It is February fourteen thirty one. A chill freezes the air of the Great Room within the Castle of Ruan. Up in the galley of this makeshift court room, sixty pairs of eyes stands staring, the eyes of men that have poured over the most rigorous philosophical texts of the time, absorbing the granular detail of every law and loophole, every
facet of global policy they can. They've been called to ruan the Duchy of Normandy Seed in the Kingdom of France, and the military base of the King of England, from the comfort of their dioces or the familiar power of their university residences, to stand judge at the trial of what many regard as the single biggest threat to the English crown, the one who's frequently been described as a genius military strategist and a kingmaker blessed with the gift
of prophecy, who many also believe has been sent by God themselves to save the Kingdom of France. Heavy footsteps and the clanking of chains are heard approaching from outside the room, and just then a heavy door swings open, letting in a gust of winter wind, and the sixty men look up, gasping at the sight of the pale, diminutive, nineteen year old woman being led into the courtroom. The woman's ankles and wrists are clasped in iron, her body wasted, sickened,
and malnourished. Is this her? Think the men? Is this it? But as the young woman takes the stand, she tilts her head to the galley, her back seeming to straighten, her body seeming to grow as she stares each of the men, one after the other, defiantly in the eye. And when she is asked to state her name, she replies proudly. In my village, I was known as Jeannette. Now I am known as jan or simply Joanne. There are few whose lives speak to the idea of legacy like Joan of Arcs. As she has come to be
known in the English speaking world. It could be said that she existed more in her future than she ever did in her present. Her cult following, for example, would not really start to take hold until a good four hundred years after her death. The name now associated with the May French feast day jeand arc is not even one that she used in life. For the woman we'd come to know as Joan of Arc, Hers was a life spent looking unerringly forward, speaking with faith and fearlessness
of things that were yet to come. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McClane Smith. As Joan took the stand on that frigid day in February fourteen thirty one, her accusers pushed her repeatedly to swear to tell the truth, absolutely and completely on everything she was asked. But Joan, perhaps recognizing that in the hands of those men the truth could be a slip every thing, refused to comply. If it was her story they wanted, she would be
the one to tell it on her own terms. And so as the men's voices became ever more disgruntled and their faces grew ever more read, the diminutive nineteen year old woman slowly began to talk. Growing up in the village of don Remy, the daughter of a relatively wealthy farmer, Hers had been a simple life pockmarked by the unending battle for regional supremacy between the English and the French crowns. Located in what is now the northeast of present day France.
At the time of her birth in fourteen twelve, dn Remy was situated firmly within the province of Chompagne, which, despite being within the Kingdom of France, was broadly speaking, under the control of then English King Henry the Fifth. For the most part, Joan was a simple, pious child, often seen kneeling in prayer at church or helping her mother with spinning and sewing. Until that was one day when, at the age of thirteen, she found herself sitting in
the garden enjoying the heat of summer. It had just gone noon, with the sun at its zenith when, she later claimed, a bright light appeared at the right side of her vision, which seemed to be coming from the direction of the village church, and then she heard a voice inside her head that was not her own. Looking about in fear and confusion at where on earth the voice could be coming from, she saw only the empty fields surrounding her. But the voice continued to talk, and
it was talking to her. Rather than be disturbed by it, however, the more Jane listened to its soft, peaceful words, instructing her to be good and to make sure that she continued to go to church, she began to find solace in it. Day after day, the voice returned. Then, over time, more voices began to speak to her. She became convinced that these voices were none other than the archangel Michael, Saint Catharine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch, all
supplying her with a direct line from God. The voices came most often when she was walking in the woods near her home, and at first their relationship was a simple one. As she walked, basking in the warmth of the sun and the sweet fragrance of summer flowers, the voices would comfort and counsel her, guiding her and her piety.
By the time Joan had turned sixteen, however, the voices had become more insistent, telling her that she was not just any young girl, but a girl with a divine mission to find the heir to the throne of France and help him to reclaim her homeland from the English crown. The war between France and England, which historians later dumped the Hundred Years War, had begun after King Charles the Fourth of France died in thirteen twenty eight without leaving
an heir. His closest male relative was his nephew, King Edward the third of England, who was sixteen at the time. However, the French nobility rejected Edward's claim on account of his father, the recently deposed King Edward the Second, being English, and so Charles the Fourth's cousin, Philippe, was crowned the king of France instead. This ruling remained in place until thirteen thirty seven, when a more mature Edward renewed his claim to the French throne and declared war on King Philippe.
