Biography

Joan of Arc, also known as Jeanne d'Arc or Jeanne la Pucelle,^[1]
(6 January
1412 –
30 May
1431)^[2]
is a national heroine
of France and a
saint of the

Roman Catholic Church. She stated that she received visions from
God, through which
she helped inspire

Charles VII's troops to retake most of his dynasty's former territories,
which had been under

English and

Burgundian dominance during the

Hundred Years' War. She had been sent to the

siege of Orléans by the then-uncrowned King Charles VII as part of a relief
mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the disregard of veteran
commanders and ended the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories
led to Charles VII's coronation at
Reims, making him
the only one of the two claimants to be officially crowned.

Following the coronation, the Royal army attempted additional campaigns, but
with less success. During an attempt to recapture
Paris that
autumn, Joan was wounded in the leg. Hampered by court intrigues, she led only
minor companies from then on, and fell prisoner during a skirmish near
Compiègne
the following spring. A politically motivated trial by the English convicted her
of heresy. The
English regent,

John, Duke of Bedford, had her

burnt at the stake in
Rouen. She had
become the heroine of her faction at the age of seventeen, but died at the age
of nineteen. Some twenty-four years later, after the English were driven out,
Joan's aged mother,

Isabelle, convinced the

Inquisitor-General and

Pope Callixtus III to reopen Joan's case, resulting in an appeal which
overturned the original conviction by the English.^[3]

Pope Benedict XV

canonized her on
16 May
1920.

Joan of Arc has remained an important figure in Western culture. From

Napoleon to the present, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her
memory. Major writers and composers, including

Schiller,

Verdi,

Tchaikovsky,
Twain,

Shaw,

Brecht and

Honneger, have created works about her, and

depictions of her continue to be prevalent in film, television, and song.

Background

The period that preceded Joan of Arc's career was one of the lowest points in

French history. The prolonged war had produced much suffering among the
population, much of the northern portion of the kingdom was controlled by
English troops, and there was a likely possibility that France would be joined
with England as a "Dual Monarchy" under an English king. The French king at the
time of Joan's birth,

Charles VI, suffered bouts of insanity and was often unable to rule. Two of
the king's relatives, Dukes

John the Fearless of Burgundy and

Louis of Orléans, quarreled over the regency of France and the guardianship
of the royal children. The dispute escalated to accusations of an extramarital
affair with Queen

Isabeau of Bavaria and kidnappings of the royal children, and culminated
when John the Fearless ordered the assassination of Louis in 1407.

The factions loyal to these two men became known as the

Armagnacs and the

Burgundians. The English king,

Henry V, took advantage of this turmoil and invaded France, won a dramatic

victory at Agincourt in 1415, and proceeded to capture northern French
towns.^[4]
The future French king,

Charles VII, assumed the title of
dauphin as
heir to the throne at the age of fourteen, after all four of his older brothers
had died.^[5]
His first significant official act was to conclude a peace treaty with John the
Fearless in 1419. This ended in disaster when Armagnac partisans murdered John
the Fearless during a meeting under Charles's guarantee of protection. The new
duke of Burgundy,

Philip the Good, blamed Charles and entered an alliance with the English.
Large sections of France fell to conquest.^[6]

In 1420, Queen Isabeau of Bavaria concluded the

Treaty of Troyes, which granted the royal succession to Henry V and his
heirs in preference to her son Charles. This agreement revived rumors about her
supposed affair with the late duke of Orléans and raised fresh suspicions that
the dauphin was a royal bastard rather than the son of the king.^[7]
Henry V and Charles VI died within two months of each other in 1422, leaving an
infant,

Henry VI of England, the

nominal monarch of both kingdoms. Henry V's brother

John of Lancaster, the duke of Bedford, acted as regent.^[8]

By 1429, nearly all of northern France, and some parts of the southwest, were
under foreign control. The English ruled Paris and the Burgundians ruled
Reims. The latter
city was important as the traditional site of French coronations and
consecrations, especially since neither claimant to the throne of France had
been crowned. The English had laid

siege to Orléans, a city situated at a strategic location along the Loire
River which made it the last major obstacle to an assault on the remaining
French heartland. In the words of one modern historian, "On the fate of Orléans
hung that of the entire kingdom."^[9]
No one was optimistic that the city could long withstand the siege.^[10]

Life

Childhood

Joan of Arc was born in the village of

Domrémy in 1412 to

Jacques d'Arc and

Isabelle Romée.^[11]
Her parents owned about 50 acres (20 ha) of land and her father supplemented his
farming work with a minor position as a village official, collecting taxes and
heading the town watch.^[12]
They lived in an isolated patch of northeastern territory that remained loyal to
the French crown despite being surrounded by Burgundian lands. Several raids
occurred during Joan of Arc's childhood, and on one occasion her village was
burned.

