Jhesus-Maria,
Duke of Burgundy,
Joan the Maid requests of you, in the name of the King of Heaven,
that the King of France and yourself should make a good, firm, lasting peace.
I beg and request of you, with clasped hands,
to not fight any battles, nor wage war against us – neither yourself, your troops, nor subjects; and know beyond a doubt
that despite whatever number of soldiers you bring against us,
they will never win.
And there will be tremendous heartbreak from the great clash and from the blood
that will spill from those who come against us.
July 17th, 1429
Reims Cathedral
Four months before, Joan had met with the Dauphin Charles in private.
There, she had promised him that she would relieve the siege of Orleans
and bring him to Reims, where all French monarchs were crowned.
And while this message from the King of Heaven was welcomed,
it also seemed... incredible.
Then, the season of miracles began.
After her victory at Orleans,
Joan had pressed Charles to take the castles and bridges along the Loire.
They'd fallen one by one, with Joan personally leading the troops to the walls.
When the English had set up an ambush between two woods,
it could've been another Agincourt.
But a stag, spooked by the army,
had disordered the English ranks.
With Joan at the head, Armagnac forces smashed into the English,
finally avenging that long-ago defeat.
Now, the English were evacuating the Loire Valley.
She insisted Charles pushed for Reims.
It was a stretch.
The city lay deep in English territory.
But she had done it.
City after city surrendered to her without a fight,
opening their gates after she drafted letters that promised clemency from their God-appointed king,
and destruction if they defied him.
Only one resisted;
Troyes,
the same city where the Dauphin's parents had signed a treaty disinheriting him.
Yet, there, too, Joan prevailed.
The city's spiritual leader, an apocalypse preaching friar,
known for conducting ceremonies where citizens burned board games and beauty products in a bonfire of the vanities,
had been so impressed with Joan that he switched sides.
The city capitulated after four days of Joan parading her banner outside the walls.
And the friar now served in her retinue.
Joan had brought Charles to Reims without a single death in battle.
And now, the Dauphin – no, no, no, not the Dauphin anymore!
The new king stood among the grand men of his kingdom,
anointed with the oil of clovis, wearing a crown.
Joan stood by the king's side with her banner,
watching her divine work fulfilled.
And her family had been invited and looked on at their daughter:
a shepherdess, who now wore armor, drank fine wine, and had a staff of servants.
It was a perfect moment –
the last perfect moment.
Because with her divine task complete,
Joan entered a strange time.
She'd done what she'd set out to do, so... now what?
Up to this point, all of her actions had a focus,
an ordained mission she knew was righteous,
a shining light that illuminated the path.
Her voices still spoke, though,
still said it was her mission to drive the English from France.
But before, they had had a plan:
relieve Orleans, crown Charles.
Now they were getting a little lighter on the specifics.
And also, things, politically, were getting a great deal murkier.
Previously, she'd fought the English exclusively.
But now she was on the cusp of a campaign where she'd battle fellow Frenchmen:
Burgundians,
the false French as the Armagnacs liked to call them,
but it still felt different.
Joan was also embroiled in the profane world of politics.
Once Charles got a crown,
the first thing he did was to enter truce negotiations
with the Burgundians. It was sensible.
His treasury couldn't sustain a continued conflict
and there was new territory to consolidate.
But negotiations meant give and take;
offering to recognize the Duke of Burgundy's powers over the lands given to him by the English, for example.
Or, saying Burgundy didn't have to treat Charles as King.
This frustrated Joan.
She wanted a truce, sure, and had even
sent her own letter to the Duke of Burgundy.
But she wanted a truce that acknowledged Charles as King.
After all, was not God on their side?
And if so, why make a deal with these false French,
who had no submitted to the will of the King of Heaven?
To Joan, this was as much a pilgrimage as it was a war.
If the armies of France marched with faith in their ultimate victory,
God would grant them that victory.
He had before, and indeed,
Joan's supreme faith and inspirational from-the-front
leadership style had broken a deadlock
that simple military strategy had found intractable.
But the larger fact was
that logistics, army pay, and other details had also come into the equation.
And the King's advisors were increasingly shutting her out of the inner circle.
So, therefore, it was almost a relief
when the Burgundians broke their truce by reinforcing Paris.
