Move Over Disney Princesses, There's A New Heroine In Town

Sorry about being gone for so long, school has been rather demanding lately and I've haven't been able to sit down and write. Except today. Today's just been one of those "who needs school?" days. Anyway, a while ago, I had mentioned that I was reading Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. 


One of my favorite things about this book is that the great American writer, Mark Twain, has such an admiration and fondness for Joan that he writes about her in the same affection as one would write about their first love. The usually biting satirist was quoted saying, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well.” and considered this his most important work as Twain spent twelve years researching Joan's life. This was how he described her, 

"In the history of the human intellect, untrained, inexperienced, and using only its birthright equipment of untried capacities, there is nothing which approaches this. Joan of Arc stands alone, and must continue to stand alone, by reason of the unfellowed fact that in the things wherein she was great she was so without shade or suggestion of help from preparatory teaching, practice, environment, or experience. There is no one to compare her with, none to measure her by; for all others among the illustrious grew towards their high place in an atmosphere and surroundings which discovered their gift to them and nourished it and promoted it, intentionally or unconsciously. There have been other young generals, but they were not girls; young generals, but they had been soldiers before they were generals: she began as a general; she commanded the first army she ever saw; she led it from victory to victory, and never lost a battle with it; there have been young commanders-in-chief, but none so young as she: she is the only soldier in history who has held the supreme command of a nation's armies at the age of seventeen."

At age twelve, Joan saw her first vision, of the saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret, telling her to drive the English out of France, who had been invading France for over ninety years. Generations had passed, and the French people had simply gotten used to living under English oppression. But Joan knew that she was called, and she never gave up hope. She had to drive the English out of France.


At age sixteen, she went to court to ask for an army. She was immediately laughed at and turned down. Yet Joan knew that she couldn't give up. So she went back.


Through her persistence, Joan of Arc found herself before the Dauphin (to be king) of France. A lowly peasant girl who didn't know how to read was meeting with the Dauphin. I can only imagine what it would be like, a young girl meeting with the President and his cabinet. She would likely be laughed at, patted on the head and told to leave the important things to the adults. 


Instead, Joan got herself an army. Historians of The Hundred Years' War write about how King Charles must have been at the last resort stage, willing to accept any offer for help, including that of a sixteen year old girl. 


Within the year, Joan had driven out all the French around her. 


She led an army, got severely injured twice (once being an arrow to the neck), and saved a nation all by the age of seventeen.


When the Dauphin, now king, asked Joan what he could give her in return for saving his kingdom, all she asked was that she could go home and that the king never tax her village.


She didn't want riches, or a lifetime of living in a castle. She just wanted her neighbors to not have to live in poverty.


And then she was captured by the English and accused of being a heretic. 


Yet, she did not lose heart.


For three months, the nineteen year old, uneducated, illiterate girl held her own in court against the best minds in England. And although Joan was convicted, later readings of the court transcripts show that the English clergy prosecuting her had doctored many of the court records, meaning that a group of over 30 of the most educated and powerful men in England had to cheat their way into winning a trial against a teenage girl.


She was burned at the stake a few days later but later was canonized by the same church who had convicted her. 


One girl. One young girl who simply heard the voice of God. 


Who believed the voice of God.


She encountered countless dragons, and through only faith, overcame every obstacle thrown in her way.


And in her small steps of obedience, she saved a nation.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them...There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect."                                                                      Hebrews 11:13-16, 35-40

Why  more movies haven't been made about her is beyond me.