You're listening to the second and final part of Unexplained, Season six, episode thirty, The Inextinguishable Fire. Having successfully routed the English army on May fourth, two days later, on May sixth, fourteen twenty nine, Joan led a small army to storm two more English forts, both of which were also successfully captured. That evening, with the d'orphan's army now having gained the upper hand in the battle for or Lyons, Joan and her fellow soldiers enjoyed a riotous dinner together.
Spirits were high as Father Jean Pasquarell, who by their had anointed himself as Jones's personal chaplain, took a seat by the godly child. It was hard to deny the wave of optimism that had swelled through the ranks since Jones's arrival, But as Pascurel gazed round the room, he was troubled by the look on Joan's face as she stared off into the middle distance. What is it? He asked Joan, who seemed to be in some other place entirely, finally snapped out of it. Tomorrow, she said, blood, she'll
flow from my body above my breast. I will be wounded by a shaft. But I shall not die of it, and I will remove it with my bare hands. Pascuerrel could only stare at her in disbelief. She'd been right before, there was no reason to doubt her now. At the time, the city of Orleans sat on the north bank of
the Loire River. By May sixth, the English army had been forced to consolidate most of its forces at two major points on the opposite side of the river, a large turreted gatehouse known as lay to Rell and a large earthen rampart known as Boulevart. The French army was planning an assault on both of them for the following day. However, news of Joan's unnerving vision soon got back to her
military superiors. With victory and the soldier's morale so finally in the balance, it was decided that Joan should stay behind at the camp lest the unthinkable should happen, but Joan ignored their orders. By the afternoon, the assault had been progressing well as all about metal clashed on metal
and the anguished cries of men rang out. Joan found herself standing at the base of lay Torel Gatehouse, helping to secure a ladder to scale the walls, when from out of nowhere, there came a whistle through the air, followed by a blood curdling scream. The French soldiers looked on in horror toward Joan, her face pale and stricken, her white armor quickly darkening with red, and the long shaft of an arrow now sticking out of her neck.
As the seventeen year old Joan slumped to the floor, a group of compatriots quickly dragged her from the battlefield and rowed her back to their camp. Before long, rumors began to spread that Joan had been killed. The news came as a shock to all the French soldiers, immediately eviscerating their previously unshakable confidence, while for the English soldiers a renewed sense of belief swept over them that all
was perhaps not divinely fated after all. But just as the English army seemed to have clawed back the advantage of figure in white, their neck thickly bandaged, was spotted approaching on a white steed. Joan was alive and had returned to finish what she'd started. Another cry went up among the French soldiers as they made one final push, repelling the English from the fort once and for all. By the end of the following day, all of the forts around or Leon had been captured by the Darphan's army.
The Siege of Lyons, as it would come to be known, had finally been lifted. Joan, the Maid of Orlyan, as some would come to call her, soon after, had delivered exactly what the voices had apparently promised. With Orlyon secure, Joan traveled to near by Loche to meet with the Dwarfhan, hoping to convince him that now was the time for him to head to Rams and anoint himself the true king of France. The only problem was that getting there
men traveling through miles of Anglo Burgundy territory. At first, the Darphan and his commanders were unsure about undertaking such a potentially dangerous journey, wary of undoing all their recent gains, But as Joan continually reminded them, with God on their side, there was nothing to fear, and so in late June the decision was made to proceed. Forty thousand foot soldiers and thirty three thousand cavalry gathered in the town of
Jeanne and from there. On June twenty ninth, fourteen twenty nine, the march began. Along the way, the army faced some resistance from towns that were either loyal to the English crown or the Duke of Burgundy. Some were bribed to allow the Dauphin's army to rest and recuperate, others were
simply conquered. Plans were made to prevent the Dauphin at his army from entering realms, but with the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good, who had been tasked with keeping watch over the city duck in Paris at the time, in the end, the townspeople were powerless to resist. On Saturday July sixteenth, with Joan leading the way, the Dauphan
and his army marched into Rance. The following day, at Bran's Cathedral, the stoic seventeen year old Joan watched on from the front of the assembly, proudly displaying her white banner as the Dauphan was crowned King Charles the Seventh of France, just as she had prophesied all those months ago.
