← Table of contents
Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France

Note 99 — Part I THE TRIAL (continued 3)

Reading edition

Several versions of the reasons which caused Jeanne to resume the forbidden dress were given in the evidence taken at the Rehabilitation, all purporting to have come from her. According to Massieu, her woman’s dress was taken away while she was asleep, and the English soldiers refused to give it back to her, offering in its stead the man’s dress she had previously worn, ‘which they emptied from a sack.’ She refused to wear it, reminding them that it was forbidden her; but at last, at mid-day, finding them deaf to her remonstrance, she was obliged to rise and attire herself in the prohibited garments. The Dominican Brothers declared that she had been assaulted by an English milord, as she told them, and that she therefore considered it necessary to return to the protection of her old dress; but considering the type of soldier in whose care she was placed, there seems no need to seek for any further explanation than her own, as given in the text, and as later corroborated by Manchon and De Courcelles. In the Rehabilitation Enquiry, both Jean de Metz and de Poulengey claim to have suggested the male attire. At Poitiers, Jeanne herself stated that she had adopted it as most suitable to her work and the company she must share.

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings