NARRATOR: Joan of Arc. She has been called a
saint and a sorceress, a warrior and a martyr,
an advisor of kings, and a channel of God. At the age of 17, this
backwater peasant girl donned a suit of armor
and rode off to war. She claims she had
been sent by God, and she promised to restore
her king to his rightful throne and save France, the
land of her birth. By age 19, all of Joan's
extraordinary claims had come true,
and she was dead-- burned at the stake by
those who feared her power. The figure of Joan of
Arc presents a mass of contradictions. Whether she was a national
hero, an instrument of God, or simply a troubled but
forceful young woman, the Maid of Orleans ignited
the spirit of an entire people and created a legend that
still inspires us today. [music playing] Joan of Arc. A life story that resonates
through the centuries. Born on a farm in
war-torn medieval France, she led an army that
saved an entire nation. Her name alone conjures
such a powerful image that it is hard to
remember that, at one time, this saintly figure was a
girl of flesh and blood. Joan's beginnings can be traced
to the tiny village of Domremy in the northeastern
region of France. She was born in the year 1412. Her father, Jacques,
was a farmer and was known to be a
severe disciplinarian. Joan's mother was a homemaker,
an extremely pious woman who instilled in Joan a love for
the rituals and teachings of the church. Joan was trained to spin wool
and mind cows in the pasture. Neither she nor her two brothers
were taught to read or write. DR. BONNIE WHEELER: The
most extraordinary part of Joan's life,
from my perspective, is that it was so normal. Village festivals,
churchgoing activities, the work of a village,
obedience to her parents, good conversations
with her family, warm relationships
with her friends. NARRATOR: Ordinary as Joan's
upbringing appears to be, the world she was
born into was one that had been pummeled by a
series of catastrophic events. Little more than
50 years earlier, the Black Plague, a grotesque
and mysterious sickness had swept across France, leaving
one half of its population dead. Those who managed
to survive were left to fight a bloody
war that had raged on French soil for generations. The conflict is now called the
Hundred Years' War, a struggle between the English and the
French that eventually turned brother against brother. By 1412, the year
of Joan's birth, the English had
gained the upper hand, overrunning the countryside
north of the Loire River and capturing the
capital city of Paris. Eight years later in
1420, a peace treaty disinherited Charles of Valois,
the crown prince of France, and named England's Henry V
as ruler over both countries. The conflict was made even
more bitter by the fact that many of the
French willingly took the side of the English. The Burgundians, as
they were called, collaborated with
the occupying army and viewed their own
countrymen as the enemy. Joan's village of Domremy
was one of only a handful of northern towns that remained
loyal to the French cause. When Joan was a girl, armed
Burgundians rode into Domremy. The women and
children fled heading for the fortress in the hills. The survivors huddled within
the safety of thick stone walls, far from the sounds of
the victims' screams and the smoldering
roofs of their village. Soon after this incident,
Joan began to hear the voices. "When I was 13 years
old, I had a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time, I was very
fearful, and again this voice about the hour of
noon in the summertime in my father's garden. The voice was sent to me by God. And after I had thrice
heard this voice, I knew it was the
voice of an angel." Joan of Arc NARRATOR: Some modern
scholars have suggested that the onset of
Joan's mysterious voices corresponded with the
difficulty Joan was having, making the transition from
adolescence to womanhood. DR. CHARLES WOOD:
Everything suggests that she did have a severe
father who disciplined her. There are all sorts
of signs that she felt that she wasn't worthy. And here was a voice
that came and told her she was a good girl. If you're looking at them in
a modern psychoanalytical way with identity crises of
teenage years, apparently, then you would say, hey,
she began hearing these because she was going through
extraordinarily difficult turmoil. NARRATOR: But Joan's
explanation was more simple. For the rest of her
life, Joan maintained that it was God speaking
to her through her voices. What these voices
actually were has always been a matter of
speculation, and answers have ranged from medical to
psychological to religious. As regards Joan's
voices, I think that she was a genuine
visionary, a genuine mystic, and was indeed in touch with
some supernatural force. Why or how did she begin
hearing voices at age 13? That's impossible to say. All we can say is that she did. I suppose if you're
looking at it from a religious
perspective, she began hearing them because
God wanted her to hear them. NARRATOR: At the same time,
Joan took a secret vow. She promised herself that
she would remain chaste for the rest of her life. DR. BONNIE WHEELER: Joan's
dedication to virginity is one of the most important
things in her character. She said that when she
first heard her voices, the decision she made
was to sanctify herself through virginity. That virginity becomes the
