Note 375 — Chapter V · POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE. (continued 3)
Reading edition
Chronique, p. 447.—Buchon, p. 524.—Pez, Thesaur. Anecd. VI. III. 237.—Procès, p. 484.—L’Averdy, III. 338.
The popular explanation of Joan’s career connected her good-fortune with a sword marked with five crosses on the blade, which she had miraculously discovered in the church of St. Catharine de Fierbois, and which she thenceforth carried. On the march to Reims, finding her commands disregarded as to the exclusion of prostitutes from the army, she beat some loose women with the flat of the blade and broke it. No smith could weld the fragments together; she was obliged to wear another sword, and her unvarying success disappeared.—Jean Chartier. pp. 20, 29, 42.