The Language of Fire, page 18
Joan of Arc’s renown spans continents, cultures, and centuries. I’m not sure if it’s an entirely positive thing that most people can name only one female warrior in over six hundred years, and some people have never even heard of Joan. Can you name another girl who saved her nation who wasn’t born a queen? I find it sad that the most famous historical role model for teenage girls lived so long ago. I do not believe Joan should be that much of a phenomenon. Yet she is. And she is often considered miraculous, not just unique.
In recent years, much awareness and long-overdue attention has been paid to speaking one’s truth, to standing up to harassment and bullying and abuse. Joan dealt with discrimination and harassment over six hundred years ago. Somehow, she bucked convention and accomplished great things. But it cost Joan her life.
This generation has embraced and championed awareness. Joan found a way to action. Combine awareness and action without repercussion and there is not only forward movement, but a tectonic shift. Imagine a girl who makes history and lives. I want to write a book about her next. Or if not me, then I hope that someone who is reading this will.
Jehanne and the Hundred Years’ War
In writing historical fiction you have to make choices, and in this book I elected to spell Joan of Arc’s name as she signed it, Jehanne. The French spelling of Joan is often Jeanne, and in her childhood, Joan was sometimes referred to as Jeannette. But the name she chose to call herself was Jehanne.
Jehanne grew up during a chaotic period in French history. Her country was not only at war with England but also engaged in a civil war. In the past, all the regions of France had clearly supported the same sovereign as the king of their country; only the English had contested it. But in Jehanne’s time a large portion of the French populace supported the English king as the king of France, while others backed the son of the previous French king.
The area of France where Jehanne was born fell largely under the control of the French Burgundians, who had allied themselves with England. But Jehanne lived in a village under the fiefdom of the one major city in the northeast territory, Vaucouleurs, that aligned itself with the opposition, the Armagnacs. The Armagnacs fought against having the English king, Henry VI, on the throne of France. They firmly believed the French dauphin, Charles, was France’s rightful sovereign. Unfortunately, in 1428, when Jehanne entered the scene, her side was losing badly, and it appeared the leader she supported, the dauphin Charles, might give up the fight entirely.
Jehanne knew a country that had experienced almost eighty years of warfare. Although the Hundred Years’ War has a long and complicated history, to fully understand the world that she inhabited, it’s helpful to look at how and why the war between England and France began. Jehanne would have known this history. The battles likely inspired her to want to effect change.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it was a great prize to sit on the French throne. France had the largest population in Europe, and its ruler could amass vast armies and tap enormous fiscal resources. So when the French king Charles IV died in 1328 without sons, Edward III, the king of England, Duke of Guyenne (part of Aquitaine in southwestern France), and Charles IV’s cousin, felt he had a legitimate claim to the French throne. The other competitor to be king of France was the Count of Valois, Philip VI, a grandson of a previous king of France, Philip III.
The French assembly chose Philip VI to be king of France. At first Edward III accepted the decision and was satisfied to retain his land in France. However, Philip VI feared another king’s power in his dominion and tried to remove England altogether from France, so Edward III renewed his claim to the French throne. And thus, in 1337, began the Hundred Years’ War.
At the beginning of the war, English armies kept the French on the defensive. Yet even though England consistently won battles, the English failed to expand their area of occupation. Then in 1356, they captured John II, the latest king of France. Treaties were negotiated granting England full sovereignty over its French territories, and in return the king of France would be released. Unfortunately, John II died in an English prison. And the conflict over the French crown began anew.
This time the French king Charles V put the English on the defensive, and the English lost almost all their holdings in France. When Charles V died in 1380, the English retained only the port of Calais and a few other coastal cities.
In 1380, the period before Jehanne emerged on the scene, Charles VI was crowned king of France. Because he was only eleven, his uncles acted as his regents. It was their job collectively to run the government, yet only one uncle, Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy, set the young king’s policy. When Charles VI came of ruling age, he and the French populace were fed up with his uncle’s self-serving policies and high taxes. After decades of fighting, the war had become very unpopular with the peasants in both countries because of the high taxes required to sustain it. Charles reformed the government and earned his people’s love. They called him the Beloved King.
