My Joan of Arc Page

Joan of Arc, :: sigh ::, she is one of my major heroines. What a tragic figure. She is only like 15,000 times cooler than the man she wanted to see crowned as king. Hey, she was on a mission to make a king, and the character of the man she was to see crowned was, in a way, irrelevant to her. And, the fact that he hosed her over and had her burned at the stake, .....talk about a raw deal. Even her enemies agreed with her as to the importance of her virginity, and that's why the burning was so objectionable to Joan. The sexual component of the consummation of one who had remained a virgin her whole life really bugged her. To quote her, "Alas! Am I so horribly and cruelly used, that my clear body, never yet defiled, must this day be burned and turned to ashes? Ha! Ha! I would rather be beheaded 7 times than suffer burning." I don't know exactly why, but she haunts my memory.

2 September 2001 - another update from the same Amy who gave us that most excellent Robin Hood page. She also has an obsession with Joan of Arc, which proves she is a most cool person. Here she has graciously provided a link to her Jules Bastien-Lepage page, wherein she honors his "Joan of Arc" painting, which she highly recommends us all to go see someday. The original canvas is at the Met in New York. Thanks again, Amy!

7 February 2002 – Marie-Pierre, a web designer and someone who is even more into Joan of Arc than I am (and that is saying a lot), sent me a link to an artist, Stephan Duncan. You will find a painting of Jeanne d'Arc at the stake in his painting gallery at page 11.
Thanks a lot, Marie-Pierre!

17 February 2002 – I recently purchased a book, “Joan of Arc” by none other than Mark Twain! According to him, it is his best and most important work. He had a huge love for the Maid of Orleans, and it is evident in this work. But don’t bring any pre-conceived notions about Mark Twain to your reading of this book. It is totally unlike his other works (much better, in my opinion). When this work, “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” was published, in serialized form, in Harper’s Magazine (starting with the April 1895 issue), it was ostensibly the recent translation into English by one Jean Francois Alden of the memoirs of one Sieur Louis de Conte, the one person who knew Joan and was with her during the three important stages of her life: as visionary village peasant, as military genius, and as the defendant at her trial. This book rules. It is available in paperback as ISBN # 0-89870-268-2, and in hardback as ISBN # 0-89870-309-3 (from Ignatius Press in San Francisco).
Joan of Arc was Twain’s only true real-life hero, the only real life personality to rise above the general pessimism of his philosophy of life. Here’s his own quote about the book:

"I like Joan of Arc best of all my books
and it is the best; I know it perfectly well.
And besides it furnished me seven times the pleasure
afforded me by any of the others;
twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing.
The others needed no preparation and got none."
----- Mark Twain

Joan of Arc Links:

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc Page

Special Link to Amy's Jules Bastien-Lepage Page
Amy's page honoring his "Joan of Arc" painting

Special Link to Stephan Duncan’s Page
StephanDuncan’s Page (see his "Jeanne d’Arc" painting)

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