It was May 29, 1431 when Jehanne Darc�yes, Jehanne Darc, her last name was later misspelled by an English Historian as �d�Arc��in English, known as �Joan of Arc�� was woken by a few soldiers. It was dawn. She dressed and followed the soldiers to a large chamber. She realized that she had been there at Fort Rouen for exactly one year. She stood before a few priests and other English members of importance. It was here, on this day, that Joan received her sentence of life in prison.
That evening, Joan looked back on her life. She was a farm girl. She enjoyed taking care of her father�s cattle, sheep and chickens and adored her sister Catherine and her three brothers, as well as her mother Isabeau and father, Jaques Darc.
Joan remembered l�Arbre des Dames, the Fairy Tree. All her girlfriends would always leave flowers there to worship fairies. Joan had never done such a thing. Joan gave her flowers to the saints. Especially her favorites, Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine and Saint Michael.
She remembered her Voices, oh, her Voices. She had first heard them in her father�s garden at the age of thirteen. They came from the right, the direction of the church. Along with these voices came a bright light. It too, came from the direction of the church. After a few moments, Joan could make out forms in the light. It was Saint Michael and his angels! Saint Michael had told her to lead a good Christian life and attend church mass often. Joan did as Saint Michael told her. Eventually, not only Saint Michael spoke to her, but so did Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine. The Voices rarely came to her without a bright light. They would usually tell her to be a good Christian or to attend regular mass. One day, when Joan was sixteen years old, Saint Michael said, �Go, go, daughter of God, into the realm of France. You must drive out the English and bring the king to be crowned.� Joan argued with her Voice and told Saint Michael that she was only a peasant girl, and she could never do such a thing. After some time, the Voices grew more persistent.
A while after her command from Saint Michael, Joan set off from Domr�my, the small village where she had been born and raised, to Vaucouleurs and asked the governor, Robert de Baudricourt, for help and that he take her to go see the king. He refused to help her or believe what she was saying and sent her back to Domr�my.
Joan�s father, Jaques Darc, was furious. He told Joan�s three brothers to drown Joan if she tried to go back to Vaucoulers. He threatened that if they didn�t, then he would.
All the while, Joan�s Voices became more and more persistent. Joan found a way to run away from home and get to Vaucoulers. She had a cousin who was expecting a newborn child. Her cousin and her husband lived in Burey, near the city of Vaucoulers. Joan offered to help her cousin tend to her baby, and Joan�s parents, cousin and her cousin�s husband agreed.
Once arriving in Burey, Joan went to Vaucoulers, and wanted to speak with Robert de Baudricourt once more. He refused to see her. However, one of Sir Robert�s squires, Jean de Metz, was so impressed with this young peasant girl and her story that he escorted her to the king himself. When Joan was leaving Vaucoulers, Sir Robert gave Joan his own sword and wished her good luck.
When Joan arrived in the palace in mid-March, 1429, she immediately searched for the Dauphin, the King's eldest son. Once she spotted him, she fell to her knees in front of him and asked for his backing. The Dauphin had disguised himself, and was impressed with her sureness. He told her to rise and he would give her his backing. Joan told him that she was sent from God to take back the French land that the English had taken over. She promised him that she would have him crowned as the king of France. Soon after, Joan began to refer to herself as Jehanne la Pucelle, or Joan the Maid. A maid meaning a girl servant. She was a servant to France, her God and her Voices.
The Dauphin�s advisors were not so easily impressed. They became envious of the girl that won the Dauphin�s trust with a mere bow and a story. They decided to test whether those �Voices� of hers were from God or the devil. They proceeded with a trial.
The advisors, as well as some priests asked her many questions during this trial. When Joan was asked by a priest if she believed in God, she replied, �More than you do.�
In April 1429, Joan was let off trial and was announced a good Christian and Catholic. With that, the Dauphin gave her some armies, which she immediately took to Fort Tours.