hallmark of her sense of self. NARRATOR: Although Joan
told no one about her voices or her vow of
chastity, her father may have sensed that
she was undergoing a profound and unsettling
transformation. He had an ominous
and prophetic dream in which he saw Joan riding off
in the company of armed men. This alarmed him very
much because, at that time, the only women who rode away
with soldiers were prostitutes. And medieval people placed a lot
of stock in dreams so much so that he told his son that he
would drown her rather than see her leave home, and that if he
couldn't bring himself to do it, then his son
should do it for him. NARRATOR: Perhaps in response
to his alarming dream, Jacques d'Arc arranged
a marriage for Joan with a young man
from the region. She was then 16 years
old, which was considered a marriageable age then. And I think that her father
just wanted her to have a normal life and security. NARRATOR: Joan did not
accept the impending match. In an era when marriage was a
strictly economic arrangement and young girls were
traded like pawns, Joan defied her father's
orders and told her fiancee she would never wed. Her rejected suitor was so
angry he had her summoned before a civil court. Alone before the court,
Joan convinced the judge she should not be legally bound
by the promise her father had made. Even at such a young age, Joan
was a compelling personality. Her confidence seemed to
come from her conviction that she was obeying
God's command. And she believed that the
defining moment of her life was upon her. Her voices were telling her that
she had a mission to fulfill, a mission so formidable
that the scope of it takes one's breath away. She claimed that she
alone could save France, and that with her aid,
Charles, the crown prince, would become king. Realizing that in order
to fulfill her mission she would have to give up the
security of her parents' home, she made plans to leave Domremy. Unbeknownst to her
family or friends, this teenage girl was about
to defy all the conventions of medieval society
by running off to war. In the year 1428, Joan
of Arc was 16 years old and had only once
ventured outside the walls of her own village. But a growing sense of purpose
began to fill the peasant girl. Guided by her voices, Joan was
convinced that she alone could save the people of France. Joan was now running
away from home knowing that it would
mean an irreparable break with her parents. She convinced her uncle to
take her to the neighboring town of Vaucouleurs. Once there, she approached
the magistrate, Robert de Baudricourt. She told Baudricourt that God
desired him to accompany her to Chinon, the castle where
Charles, the crown prince, lived. She recited a prophecy
popular at the time. [church bells ringing] "Have you not heard it said
that it has been prophesied that France shall be lost by a
woman and restored by a virgin from the Loraine marches?" Joan of Arc NARRATOR: The prophecy
referred to the rumor that Charles had lost
his claim to the throne because his mother, the
queen, had implied that he was illegitimate. Baudricourt was
highly annoyed then told Joan's uncle to
give her a good beating and take her back home. But Joan persevered and returned
to face him two more times. Joan's presence
was so compelling that she attracted a
small band of followers who believed she was the virgin
referred to in the prophecy. Eventually, she even won
over Baudricourt, who agreed to accompany her to Chinon. It was now that Joan
took a step that would crystallize her
image and single her out for all eternity. She cropped her hair
in the style of a boy and donned the clothes of a man. Everything suggests
from her own testimony that she'd put on men's clothing
precisely to desexualize herself in a man's world,
that she would be less of a target of male abuse, lest
the person who would attract men. And that this was,
practically speaking, simply the logical thing to do. NARRATOR: By dressing as a
man, Joan created an image that was without precedents. LAURA HARRINGTON: She wasn't
a woman, and she wasn't a man. She was this very
special unique thing. A virgin dressed as a man. In a sense, she created a
new sexual role for herself that was non-sexual, and it
had tremendous power in it. NARRATOR: Dressed in a short
tunic and tight breaches, Joan mounted her horse and,
escorted by a few men of arms, set off for Chinon. The journey took 11 days,
crossing hundreds of miles of English-held territory. Miraculously, Joan's party
encountered no hostilities. Arriving in Chinon,
Joan sent a message to the castle asking for
an audience with Charles, the crown prince. The young man Joan sought was
26 years old and not at all certain that it was his
right to rule France. Charles VII was, as a
young man, very insecure. He was a very introverted kind
of individual, very neurotic. His mother had declared
him illegitimate. And he was very indecisive
and very dependent upon the advice
of his ministers. NARRATOR: Charles
grudgingly agreed to meet the strange peasant
girl in men's clothing. Joan drew Charles aside
into a private chamber. Some minutes later,
when the prince emerged, he appeared radiant. He was later to confide
that Joan had stunned him by revealing information that
only God or God's messenger could know. The content of
their conversation has remained a
secret ever since. LAURA HARRINGTON: I think
