17. The Murder of Joan of Arc, Rouen, Normandy 1431

Joan's birthplace in Domremy
The birthplace of Joan of Arc, in Domrémy-la-Pucelle (it was just Domrémy when she was there, as she hadn’t made it famous yet) still exists, is a museum, and you may visit it and buy some excellent souvenirs. The villagers who knew her testified at her rehabilitation trial that she was a fine young woman, and that she wasn’t a heretic. She was long dead by that time, though. Because the English and the Burgundians murdered her.

The Burgundians were fighting a civil war with the rest of France; they allied with the English, who were fighting the French in the last section of the Hundred Years’ War; Joan had been causing them both trouble by inspiring the French to fight; the Burgundians captured her and sold her to the English; the English convened an ecclesiastical  court and had her condemned for heresy, on a technicality, so they could burn her at the stake.  That was how they got rid of a prisoner of war who was being led by saints and angels. We explain the process, and Michelle finds reasons to admire both the snow sculptures of Arras and the poet Southey.

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