This is a novel about Joan of Arc, written in the first person. the book starts in the first half of the fifteenth century about seventy years into The Hundred Years War between the French and the English. It is a historically recurring need for heroes, heroines and saints, making them end up as sacrificial victims. Frequently there is a call from the population for blood and spaectacle, and someone to blame for the corruption of those who rule. What matters is the story of a young woman of such conviction that she was willing to brave all danger for her ideals. This book is an epic of desperate betrayal. 
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"Here I am, the monk Massieu. I have written this book in the first person of our beloved Jehanne, as she could not have told it herself beyond her earthly life. As her scribe I will attempt to give back to the world most of what she achieved in her brief years of heroic inspiration. After the reprehensible behaviour I displayed to everyuone directly after her death, I explained to my Abbot that I needed to retreat for some months to repent my sinful actions, comforted only by my tears and the writing of wrongs done to Jehanne. As though all the leaves of a life had been thrown into the fire with her almost unbelievable burning, I hid in total despair. While I enclosed myself with increasing sadness at her horrible death, this idea came to me, its intensity increased as the days turned into weeks." |
