I have been reading Mark Twain’s book (a free online version) about Joan of Arc. As in Connecticut Yankee, Twain presented Joan of Arc as an eyewitness account. According to the legend, Jeanne d’Arc was a sweet and holy little girl in Domremy in eastern France. She seemed to be utterly perfect, as well as beautiful, like Mary Poppins only very humble. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, she became a military heroine. Nobody who knew her, friends or family, could understand why this happened. She claimed that several saints, and the archangel Michael, had told her that she was the one to rescue France from English rule and to crown the Dauphin, the prince, to be the king of France. And somehow, despite numerous setbacks, she got even her opponents to believe and support her and follow her as she went to see the Dauphin. She had no military training, had never killed anything or anyone with a sword or spear. Like most country children, she could ride a horse. She claimed she would, personally, lead the French army to victory over the English.
At that time, the French army was totally demoralized, and simply accepted the English rulership that had been imposed since the battle of Agincourt. To oppose the English would be suicidal, they thought. But Joan convinced them God would support the French victory.
And the French won against the English army that was gathered at Orleans. Joan was only seventeen years old when the Dauphin, now king, made her the general of the French armies. Almost immediately afterwards, her church enemies had her burned at the stake on what the church now considers trumped-up charges. Almost immediately after this, her case was reconsidered and she was sanctified. She is now one of the great legends of history.
This photo is from a church in Strasbourg, France.
Great uncertainty will always remain about what really happened. Alternative interpretations of the Joan of Arc legend have been presented. Some have claimed that she was mentally unstable, which means she imagined the little voices in her head, or that she had Menière’s disease (an affliction of the inner ear) which means she actually heard sounds but they were not voices. James Phillips and colleagues say that all claims of medical or psychiatric disorders of St. Joan are unconvincing. The claim that she was actually not a simple country girl but was a bastard daughter of the previous king does not explain how she could have, despite weakness and youth, led armies to victory. If indeed she did convince the Dauphin that she was his bastard sister, why would he have let her lead the army instead of doing it himself? The claim that she was a witch substitutes one incredible explanation for another.
Maybe she was crazy, and this made her able to speak her message with utter sincerity and without hesitation. The disillusioned French might have been waiting for just such a person to appear on the scene. The human mind is not a logic machine. Under the right conditions—and nobody can predict exactly what these might be—even the best human minds can believe anything. Among the right conditions are that the human brain’s built in bullshit-detector has to get fooled, something that only a truly and sincerely crazy person can do.
I, like thousands of others, will make my pilgrimage to her birthplace Domremy-la-Pucelle (pucelle means virgin) and walk in the garden where she is supposed to have had her first visions. I will wander and wonder. Domremy is only a two and a half hour drive from where I now live, much closer than Paris. I will wait until my grandchildren are a little older and can appreciate history a little better. If I have any new insights at that time, I will let you know.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all—and one I have not heard reported before—is that this story, of the seventeen-year-old girl leading an army to victory, has happened at least twice and possibly three times or more in history. I will complete this thought in a subsequent essay.
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