Joan later testified that she experienced her first vision around 1424. She
would report that

St. Michael,

St. Catherine, and

St. Margaret told her to drive out the English and bring the dauphin to
Reims for his coronation.^[13]
At the age of sixteen she asked a kinsman, Durand Lassois, to bring her to
nearby
Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander, Count

Robert de Baudricourt, for permission to visit the royal French court at
Chinon.
Baudricourt's sarcastic response did not deter her.^[14]
She returned the following January and gained support from two men of standing:

Jean de Metz and

Bertrand de Poulegny.^[15]
Under their auspices she gained a second interview, where she made an apparently
miraculous prediction about a

military reversal near Orléans.^[16]

Rise to prominence

Baudricourt granted her an escort to visit Chinon after news from the front
confirmed her prediction. She made the journey through hostile Burgundian
territory in male disguise.^[17]
Upon arriving at the royal court, she impressed Charles VII during a private
conference. He then ordered background inquiries and a theological examination
at Poitiers
to verify her morality. During this time, Charles's mother-in-law,

Yolande of Aragon, was financing a relief expion to Orléans. Joan of Arc
petitioned for permission to travel with the army and wear the equipment of a
knight. Because she had no funds of her own, she depended on donations for her
armor, horse, sword, banner, and entourage. Historian Stephen W. Richey explains
her rise as the only source of hope for a regime that was near collapse:

"After years of one humiliating defeat after another, both the military
and civil leadership of France were demoralized and discred. When the
Dauphin Charles granted Joan’s urgent request to be equipped for war and
placed at the head of his army, his decision must have been based in large
part on the knowledge that every orthodox, every rational, option had been
tried and had failed. Only a regime in the final straits of desperation would
pay any heed to an illiterate farm girl who claimed that voices from God were
instructing her to take charge of her country’s army and lead it to victory."^[18]

Joan of Arc arrived at the siege of Orléans on
29 April
1429, but

Jean d'Orléans (aka Dunois), the acting head of the Orléans ducal family,
initially excluded her from war councils and failed to inform her when the army
engaged the enemy. She overcame this by disregarding the veteran commanders'
decisions, appealed to the town's population, and rode out to each skirmish,
where she placed herself at the extreme front line, carrying her banner. The
extent of her actual military leadership is a subject of historical debate. The
eyewitness accounts say that she often made intelligent suggestions in the
field, but that her soldiers and commanders regarded her mainly as a
divinely-inspired mystic whose victories were attributed to God. Traditional
historians, such as Edouard Perroy, conclude that she was a standard bearer
whose primary effect was on morale.^[19]
This type of analysis usually relies on the condemnation trial testimony, where
Joan of Arc stated that she preferred her standard to her sword. Recent
scholarship that focuses on the rehabilitation trial testimony more often
suggests that her fellow officers esteemed her as a skilled tactician and a
successful strategist. Stephen W. Richey asserts that "She proceeded to lead the
army in an astounding series of victories that reversed the tide of the war."^[20]
In either case, historians agree that the army enjoyed remarkable success during
her brief career.^[21]

Leadership

Joan of Arc defied the cautious strategy that had previously characterized
French leadership, pursuing vigorous frontal assaults against outlying siege
fortifications. After several of these outposts fell, the English abandoned
other wooden structures and concentrated their remaining forces at the stone
fortress that controlled the bridge, les Tourelles. On
7 May, the French
assaulted the Tourelles. Contemporaries acknowledged Joan as the hero of the
engagement, during which at one point she pulled an arrow from her own shoulder
and returned, still wounded, to lead the final charge.^[22]

The sudden victory at Orléans led to many proposals for offensive action. The
English expected an attempt to recapture Paris or an attack on Normandy; Dunois
later said that this in fact had originally been the plan, until Joan convinced
them to proceed instead to Reims. In the aftermath of the unexpected victory,
she persuaded Charles VII to grant her co-command of the army with Duke