The conflict would outlive them both and continued until the military successes of then King Henry the Fifth of England, who would go on to capture Paris and much of northern France, forced then King Charles the sixth of France to sign a treaty in fourteen twenty declaring Henry the Fifth as France's true heir apparent. This act, in turn disinherited Charles, his own son, also called Charles, but perhaps better known as the dauphin, the title given to the
eldest son of a French king. Things soon deteriorated, however, when both Henry the Fifth and Charles the sixth died
two years later. Once again reigniting the war. On one side were the supporters of the new English King, Henry the Sixth, who was not even one years old at the time, which included a number of French aristocracy, such as the Duke of Burgundy, while on the other were those who'd remained steadfastly loyal to Charles the sixth, who claimed his son, the Dauphin Charles, had the true divine
right to the French throne. By fourteen twenty nine, however, things were not going well for the Dauphins, with the then seven year old King Henry the sixth court managing to secure managing no previous gained. Fan and his supporters, also known as the Armagnacs, had made little headway in
capturing the rest of the country for himself. Most inconveniently, the town of Rance, located a hundred miles to the east of Paris, the traditional place for the French coronation and where any future monarch seeking legitimacy as the King of France had to be crowned, remained under the control of the English monarch by way of the Duke of Burgundy.
God it seemed, had made their choice, but young Joan begged to differ, as the voices had continued to keep telling her the Dauphin was the true heir of France, but God would need her help to put him on the throne. She had also by then begun to see things, little shots, she believed of things that were yet to come.
Perhaps the family and friends of anyone else would dismiss a sixteen year old girl determined to meet the men at the head of the war that had ravished their lands for nearly a hundred years on account of some voices she'd heard in her head. But things had a way of falling into place around Joan long before the voices,
an air of mystery and mysticism had surrounded her. She was born on the sixth of January, the day some Christians believe was the precise day that the biblical magi otherwise known as the Three Wise Men, visited the baby Jesus to bestow their famous gifts on him. And on that day of her birth, it was said that the roosters of her village had crowed long before the dawn,
as if already sensing the significance of the day. So when she told her family she had an important message to deliver, to Robert de Beaudricourt, captain of the French garrison nearby Voucler. They didn't hesitate to take her there. Joan's first meeting with the captain, however, in May of fourteen twenty eight, ended in disaster. On arriving, Joan is said to have regarded the captain oddly, saying he was exactly how she'd remembered from her vision, catching him a
little off guard. Then barely pausing to even introduce herself, Joan explained that she'd been given a mission by God to save France, and that she and only she could make it happen. She then demanded that she even unarmed escort to inform the Dauphin of her mission, who was based in the town of Shinnon, almost three hundred miles away to the west. Offended by the outlandish demands of the strange peasant girl as he saw her, de Beaudricorps
promptly dismissed her. The following month, Joan's hometown of don Romi was raided by the Duke of Burgundy's forces. Homes and crops were brutally burned to the ground, and Joan and her family were forced to flee, more convinced than ever of her cause. In January fourteen twenty nine, a then seventeen year old Joan returned once again to Voucole to demand another audience with the Captain de Beaudricorps. Once again, the captain refused her outlandish demands, but this time her
journey was not in vain. It seemed that word of jones curious convictions had started to precede her. Simon Voukola had begun speaking of a prophecy foretold long ago, of an armed female virgin who would one day reveal themselves
as the savior of France. And though Captain de Beaudricourt was yet to be convinced, something of jones quiet fortitude and determined piety had touched two of his soldiers, Bertrand de Poulangi and Jean de Metz, enough to make them wonder if the young girl from don Remi might indeed be the savior she claimed to be. Despite being rejected by the captain again, de Poulangi and de Metz convinced Joan to stay awhile longer to see if they could
