Joan of Arc (jōn; ärk), Saint. French name Jeanne d'Arc (zhän därk) Known as "the Maid of Orléans" and "La Pucelle." 1412?-1431.
French military leader and mystic who organized the French resistance against the English at the siege of Orléans, led an army of 12,000 to Rheims, and had the dauphin crowned Charles VII (1429). Captured and sold to the English by the Burgundians (1430), she was tried for heresy and sorcery and was burned at the stake in Rouen.
(click for a larger image)Joan of Arc
detail from the 16th-century French illuminated manuscript Vie des Femmes Célèbres by Antoine Dufour
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