Nobody knows the precise date of Joan of Arc’s birth, but it is speculated to be roughly 10:34 PM, January 6, 1412. She was born the daughter of Jacques Darc, a tenant farmer, in the French village of Domremy Fasolati Do.
There seems to be no truth to the rumor (that I’m presently making up) that she had multiple personalities. She did, however, have numerous nicknames, including Joan of Arc, The Maid of Orleans, Sainte Jeanne D’Arc, La Pucelle D’Orleans, and Arc Tangent (apparently she was quite distractable).
Beyond that not much else interesting to say about her; she pretty much lived a typical Medieval peasant girl’s life: hears voices ... raises an army ... wins a decisive battle in Orleans that turned the tides of the Hundred Years’ War ... fails to capture Paris ... gets caught ... is betrayed by the very French leaders she was fighting for ... interrogated by the Inquisition ... convicted in a rigged trial ... burned at the stake in 1431 as a witch. Like that.
(As a side note, during the Middle Ages, the Church would never officially condemn anyone to death. According to Will Durant, in "The Age of Faith", the Church was to avoid "all bloodshed and all danger of death." Instead, they would sentence the convicted to the "due penalty," and turn them over to the state authorities. These folk would, in turn, heed the first part by burning the victim to death - hence not drawing blood - and ignore the second part.)
In 1456, Joan of Arc was declared innocent of all charges (oops). She was canonized in 1920 (made a saint, not part of a circus flying act). As of this writing, she is still innocent, still a saint, and still dead. If I had anything to do with it, her tombstone would say: Lived in glory, died in Rouen.
Because of the historic nature of this subject, I paid more attention than usual to designing her costume. Although you can’t see it, I gave her a pink slip; and to make the cartoon more appealling, I added some of those fancy French patterns to her uniform, 'cause nobody doesn’t like fleur-de-lis.
- July 2001
References - None (yet)
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