If you go to Orleans, in the historic centre , you can visit a historical building , the house of Joan D’Arc. Today it houses a museum dedicated to the maid of Orleans, but Joan D’Arc stayed there in 1429, when she came to liberate the city. It is in the district devasted by the bombings of 1940, in the square dedicated to General De Gaulle .
Everyone knows that Joan of Arc ( 1412 – 30 May 1431) is considered a heroine of France for her role in the siege of Orléans and the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years’ War.
She was captured, convicted as a heretic, and burnt at the stake by the English in 1431, but her conviction was formally overturned fifteen years later.
Her origins were very humble. Joan was born to a peasant family at Domrémy in northeast France. In 1428, she travelled to Vaucouleurs and requested to be taken to Charles. She testified that she had received visions from the archangel Michael, Saint Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine instructing her to support Charles and recover France from English domination.
Her request to see the king was rejected twice, but she was finally given an escort to meet Charles at Chinon. After their interview, Charles sent Joan, who was about 17 years old, to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief army. She arrived at the city on 29 April 1429, and quickly gained prominence during the fighting. The siege was lifted nine days after her arrival. Joan participated in the Loire Campaign, which culminated in the decisive defeat of the English at the Battle of Patay. The French army advanced on Reims and entered the city on 16 July. The next day, Charles was coronated as the King of France in Reims Cathedral with Joan at his side. These victories boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory in the Hundred in 1453. After Charles’s coronation, Joan and John II, Duke of Alençon’s army besieged Paris. An assault on the city was launched on 8 September. It failed, and Joan was wounded. The French army withdrew and was disbanded. In October, Joan was participating in an attack on the territory of Perrinet Gressart, a mercenary who had been in the service of the English and their French allies, the Burgundians. After some initial successes, the campaign ended in a failed attempt to take Gressart’s stronghold. At the end of the 1429, Joan and her family were ennobled by Charles.
Over 400 years after her death, she was canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.
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