John II of Alençon, and gained royal permission for her plan to recapture
nearby bridges along the Loire as a prelude to an advance on Reims and a
coronation. Hers was a bold proposal, because Reims was roughly twice as far
away as Paris, and deep in enemy-held territory.^[23]

The army recovered

Jargeau on 12
June,

Meung-sur-Loire on
15 June, then

Beaugency on
17 June. The duke of Alençon agreed to all of Joan of Arc's decisions. Other
commanders, including Jean d'Orléans, had been impressed with her performance at
Orléans, and became strong supporters of her. Alençon cred Joan for saving
his life at Jargeau, where she warned him of an imminent artillery attack.^[24]
During the same battle, she withstood a blow from a stone to her helmet as she
climbed a scaling ladder. An expected English relief force arrived in the area
on 18 June, under the command of Sir
John
Fastolf. The

battle at Patay might be compared to Agincourt in reverse: The French
vanguard attacked before the English

archers could finish defensive preparations. A rout ensued that decimated
the main body of the English army and killed or captured most of its commanders.
Fastolf escaped with a small band of soldiers and became the scapegoat for the
English humiliation. The French suffered minimal losses.^[25]

The French army set out for Reims from Gien-sur-Loire on
29 June, and
accepted the negotiated neutrality of the Burgundian-held city of
Auxerre on
3 July. Every
other town in their path returned to French allegiance without resistance.
Troyes, the
site of the treaty that had tried to disinherit Charles VII, capitulated after a
nearly bloodless four-day siege.^[26]
The army was in short supply of food by the time it reached Troyes. Edward
Lucie-Smith cites this as an example alleging that Joan of Arc was more blessed
than skilled: A wandering friar named Brother Richard had been preaching about
the end of the world at Troyes, and had convinced local residents to plant
beans, a crop with an early harvest. The hungry army arrived just as the beans
ripened.^[27]

Reims opened its gates on
16 July. The
coronation took place the following morning. Although Joan and the duke of
Alençon urged a prompt march on Paris, the royal court pursued a negotiated
truce with the duke of Burgundy. Duke Philip the Good broke the agreement, using
it as a stalling tactic to reinforce the defense of Paris.^[28]
The French army marched through towns near Paris during the interim and accepted
more peaceful surrenders. The duke of Bedford headed an English force and
confronted the French army in a standoff on
15 August.
The French assault at Paris ensued on
8
September. Despite a crossbow bolt wound to the leg, Joan of Arc continued
directing the troops until the day's fighting ended. The following morning, she
received a royal order to withdraw. Most historians blame French grand
chamberlain

Georges de la Trémoille for the political blunders that followed the
coronation.^[29]

Capture and trial

After minor action at La-Charité-sur-Loire in November and December, Joan
went to Lagny-sur-Marne the following March, then to
Compiègne
on 23 May to
defend against an

English and Burgundian siege. A skirmish on
23 May
1430 led to her
capture. When she ordered a retreat, she assumed the place of honor as the last
to leave the field. Burgundians surrounded the rear guard.

It was customary for a war captive's family to raise ransom money whenever
the captor allowed a ransom, which the Burgundians did not allow in this case.
Many historians condemn Charles VII for failing to do more to intervene. She
attempted several escapes, on one occasion leaping from a seventy foot tower to
the soft earth of a dry moat. The English government eventually obtained her
from Duke Philip of Burgundy. Bishop

Pierre Cauchon of
Beauvais,
an English partisan and member of the Council which oversaw the English
occupation of northern France, assumed a prominent role in these negotiations
and her later trial.

Joan's trial for heresy was politically motivated. The duke of Bedford
claimed the throne of France for his nephew Henry VI. She was responsible for
the rival coronation. Condemning her was an attempt to discr her king. Legal
proceedings commenced on
9 January
1431 at
Rouen, the seat
of the English occupation government.^[30]
The procedure was irregular on a number of points.

To summarize some major problems, the jurisdiction of judge Bishop Cauchon
was a legal fiction.^[31]
He owed his appointment to his partisanship. The English government financed the
entire trial. Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, commissioned to collect testimony
against her, could find no adverse evidence.^[32]
Without this, the court lacked grounds to initiate a trial. Opening one anyway,
it denied her right to a legal advisor.

