IN THE ABSENCE of a formal peace treaty, the verdict delivered in Rouen in 1456 exonerating Joan marked the symbolic end of the Hundred Years War. The last battle against the English had been fought three years earlier at Castillon, in Gascony, near Bayonne. An English force of between seven thousand and ten thousand soldiers, led by the redoubtable Captain Talbot, who had been freed from his Rouen prison in exchange for the peaceful surrender of the town of Falaise in 1450, attacked an entrenched French army, heavily fortified with artillery “both small and great,” on July 17, 1453. “The attack commenced with great valor, and each party fought manfully, so the business lasted a full hour; at the end of which, the men-at-arms of the duke of Brittany . . . were sent to relieve the French who had been thus long engaged at the barriers,” the successor to Enguerrand de Monstrelet’s chronicle reported. “On their arrival, by the aid of God and their own prowess, the English were forced to turn their backs and were beaten down, with all their banners, by these Bretons.” The majority of the English army was on foot; only the seventy-five-year-old Talbot remained mounted, and as such made an easy target. The old man’s horse was soon struck by a cannonball and fell atop his rider; as Talbot struggled to free himself from the animal’s weight, “he was put to death by the French, as he lay under him.” With the demise of that extraordinarily valiant commander died the last of England’s hopes for the reconquest of France. Bordeaux surrendered on October 19, and in the end only Calais remained to the English, as a sad souvenir of the once glorious legacy of Henry V.
Joan’s prophecies were thus fulfilled, and Charles VII recovered his kingdom and remained sovereign of France until his death on July 22, 1461, at the age of fifty-eight. From a very unpromising beginning, Charles matured in his later years into a competent ruler. He is even credited with implementing various exemplary reforms, the most significant of which was the maintenance of a standing royal army, an innovation that protected the civilian population from being preyed on by the many soldiers and mercenaries left unemployed by the cessation of formal hostilities. It is not difficult to see where Charles came up with this idea. In January 1457, several years after the decisive battle at Castillon, he was still haunted by fears of a surprise attack, for he wrote to the king of Scotland that he was forced “to watch all the coastline daily . . . from Spain to Picardy, which amounts to more than 450 leagues of land; in which he has continually to keep men-at-arms in great numbers and in great strength, pay their wages, who do not move from the said places, and in such a way that all the revenue of Normandy (which is one of the finest parts and greatest revenues of this kingdom) could not suffice by 100,000 francs to pay the men-at-arms detailed to guard the same.” Although the king died estranged from the dauphin, Queen Marie, who survived her husband by two years, helped her eldest son arrange for a peaceful succession, and Yolande of Aragon’s grandson ascended to the throne as Louis XI. This time around, the royal family wasn’t taking any chances: the coronation ceremony was held with much pomp and solemnity at Reims within the month. In a suitably droll twist of historical irony, Philip the Good himself placed the crown on Louis’s head and proclaimed him king.
Despite overwhelming evidence, the role Yolande of Aragon played in the defeat of the English and the preservation of the French monarchy has been consistently ignored by historians. Soon after her death, Charles VII openly acknowledged the debt he owed this remarkable woman in a moving speech. “The late Yolande, of good memory, queen of Jerusalem and Sicily, in our youth did us great services in many ways that we hold in perpetual memory. Our said mother-in-law, after we were excluded from our city of Paris, received us generously in her lands of Anjou and Maine, and gave us much advice, support and many services using her goods, people and fortresses to help us against the attacks of our adversaries of England and others.” Yolande’s grandson, Louis XI, who became known as the Spider King for his cunning, admired her greatly. The queen of Sicily, he once famously recalled, “bore a man’s heart inside a woman’s body.”
So accomplished a statesman was Yolande, and so cleverly did she hide her tracks, that the myth that Joan of Arc appeared at Charles’s court and convinced the king of his birthright unaided by any mortal being has stood unchallenged for nearly six hundred years. Still, if it is accepted, as it is often said, that without Joan of Arc there would be no France, it is also true that without Yolande of Aragon there would have been no Joan.
Nor does penetrating the mystery of the Maid’s introduction to Charles detract in any way from the miraculous nature of her achievement. What is important about Joan is not that she heard voices, or presented the king with a special trinket, but her ferocious courage and unwavering faith. It was her willingness to fight for what she believed against seemingly insurmountable odds that has secured her place in history as an iconic figure. At her core, Joan is testimony to the transcendence of the human spirit.
Joan of Arc was canonized in 1920. She remains an inspiration, not only to the citizens of France, but to oppressed people everywhere.