Joan of Arc - Regine Pernoud

Joan of Arc was born in 1412 and grew up during a time of invasion and civil war. At thirteen, she began to hear the voices of saints and followed their directives, believing they were sent to her by God. At seventeen, she rode into battle to rescue France from English domination in the Hundred Years War and in 1431, aged only nineteen, she was put on trial for heresy and sorcery by an ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition, and burned at the stake. Joan radiated with deep piety, self-assurance, decisiveness, and shrewd intelligence as her responses to hostile questioning preserved in the records of the rigged trial demonstrate.
In this glittering portrait of the illiterate peasant girl who became the saviour of France, Joan of Arc?s energy, spirit and her heroism as the first to die for a Christian-inspired idea of nationalism, are beautifully portrayed.