The trial record demonstrates her remarkable intellect. The transcript's most
famous exchange is an exercise in subtlety. "Asked if she knew she was in God's
grace, she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so
keep me.'"^[33]
The question is a scholarly trap. Church doctrine held that no one could be
certain of being in God's grace. If she had answered yes, then she would have
convicted herself of
heresy. If she
had answered no, then she would have confessed her own guilt. Notary
Boisguillaume would later testify that at the moment the court heard this reply,
"Those who were interrogating her were stupefied" and abruptly halted the
questioning for that day.^[34]
This exchange would become famous, and is incorporated into many modern works on
the subject.

Several court functionaries later testified that significant portions of the
transcript were altered in her disfavor. Many clerics served under compulsion,
including the inquisitor, Jean LeMaitre, and a few even received death threats
from the English. Under

Inquisitorial guidelines, Joan should have been confined to an

ecclesiastical prison under the supervision of female guards (i.e., nuns).
Instead, the English kept her in a
secular
prison guarded by their own soldiers. Bishop Cauchon denied Joan's appeals to
the

Council of Basel and the pope, which should have stopped his proceeding.^[35]

The twelve articles of accusation that summarize the court's finding
contradict the already-doctored court record.^[36]
Illiterate Joan signed an
abjuration
document she did not understand under threat of immediate execution. The court
substituted a different abjuration in the official record.^[37]

Execution

Heresy was a capital crime only for a repeat offense. Joan agreed to wear
women's clothes when she abjured. A few days later, according to eyewitnesses,
she was subjected to an attempted rape in prison by an English lord.^[38]
She resumed male attire either as a defense against molestation or, in the
testimony of Jean Massieu, because her dress had been stolen and she was left
with nothing else to wear.^[39]

Eyewitnesses described the scene of the execution on
30 May
1431. Tied to a
tall pillar, she asked two of the clergy, Martin Ladvenu and Isambart de la
Pierre, to hold a
crucifix
before her. She repeatedly called out "in a loud voice the holy name of Jesus,
and implored and invoked without ceasing the aid of the saints of Paradise."
After she expired, the English raked back the coals to expose her charred body
so that no one could claim she had escaped alive, then burned the body twice
more to reduce it to ashes and prevent any collection of relics. They cast her
remains into the
Seine.^[40]
The executioner, Geoffroy Therage, later stated that he "...greatly feared to be
damned for he had burned a holy woman."^[41]

Retrial

A posthumous retrial opened as the war ended.

Pope Callixtus III authorized this proceeding, now known as the
"rehabilitation trial", at the request of Inquisitor-General Jean Brehal and
Joan of Arc's mother Isabelle Romée. Investigations started with an inquest by
clergyman Guillaume Bouille. Brehal conducted an investigation in 1452. A formal
appeal followed in November 1455. The appellate process included clergy from
throughout Europe and observed standard court procedure. A panel of theologians
analyzed testimony from 115 witnesses. Brehal drew up his final summary in June
1456, which describes Joan as a
martyr and
implicates the late Pierre Cauchon with heresy for having convicted an innocent
woman in pursuit of a secular vendetta. The court declared her innocence on
7 July
1456.^[42]

Clothing

Joan of Arc often wore men's clothing between her departure from Vaucouleurs
and her abjuration at Rouen, although recent scholarship has argued that she
frequently resumed female clothing during her military campaigns.^[43]
This raised theological questions in her own era and raised other questions in
the twentieth century. The technical reason for her execution was a
Biblical
clothing law,
^[44]
but the rehabilitation trial reversed the conviction in part because the
condemnation proceeding had failed to consider the doctrinal exceptions to that
stricture.^[45]

Doctrinally speaking, she was safe to disguise herself as a page during a
journey through enemy territory and she was safe to wear armor during battle.
The Chronique de la Pucelle states that it deterred molestation while she
was camped in the field. Clergy who testified at her rehabilitation trial
affirmed that she continued to wear male clothing in prison to deter molestation
and rape.^[46]
Preservation of chastity was another justifiable reason for crossdressing: her
apparel would have slowed an assailant.^[47]
She referred the court to the Poitiers inquiry when questioned on the matter
during her condemnation trial. The Poitiers record no longer survives but
circumstances indicate the Poitiers clerics approved her practice. In other
words, she had a mission to do a man's work so it was fitting that she dress the
part.^[48]
She also kept her hair cut short through her military campaigns and while in
prison. Her supporters, such as the theologian Jean Gerson, defended her
hairstyle, as did Inquisitor Brehal during the Rehabilitation trial.^[49]

