Publisher's Synopsis
JOAN OF ARC: The Joan of Arc Story
France was at a point of crisis. It was the year 1429 and almost a century into the Hundred Years' War, the English had the upper hand. They had a string of key victories, sometimes against unfathomable odds, and had the territory to show for it - including Paris. They also had an alliance with a powerful faction of Frenchmen, the Burgundians, and had inked an advantageous treaty that was designed to secure the French throne for England. The heir of King Charles VI of France, the Dauphin Charles of Valois, insisted the throne was rightfully his but practically speaking, he was not unlike "The King of Bourges," as he was sometimes mockingly called after the court he kept in the city. He couldn't even be crowned according to hundreds of years of French tradition, which was to be anointed with holy oil at the Cathedral of Reims in territories outside his influence.
The Dauphin, it has been said, was tiring of war. He could not get his countrymen together. His army was demoralized after suffering many losses. The strategic city of Orléans had been under siege for months. The French garrison inside it was being starved out by a chain of English fortresses surrounding it on three sides, and the prospects of sending successful reinforcements to break the siege seemed poor. The fall of Orléans, which seemed at hand, would give the English forces a key position to strike against his hold on the south.
But an unlikely heroine came from nowhere to change the tide. A teenaged girl - passionate, insistent, relentless and so certain of her God-given calling - came to call upon him at his fortress in Chinon. She wanted men at arms. She wanted to serve her God through her dauphin. In return she offered him victory. Whether by design or by her sheer existence, she also offered her countrymen courage and hope.