Joan of Arc

Jen has already posted about our trip, so I won't tell the same stories, or post the same photos. But, here are a few more details on our daytrip to Orleans...

I picked up a pamphlet in the Orleans cathedral, which celebrates Joan of Arc. The write-up telling her history ended on a strange note, "Because of long-lasting prejudices and above all, insulting, dirty stories told about Joan--by Shakespeare and by Voltaire--, not until 1909 was her holiness studied and acknowledged by Rome. ... Since the year 1920, she may be called 'Saint Joan.' "

Huh? Joan would have gotten her sainthood sooner if Shakespeare and Voltaire had been nicer? According to the pamphlet, Shakespeare was mean in Henry VI, and I went to investigate.

Joan of Arc is known as Joan la Pucelle (Joan the Virgn) in Henry VI, part 1--and Shakespeare has her getting married to the Dauphin (French for "Crown Prince") who declares her a saint in some newlywed overexuberance. I'm sure there's more to it than that (I'm not about to read the whole play just now), but that's the gist in the summaries I've read.

Ummm...if I was the writer of this pamphlet article, I'd be embarrassed to suggest that the Vatican could be so swayed by a play. Especially when the "insulting, dirty story" sounds like...marriage (gasp!). Any Shakespeare scholar out there who wants to tell me more about the details of Joan's role in HVIi--please comment.

In other news...here are some photos.










the Catholic church uses Calvin as a spokesperson... Hmm...

















Once, while walking through Paris, my family stopped to read a plaque that said approximately, "This commerates Monsieur Whoever, who brought freedom to Paris in 1944." My dad grumped, "I thought Patton had something to do with that!"

So Dad, here is proof that the French have not forgotten Patton.