Despite a failed effort to take back Paris from English control, soon after, Joan was heralded for all her services, and in December of that year she and her family were all ennobled by then King Charles the seventh had returned to the Loire Valley, where he was joined by Joan, who nued to counsel him. But Joan was restless. She had not yet driven the English completely from France, as she believed she was meant to do, and the voices
hadn't stopped either. Shortly after being crowned, King Charles the seventh had negotiated a four month truth with the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe the Good. This included ceding a number of towns back to the Duke in the hope of quelling any future military ambitions. However, the residents of those towns, many having no doubt been moved by this seemingly divinely inspired Joan, were reluctant to submit to him, and so the Duke of Burgundy ordered that they be taken back
by force. One such town was Compiegne, located about fifty miles to the north of Paris. In March fourteen thirty, Philippe the Good demanded the people of the city surrender and allow themselves to be taken over or else he would invade, but the townspeople refused his offer. As it turned out, little did King Charlesnoe. The Burgundians had no intention of stopping with the towns given back to them
by his treaty. In fact, they planned to take control of most of the cities that lined the Ouas River, with a view to once again helping secure the north of France for the English crown. Joan, however, had foreseen the danger, possibly going behind her king's back. Joan marshaled four hundred or so troops to help take on the Burgundian as they made their way to Compigny. Joan, by then only eighteen years old, and her army arrived at
the town on May fourteenth. After getting involved in a number of minor skirmishes with the Burgundian forces over the next few days, by May twenty third, Joan and her army were eventually pushed back toward Compigny. At some time around midday on May twenty third, with the Burgundians gaining the upper hand. To spite Joan's protestations, a full retreat of French forces was ordered. As the soldiers hastily made
their way toward the security of Compigny's city walls. Joan gallantly put herself at the front of a rear guard tasked with protecting the retreating soldiers as they headed for the city gates. With the Burgundian soldiers upon them and still some way from the gate, Joan could only watch with horror as the city's drawbridge was suddenly raised, leaving
her stranded outside the city. Perhaps in those moments she reflected on the prophecy she'd made in March the previous year that she would be captured by Midsummer's Day of that year, and perhaps felt an air of inevitability about what happened next. With nowhere to run, Joan and her troops were soon surrounded by Burgundian soldiers, who screamed for
her to give herself up. Joan refused, but as she backed her horse away, a Burgundian crossbowman inched his own horse behind her, then grabbed her tunic and yanked her down into the mud. Unable to get back in her saddle, Joan had no option but to surrender. Joan was imprisoned at a castle in Bolliers la Fontaine, ten miles further north of Compiegne and by all accounts, is said to have been treated reasonably well. True to her indomitable spirit, however,
she refused to accept her fate. Over the next few months, Joan was moved between numerous prisons as she made continued efforts to escape, including at one time leaping out of a tower into a moat, only to be captured again, having knocked herself unconscious when she hit the water. For all that she'd achieved and for what she represented to supporters of King Charles the seventh, it was only a matter of time before she ended up in the hands
of the English crown. In short, King Henry the sixth court feared Joan more than anyone else at the time. They feared the awe which she inspired, feared the way she shook the church hierarchy in her apparent direct communication with God, and hated her prolifically a young woman who had dared to beat them. They could not put her to death for this, but they could have her tried
as a witch and a heretic. In late fourteen thirty, she was moved to the town of Ruan King Henry the sixth headquarters in France and imprisoned to await her trial. And so we return back to that grand makeshift court room at the Castle of Ruant in February fourteen thirty one, as the pale and malnourished Joan, her wrists and ankles bound by chains, stands defiantly staring back at those sixty pairs of eyes hungrie for blood. Leading her trial was
Bishop Pierre Cushon, ally to the English Crown. Cushaon was charged with accusing Joan of the crimes of heresy, which was punishable by death, as well as blasphemy through her wearing of traditional men's clothes and for acting on what
her accusers claimed to be demonic visions. What follow'd was a series of hearings lasting from February twenty first through to the end of May, in which Joan, despite having no lawyers or any counsel at all save for her apparent voices, is said to have displayed astonishing control in her answers, deftly avoiding saying anything that would unequivocally reveal
her to be a heretic. Throughout it all, she also remained loyal to Charles, even though despite everything she'd done for him, not wanting to be associated with the strange young woman accused of witchcraft and heresy, He refused to come to her aid. What came next remains unclear. On May twenty fourth, Joan signed an abjuration, which, in theory, acknowledged that she could not be considered a heretic and
was therefore spared the death penalty. Instead, she was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and ordered never to wear traditional men's clothing again. Over the next few days, it is said that Joan's guards goaded her with unsuitable clothes and even forced her to wear them. Others, however, have suggested that Joan had deliberately continued to wear trousers on account of
