She was young, illiterate and had power for less than two years. History — seldom interested in women and usually written by the triumphant — should have forgotten her.
But when she died on a pyre in 1431, she achieved an immortality in art and literature that surpasses all of her contemporaries — kings, popes, knights, priests and courtiers.
She, of course, is Joan of Arc, the French teenage country girl who, through her extreme faith, mystic visions and what must have been an astonishing amount of personal charisma, led French troops to a string of glorious victories against the invading English. She was eventually captured and tried for heresy. Her remains were tossed in a river, like so much trash.
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