Joan of Arc (c.1412–1431) — Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orléans — was the French peasant girl who, claiming divine voices, persuaded the dauphin Charles to give her an army, lifted the English siege of Orléans in 1429, and turned the Hundred Years’ War decisively in France’s favor.
Captured by Burgundian allies of England in 1430, she was tried for heresy by a pro-English church court and burned at the stake in Rouen at nineteen. Rehabilitated in 1456 and canonized in 1920, she is France’s national heroine — claimed by monarchists, republicans and the far right alike.
