Editing Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle)/Saving Catholicism (section)

== Saint or Servant of France? ==
During and since Joan's time, French patriots have looked to Joan for glory of France. Until the French Revolution, however, she was a mark of glory for both the French monarchy and the Catholic Church. During the Revolution, the Jacobins suppressed any Catholic or monarchical associations, including her annual festival in Orléans that had centered around the Cathedral of Sainte-Croix, where Joan celebrated a Vespers Mass during the siege. Joan nevertheless remained useful for the Revolution as a symbol of the common people and "independence."<ref>There is much irony in the Revolution's relationship to Saint Joan. It's like Christmas: a great holiday, but all that religious stuff keeps getting in the way.

Here for a short essay on the hostility of the Jacobins towards the Church: [https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/01/12/the-dechristianization-of-france-during-the-french-revolution/ The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution - The Institute of World Politics]</ref>  

Napoléon renewed the celebrations that the Jacobins had halted and also restored her birthplace at Domrémy as a national monument.<ref>For use of Joan's image before and after the French Revolution, see SEXSMITH, DENNIS. “The Radicalization of Joan of Arc Before and After the French Revolution.” ''RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review'' 17, no. 2 (1990): 125–99. <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630458</nowiki>.</ref> His embrace of Joan met several needs: French nationalism, especially anti-British French nationalism, reinforcement of the Concordat of 1801 between the French government and the Vatican that officially restored the Church in France, and legitimization of his own mission to glorify France and himself as her savior.  

Further along, we see Joan's popularity arise during times of crisis or national pride, such as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, both World Wars, and French post-War nationalism under Charles de Gaulle.<ref>Even the Vichy government, used Joan for anti-British propaganda (see "Joan of Arc: Her Story", from the Preface by the translator, Jeremy Duquesnay Adams, p. XIX)</ref> While modern academics have co-opted Joan for various agenda, from feminism and anti-patriarchy, to cross-dressing and "gender fluidity",<ref>Of all the claims upon Joan, one of the most ludicrously absorbed in a fleeting historical moment, this from the 1980s, is that "Joan's mission now seems ... something of a model for modern movements of popular resistance to anti-colonialism" (Pernoud, p. 4)</ref> seeing in Joan everything but French nationalism and the Catholic faith, which, in turn, they deplore when Joan's image is adopted by "far right" monarchists<ref>Who knew! Seems that the 3,000 members of the ''Action Française'', a remnant of a late 19th, early 20th century nationalist movement still has them scared and appalled at their use of Joan of Arc's memory. On the Wikipedia page for the [[wikipedia:Action_Française#Action_Fran%C3%A7aise_today|Action Française - Wikipedia]] is a 1909 photo of a Action ''Française'' youth group being arrested on the Fête de Jeanne d'Arc (the caption incorrectly calls it the "Feast Day of Joan of Arc," as she was not canonized for another eleven years.</ref> and nationalists. Nevertheless, while seemingly all things to all people, Joan remains a dominant symbol of France, and correctly so.  [[File:Panthéon_-_La_vie_de_Jeanne_d'Arc_(hlw16_0311).jpg|thumb|La vie de Jeanne d'Arc, Panthéon, Paris (wikicommons)]]
What goes missing is her Catholicity and sainthood. Despite depictions of her visions and divine associations such as that of a panel in ''La Vie de Jeanne d'Arc'' at the Panthéon in Paris of a Dove escaping Joan's mouth at her death, the secularization of Joan that started with Voltaire's crude and demeaning 1730s play about her continues. Voltaire ridiculed Jean Chapelain's 1656 epic poem about Joan that emphasized her divine mission, which, as one modern academic frames it, "is devoted entirely and equally to Church and monarchy." Oh, and the poem itself is "turgid."<ref>SEXSMITH, DENNIS. “The Radicalization of Joan of Arc Before and After the French Revolution.” ''RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review'' 17, no. 2 (1990): 125–99. <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630458</nowiki>.</ref> Voltaire mockery not just Chapelain, but the Maiden herself, and, of course, her virginity:<blockquote>That Joan of Arc had all a lion's rage ; You'll tremble at the feats whereof you hear, And more than all the wars she used to wage,  At how she kept her maidenhead — a year !<ref>[https://archive.org/details/lapucellemaidofo01voltiala/page/2/mode/1up?view=theater La Pucelle, the maid of Orleans: : Voltaire, 1694-1778 (archive.org)]  It's always useful to recall that on his deathbed Voltaire begged the Lord for forgiveness, and when rewarded with extra time upon his recovery, he squandered it and ultimately renounced God on his final death. </ref></blockquote>He goes on to compare Joan to the Medusa and has her riding into battle naked. But no need to get into it any further here, as Voltaire's tantrum was more about his own anti-Catholic bigotry than Joan of Arc. She was merely a useful target. 