However, in 1392, Charles VI began to suffer from bouts of what we would now recognize as paranoid schizophrenia. For the rest of his reign, he became known as the Mad King. France once again fell into a regency, only this time an open conflict over control of king and country ensued between the king’s uncle Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, and the king’s brother, Louis I, the Duke of Orléans.
Fortunately for France, England was incapable of renewing war at the time.
Philip the Bold died in 1404, but the battle over control of the Mad King continued. Unlike his father, the new Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, had no close personal relationship with King Charles VI. He found himself outmaneuvered politically, so in 1407 he arranged for the assassination of the Duke of Orléans. His involvement in the murder was quickly revealed. Angered and horrified by John’s treachery, Bernard VII of Armagnac took up the Duke of Orléans’s cause. Civil war raged between the Armagnacs (supporters of the dead Duke of Orléans and, later, proponents of the son of the Mad King, the dauphin Charles) and the Burgundians. Regions and cities across France chose sides.
The new English king, Henry V, saw an opportunity amidst all the French discord. A worthy general as well as a powerful king, Henry invaded France in 1415. At the Battle of Agincourt, Henry’s army killed nearly half of the French nobility. By the end of Henry V’s campaign, England ruled the entire region of Normandy for the first time in two centuries.
The civil war between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs escalated. In retaliation for John’s murder of the Duke of Orléans, John the Fearless himself was assassinated, and the dauphin Charles was implicated in the plot. The Burgundians seized Paris in 1419, and the dauphin was forced to flee south into Armagnac territory. Angered by his father’s assassination, the newest Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, encouraged the king of England, Henry V, to claim the French throne. An alliance formed between England and Burgundy.
In the 1420 Treaty of Troyes, Mad Charles VI, who was still officially the king of France, set aside his own son, the dauphin, and ceded the right of succession to Henry V. The Mad King also married his daughter Catherine to Henry V, strengthening Henry’s claim to the French throne. Henry’s heirs would now legitimately rule both France and England.
But then English good fortune turned to dust. Henry V and Charles VI died within weeks of each other in 1422. And the infant Henry VI of England became king of two lands.
However, Charles VI’s son, the dauphin, would not easily relinquish his inheritance. The dauphin knew he still retained the allegiance of the larger part of France. But because he was incapable himself of military leadership, he hoped to reconcile with the Duke of Burgundy.
Jehanne d’Arc appeared and sparked a revival of French morale. The French began winning battles, and the tide turned against the English. This led to the dauphin’s coronation in July 1429. He became Charles VII, the anointed King of France.
The Duke of Burgundy switched his allegiance, and Paris and all of Normandy once again came under the authority of Charles VII and France.
When the English lost the minor Battle of Castillon in 1453, according to history books the Hundred Years’ War ended. Yet no treaty was concluded, and skirmishes would recur for many years to come. At the end of the war, the English would retain only the city of Calais. And France, now a proudly unified nation, intended to stay that way.
The Hundred Years’ War remains the longest military conflict in European history.
French and English Monarchs
Charles IV the Fair (Charles IV le Bel) January 3, 1322–February 1, 1328 (king of France prior to war; his death started the dispute over the French throne)
KINGS OF FRANCE DURING THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
Philip VI of Valois the Fortunate (Philippe VI de Valois, le Fortuné) April 1, 1328–August 22, 1350
John II the Good (Jean II le Bon) August 22, 1350–April 8, 1364
Charles V the Wise (Charles V le Sage) April 8, 1364–September 16, 1380
Charles VI the Beloved, the Mad (Charles VI le Bienaimé, le Fol) Septempber 16, 1380–October 21, 1422
Jehanne was born in 1412, when Charles VI was forty-three.
Charles VII the Victorious, the Well-Served (Charles VII le Victorieux, le Bien-Servi) October 21, 1422–July 22, 1461
Jehanne was ten when Charles VI died in 1422, and when Charles VII should have been crowned king.
