Monuments and Souvenirs of Joan of Arc

Opposite the entrance to the kitchen is the door to Joan's room. This room is almost in darkness, for daylight enters only through a window forty centimeters high by thirty wide. Next to the window, on the left, one can still see the frame of Joan of Arc's cupboard. This frame is made of oak wood, perfectly preserved.

The door to the storeroom is in the middle of the wall, opposite the small window of Joan's room. A small basement window, opening onto the garden, brings a dim light into it.

At the back of the kitchen, on the right, one sees the location of a door that served as the entrance to the room of Jacques d'Arc's sons. This room now has its entrance on the side facing the church and serves as a bakehouse for the sisters, who run a school and a boarding school founded in honor of Joan of Arc for the young girls of Domrémy, Greux, and other communes.

Joan of Arc's house is situated in the middle of a garden filled with trees and flowers of all kinds, cultivated with the greatest care. A wild vine and other shrubs, interweaving their branches, carpet it with greenery. Young pines raise their tops above its walls. It is surrounded by lawns covered with ever-fresh turf. Countless paths, lined with rosebushes and flowers, allow one to walk through the garden in all directions; a stream, flowing in cascades, runs right through it.

To the right of the gate that closes the enclosure containing Joan of Arc's cottage, the garden, and all the buildings constructed since 1818, stands a building whose two principal rooms are what are called the reception halls.

In the larger of these two rooms, one beholds a magnificent painting representing the martyrdom of Joan of Arc; the heroine, bound to the stake upon the fatal pyre, appears entirely detached from the earth; she seems to await the moment when her soul, escaping from her body, can fly to the abode of bliss merited by her actions and virtues. — Another painting, in oil, which is in no way inferior to the first, depicts the heroine with her standard, bandaging an Englishman. Joan, her gaze raised toward heaven, seems to ask fervently for the salvation of this poor dying man's soul. — In another painting nearby, Joan is depicted in the church of Tours offering her sword to the Blessed Virgin. — In a fourth painting, Joan of Arc is seen kneeling at the foot of an altar dedicated to the archangel Saint Michael. She is about to leave her peasant clothes and prepare for her departure through fervent prayer. — A fifth painting represents the warrior maiden in the great tower of Rouen, at the moment when, her cruel jailers having taken away her women's clothes, she finds herself forced to put on men's clothes that they have thrown to her on purpose. The half-open prison door reveals the sinister faces of her guards and her judges. — To the right, upon entering the hall, one also sees a magnificent banner, an exact copy of Joan's standard, artistically crafted and sent by the ladies of Orléans to the house of Joan of Arc on May 8, 1863, the four hundred thirty-fourth anniversary of the relief of Orléans. — One also notices in a painting Joan of Arc kneeling before the parish priest of Vaucouleurs and the lord of Baudricourt to be exorcised. — In the second room, one sees a sta tue representing Joan of Arc at her first vision. Her distaff and spindle are at her side. — Another small bronzed statuette represents Joan of Arc as a person barely emerged from childhood. She is armed and holds her standard in her hands. — An oil painting depicts Joan of Arc in chains while the death sentence is read to her.

In front of the house stands a monument erected by the government in 1820 to the glory of Joan of Arc.

The church of Domrémy, of remarkable simplicity, dates from the 13th century and was repaired in 1855. Beside the modest altar in the choir are two stained-glass windows, depicting, one, the Apparition of the Archangel Saint Michael to Joan of Arc; and the other, the heroine kneeling at the foot of a statue of the Virgin. For several years, the altars and the bell tower of the church have been moved: the entrance, which used to be where the main altar is now, faces the bridge built over the Meuse. On the right is the chapel of Our Lady of the Maid. The altar is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and the statue placed on this altar is, according to the elders, that of the Hermitage of Sainte-Marie. At the top of the altar, one sees angels each holding a shield with the arms of the du Lis family.

The main feast of the year is the Feast of the Maid, celebrated on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin, that is, the Sunday immediately following September 7. Joan of Arc is considered the patroness of the village, after Saint Remigius; on her feast day, the church is filled with a crowd of villagers and visitors, and resounds with songs in honor of the Mother of God and the virgin who saved France.

A monument has been erected at Domrémy in honor of Joan of Arc, where all nations are invited to pay their respects. Gathered in the Artistic and Literary Museum of Joan of Arc are all the compositions inspired by the Liberator of France, and everyone hastens to add a stone to the monument raised to the glory of the Virgin of Domrémy.

