What did Joan of Arc's family think of her running off to become a military leader?

by ZiziGillespie
WalkingOsteoclast

Her parents were rather less than thrilled, at least at the time.

Question: What was the dream which your father said he had had about you before you had left his house?

Joan: When I was still in the house of my father and mother, I was several times told by my mother that my father had told her that he had dreamt that I, Joan, his daughter would go away with some men-at-arms. And much care did my father and mother have about it and they kept me close and in great subjection; and for my part I obeyed them in all things save only in that lawsuit I had in the city of Toul in the matter of marriage. And I have heard my mother say that my father told my brothers, "Truly, if I knew that that must happen which I fear in the matter of my daughter, I had rather you drowned her. And if you did not do it, I would drown her myself."

Given that her parents were described as good Catholics, I suspect that her father had a wrong idea of the manner of her leaving with the men-at-arms (in the more normal fashion of a camp follower rather than as the military leader that she was destined to be instead). This is, of course, only my personal opinion.

Question:Did you think you were doing well in going away without the permission of your father and your mother, since we must honour our father and our mother?

Joan: In all other things I did obey my father and my mother, save in this leaving them, but afterwards I wrote to them about it and they gave me their forgiveness.

Question: When you left your father and your mother, did you think you were committing a sin?

Joan: Since God commanded it, it had to be. Since God commanded it, had I a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, had I been a King's daughter, I should have departed.

Question: Did you ask your voices whether you could tell your father and your mother of your setting forth?

Joan: As for my father and my mother, my voices would have been satisfied that I tell them, had it not been for the pain it would have caused them if I had announced my departure. As for me, I would not have told them for anything in the world. The voices left it to me to tell my father and my mother, or to keep silent.…And them within so little of going out of their senses the time I left to go to the town of Vaucouleurs.

Since I suspect it will be asked:

Question: What made you cause a certain man at the city of Toul to be summoned for (breach of promise of) marriage?

Joan: I did not have him summoned, it was he who had me summoned. And there I swore before the judge to speak the truth and in the end he roundly said that I had made the man no promise whatever.

Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses by Régine Pernoud, translated by Edward Hyams, pages 23, 31-32.