On it goes through the progression of modernity, exemplified by the 1844 work of Jules Michelet, a 19th century anti-clerical French historian. Michelet is the originator of the term "Renaissance," meant to describe the end of an abysmal and backward Medieval period marked by superstition, oppression, and the Catholic Church (especially Jesuits), replaced by a "rebirth" of enlightened antiquity. Sadly, this socialist historian has deeply influenced the modern study of history. 

The term "Dark Ages" was first used in the 1300s by Petrarch, the Catholic scholar and often deemed founder of humanism. Petrarch, who lived a century before St. Joan, described the conditions in Europe following the fall of the Roman empire up to his own day as "dark." Michelet applied Petrarch's "light" of antiquity to its supposed rebirth in the "light" of the Renaissance:<blockquote>Nature, and natural science, kept in check by the spirit of Christianity, were about to have their revival, (renaissance.)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/historyoffrance02michuoft/page/18/mode/1up?q=Renaissance&view=theater History of France : Michelet, Jules, 1798-1874 (archive.org)], p. 17</ref> </blockquote>All the while consigning to the dark Petrach, and thus, Dante and other early "Reniassance" figures  for Michelet, there was one "dark ages" ambassador to hold on to: Joan of Arc, whom he called "The Maid of Orleans."<ref>A major section of Michelet's "History of France" was dedicated to "The Maid of Orléans" </ref> For Michelet, Joan was a "simple Christian," that is a good Christian as opposed to the clerics around her, bad Christians all. While considering her visions mundane and common,<ref>"Who but had visions in the middle age?"; p. 131
</ref>, he presents her divinely-directed acts as if they just, well, happened.<ref>For example, Michelet flatly reports Joan's recognition of the Dauphin upon her entrance to the Court at Chinon, as well as to call it a "very probable account" her private conversation with the Dauphin in which she repeated to him a prayer he had made in private (p. 136 and footnote ||). </ref> Here the historian's judgment is blinded by his prejudice, and like every secular take on her that dismisses the divine hand:  <blockquote>The originality of the Pucelle, the secret of her success, was not her courage or her visions, but her good sense.<ref>p. 131</ref> </blockquote>Beyond that any application of "good sense" would have bound Joan to the fields of her home village, Domrémy, the only thing Michelet can do with her religiosity is to ignore it when inconvenient, exalt it when it contrasts with the hated clerics, and otherwise treat it metaphorically as just a backdrop to her true purpose, according to Michelet, ransoming France:  <blockquote>The Imitation of Jesus Christ, his Passion reproduced in the Pucelle -- such was the redemption of France.<ref>p. 124</ref> </blockquote>I can't even begin to process the association of "redemption of France" with the "imitation" and Passion of Christ, and we're better off, as with Voltaire, just not going there. But Michelet gets even more grotesque with his impassioned, shall we say, 19th century romanticization of femininity represented by Joan: <blockquote>Purity, sweetness, heroic goodness — that this supreme beauty of the soul should have centred in a daughter of France, may surprise foreigners who choose to judge of our nation by the levity of its manners alone ... old France was not styled without reason, the most Christian people. They were certainly the people of love and of grace ; and whether we understand this humanly or Christianly, in either sense it will ever hold good. 

The saviour of France could be no other than a woman. France herself was woman;<ref>p. 169. We might get into Michelet's obsession with female archetypes, which were part of his historical theories, but we'll just leave it at this.</ref></blockquote>
When the religious is replaced by the secular, the secular fills the empty space. Thus the Lincoln Memorial is a "temple" and George Washington rises to the heavens in a an "apotheosis" in the dome of the U.S. Capitol. Here Michelet transposes Joan's religiosity for France's ''raison d'être'', claiming for France a soul that he otherwise denies in Joan. Michelet, as least, recognized in Joan a good Christian, but like scholars who have followed sees her faith as an anachronism and her visions as irrelevant at best.