According to Francoise Meltzer, "The depictions of Joan of Arc tell us about
the assumptions and gender prejudices of each succeeding era, but they tell us
nothing about Joan's looks in themselves. They can be read, then, as a
semiology
of gender: how each succeeding culture imagines the figure whose charismatic
courage, combined with the blurring of gender roles, makes her difficult to
depict."^[50]

Visions

Joan of Arc's religious visions have been one of the most heavily analyzed
and controversial aspects of her life, attracting interest from theologians and
psychologists alike. Joan of Arc's belief that her visions came from God is
widely judged to have been sincere. She identified

St. Margaret,

St. Catherine, and

St. Michael as the source of her
revelations,
although, as several saints have been canonized under each of these names, there
is some ambiguity as to which of the identically-named saints she was referring
to. Devout Roman Catholics believe her visions were divinely inspired.

On the other hand, some scholars have suggested that Joan of Arc's visions
were hallucinations or delusions caused by a mental illness, such as paranoid
schizophrenia or temporal lobe epilepsy. Most scholars who propose such
explanations consider Joan a figurehead more than an active leader.^[51]
Other scholars, such as Ralph Hoffman, point out that visionary and creative
states, including "hearing voices," are not necessarily signs of mental illness.^[52]

Psychiatric explanations have encountered some objections. It was unlikely
that a mentally ill person could gain favor in the court of Charles VII. The
previous king, Charles VI, was popularly known as "Charles the Mad," and much of
the political and military decline that France had suffered during his reign
could be attributed to the power vacuum that his episodes of insanity had
produced. He believed he was made of glass, a delusion no courtier had mistaken
for a religious awakening. Fears that Charles VII would manifest the same
insanity may have factored into the attempt to disinherit him at Troyes. Upon
Joan of Arc's arrival at Chinon, the royal counselor Jacques Gélu cautioned,
"One should not lightly alter any policy because of conversation with a girl, a
peasant... so susceptible to illusions; one should not make oneself ridiculous
in the sight of foreign nations...." Contrary to modern stereotypes about the
Middle Ages, the court of Charles VII was shrewd and skeptical on the subject of
mental health.^[53][54]

It has also been argued that reports of Joan of Arc's intelligence shows she
was not mentally ill. Joan of Arc remained astute to the end of her life, and
rehabilitation trial testimony frequently marvels at her intelligence. "Often
they [the judges] turned from one question to another, changing about, but,
notwithstanding this, she answered prudently, and evinced a wonderful memory."^[55]
Her subtle replies under interrogation even forced the court to stop holding
public sessions.^[56]
However, although intellectual decline and chronic memory loss are listed among
the potential prodromes of several major mental illnesses, the apparent lack of
these symptoms does not by itself rule out the possibility of mental illness.
Nevertheless, some scholars such as Judy Grundy have pointed out that it is
additionally the case that, based on the eyewitness accounts, other potential
outward symptoms of such disorders, such as marked changes in personality and
confused speech, were also absent in Joan's case.

Other medical explanations of Joan's visions have met with sarcasm: in
response to speculation that Joan of Arc's visions resulted from bovine
tuberculosis contracted from drinking unpasteurized milk, Régine Pernoud wrote
that the French government should stop mandating the pasteurization of milk, if
unpasteurized milk could produce such benefits for the nation.^[57]

Legacy

The Hundred Years' War continued for 22 years after Joan of Arc's death.
Charles VII succeeded in retaining legitimacy as king of France in spite of a
rival coronation held for Henry VI in December 1431 on the boy's tenth birthday.
Before England could rebuild its military leadership and longbow corps lost
during 1429, the country also lost its alliance with Burgundy at the

Treaty of Arras in 1435. The duke of Bedford died the same year and Henry VI
became the youngest king of England to rule without a regent. That treaty and
his weak leadership were probably the most important factors in ending the
conflict. Kelly DeVries argues that Joan of Arc's aggressive use of artillery
and frontal assaults influenced French tactics for the rest of the war.^[58]

