JOAN OF ARC: The Maid of France by Hilaire Belloc
Indeed, for that was I born.
France, 1429. A kingdom stands on the edge of the abyss. Torn asunder by the bloody feud between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, and crushed under the iron heel of the English occupation, the Ā«Land of the LiliesĀ» is a realm without a leader. The rightful heir, the Dauphin Charles, lingers in doubt and despair, his crown a distant dream, his legitimacy questioned by his own mother. The light of Christendom is fading in the smoke of a hundred-year war.
Out of the quiet meadows of DomrĆ©my, a seventeen-year-old peasant girl rises to meet this darkness. She is unlettered in the ways of men but guided by the "Visitors from Paradise"āSaint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. With an unwavering faith that confounded the learned and a courage that shamed the brave, she left her father's sheep to lead an army.
In this masterful biography, Hilaire Belloc, one of the 20th century's most brilliant historians and men of letters, recreates the epic journey of Joan of Arc with unparalleled lyrical power. Belloc does not merely recount facts; he breathes life into the spirit of the Middle Ages. He leads the reader from the Ā«Fairies' beech treeĀ» in Lorraine to the high, torch-lit halls of Chinon, where Joan revealed the King's secret prayer. We ride beside her in her suit of white armor, beneath a banner of fine linen, as she defies the seasoned English commanders to break the Siege of OrlĆ©ans and lead her King to his sacring at Rheims.
But this is also a story of the world's shadows. Belloc poignantly depicts the Ā«tangled intrigueĀ» of the court, the cold-blooded betrayal by self-seeking politicians, and the Ā«strong evilĀ» of Bishop Peter Cauchon. He brings us into the hollow dungeon of Rouen, where the Maid stood fast through five months of a rigged trial, and finally to the market-square where her mission was purified by fire.