Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc · Chapter
The Maid in Chains explained
Louis de Conte recounts the shameful period following Joan's capture, detailing how France and King Charles VII failed to ransom her while the English, using the Church as a disguise, negotiated her purchase.
What happens
Louis de Conte recounts the shameful period following Joan's capture, detailing how France and King Charles VII failed to ransom her while the English, using the Church as a disguise, negotiated her purchase. Joan was imprisoned, attempted escape twice, and was ultimately sold to the English for a royal prince's ransom. She was taken to Rouen, chained in a dungeon, and the trial was orchestrated by the infamous Pierre Cauchon.
Themes in this chapter
Betrayal and Martyrdom
Joan is betrayed by France and the King, who fail to ransom her, and is sold to her enemies by a French prince.
Injustice and Corruption of Power
The English use the Church as a disguise to unjustly try Joan for crimes against religion, inventing charges to destroy her influence.
Courage and Resilience
Despite imprisonment and chains, Joan attempts escape twice and remains silent without reproach, showing immense fortitude.
Characters to notice
- Joan of Arc
Captured and held prisoner; attempts escape twice; sold to the English; taken to Rouen and chained in a dungeon.
- Louis de Conte
Narrator who reflects on the shameful history and the failure of France to ransom Joan.
- Pierre Cauchon
The infamous French bishop sent by the English to negotiate Joan's purchase and preside over her ecclesiastical trial.
- De la Tremouille
Suspected of influencing the King to remain silent and not offer ransom for Joan.
- Charles VII
The King of France who made no offer or effort to ransom Joan despite her service.
- The Paladin
Mentioned indirectly as part of the friends who remained silent during Joan's captivity.
Key passages
“By the laws of war she could not be denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a rebel; she was a legitimately constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by her King’s appointment, and guilty of no crime known to military law; therefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were proffered.”
Under military law, Joan had the right to be ransomed because she was a legitimate soldier appointed by the King, not a rebel, and had committed no military crime.
Louis explains the legal basis for Joan's expected ransom.
“The Church was being used as a blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only able to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and the valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English power could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the influence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent.”
The English used the Church as a cover because the Church could destroy Joan's inspirational legacy, while mere execution would only enhance her fame.
Louis explains the strategic reason for the ecclesiastical trial.
“For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior of France, was sold; sold to her enemies; to the enemies of her country; enemies who had lashed and thrashed and thumped and trounced France for a century and made holiday sport of it; enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago, what a Frenchman’s face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing but his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed, whom she had taught to respect French valor, newborn in her nation by the breath of her spirit; enemies who hungered for her life as being the only puissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation.”
Joan was sold for a royal ransom to the English, who had long dominated France and feared her as the only force capable of preventing their victory.
Louis laments the betrayal of Joan's sale to her enemies.
