I am now certain that the whole Joan of Arc story is a clever psy-op.

Short of time today….but I WILL come back to this later.

I was a child when I first met Jehanne (I call her that because that is how I know her. Go Figure!) And loving mysteries, I knew even then that her ‘legend’ was a construct. A manipulated rabbit-hole down which so many people have travelled – me included.

Why – in the history of history – is Jehanne’s 1431 Trial of Condemnation transcript so complete?

Why is the Trial of Adjuration transcript ( written 20 years later) so complete?

Why is she surrounded by the Gender-Bender issue?

Why did the Vatican wait until the 1920’s to canonise her? (That would be a few short years after WWI when ‘visions’ of her were seen on the battlefield.)

I’ve always loved reading about her sassy replies to her interrogators. Oceans of ink have been spent on this subject alone…

Question: Do you swear to speak the truth in answer to such questions as are put to you?

Joan: I do not know what you wish to examine me on. Perhaps you might ask such things that I would not tell.

Question: Will you swear to speak the truth upon those things which are asked you concerning the faith, which you know?

Joan: Concerning my father and my mother, and what I have done since I took the road to France, I will gladly swear to tell the truth. But concerning my revelations from God, these I have never told or revealed to anyone, save only to Charles, my King. And I will not reveal them to save my head.

 

Question: Do you know whether or not you are in God’s grace?

Joan: If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace.

 

 

The prisoner was asked about a warning which she had given to Bishop Cauchon. She reported her words as follows:

Joan: (to Cauchon) “You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are: but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril. And I warn you so that if God punish you for it, I shall have done my duty in telling you.”

 

On a lighter note: I have lovely memories of a summer evening sat outside a cafe across from the Louvre with three other gals, drinking, eating pizza and laughing our heads off….with the view of the picture above just a few feet away.

:o)