Notre-Dame de Bermont or Belmont, half a league from Domremy, is an ancient and famous pilgrimage site, whose principal glory is to have received the frequent visits of Joan of Arc. It was there, as we have already said, that the Virgin of Domremy, accompanied by her sister, came, often during the week and very precisely every Saturday, to mourn over the evils of the kingdom, to ask for their end, and to burn candles before the image of Our Lady. It was there above all that she received from Mary, the patroness of France, the sublime inspirations that made her fly to the relief of Orléans, and the assurance that, after having driven the English from it, she would place the crown on the head of Charles VII at Reims. Bermont, also called Belmont or Beaumont, was formerly a leper-house, which was founded towards the end of the XIIth century by Pierre de Bourlémont, lord of Domremy, at the moment when leprosy, brought back from the East, was spread throughout Europe. In the XIVth century, Bermont depended on the hospital of Neufchâteau, and at that time, the chapel of Bermont was served by a priest of the Order of the Holy Spirit, who lived in Coussey, a village situated between Domremy and Neufchâteau. In the time of Joan of Arc, it is probable that Bermont still belonged to the hospital of Neufchâteau; but in the XVIth century, it passed to the Counts of Salm; then there were no longer any lepers: a kind of religious community inhabited it. There travelers were received whom necessity or fatigue forced to stop. A small bell, which served to call the inhabitants of the hospital to prayer, still exists today. It bears the following inscription, written in initial letters:

A.V.E.M.P.E.I.A. † D.E.A.A.P.M. † A.N.G.T. † which means:

Ad virginem e manibus populi extrahentem imperium anglicani † dedicatum est apud agrum post mortem † ad nominis gloriam tintinnabulum.

At the end of the XVIth century, Bermont no longer had great importance; it was inhabited by hermits, who remained there until 1793. At that time, Bermont was sold as state property. There remained then only the chapel and the hermit's lodgings; the rest had been destroyed at an unknown period. The chapel of Bermont was, until 1806, a famous pilgrimage site. People came there from all sides in procession to seek recourse in the protection of Saint Thiébaut, patron of this chapel, when a great drought or continual rains came to prevent the fruits of the earth from growing and ripening. The last procession held at Bermont took place in 1806. Beside Bermont, in a narrow valley, there exists a spring called the fountain of Saint-Thiébaut, whose waters, it is said, are sovereign for the cure of all kinds of fevers. Each pilgrim, on going to visit Notre-Dame de Bermont, did not fail to provide himself with a vessel and fill it with water, which he used at home as needed.

In 1834, the chapel, which was falling into ruin, was purchased by Mr. Saincère, of Vaucouleurs: he had it restored immediately. The top of the entrance door of the chapel is formed by two very elongated pointed arches. In the choir of this chapel, one sees the statue of the Holy Virgin, at whose feet Joan went to pray every Saturday. This statue is of extremely hard oak, and so heavy that it weighs sixty kilograms, although it is at most one meter in height.

The tourist who travels through the places made famous by Joan of Arc attaches no less value to the country where she was born than to those where she displayed her superhuman valor in combat. After Domremy, it is Vaucouleurs, its castle, and the chapel where Joan prayed, distressed by the initial refusals of the Lord of Baudricourt to have her led to the "gentle Dauphin".

The castle is now but a memory, it is true, and the chapel barely a ruin. Enough of it remains, however, to gather a holy emotion at the memory of the heroine who saved France. Poor houses, humble like that of the d'Arc family, were built on the very ground of the castle chapel, and, coming there to seek a blessed space, brought the support of their modest walls to the precious fragments of the building. Without this providential arrangement, no trace of it would doubtless be seen.

Portions of windows, exterior walls, pillars with springers of vaults, in the XIIIth-century style, are found among the group of rustic buildings, as well as a lower chapel, or crypt, partially preserved. This is enough to recapture, in imagination, the aspect of the monument which, from the top of the hill, overlooked the plain and "the fields of Vaucouleurs".

Are these remains, respected by time, awaiting a glorious hour to emerge from the dust and rise from ruin? Will France one day be granted the grace to pray in this renewed sanctuary, in the very place where the holy shepherdess of Domremy shed so many tears? Let us dare to hope so; for it will be the sign of a better time and a precious pledge of our regeneration.