The main sources of information about her were chronicles. Five original
manuscripts of her condemnation trial surfaced in old archives during the
nineteenth century. Soon historians also located the complete records of her
rehabilitation trial, which contained sworn testimony from 115 witnesses, and
the original French notes for the Latin condemnation trial transcript. Various
contemporary letters also emerged, three of which carry the signature "Jehanne"
in the unsteady hand of a person learning to write.^[59]
This unusual wealth of primary source material is one reason DeVries declares,
"No person of the Middle Ages, male or female, has been the subject of more
study than Joan of Arc.^[60]

She came from an obscure village and rose to prominence when she was barely
more than a child and she did so as an uneducated peasant. French and English
kings had justified the ongoing war through competing interpretations of the
thousand-year-old
Salic law.
The conflict had been an inheritance feud between monarchs. Joan of Arc gave
meaning to appeals such as that of squire Jean de Metz when he asked, "Must the
king be driven from the kingdom; and are we to be English?"^[61]
In the words of Stephen Richey, "She turned what had been a dry dynastic
squabble that left the common people unmoved except for their own suffering into
a passionately popular war of national liberation."^[62]
Richey also expresses the breadth of her subsequent appeal:

"The people who came after her in the five centuries since her death tried
to make everything of her: demonic fanatic, spiritual mystic, naive and
tragically ill-used tool of the powerful, creator and icon of modern popular
nationalism, adored heroine, saint. She insisted, even when threatened with
torture and faced with death by fire, that she was guided by voices from God.
Voices or no voices, her achievements leave anyone who knows her story shaking
his head in amazed wonder."^[63]

In 1452, during the postwar investigation into her execution, the Church
declared that a religious play in her honor at Orléans would qualify as a
pilgrimage
meriting an
indulgence. Joan of Arc became a symbol of the

Catholic League during the 16th century. Félix Dupanloup, bishop of Orléans
from 1849 to 1878, led the effort for Joan's eventual

beatification in 1909. Her

canonization followed on
16 May
1920. Her feast day
is 30 May. She
has become one of the most popular saints of the Roman Catholic Church.^[64]

Joan of Arc was not a feminist. She operated within a religious tradition
that believed an exceptional person from any level of society might receive a
divine calling. She expelled women from the French army and may have struck one
stubborn camp follower with the flat of a sword.^[65][66]
Nonetheless, some of her most significant aid came from women. Charles VII's
mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, confirmed Joan's virginity and financed her
departure to Orléans. Joan of Luxembourg, aunt to the count of Luxembourg who
held Joan of Arc after Compiègne, alleviated Joan of Arc's conditions of
captivity and may have delayed her sale to the English. Finally,

Anne of Burgundy, the duchess of Bedford and wife to the regent of England,
declared Joan a virgin during pretrial inquiries.^[67]
For technical reasons this prevented the court from charging Joan with
witchcraft. Ultimately this provided part of the basis for Joan's vindication
and sainthood. From

Christine de Pizan to the present, women have looked to Joan of Arc as a
positive example of a brave and active female.^[68]

Joan of Arc has been a political symbol in France since the time of
Napoleon.

Liberals emphasized her humble origins. Early

conservatives stressed her support of the monarchy. Later conservatives
recalled her nationalism. During
World
War II, both the
Vichy
Regime and the

French Resistance used her image: Vichy propaganda remembered her campaign
against the English with posters that showed British warplanes bombing
Rouen and the
ominous caption: "They Always Return to the Scene of Their Crimes." The
resistance emphasized her fight against foreign occupation and her origins in
the province of
Lorraine, which had fallen under
Nazi control.

Traditional Catholics, especially in France, also use her as a symbol of
inspiration, often comparing the 1988 excommunication of Archbishop

Marcel Lefebvre (founder of the

Society of St. Pius X and a dissident against the Vatican II reforms) to
Joan of Arc's excommunication. Three separate vessels of the
French
Navy have been named after Joan of Arc, including a

helicopter carrier currently in active service. At present the controversial
French political party

Front National holds rallies at her statues, reproduces her likeness in
party publications, and uses a tricolor flame partly symbolic of her martyrdom
as its emblem. This party's opponents sometimes satirize its appropriation of
her image.^[69]
The French civic holiday in her honor is the second Sunday of May.

Contributions

Achievements

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