They set up camp at Fort Tours and Fort Blois before laying siege on Fort Saint-Loup. Joan became angered by her soldiers� swearing. She didn�t allow them to pillage and insisted that they get rid of the women who followed the camp around. She also insisted that they come with her to mass every day and that they make confessions before every battle.
On the morning of May 4, 1429, Joan woke up to find that her troops had begun battle at Fort Saint-Loup. The hot-tempered Joan dressed for battle and rode off to help her armies. They had taken back Fort Saint-Loup from the English by the end of the day.
On May 6, 1429, Joan and her armies battled the English at fort Saint-Jean-Le-Blanc. By nightfall, Joan and her troops had taken back fort Les Augustins, as well.
It was May 7, 1429 when Joan fell to the ground in pain at fort Les Tourelles. She only winced slightly. After all, she was sort of asking for this. She hadn�t worn any armor. She starred at the arrow that pierced her flesh and tore straight into her left shoulder. She saw a few of her soldiers stop where they were to look at her; sympathy and pain on their faces. Ready to give up. There were a few soldiers heading her way. To come to her aid, no doubt. Joan shook her head to tell them no, keep fighting. She quickly rose to her feet and fled the battle area. She needed to find a place to be alone. She needed to pray. She found a tree on the edge of the battlefield. She had gone to mass very early that morning, but it would do her no good now. She sat under the tree and bowed her head in prayer for the next fifteen long minutes.
When Joan came galloping back on her horse, she held her emblem high and proud in the air. Her emblem was a bannar with a picture of Jesus and two of his angels, flanking him near his sides. Her soldiers saw her and watched in awe as the seventeen-year-old girl screamed at them to attack. Never before had they felt so alive, with her spirit there with them, during the siege. They had all noticed that the arrow that had plunged into her left shoulder, merely twenty minutes before, was gone.
�Lord, give us strength!� Joan cried out as her armies began to take back Fort Les Tourelles with nearly effortless ease.
The battle carried on until a few hours after nightfall. It ended with glory to the French, who took back their fort when the English began to flee over the Loire River on a make-shift draw bridge leading from the fort to the other side of the Loire. Seeing this, Joan and her men soaked a barge of old rags in oil and tar and floated it downstream, where it caught the drawbridge on fire. The fire killed at least twenty of the invading English soldiers, including the well-known English general, Glensdale.
Never before had Joan felt so satisfied, so proud of her mens� and her own accomplishments. Before they left, Joan wept and prayed for the men who died in the battle.
Joan took her armies back to the Realm of France. Where the Dauphin, Charles VII and told him the great news. Afterwards, he sent her and her troops back out to fight.
Over the course of a week, Joan and her armies had taken back four more forts. They had also taken the two best English commanders, the Earl of Suffolk and Lord Talbot, as prisoners. On July 17, 1429, Charles VII, the Dauphin, was crowned as the king of France, as Joan had promised.
On September 8, 1429, Joan and her armies attacked Paris, which had also been taken over by the English. Joan�s thigh was pierced with an arrow, and the Duc d�Alen�on carried her out of battle, ending the siege. France had lost Paris again.
In May 1430, Joan and her troops were trying to take back Compiegne. Joan was taken prisoner by the soldiers of Burgundy, who was a cousin of Charles VII. Charles did nothing to help her or get her back from the Duke of Burgundy, so he sold her to the English. They took her to fort Rouen, where she was now.
The black-haired, brown-eyed nineteen-year-old girl said her prayers and slept the rest of the night away.
In the morning, Joan awoke to find her dress gone. A guard gave her some mens� clothes and told her to put them on. Joan argued, knowing that she would be at trial again, if she did, and asked for her dress back. The guard only told her to put on the mens� clothes. Eventually, Joan did put on the clothes. When found wearing mens� clothes by a judge, Joan indeed had one last trial.
Joan stood before the judges and the priests and when the trial was over, they condemned her to death by burning at the stake for being a heretic, a sorceress and adulteress.

Saint Joan of Arc was burned at the stake that afternoon, on May 30, 1431.