what she is saying to Charles in that moment is, "I believe
that you are not the bastard. I believe that you
are the true king. And I intend to make you the
true king," which, of course, would be music to his ears
because he's been fighting this battle all of his life. NARRATOR: Somehow, this
illiterate 16-year-old farm girl had won the
confidence of Charles, the crown prince of France. Indeed, many people,
including Charles, believe that Joan
was a true visionary. To their mind, her
uncanny insight served as proof
time and time again that she had been sent by God. One of the most famous
examples was the story of how she unearthed an ancient
sword said to have belonged to Charles Martel, an
early hero of France. I'm astonished by the things
that Joan knew without having any way to have known them. And it sometimes
makes your skin crawl to think that she, for instance,
was able to say to Charles, "I want a particular sword. I want a sword that will be
found under or behind or next to the altar at Fierbois." And Charles sent for
it, and it was there. NARRATOR: Whatever magical
qualities were attributed to Joan, one thing was clear:
she was focused on her goal with an unwavering intensity. She asked Charles
to give her an army to lead to the city of Orleans. Orleans had been under siege
for the past seven months. Everyone knew that the
battle over this site was the most critical
one of the war. The city was the gateway
to the south of France. If it were to fall, there would
be nothing to stop the English from streaming across the Loire
River and taking all of France. Charles made the
astounding decision to name Joan captain of war
and send her into battle. His decision was
roundly denounced by the court and his generals,
yet Charles insisted. I think he was smart enough
to know that if he were to give her men and ammunition,
and she were to fail, the failure would be hers alone. And if she were to succeed,
the success would be his. I think she offered
him something that was too good to refuse. There was almost no
risk in it for him. NARRATOR: In March of 1429,
Joan rode for Orleans. She was outfitted in white armor
and sat atop a white charger, her standard
flapping in the wind. She had promised to deliver
the people of Orleans from their misery, and she was
about to be put to the test. As Joan of Arc set
out for Orleans, she was well aware that the
battle she was about to join was the most
critical of the war. For seven long months,
Orleans had been under siege. English troops had captured
the town's only fortress. And from this vantage point,
they pelted the inhabitants with a constant rain
of arrows and stones. The people of Orleans had begun
to believe that nothing could save them, except
perhaps a miracle. And a miracle was on its way. When Joan reached Orleans,
she was intercepted by the count of Dunois,
the man in charge of military operations. Much to the annoyance of
this experienced commander, Joan's was now a voice
that had to be considered. As soon as she learned that
the count had taken a detour to avoid a direct
confrontation with the enemy, she turned on him in anger. LAURA HARRINGTON: She was
tremendously impatient. This was her moment. She was ready to go. She was working with men
who had failed in battle and who were more cautious. And her saying, "I
refuse to be cautious. I want to move forward now,
and we will move forward now. This is the moment," is a very
contagious and galvanizing thing to do. NARRATOR: As Joan rode through
the town, a crowd of people pressed forward,
eager to see and touch the girl who had
promised to deliver them from the hands of the English. One eyewitness account gives us
an idea of the electric effect she produced. "I saw her mount her
horse, armed all in white, accepting her head, a
little ax in her hand, riding a big white charger. At the door of her lodgings,
the horse cavorted very wildly and would not let her mount. Then she said, "Take
him to the cross," which is before the church. And then she mounted
without the horse moving, as if it were tied." [inaudible] NARRATOR: Joan was
a natural athlete and handled a 10-foot
lance effortlessly. Her fellow soldiers admired
her but not as men usually do attractive young women. "Sometimes, in
the army, I lay down to sleep, with Joan
and the soldiers all in the straw together. And sometimes, I saw Joan
prepare for the night. And sometimes, I looked at her
breasts, which were beautiful, and yet I never had
carnal desire for her." Jean, Duc de Langeais NARRATOR: Her energy was so
wrapped up in her mission that she didn't have time for
normal human relationships. Joan was a girl who seems
to have had no sexual desires, no physical desires. Her desire was all
sublimated and projected into a desire to save France. And that mission
was so overwhelming that it absorbed all
of her energy, all of her extraordinary capacities. NARRATOR: Several
people who observed Joan said her relentless
drive had an impact on her physical development. One of the miraculous
things about this grown, fully developed woman was
she never had periods. And because she never
had periods, again, that's a sign of her sanctity. NARRATOR: Today,
adolescent girls who stop menstruating are often
found to suffer from anorexia or sexual trauma. But in Joan's time, a
lack of menstrual periods could be seen as
further proof that she was a true vessel of God. Joan's obligation to God,