the better protection they afforded her from sexual assault. It's rumored that a number of guards, and possibly even the Earl of Warwick, a loyal servant to King Henry the sixth, attempted to rape her while she was in captivity. Either way, Bishop Cushon soon received word of Joan's continued transgressions, and on May twenty eighth, he and a handful of other clerics paid her a visit, with Joan found to indeed
still be wearing men's clothes. She is then said to have claimed that the voice she identified as Saint Catharine of Alexandria had been angry with her for signing the abjuration. It was clear then to Cushon and his colleagues that Joan was a remorseless, determined blasphema who was beyond saving. The following day, it was decided by the ecclesiastical court
that Joan had relapsed into heresy. She was then handed over to an English secular court, where she was promptly declared a heretic and a witch, and sentenced to death. On May thirtieth, fourteen thirty one, a then nineteen year old Joan was led out of her prison and taken to the Place de beau Marchais, where a huge crowd had gathered. In the middle of the square stood a tall,
plastered pillar surrounded by a large pile of wood. Joan was led up to the pillar, then ordered to stop and wait as her sentence was read out for all to hear. As the words of condemnation rang out through the square over the hush of the crowd, Joan openly sobbed as she forgave her accusers and asked them to pray for her and King Charles the Seventh, the man who would one day be the ruler of all France,
just as the voices had promised her. Joan was then grabbed by the executioner and placed against the pillar, which had been made or the taller so that the whole crowd could witness. The five foot two inch Joan burned to death. As the torches were lit, Joan shouted for a crucifix. One was hastily fetched from a nearby church and brought back to her. Joan clasped it with her hands, the last thing she touched before they were placed behind her and around the pillar and bound together. Then the
pyre was lit. As the flames began to crackle and hiss, a local Dominican friar kept the crucifix where Joan could see it, and quietly began offering the assurances of salvation, promising Joan that she would be saved in the eyes of God. As the flames grew higher, Joan demanded the friar speak louder so she could hear his words above the roar of the fire. The crowd gasped as Joan's clothes were set alight, and she cried out in agony. As the fire continued to grow, its crackling and hissing
merging with Joan's cries. She is said to have screamed the name Jesus six times before finally falling silent. Though Joan is thought to have died of asphyxiation sometime before the fire really took hold, her body was left to burn long after her death. However, her organs proved strangely resistant to the flames. It would take another two fires, with Jones's diminishing body dragged back and forth across hot coals,
before it was turned entirely to ash. Despite the loyalty to the English Crown of those who participated in Joan's execution, it is thought many were left afterward with the distinctly uneasy feeling that they had just participated in the burning of a saint. In an effort to erase or trace of Joan from the culture of France, it was decided to throw her ashes into the River Seine, so no official place of mourning could ever be established, and those who dared to speak fondly of the Maid of All,
even in hushed tones, faced strict and prompt punishment. However, though Joan was gone, her prophecies continued to cast an unsettling shadow across the English held regions of France. At her trial in March of fourteen thirty one, she'd announced that within seven years the English crown would suffer a far greater defeat than it had at or Leon, stating
that they would soon lose everything. Sure Enough, on November twelfth, fourteen thirty seven, six years and eight months after Joan's declaration, the English Army was finally driven out of Paris. Historians recognized this date as the beginning of the end for
the English Crown's presence in France. The fourteen fifty three Battle of Castillon, another fifteen years later, at which the English Army was decisively beaten, is considered to mark the end of the Hundred Years War, after which the English Crown has never once again seriously threatened the sovereignty of France. Four years previously, in November of fourteen forty nine, Joan was posthumously acquitted of her crimes and remodeled as a
martyr in the public consciousness. Four hundred and fifty years later, in nineteen o nine, she was beatified and in nineteen twenty canonized as a saint, proving that although you can destroy the body, a legend as a little harder to extinguish. Over the years, with the distance of time only further obscuring the real truth of just who Joan was, what
it was exactly that she said or did. That legend has only continued to grow and morph into something far more potent than any one person could possibly hope to achieve in life. Many have questioned the various stories that have come to be associated with the one we now know as Joan or shand Arc. The facts of the matter are that Joan or shand Arc was not a name she used in life. Arc is not a real place, and the words attributed to her an illiterate teenager, are
all second and third hand accounts. But perhaps now and even then, the truth never really mattered. What mattered was the story, the symbolism of what Joan came to represent, because whether you believe she truly was a child of destiny led by God to emancipate an entire nation or not, for many people just to believe it help to make that apparent destiny a manifest reality. To this day, her name continues to ring through the halls of history appealing
bell of freedom, fortitude and courage. This episode was written by Ella mc cloud and Richard mc clean smith. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc clean smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by Richard mc clean smith. Unexplained. The book and audio book, featuring stories that have never before been featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones, among
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