Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc · Chapter
When Wolves Ran Free in Paris explained
The Sieur Louis de Conte introduces himself and recounts his early life, including his family's flight from Paris due to Burgundian persecution, the horrors of civil war and English occupation, and his eventual relocation to Domremy.
What happens
The Sieur Louis de Conte introduces himself and recounts his early life, including his family's flight from Paris due to Burgundian persecution, the horrors of civil war and English occupation, and his eventual relocation to Domremy. He describes the brutal state of France—plague, famine, and wolves roaming Paris—and his adoption by the priest Guillaume Fronte. He also introduces the village of Domremy, Joan of Arc's family, and his childhood playmates, establishing the patriotic Armagnac sentiment and simple piety of the community.
Themes in this chapter
Patriotism and National Identity
The chapter establishes the Armagnac (patriot) identity of Louis's family and Domremy, with deep hatred for the English and Burgundians, reflecting national loyalty amid occupation.
Innocence and Purity
The description of Joan and her peasant playmates as 'good children' of ordinary, simple faith and obedience contrasts with the brutal world of war and corruption.
Injustice and Corruption of Power
The Burgundian party's stripping of Louis's family, the mob violence in Paris, and the English fangs bedded in France's flesh illustrate systemic injustice and abuse of power.
Characters to notice
- Louis de Conte
Narrator and author; born in Neufchâteau in 1410; orphaned after a Burgundian raid; raised by the priest Guillaume Fronte in Domremy.
- Joan of Arc
Four years old at the time; daughter of Jacques d'Arc and Isabel Romée; living in Domremy with her family.
- Guillaume Fronte
The good priest of Domremy who took Louis in and taught him to read and write.
- Jacques d'Arc
Joan's father; a peasant farmer in Domremy.
- Noël Rainguesson
One of Louis's childhood playmates in Domremy.
- Haumette
A peasant girl and one of Joan's favorite childhood companions.
Key passages
“In Paris, mobs roared through the streets nightly, sacking, burning, killing, unmolested, uninterrupted. The sun rose upon wrecked and smoking buildings, and upon mutilated corpses lying here, there, and yonder about the streets, just as they fell, and stripped naked by thieves, the unholy gleaners after the mob.”
Paris was in chaos: mobs rampaged every night, destroying property and murdering without any interference. Each morning revealed destroyed buildings and naked, mutilated bodies left where they had fallen, stripped by thieves who scavenged after the violence.
Louis describes the lawless terror in Paris during the civil war.
“Then came, finally, the bitterest winter which had visited France in five hundred years. Famine, pestilence, slaughter, ice, snow—Paris had all these at once. The dead lay in heaps about the streets, and wolves entered the city in daylight and devoured them.”
A devastating winter struck France, the worst in five centuries, bringing famine, disease, and extreme cold. Corpses piled up in the streets, and wolves boldly came into the city during the day to eat them.
Louis recounts the extreme suffering and decay in Paris.
“When I was five years old the prodigious disaster of Agincourt fell upon France; and although the English King went home to enjoy his glory, he left the country prostrate and a prey to roving bands of Free Companions in the service of the Burgundian party, and one of these bands came raiding through Neufchâteau one night, and by the light of our burning roof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder brother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while they begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and mimic their pleadings.”
When Louis was five, the catastrophic defeat at Agincourt left France helpless. English-allied mercenaries raided his town, and by the fire of his burning home, he watched his family murdered as their killers mocked their pleas for mercy. Only his elder brother, who was away at court, survived.
Louis's personal tragedy during the aftermath of Agincourt.