as she understood it, was to lead her
troops into battle. The people of Orleans were
more than ready to follow. But at first, she was
prevented from taking action because the count of Dunois had
departed from Orleans in search of reinforcements. During his absence, Joan
railed in frustration. DR. BONNIE WHEELER:
Joan was difficult, in the way that people who
are themselves perfectionists and who have a sense of
goal are often difficult. She knew where
she wanted to get. And, therefore, anything
that stood in her way needed to be cleared away. By some people's standards, that
would be considered arrogance. It would be considered
thoughtlessness. NARRATOR: As soon as Joan
heard that the count of Dunois had returned with fresh
troops, she dictated a letter to the enemy. Taking the letter, she tied
it to the point of an arrow and ordered that an archer
shoot it into the fortress where the English
were entrenched. "You, Englishmen, who have no
right in the kingdom of France, the king of heaven orders
and commands you through me, Joan the Maid, that you quit
your fortresses and return into your own country. Or if not, I shall
leave you in such chaos that the memory of it
will be perpetual." Joan of Arc The English who received
Joan's letter must have thought it ridiculous. It is an ludicrous idea
that a young peasant girl with no military training,
from no background, without the name of five
noble houses behind her, could possibly have any
expectation that simply in the face of her
serene self-confidence, an entire country should
put down its arms and run. NARRATOR: Over the
course of the next week, Joan led several furious
assaults against the English. Under her command, French
troops drove the enemy from their bastion
and sent them running. As the English were fleeing
across the Loire River, a bridge under them collapsed,
drowning nearly 500 soldiers in the fast moving current. The siege, which had lasted
eight months, was lifted. The next morning, a messenger
was dispatched to Chinon, bringing news of the
miraculous victory to crown prince Charles. Joan of Arc had
performed her miracle. In the joy of the moment,
many forgot that she had also promised to crown a king. They were soon to see that the
force of this young farm girl had only begun to
be reckoned with. Throughout her life, Joan of
Arc was known for her ability to see into the future. And it was at her moment
of greatest triumph that this young woman had
begun to see her own doing. "I shall last a
year hardly longer. It is necessary during this
time to toil on mightily." Joan of Arc NARRATOR: At 17 years of
age, with no prior military experience, she had
led the French army to an astonishing victory. Joan and her followers urged
Charles to make his way to the cathedral city of
Reims so he could immediately be crowned king. [church bells ringing] In order to reach Reims,
Joan and her troops had to escort Charles across 150
miles of enemy-held territory. Many villages opened
their gates to the prince. Other towns had to
be taken by force . On July 17th, 1429, Joan
achieved her mission. Charles VII was crowned
and consecrated at Reims. Joan now argued that the French
forces should make it straight for the occupied city of
Paris to take it back. But Charles doubted the strength
of his own army and hesitated, preferring a diplomatic
solution to war. Charles and Joan must have
been like oil and water. Charles is someone who liked
peaceful negotiations, liked to pull strings but
behind the scenes. He was a great puppet master. NARRATOR: Joan was unaware that
at court, the king's favorite, Georges de La Tremoille, was
busy undermining her position. He warned Charles that Joan
was becoming far too powerful. In the meantime, the
Anglo-Burgundians fortified Paris against attack. By the time the French arrived,
they had lost their advantage. Joan's offensive was an
embarrassing failure. Charles feared that Joan's
loss was a sign that God was no longer with her. DR. CHARLES WOOD: It meant
that, for the first time, God's messenger, as
she proclaimed herself, was no longer able to do
what she said she could do. Did this mean that God's
mantle had gone away from her had some of this virtue
disappeared from her, had she become an ordinary person,
which, in her case, of course, meant a peasant teenage girl? So then I think it was a
devastating, very difficult blow. She never recovers. NARRATOR: Joan's
enemies in court started the rumor that
she had become so vain, she'd lost God's favor. Then a second military defeat
caused Charles to withdraw his financial support,
making it difficult for Joan to maintain her men-at-arms. Only after his
peace negotiations collapsed did Charles
once again turned to Joan. He ordered her to ambush the
Burgundians who were laying siege to the town of Compiegne. But Joan and her men
were outnumbered, and the attack failed. As they fled for the
gates of Compiegne, the town's gate was closed,
leaving Joan outside the safety of the walls. "An archer, a rough man,
and sour, full of spite. Because a woman should have
broken the bones of so many valiant men, dragged her to
one side by her cloak of gold and pulled off from
her horse, throwing her flat on the ground." Georges Chastellain NARRATOR: The date of Joan's
capture was May 23rd, 1430. When the Burgundian
troops learned that it was Joan the Maid
