Saint Joan of Arc

387 Pages·2018·6.03 MB·English

by  Vita Sackville-West

CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Vita Sackville-West
Dedication
Title Page
Epigraph
Foreword
1 Jeanne d’Arc
2 The Hundred Years’ War
3 Domremy (1)
4 Domremy (2)
5 Domremy and Vaucouleurs (1)
6 Domremy and Vaucouleurs (2)
7 Vaucouleurs to Chinon
8 Poitiers to Orleans
9 Orleans (1)
10 Orleans (2)
11 Reims
12 Reims to Paris
13 Paris to Compiègne
14 Compiègne to Rouen
15 The Trial (1)
16 The Trial (2)
17 The Last Act
18 Aftermath
Appendices
Chronological Table
MAPS (by J. F. Horrabin)
The France of Jeanne d’Arc
The Loire country
Orleans
Compiègne
Bibliography
Index
Copyright
ABOUT THE BOOK
The strange story of Joan of Arc, the obscure peasant girl who became the
national saint of France, is retold in this celebrated, classic biography. Saint Joan
lives for the reader on every page, as a shepherd girl in a remote part of
fifteenth-century rural France, visited by visions of saints and angels; as the
avenging virgin who regenerated the soul of a torn and wretched France and led
her troops to victory; and as a condemned heretic and witch, burned at the stake
and, five hundred years later, canonised as a saint.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Mary Sackville-West, known as Vita, was born in 1892 at Knole in
Kent, the only child of aristocratic parents. In 1913 she married diplomat Harold
Nicolson, with whom she had two sons and travelled extensively before settling
at Sissinghurst Castle in 1930, where she devoted much of her time to creating
its now world-famous garden. Throughout her life Sackville-West had a number
of other relationships with both men and women, and her unconventional
marriage would later become the subject of a biography written by her son Nigel
Nicolson. Though she produced a substantial body of work, amongst which are
writings on travel and gardening, Sackville-West is best known for her novels
The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931), and for the pastoral poem
The Land (1926) which was awarded the prestigious Hawthornden Prize. She
died in 1962 at Sissinghurst.
ALSO BY VITA SACKVILLE-WEST
Novels
Family History
Heritage
The Dragon in Shallow Waters
The Heir
Challenge
Seducers in Ecuador
The Edwardians
All Passion Spent
Grand Canyon
Non-Fiction
Passenger to Teheran
English Country Houses
Pepita
The Eagle and The Dove
Sissinghurst: The Creation of a Garden
For PHILIPPA

‘[And it was shown to her] how serious and dangerous it
is curiously to examine the things which are beyond
one’s understanding, and to believe in new things …
and even to invent new and unusual things, for demons
have a way of introducing themselves into such-like
curiosities.’
ADMONITION ADDRESSED TO JOAN OF ARC.
Procés de condamnation, Vol. 1, p. 390.
‘Pauvre Jeanne d’Arc! Elle a eu bien du malheur dans ce
que sa mémoire a provoqué d’écrits et de compositions
de diverses sortes.’
SAINTE BEUVE.