The Maid of Orleans

Part 3: Passion and martyrdom

Joan of Arc burning at the stake in Rouen (Painting in the Basilica of Domrémy)

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For Joan, the hardest part of her mission now came. Now she was to bear the whole burden of the cross, to taste the suffering that no one who is fully at the service of his Lord is spared.

It would not have been enough for the English to simply take Joan captive and then execute her, knowing full well that the French people would have considered her a martyr. This could have even encouraged them in their efforts to continue the liberation of the country! Their aim was therefore to prove publicly that Joan was a heretic and a witch who had achieved her victories through an alliance with the devil. Read More