This is the only depiction of Joan of Arc created in her own lifetime, and is a doodle out of the imagination of the illustrator made in 1429. In many ways — especially in her religious fervor and because she thought most women ought to behave conventionally — I find Joan’s personality grating. But the “Maid of Orleans” was ultimately a badass. With unflappable confidence and whip-smart intelligence, Joan was one of the most resourceful leaders in history.
Besides convincing the king of France to give her — an ordinary peasant 16-year-old female – weapons, and allowing her to lead a French army, she successfully ended the long seige of Orleans from the English forces, a pivotal moment in the turn of fortune for the French in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453, aka not actually 100 years). After this victory she oversaw the formal consecration of Charles VII as king of France, and her battle standard received the greatest attention. At the trial against her resulting in her conviction and burning at age 19, her inquisitor asked her why her battle standard had been “more carried in the church of Rheims . . . Than the standard of the other captains?” Joan replied boldly: “That standard had borne the heat and burden; it was but right that it have the honours”. The mental dexterity that Joan wielded against her opponents was truly bewildering. An excellent biography of Joan which outlines her skills is _The Virgin Warrior: the Life and Death of Joan of Arc_ by Larissa Juliet Taylor (Yale UP, 2009).
Source(s): See also p. 179 Regime Pernoud, _Joan of Arc: by Herself and Her Witnesses_ team Edward Hyams (Scarborough house1969/1982). Almay stock photo B75B9P).
