeanne. She saw through it immediately, winning her a private audience with Charles. What was said or shown to Charles to convince him was never disclosed nor uncovered. It remains a mystery just how Jeanne walked out of that audience with a prince to become the symbolic figurehead of his disheartened army.

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For a few centuries, there had been prophecies repeated over and over in different forms that “a maid” would come along to save France. At this point in France’s history, what was at stake was their autonomy. The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 had effectively disinherited the Dauphin Charles from his throne. His father, King Charles VI, had agreed that upon his death the succession of the Kingdom of France would pass to the English Lancastrian Kings. King Henry V of England would become King of France.

But, Henry V and Charles VI both died within months of each other, leaving the enforcement of the treaty up in the air. Henry VI was still a young child and was put into a guardianship until he came of age. His war for the throne of France was organized and fought by others. Meanwhile, the Dauphin Charles remained uncrowned, fighting for his right to be king. This is the fight Jeanne ventured to take up. Those in the court of the Dauphin saw her as fulfilling the prophecies that had been around for centuries. If Jeanne was aware of these prophecies, she only saw herself as fulfilling the will of God. In October of 1428, the English arrived at the city of Orléans, a city of around 30,000 people, the same size as London at the time.

The city had known the English were coming for months and were well prepared for a siege. The people of Orléans had burned the surrounding villages to make it more difficult for the English to survive their own siege by denying them local food stores and livestock, and had brought food, livestock, and people into the fortified city. The people of Orléans had also created enough garrisons to seal off the southern part of the city from the English, leaving them a 5

tenable way out and in, should they need it.

Orléans was the last major stronghold in northern France that the Dauphin and his supporters held. The English and Burgundians held the rest of the North including Paris. Should the English get Orléans, the rest of France would fall and the English would conquer France. Should Orléans withstand the English, the Dauphin would still have a chance at the French crown. The English laid siege to the city for six months, during which time the faction of the Burgundians left due to a dispute, leaving only the English there when Jeanne and her army finally arrived in May of 1429.

After six months of laying siege to the city of Orléans, it took Jeanne and the army no more than nine days to defeat the English.

Not only did the alacrity of her victory convince people of Jeanne’s divinity, but two instances during the fighting brought the men who fought with her to her side. Initially, boats loaded with supplies needed to get into the city, but the generals lamented the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Jeanne told the men to fear not, and within seconds the wind changed direction. This is one of the miracles attributed to Jeanne that eventually led to her being granted sainthood. At another point when the fighting had really begun, Jeanne told a general to step to the side a few steps. He listened, and within seconds a cannonball landed right where he stood. Whether Jeanne was an instrument of the Lord and these were instances of divine intervention, or she was just particularly amazing at reading the room, spotting the signals, seeing the patterns, it is hard to say. What is not in doubt is Jeanne rode into battle with a sword and a banner so that all knew she was on the battlefield. During her trial, she would explain that she loved her banner more than her sword, and that she had never killed anyone.

The banner, white, covered in lilies, the fleur de lis, and a figure of Christ holding the world with angels on each side, waved in the wind for both armies to easily see as they fought. Jeanne understood the strength of a symbol if nothing else.

Jeanne’s military career did not end with this first glorious victory. The victory at Orléans served to prove Jeanne’s divinity, to substantiate her words with action. She would quickly go on to defeat and take hold of the English holdings along the route to 6

Reims, France. This city held a particular significance. This is where the Kings of France were crowned. It was an English/Burgundian leaning city, so Jeanne would have to defeat another city to ensure the Dauphin could be crowned and anointed with the oil of Clovis. That, and only that, would make his claim legitimate in the eyes of the people.

As Jeanne, the army and the Dauphin approached the city, the people of the city surrendered without a fight. The road to crowning the Dauphin the King was clear. Jeanne’s work, her mission, was seemingly done. The King was crowned Charles VII without an issue.

Yet, Jeanne did not pack up and go home. Had she, her story would be drastically different. Had she, she would have to go back to a world of subjugation to men. At the King’s court, she was a hero and an emissary from God. Her divine status left her more in charge than any other woman during the whole of the Middle Ages. Aside from that, the English did not just up and leave France. Jeanne spent some months at the King’s court before he allowed her to go back to fighting.