help her cause. The men introduced her as Jean Pascuarrel, an Augustinian chaplain who was quickly won over by the unusual intensity of her religious convictions. Together, the three men convinced de Beaudricourt to give the girl another chance. Then a few weeks later, in early February of fourteen twenty nine, something strange happened. The town of Orleans, located just south of Paris in the north of France, was strategically and
symbolically significant during the Hundred Years War. It sat on a key place along the routes to both Paris and Raths, just south of the territories. Recognizing the English Henry the sixth as the true king of France, most military strategists of the time believed that if Orleans fell to the English army, who had been occupying small pockets of territory nearby and steadily laying siege to it since October fourteen
twenty eight, they would conquer all of France. And so it was in early February that Joan told her newfound supporters that she'd had a vision of French forces being decimated by a convoy of English soldiers just to the
north of Orleans. It was almost a week later when news came through to Robert de Beaudricorps that on February twelfth, French forces had indeed been defeated in what would later become known as the Battle of Rouvre when they attempted to intercept an English convoy making their way toward Orleans. There was simply no earthly way that Joan could have
known this. On receiving the news, Captain de Beaudricorps recalled once more the strange way in which Joan had first greeted him, insisting that she had foreseen their meeting in a vision. A little unsettled by it all, he decided to take a chance on the strange girl from Doramy. At the third time of asking, he finally granted her her wish, but she would have to make some changes first. If they were to travel to Chinon to speak to the Dauphin, she would first have to disguise herself as
a boy so as not to arouse any unwonted attention. Accordingly, her hair was then cut short into the iconic bob that she would later become synonymous with, and she was given a change of traditional men's clothes to complete the look. The following day, Joan, accompanied by six men at arms, began her journey towards Chinnon eleven days at Having successfully trecked halfway across the country, they arrived at the court of the Darphan. Sadly, however, her growing reputation had not
yet made it as far as she. With her regional accent and boyish appearance, Joan could not have looked more out of place. Unsure what to make of a door, the Darphan's advisers counseled him against receiving her. With Joan on the verge of returning home, two days later, she received word that the young dwarphin only twenty six years old himself at the time, would see her after all. Unbeknownst to Joan, however, according to legend, the Dwarphan decided
to play a game. Having heard of her apparent mystical powers. Charles decided to disguise himself to test her, and hid among his courtiers when Joan was due to come and speak to him. It is said that as soon as Joan entered the room, she spotted him immediately, despite never having seen his likeness before. When asked how she'd known it was him, she replied simply it was the Voices
who told her. Having been suitably amazed by Joan's seeming act of clairvoyance, it is said the Dauphin then granted her a private audience to hear everything she had to say. Some say it was her insistence to him that, according to the Voices, he was the legitimate son of Charles the sixth, a fact that had been frequently questioned by
his enemies, that finally won him over. Others that it was the prayer that she so precisely and calmly recited to him, the exact same prayer that he himself had made back the previous November, which nobody except him and God could possibly have known. If Joan was to have her way, However, it wasn't only the Dauphin whom she
had to convince. For the next few days, she was interrogated by the Dauphin's ecclesiastical advisers, who were mostly interested in making sure that she wasn't, in fact, a witch operating under the guidance of the devil. In a foreshadowing of what was to come, the seventeen year old Joan was forced to stand in a room full of questioning men and plainly state her divine mission, to which she replied that it was nothing less than to see Charles
crowned as the king of France. A series of stern and rigorous questions followed, testing her knowledge of the scriptures, all of which she passed with flying colors. None the less, the men remained convinced, so Joan told them that she would prove her mission by ending the English assault on Orleans. But first there was something she would need from them.