And the King was persuaded to attack the city.
Joan had advocated this course before,
and once again, she was in the front line, helping place cannons,
and arguing for her favorite tactic of...
GET EM!!!
Charles was... let's say, less enthusiastic.
Paris was a risky venture, but
he had agreed to an all-out assault with Joan attacking the city's main gate house.
On the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, she unfurled her banner and went to the front.
But Paris was unlike any other place she'd ever attacked.
It was the best defended city in France,
and the Burgundians holding it had popular support.
Joan's attacks smashed against the defenses,
with Joan yelling up at the walls for the Burgundians to surrender.
They replied with a squall of crossbow bolts.
One slammed deep into Joan's thigh.
The man carrying her banner was nailed to the earth by his foot,
and when he put up his visor to wiggle the quarrel free,
a followup shot ran through his face.
Her pages dragged Joan to the rear, and this time,
the wound was too serious for her to rejoin the battle.
Charles sounded the retreat.
Losses from the first day of the siege were heavy enough that he would not authorize a second.
There would be no miracle this time.
Joan had her first defeat.
And Charles instead formed a truce with the Burgundians,
leaving the capitol still in enemy hands.
And that called some things into question.
After all, if Joan's victory at Orleans was a miracle,
why hadn't heaven similarly intervened at Paris?
Everyone went in search of justification.
Joan's allies suggested that perhaps she had succumbed
to pride and overambition,
and that God had simply humbled her.
Others said God had withdrawn his support because she attacked on a feast day,
usually considered too holy for war.
And her enemies claimed that it was evidence she was a witch,
and her victory at Orleans a work of Satan,
and that the Almighty instead had heard the prayers of Paris's defenders.
And the questions, they were getting harder.
People were writing her to ask which pope to support,
enlisting her to condemn Czech rebels,
who had insisted the Catholic Church was corrupt and in need of reform.
And, she could not explain the defeat in Paris.
What did that mean?
The truce left her cooling her heels,
resting and writing letters increasingly distant from the King.
Then, came the gifts.
For her service, Charles ennobled Joan and her family,
making them minor members of the nobility.
And declared her home village exempt from taxation.
This was essentially an honorable discharge,
a suggestion that her moment had passed.
She'd done what she'd promised, and that she should just go home.
Charles had decided that his miraculous shepherdess should be put out to pasture.
But Joan refused to go. She was a soldier,
and she would continue to fight.
And thankfully, before the pressure got too great, she was given an assignment.
A city was about to come under siege
by a combined English and Burgundian force.
And she would help relieve it.
It wasn't a glorious mission, but the besieged needed her.
So, she went.
May 23rd, 1430
A raid.
Joan and her troops entered the Burgundian camp,
ready to sack the supplies.
This way, when the enemy reaches the city,
the besiegers will have little to eat.
Then, shouts.
She sees Burgundian troops emerging from ambush, thousands of enemies ready to cut them off.
It had been a trap.
Her forces flee to the bridge. Men shout for her to cross,
to get back into the city.
But Joan the Maid does not run from battle.
She will stand with her men in the rearguard, letting others escape.
Even when six thousand ambushers encircled the rearguard,
cutting them off from the bridge.
Even when her enemies surround her.
She holds her banner, urges her comrades
to fight in the name of God.
Until an archer hauls her from the saddle.
She insists that she will only surrender to their officer.
After all, she is an ennobled soldier of France.
The Maid of Orleans.
Her rank demands nothing less.
But these Burgundians don't ransom her back to Charles like any other knight.
They move her from prison to prison for nearly a year.
Joan tries to escape her first prison by breaking through the floor.
In response, they move her to a tower in another castle.
More months pass.
Joan stares out the window, heart sick over the besieged city she couldn't rescue.
Every day, her voices tell her she mustn't jump.
Then Joan hears she's been sold to the English.
She decides she would rather die trying to flee
than be a prisoner of her enemies.
But it's seventy feet to the ground,
and if she jumps, she could very well kill herself.
And suicide is a mortal sin.
Her voices tell Joan not to do it.
They insist that God will rescue her.
She in turn ignores them,
puts one foot on the ledge,
and launches herself into the night.
Special thanks to Educational Tier patrons Ahmad Ziad Turk and Joseph Blaim.