THE RETRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC

by Regine Pernoud ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Of the many books which have been written about Joan of Arc, almost all have drawn on the evidence of her retrial which was opened by Charles VII twenty years after her death- and in which many of the original witnesses of the first trial were to reappear, free from fear and no longer able to harm her. This, however, is the first book to appear in English which contains much of the documentation of this rehabilitation trial, introduces the figures who testified, interprets the points on which the prosecution was based. And so, these excerpts from the testimony of priests and peasants, knights, soldiers, princes provide the ""direct light of living men's evidence"". There are those who know her as a child, her traveling companions who took her to the King, the citizens- and soldiers- at the siege of Orleans; there's her ""gentle Duke"" of Alencon, her page-Mugot, and her confessor; and finally the Judges who were to conclude the drama of the girl who was a heroine to some- a heretic to others... Mme. Pernoud's book is of course of greatest service to the more serious student; but Katharine Anne Porter's eloquent introduction pays tribute- beyond its scholarship- to its further qualities which match ""the speed and symmetry and direction of the life it celebrates"".

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1955

Categories: NONFICTION