According to legend, Joan then revealed to them that the voices had told her about a secret sword buried long ago behind the altar of the Church of Saint Catharine of fur Bois in the commune of the same name in central France. The sword of Saint Catharine, as she called it, bore five crosses and at once belonged to Charles Martel, a seventh and eighth century leader of the pre France territory known then as Francia, who had also
originally founded the church. As a forefather of the Kingdom of France, Martell was credited with helping to stop the expansion of the Islamic whom I add caliph that controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula, the area comprised today of Portugal and Spain. According to Joan, as the story goes, Martell had secretly buried his sword for the next person when the time came, whom God would choose to find
it and save France once again. The doorphans priests knew well of Charles Martel and its conquests, but then knew nothing of any such sword, and so it was with great skepticism that a soldier was sent to locate it. It was a few days later when the soldier entered the church and made his way to the altar at the back. After removing some stones, he began to dig in the dirt, where apparently soon after, he tuck something hard. As he brushed off the soil, he uncovered what was
quite clearly the reddish, rusted blade of the sword. And when a polish was later applied to the blade, one after another, the five stars engraved in the metal slowly revealed themselves, just as Joan had described them. With the sword recovered, Joan claimed it as her own, and from that day forward it seemed that Joan's reputation was sealed. Before long, word began to spread that the sword was a holy relic destined to play a part in the
salvation of France. But more importantly, word was also beginning to spread of the young Joan, who had so mysteriously helped to find it. As one priest after another tried and failed to confirm her as a tick or a witch, a different thought began to emerge among the theologians. Joan wasn't only being guided by saints, she was a saint herself. Then, as word of Joan's apparent divine mission began to spread
throughout the French army, spirits began to raise. With one so clearly beloved by God on our side, surely their cause could not fail. Back in Chinot, on March twenty second, fourteen twenty nine, Joan, dictating to the Dauphin, sent a series of letters to the English King Henry the sixth and his acolytes, demanding that they retreat from Orleans in
the names of Jesus and Mary. With the letters dispatched, she is then said to have turned to the Dauphin and declared, I shall last a year from now, but only a little longer. She is then also said to have stated that the voices had told her she would be captured by Midsummer's Day of that year, June twenty fourth. All this was said without fear or any hint of distress, but rather with the clear sense that it was simply
the way things must be. A few weeks later, with her place at the Dauphin's court firmly cemented, Charles decided it was time to unleash their sacred weapon. Joan was provided with a military household of several men that included
her brother's Shan and Pierre. Then carrying a standard and banner which she designed herself, and the now sacred sword of Saint Catherine, she was instructed to make her way to the French army camp and Blois, about twenty miles southwest of Lyon, riding in pristine white armor a stride of fine white steed. Many would rush out to see the one they called Jean Lapousselle Joan the Maid, just for a glimpse of the rumored living saint who'd come
to deliver France from England. After her arrival at the camp in Blois on April seventh, Joan was horrified by what she found there, soldiers drinking and swearing and frequently fraternizing with sex workers. The soldiers had clearly lost their way, she thought, and would be destined to fail if they didn't rediscover their faith in God. As a seemingly confirmed
messenger of God. With the backing of none other than the Dauphin himself, Joan took it on herself to ensure the army were not neglecting their Christian faith, since it was this, after all, that was going to secure their victory. She ordered all the soldiers to go to church to make confession, give up swearing, and end their looting of towns and villages. When a sex worker was later found in the camp, Joan is said to have beaten her
so hard with her sword that it broke. Joan was also said to have slapped and allied Scottish soldier for the crime of stealing meat. Far from making her unpopular, Joan's hardline approach called men to Charles's cause in their droves, encouraged by her unshakable conviction that she had indeed been sent by God to save them. But more was to come. It was a warm, humid evening on May fourth when
Joan suddenly sprang to her feet and armed herself. Striding out of her tent, she informed her guard that according to the voices, a skirmish was taking place at an English held fort just to the east of the city, and their help was needed. Joan and her escort leaped on to their horses and bolted off in search of battle. Half an hour later, Joan and her men found it.
It is said that when the French soldiers saw Joan approaching on top of her white horse and dressed in her saintly white armor, a wave of optimism swept through their ranks as a huge cry went up between them. The men immediately redoubled their efforts, and by the end of the day they'd captured the fort from the English army. A little later that day, once again, Joan dictated another of her letters of defiance to the English crown, demanding
that they concede before any more blood was shed. God was with her and France, she said, and their victory was only a matter of time. But the court of Henry the sixth refused her offer. They weren't about to let an unhinged, possibly deranged little girl dictate anything to them. After all, what on earth could she possibly be capable of Doing you'd been listening to Unexplained Season six, episode thirty, The Inextinguishable Fire, Part one of two. Part two will
be out next Friday, March twenty fourth. This episode was written by Ella McCloud and Richard McClane Smith. Unexplained as an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, featuring stories that have never before been featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes,
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