Now I Know How Joan of Arc Felt

Remains purported to have been Joan of Arc’s are being tested as to whether they could be hers. They can’t, of course, confirm anything, as they don’t have anything of hers to test against.

The illiterate farm girl from Lorraine in eastern France disguised herself as a man in her war campaigns and said she heard voices from a trio of saints telling her to deliver France from the English. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and made a saint in 1920.

Actually, this is quite wrong. Everyone knew Joan was a woman; her crime was wearing men’s clothes despite the fact that she was a woman. If she’d been passing as male, she would have had a lot better chance of escaping the interrogations and pyre.