Jehanne was seventeen at Charles VII’s coronation in 1429. She died in 1431, before he came to sit on the throne and rule all of France.
KINGS OF ENGLAND DURING THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
Edward III (House of Plantagenet) January 25, 1327–June 21, 1377
Richard II (House of Plantagenet) June 22, 1377–September 30, 1399
Henry IV, Henry of Bolingbroke (House of Lancaster) September 30, 1399–March 20, 1413
Henry IV ruled England during the first year of Jehanne’s life.
Henry V (House of Lancaster) March 20, 1413–August 31, 1422
During Jehanne’s childhood, ages two through ten, Henry V ruled England, acquired a large portion of France, and called himself the king of France.
Henry VI (House of Lancaster) September 1, 1422–March 4, 1461
Jehanne was ten when the six-month old baby Henry VI became king of England and France. She spent the last years of her life (1428–1431) trying to remove him from France. Henry would have been only nine at the time of her death.
Should You Wish to Explore Further
BOOKS
Belloc, Hilaire. Joan of Arc. First published 1930 by Little, Brown and Company (Boston). Milwaukee: Cavalier Books, 2014.
Brooks, Polly Schoyer. Beyond the Myth: The Story of Joan of Arc. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990.
Castor, Helen. Joan of Arc: A History. New York: Harper Perennial, 2015.
Funck-Bretano, F. Joan of Arc. Trans. Madame Régis Michaud. First published 1912. Mineola, New York: Calla Editions, 2016.
Girault, Pierre-Gilles. Joan of Arc. Paris: Éditions Jean-Paul Gisserot, 2013.
Goldstone, Nancy. The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc. New York: Penguin Books, 2012.
Gordon, Mary. Joan of Arc: A Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
Gower, Ronald Sutherland. Joan of Arc. 1893. Reprint, London: Pantianos Classics, 2017.
Harrison, Kathryn. Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured. New York: Doubleday, 2014.
Hobbins, Daniel, trans. The Trial of Joan of Arc. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Kudlinski, Kathleen. Joan of Arc. New York: DK Publishing, 2008.
Pernoud, Régine. Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses. Trans. Edward Hyams. First published in the French language in 1962 by Editions du Seuil. Lanham, Maryland: Scarborough House, 1994.
Sibout, Cécile-Anne. Joan of Arc and Rouen. Trans. Hazel Bertrand. Rouen, France: Éditions des Falaises, 2015.
Wilkinson, Philip. Joan of Arc: The Teenager Who Saved Her Nation. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 2007.
WEBSITES AND LOCATIONS
Historial Jeanne d’Arc: www.historial-jeannedarc.fr
7 rue Saint-Romain, 76000 Rouen, France
Rouen 1431 360° Panorama: www.panoramaxxl.com
14 bis avenue Pasteur, 76006 Rouen
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my home team, without whom this book would fail to exist: my parents, sister, and Craig, who read the terrible early drafts and the down-to-the-wire deadline drafts; my invaluable writing group of Penny Blubaugh, Candace Fleming, and Barb Rosenstock, who transform my words into a story worth reading; and Lorie Ann Grover, who encouraged me when I needed it most. Steve Malk, there are not enough words of gratitude—thank you for your friendship and guidance and for always believing in my books. But as is often the case, if anything works in this novel, it is because of Alessandra Balzer. Without her insights and inspiration Joan of Arc would have remained entombed in history. Any life breathed into The Language of Fire was because of a great editor.
About the Author
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STEPHANIE HEMPHILL is the award-winning author of Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein; Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Sisters of Glass; and Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems. She lives in Chicago.
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Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE LANGUAGE OF FIRE: JOAN OF ARC REIMAGINED. Copyright © 2019 by Stephanie Hemphill. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2019 by Jess Cruickshank
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Digital Edition JUNE 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-249013-1
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-249011-7
1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
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1 The Goddoms is a name the French called the English because they so often heard English soldiers use the word “goddamn.”
Stephanie Hemphill, The Language of Fire
