Biography of Joan of arc | Santa and French heroine.

(Domrémy, France, 1412 - Rouen, 1431, id.) Santa and French heroine. Born in the bosom of a wealthy peasant family, the childhood of Juana de Arco was spent during the bloody conflict, framed in the hundred years war that confronted the Dauphin Charles, eldest son of Carlos VI of France, with Enrique VI of England by the French throne, and which resulted in the occupation of much of the North of France by the English and Burgundian troops.

At the age of thirteen, Juana de Arco confessed to having seen at san Miguel, santa Catalina and santa Margarita and said that their voices urged her to lead a devout and pious life. A few years later, felt called by God to a mission that did not seem within reach of an illiterate peasant: lead the French army, crowned as King to the Dauphin in Rheims and expel the English from the country.

In 1428 he travelled to Vaucouleurs with the intention of joining the troops of Prince Charles, but it was rejected. A few months, the siege of Orléans by the English aggravated the delicate French situation and forced the Dolphin to take refuge in Chinon, town which came Jeanne, with an escort provided by Roberto de Baudricourt, to tell Carlos about the nature of his mission.

Joan of arc (oil of Ingres)

This, not without having it examined by several theologians, agreed at last to entrust the command of an army of five thousand men, with Juana de Arco got defeating the English and lift the siege of Orleans, may 8, 1429. Then he made a series of victorious campaigns that crossed the Dolphin towards Reims and allowed his coronation as Carlos VII of France (July 17, 1429).

Finished its task, Juana de Arco ceased their interior voices heard and requested permission to return home, but at the insistence of those who asked him to stay, he continued fighting, first in the unsuccessful attack on Paris in September 1429, and then in the siege of Compiègne, where he was captured by the Burgundian 24 may 1430.

Handed over to the British, Juana de Arco was transferred to Rouen and tried by an ecclesiastical court accused of witchcraft, with the argument that the voices that spoke to him came from the devil, which were meant to introduce Carlos VII as a follower of a witch to discredit it. After an inquisitorial process in three months, was found guilty of heresy and witchcraft; Despite the fact that she had always defended his innocence, eventually retracted their claims, and this made it possible to commute the sentences of initial death by imprisonment.

Days later, however, he recusó the abjuration and reaffirmed the divine origin of the voices heard, so, condemned to the stake, was executed may 30, 1431 at Rouen's old market square. For a few years, ran the rumor that had not died burned at the stake, since it would have been replaced by another girl, to later marry Robert des Armoises. In 1456, Juana de Arco was solemnly rehabilitated by Pope Calixto III, at the behest of Carlos VII, who promoted the review process. Considered a martyr and converted into the symbol of the French unit, she was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920, year in which France proclaimed its Patron Saint.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas