On May 30, 1431, in Rouen, on the Place du Vieux-Marché, a young shepherdess who had become a warrior went to the stake:Jeanne Darc - or d'Arc - was 19.
Her condemnation and her torture, she owes them in large part to the hatred that the English have for her. Since she forced them, in May 1429, to raise the siege of Orléans, the English are no longer constantly victorious against the last defenders of the French king Charles VII, and they attribute this reversal to some evil influence, proclaiming that Joan is a witch and not, as she claims, a messenger from God.
The miracles of the Maid
The action of Jeanne, riding at the head of the soldiers, dressed as a man, obeying, according to her words, to the voices of saints and saints, has what, indeed, to appear suspicious.
Jeanne is a little peasant girl with no education (she can't read), who looked after her father's herd in her Lorraine village of Domrémy, until the day of her fourteenth year when she heard herself invested with the mission of freeing France from the tutelage of the English. Leaving for the small neighboring town of Vaucouleurs, she succeeded in convincing the local captain, the Sire de Baudricourt, to have her taken to the king. In 1429, Jeanne was thus in Chinon; she recognizes the king, disguised as a courtier, and obtains, after much procrastination, that an army be entrusted to him to deliver Orléans, which the English are then besieging. The expedition succeeded beyond all hopes:in April, the young girl - the Maid, according to the term of time - entered the city despite the besiegers; on May 8, she gave the order for the offensive, launching the garrison to attack the redoubts that the English had built in front of the walls, and forcing them to raise the siege.
The coronation of the king and the capture
The deliverance of Orléans is followed by the coronation of Charles VII. On July 17, 1429, a ride, during which the English were still jostled, led the king to Reims. There, he received the anointing in the cathedral:the ceremony endowed him with the charisma he lacked in these difficult circumstances. But Jeanne, in the king's entourage, is jealous, denigrated, rather than appreciated. In September, she tries in vain, with little support, an attack to free Paris. In May 1430, she was at Compiègne, with an even more derisory number of men; and there, she is arrested by a Burgundian lord who sells her to the English a few months later. Jeanne is imprisoned by the English in Rouen. Their goal is to have her judged and condemned:the alleged missionary will be convicted of lying, her prestige will collapse and that of Charles VII with hers. The Church, in the person of Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, from whose jurisdiction the case arises, lends itself to the game. grounds for setting aside the award. The English have made it known that they want the young girl dead:Cauchon, for his part, is warned against her, out of conviction and personal interest. But he does not go against his conscience and, at first, he does not order death.
The trial
The trial itself lasted four months, from January to May 1431. During this time, the judges maintained constant psychological pressure on Jeanne, threatening her with torture, showing her the instruments. Jeanne, who used to take communion frequently, also suffered from being kept away from mass and away from the sacraments. The court finally plays, to lose her, what is most moving in her:her simplicity, the way in which she expresses a particularly strong faith, but which no knowledge supports. His religious instruction is limited, in fact, to what his parish priest was able to teach him:a few prayers. It is a living challenge to the science of the learned who judge it, and which cannot but displease a religiosity based on a direct, personal and repeated relationship with God, at a time when the Church tries to take the faithful in hand by demanding of them that they submit to the dogma expressed by the pastors.
The Last Temptation
In fact, it is impossible for the girl to resist. The interrogation, conducted by biased judges, can only lead to her conviction, each of her statements turning against her.
Jeanne, exhausted, doubting perhaps for a moment, believing in the good faith of the judges, accepts, on May 24, 1431, the sentence which strikes her:she is recognized as a heretic and schismatic, must make amends, and will be locked up all her life. in a jail. She recovers immediately. Three days after this abjuration, obtained at the Saint-Ouen cemetery by a mock execution, she resumes her men's clothes, which means that she refuses to submit. Three more days, and she goes to the stake.