Jeanne was not successful in her military exploits the second time around. There were injuries she sustained. There were numerous losses. People began to question if she was still God’s favorite child. Then, during a campaign against the Burgundians at Compiègne Jeanne was captured. It was May 23, 1430. A farce trial was held in the ensuing months. The English and Burgundians thought the Valois King would try to negotiate for Jeanne’s release, but he never did. The King Jeanne had crowned had deserted her. Her power superseded his in this realm, and so, she had become more of a liability than an asset. Her words, so persuasive and venerable, had been backed up by glorious action. How could a worldly King compete with that?

It is through the diligent historical records that were kept to document the trial that we hear Jeanne’s voice for the first and only time. Even now, her words come across as fierce as they are fearless, as powerful as they are defiant, and as clear and succinct as they are mystifying. Jeanne was 19 during her trial. She was shackled to a bed when not in court after she tried to escape by jumping through a window. She was in fear of the men who guarded her taking her virginity by force. A virginity she had proudly and fiercely 7

protected. She stood in front of clergy, soldiers, aristocrats, all watching her answer the questions put forth to her. A lone feminine figure surrounded by the corrupt and lustful men of her age. Death was the only outcome that would be acceptable to those austere men. A woman of power was too dangerous to allow to live.

The most curious aspect of the trial that found Jeanne guilty of heresy and condemned her to death by fire was the lead judge, Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, a loyal supporter of the English and Burgundians. This allowed Jeanne to be given communion before her death. If he truly believed she was a heretic, demonic, and worthy of a death that would rob her of resurrection, why then allow her to be given communion? No justification for this act has survived through the ages, so one can only guess. The most accepted inference has been, Bishop Cauchon believed in Jeanne’s divinity, and so, in accordance with that belief, allowed her to be given communion before her death. The implications of the act are that he knew the trial was a farce, which of course he did - he was the one running it.

He must have thought this act to be courageous or benevolent; it was neither.

On the day she died, as she was being tied to a pyre to burn, Jeanne was reported to have said, “Hold the cross high so that I may see it through the flames.” If she was afraid, she was determined not to show it. Her hair shorn, wearing only a simple white dress, Jeanne was burned alive for all there to see. Reportedly, she did not cry out as the fire destroyed her 8

worldly body. Her soul was too strong to give in to the pain. The war would rage on for 22 more years. A re-trial would clear her name, but could not bring her back, 24 years later in 1455. It was Charles VII who came out of the war victorious. It was Charles VII that would open the retrial, perhaps an act done more out of ensuring his legitimacy than out of guilt for abandoning the one who gave him his crown. For, if Jeanne were to remain a heretic through time, history would judge the crown he was given as ill-begotten, and therefore, false. Charles VII had more at stake in seeing Jeanne cleared than he did in leaving the topic alone.

Jeanne’s symbolic status would only grow through the ages. By the time of Napoleon, Jeanne’s story was well known throughout France and the world. She became a new symbol for a new France. Her popularity surged during this period. She was once again being used as a symbol to the people by the corrupt men in charge. It was during the time of the second Empire period that Paul Dubois was tapped to create a sculpture of Jeanne to be placed outside the cathedral at Reims. In 1889, the statue was placed outside the cathedral in Reims: Jeanne forever riding into battle outside the cathedral she saw her King crowned in.

In 1920, the Catholic Church, perhaps trying to atone for long passed wrongs, granted Jeanne sainthood. In 1922, the Société des Femmes de France of New York gave a copy of Dubois’ statue in Reims to the women of America. The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution accepted the statue on behalf of the women of America in Washington, DC. The statue, placed in Meridian Hill Park, has resolutely stood there since its dedication in 1922.

Jeanne rides astride her horse, sword raised high, her banner not in sight, seemingly rallying unseen troops to her side, perhaps in defense of the Washington Monument not far off in the distance.

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Bibliography Baker, Juliet. 2012. Conquest: The English Kingdom of France, 1417–1450.

Harvard University Press.

Goode, James M. 1974. The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C.: A Comprehensive Historical Guide. Smithsonian Institution Press.

Gordon, Mary. 2008. Joan of Arc: A Life. Penguin.

Pernoud, Régine. 1994. Joan of Arc by herself and her witnesses. Rowman & Littlefield.

“The Siege of Orleans.” 2007 Interview by Melvyn Bragg. BBC4. Accessed September 15, 2024.

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