whom they have taken prisoner, the men let out
rollicking shouts of joy. Amidst much fanfare,
Joan was conducted to the Castle of Beaurevoir. Dark days lay ahead. Joan's spirit was about to be
tested in unimaginable ways. On a spring morning in
the year 1430, Joan of Arc was captured outside
the gates of Compiegne. Although she had rescued her
country from the hands of the, English she was now left
to fend for herself. Charles VII, the
king she had crowned, made no attempt to
negotiate her release. She was suspected by the
church of committing the crimes of heresy and witchcraft. Pierre Cauchon, the
Bishop of Beauvais, was put in charge of her trial. PAMELA MARCANTEL: The
Trial of Condemnation was an Anglo-Burgundian and
political farce designed to get rid of Joan but also
to discredit Charles VII who had sponsored her. By condemning her as a heretic,
they could point to him and say, "Aha, he
came to his kingship by the aid of a sorceress." NARRATOR: Early
during her captivity, Joan attempted to escape by
leaping from a 40-foot tower. Her miraculous survival was
interpreted by her captors as yet another sign that she
was in league with the devil. She was locked in a
dark and filthy cell. Manacled to her bed by
a 4-foot iron chain, she found herself at the
mercy of her inquisitors at all hours of
the day and night. DR. BONNIE WHEELER: When those
bishops and clergymen began that trial, they
must have thought they'd make easy meat
of this little girl from the country, who is
now without the support of any other nobility. Weren't they surprised to find
that she had an unbreakable spirit. NARRATOR: For an entire year,
Joan suffered in captivity. She was given meager rations
and regularly deprived of sleep. But still, she refused to
give in to her captors. Joan's inquisitors were
unable to prove that she was either a heretic or a witch. In frustration, they
shifted their focus to the way in which she dressed. Her cross-dressing,
they claimed, violated a biblical injunction. LAURA HARRINGTON: Inquisitors
were completely obsessed about the clothing issue. I think it's the one thing
that absolutely drove them mad. To them, it was offensive. It smacked of being in
line with the devil. It so destroyed their cultural
conventions that they did not know what to do about it. NARRATOR: During the year
that Joan spent in prison, King Charles remained
conspicuously silent. LAURA HARRINGTON:
Charles, I believe, was a deeply political animal. He saw how the
winds were blowing. And for him to come
out in defense of Joan, at that time when she was
being tried as a witch, would have meant that a
witch had crowned him. NARRATOR: The trial
proceedings dragged on, with Joan standing her ground. Finally, Bishop Cauchon
orchestrated a clever plan. On a spring morning,
he escorted her to the cemetery of Saint-Ouen. As they walked among
the gravestones, he pointed out a newly
erected scaffold, and told her that she would
be burned at this very stake if she did not admit her crimes. Cauchon handed Joan a confession
that stated everything she believed in was false. She signed the document
with her own hand. In order to save her life,
Joan denied that she ever heard voices. It is after Joan's
confession that there was a gap of three
days in the written record of the proceedings. That's my feeling that what
happened in those three days was the sort of
thing that could not be put into a public document
because it was utterly taboo. NARRATOR: There is strong
circumstantial evidence to suggest that during
this time, Joan was raped. PAMELA MARCANTEL: No one
knows exactly what happened. But when the clerics entered
her cell, one of them testified later
that her face was "disfigured and wet with tears,"
which I take to mean that she had been beaten. The very first thing
out of her mouth was, "This would not have
happened if you had sent me to a church prison as
you promised you would." NARRATOR: The next morning,
Joan dressed herself once again in men's clothing. Almost immediately, Cauchon
came to her cell to pronounce her death sentence. On the morning of
May 30th, 1431, Joan was taken by cart to
the old marketplace in Rouen. As Cauchon delivered a
sermon, her executioner prepared the wood for her pyre. I think that what
they saw was a child. A child on a stake
burning slowly to death. And most people
turned away because it was too difficult to watch. Because suddenly she is
stripped of all of the myths. She's stripped of her armor. She's stripped of everything. And all that she is is a girl,
and she's a very young girl. NARRATOR: The awful moment
of Joan's death at the stake was to take on the
aura of a myth. Many claimed that her heart
was not touched by the fire but remained whole. Others said that Bishop
Cauchon scattered her ashes in the River Seine,
hoping to extinguish the last of her power. In truth, however,
Joan's physical passing did little to
extinguish that power. 20 years after her death,
her fame had spread, and a new trial
cleared her name. Nearly 500 years later in 1920,
she was canonized as a saint. And today, still, the tales
of her courage resonate. For as incredible
as it may sound, this mere teenage
girl crowned a king and lifted the spirit
of an entire land. Whether saint, sorceress,
woman warrior, or martyr, Joan of Arc's heroism
and moral courage has made her a role
model for the ages.