The city of Orléans possesses a bronze statue of Joan of Arc, after that of the Versailles museum, by Princess Marie d'Orléans. Inside the Town Hall one sees a restored portrait of Joan of Arc, from 1581; and a copy of Ingres's Joan of Arc, an equestrian statuette by Princess Marie. The Tour Blanche, on Rue des Africains, is a remnant of the towers made famous by the siege of 1429. The house of Joan of Arc, located at 35 Rue du Tabourg, is a historical monument. On Place du Martroy stands the statue of the Maid of Orléans, by Foyatier. Among the principal paintings of the Museum, one distinguishes that of Joan of Arc making her entry into Orléans.

The most remarkable monument possessed by the city of Rouen concerning the illustrious Virgin of Domremy is the keep of the castle of Philip Augustus, built at the beginning of the XIIIth century (after 1203). It was in this castle that Joan of Arc was imprisoned. She occupied one of the towers facing the fields, a tower that disappeared in 1808. The keep itself was threatened with destruction in 1841; but it was restored and consolidated around 1842. In 1866, by a sublime movement, it was bought back for 60,000 fr. through a national subscription: its restoration is being completed at this time (1874). Today the keep represents Joan's prison, for it is the only remaining fragment of the castle. On the site of the pyre where she was burned, there is a stone fountain with an inscription on black marble. This fountain is surmounted by a statue of the heroine in the XVIIIth-century style: the fountain and the statue were executed in 1775. Previously there was a XVth-century Gothic fountain. In 1870, the name Rue Jeanne d'Arc was given to Rue de l'Impératrice, the finest street in Rouen, built since 1860; already, in 1868, the name Boulevard Jeanne d'Arc had been given to Boulevard Beauvoisine.

Paris, after having allowed a statue to be er ected to the man who had sought to tarnish the purest glory of France, to the friend of Frederick II, King of Prussia, to the author of La Pucelle, to Voltaire in short—Paris, we say, enlightened by the misfortunes of France, has just repaired this outrage by the erection of a statue to Joan of Arc, in the middle of the small Place des Pyramides, facing Rue de Rivoli and the private garden of the Tuileries. The inauguration took place on February 19, 1874, in the presence of a considerable crowd. The statue is in bronze. Joan of Arc is depicted on horseback. Her countenance, though modest, reveals courage and energy. The base, which is of red marble, bears this simple inscription engraved on the eastern face of the pedestal, in letters 10 centimeters high: To Joan of Arc. An oval sidewalk, 8 meters by 5, has been marked out around the base and will form a sort of refuge in the middle of Place des Pyramides.

To compose this biography, we made use of: the Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc, by Quicherat; the Histoire populaire de Jeanne d'Arc, by Mr. Huin, curator of the Joan of Arc Museum at Domremy; the Histoire de l'Église, by Rohrbacher; the Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc, by Wallon; the Panégyrique de Jeanne d'Arc, delivered in the cathedral of Orléans on May 8, 1867, by Bishop Freppel; the Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc, by Lebrun des Charmettes; the Histoire de l'Église catholique en France, by Bishop Jager; the Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la Maison de Valois, by Mr. de Barante, member of the Académie Française; the Histoire du culte de la sainte Vierge en Lorraine, by the Reverend Father Guillaume, chaplain of the ducal chapel of Nancy; Notre-Dame de France, by the Reverend Father Hamon, parish priest of Saint-Sulpice; local notes due to the kindness of the Reverend Father Cochet, of Rouen; Mr. E. Birglin, architect and curator of the Museum of Bar-le-Duc; and the Reverend Father Bourgaut, parish priest of Domremy-la-Pucelle.

Volume note: While the great French Revolution was roaring on all sides, the hammer of modern Vandales was tearing down in Orléans the monument dedicated to the memory of Joan of Arc—that heroine to whom Orléans owed its deliverance and renown, and France her liberation from the foreign yoke—and cannon were being manufactured from the debris of her statue.

This notice reproduces the historical text of the Petits Bollandistes, proofread against the digitized pages. The traditions and assessments of the author belong to the era of the work.

Paul Guérin, Les Petits Bollandistes, volume 15, p. 416–419. Digitized copy from the Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k30745g

Editorial note: This text describes the monuments and souvenirs of Joan of Arc as presented by the Petits Bollandistes in the XIXth century, with mentions extending up to 1874. The conditions of the buildings, local customs, and assessments reported are those of this historical source. The inscriptions are preserved as testimonies of the monument; their dating does not constitute a modern chronology of Joan of Arc.