An Excerpt from If Joan of Arc Had Cancer
by Janet Roseman
Joan of Arc’s achievements are extraordinary for her time, or any time in history, and it is quite tempting to think of her as myth, legend, or folklore. However, Jeanne la Pucelle, or “Joan the Maid,” as she liked to be called, was flesh and blood. The daughter of a farmer, this teenager led more than twelve thousand French militia to victory over the English, without any military training or experience riding horses or carrying a sword. Although she restored the rightful place of Charles VII, the dauphin, as king of France, he betrayed her. When she was captured in 1430 and literally sold to the English, who would later sentence her to death, the king did nothing to intervene on her behalf.
This young woman who heard “voices” from God was both a mystic and a visionary. When she was sixteen years old, her father had a prophetic dream that she would ride off to battle. Echoing the limited traditional roles for young women of that era (marriage, celibacy, or prostitution), he believed she would disgrace the family if the dream were fulfilled. How could she possibly ride into battle as the leader and not the courtesan? Because of the dream, he hastily arranged a marriage to keep Joan in line. She was so enraged that she challenged her father in court, disputing the arranged marriage and arguing that she wanted to be a free woman. The members of the court were so impressed by her impassioned pleas that they granted her request. This was an exceptional situation in the early 1400s. The theme of the “free woman” would be immortalized over four hundred years later, when Joan of Arc was chosen to be the spiritual icon of the women’s suffragette movement, honoring both her courage and her political savvy.
Joan was never taught to read or write and spent her days like most young girls of her time: sewing, tending to her family’s farm, and attending church with her mother. Yet she would be transformed from a simple, innocent teen into a mystic and military general. Defying the conventions of her time and cloaked in men’s clothing, she became the commander in chief of an army, leading men into battle countless times, although she claimed during her trial that she never killed anyone. Her quest was both a mystical and a spiritual journey, because she devoted her life to God. The fact that she was able to convince royalty, French commanders, and the French people that she alone could save France from the assaults of the English and Burgundian troops occupying half of France, and presumed annihilation at their hands, is the stuff of legend. However, Joan made good on her promises.
Tragically, she was used by the king, Charles VII, whose royal reign on the throne he owed to Joan’s intelligence in military strategy. When she lost two important military battles, her supporters, believing that these losses indicated that she no longer had the “ear” of God, withdrew their backing and sought a way to get rid of her. When she was captured during a battle at Compiègne, the king seized the moment by doing nothing at all to help her. He was insecure and very unhappy with Joan’s ever-increasing fame and adoration, which he believed only he, a royal, was entitled to. Although she still had legions of fans, he used her as his political pawn, knowing that she would be condemned to death; this was the perfect solution for him — her destruction.
She spent eight long months in prison, chained to her bed, even before her famous trial began. The records indicate that Joan slept with two pairs of irons on her legs, attached by a chain very tightly to another chain that was connected to the foot of her bed, itself anchored by a large piece of wood five or six feet long.
Deprived of sleep, food, and emotional support from family and friends, she received her only sustenance from the spiritual balm that was offered to her by her voices and the spiritual visions that guided her each day. It is stunning to realize that during a five-year period, Joan received over 750 messages and visions, communications that she refused to deny. She had her first vision when she was thirteen years old: she heard a voice that “was hardly ever without a light and after she had heard it three times, she knew it was the voice of an angel.” She believed this was the voice of Saint Michael, and during her short life, she would also be visited by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, whom she described during her trial as wearing beautiful crowns upon their heads.
The court records reflect that during her trial, although the court members (called “inquisitors”) tried to break her will, her demeanor grew stronger as she consistently spoke boldly, fiercely, and articulately. They misrepresented her previous testimony to try to confuse her, and it was not unusual for them to show up in her prison cell at all hours of the night, demanding that she answer questions.
During the trial, she did not change her story even when threatened with death. However, in a moment of coercion and misunderstanding, she was forced to sign documents that she believed would earn her release from prison — documents that declared she was a heretic and had lied about her visions. The fact that she wore men’s clothing was considered her ultimate disobedient act and was particularly revolting to the men who admonished her during her trial. The documents she signed, called cedulas, or orders of authorization, included the demands that she would only wear women’s clothing, never carry arms, and submit to the church’s wishes. The second document was of particular significance because it included retractions of everything that she had said during the trial and, more important, a denial of ever hearing voices. It is easy to understand why Joan — who had been chained to her bed for months, assaulted emotionally (and, in the opinion of many scholars, physically), and humiliated and intimidated daily — would agree to sign these documents, especially since she couldn’t read a word of any of the papers in front of her.
When she realized what she had done, she proclaimed that she was misled: “I did not say nor did I mean to say that I retracted my apparitions; everything that I have done, I have done out of fear of fire. I have retracted nothing except what was against the truth. I didn’t understand what was written on the notification of retraction.” But it was too late. On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a heretic. It is said that her body was reduced to ashes but her heart remained intact, and for her devoted followers, this was further proof of her saintliness and a manifestation of the miraculous.
In 1455, her mother appealed to a papal court at Notre-Dame Cathedral in an effort to restore her daughter’s reputation and the defiled family name, arguing with skill that Joan had been deceived: “Certain enemies betrayed her (Joan) in a trial concerning the Faith, and…without any aid given to her innocence in a perfidious, violent and iniquitous trial, without shadow of right…they condemned her in a damnable and criminal fashion and made her die cruelly by fire.”
This time, supporters who were prevented from testifying on her behalf at her original trial — including her mother, friends of the family, and soldiers who fought with her in battle — were allowed to speak. After three months of investigations and hearings, her sentence as a “heretic” was declared “null and void.” More than four hundred years after her death, Joan of Arc was declared a saint by Pope Benedict XV.
Mark Twain was a huge fan of Joan of Arc. He was so enamored of her and impressed by her significance that he wrote a biography of Joan entitled “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” for Harper’s Magazine in 1896, using the pseudonym Sieur Louis de Conte, her purported page and secretary. The articles later appeared in book form that same year. He wrote, “Joan of Arc, that wonderful child…that spirit which in one regard has had no peer and will have none….Search as you may, and this cannot be said of any other person whose name appears in profane history.” His tribute to her is passionate and typical of his irreverent writing style:
When we reflect that her century was the brutalist, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle….She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one;…she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which has forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing…; she was unfailingly true in an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal dignity unimpaired…; she was of dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished….The work wrought by Joan of Arc may fairly be regarded as ranking any recorded in history, when one considers the conditions under which it was undertaken, and the obstacles in the way.
Joan of Arc lived her flame of courage, and with If Joan of Arc Had Cancer, you can learn how you can access your own.
Excerpted from the book If Joan of Arc Had Cancer. © Copyright 2015 by Janet Roseman. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com