I'm going to use this response to answer another question about the dangers of relying on suppositional or circumstantial evidence in creating narratives and also breakdown this article's claims in the process.

Abstract

This is a dodgy article in a dodgy publication by an author with no experience in the field of history let alone on the subject of late medieval France. It mixes unsupportable conspiracy and willful misinterpretation of the life and legacy of Joan of Arc to create a teleological path to the present day. The conspiracy aspects are wholly circumstantial, the education of Joan of Arc is an unknown, and her ability to use cannon is remarkable but not ultimately responsible for the end of the Hundred Years War. A large body of this is wrong and it is rather cheeky of this cheap hack to accuse a respected military historian of bias and ignorance or willful manipulation of the 'facts'.

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The Publication: EIR

The Executive Intelligence Review and its contributors are a bunch of crack-pot conspiracy theorists who made a large amount of money selling a subscription journal ($400 per volume). Some of their highlights include going on British terrestrial television to accuse the Duke of Edinburgh (the Queen's Consort) of having Princess Diana assassinated (in 1997), and running a pseudo-masonic lodge through an organisation known as the 'Club of the Isles'. The entry in Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia makes for interesting reading.

The Author: Irene Beaudry

Despite the publisher of this article it might well have been produced by a respectable authority in the historical field. Ha, as if. This was produced by Irene Beaudry - some random person with no historical credentials or publications on any pertinent topic (or, frankly, any publications at all beyond this article). It is interesting that the author was explicitly directed by the founder to draw the comparisons between DeVries military history and a polemical text produced by a French politician from the turn of the twentieth-century.

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The Content

These warning flags aside this article might take a nuanced and balanced view on the subject, and if recent events have proved anything it's that the crack-pot conspiracy theorists aren't always wrong. So let's take a careful look at the content of the article itself.

Even a cursory perusal of this documentation shows that Jeanne d'Arc was a genius whose every action exemplified the highest ideal of mankind.

Well that's certainly a bold statement. It's not one that should be casually made but certainly sets up the author's position on Joan.

DeVries's book is fairly well documented—although suffering from a glaring omission of one of the most thorough and historically crucial works on Jeanne d'Arc, that being Gabriel Hanotaux's monumental work, which the French statesman wrote in 1910. Too often DeVries's conclusions are simply flat wrong.

There are errors in DeVries work but they are methodological rather than factual. DeVries is an esteemed military historian who wanted to, and succeeded in, fulfilling a gap in the historiography. He did not want to be drawn into the debates surrounding the veracity of the sources (whether the Rouen Trial or the Nullification Trial). This was the real issue, but that is not one which arises in this review. Instead the issues that arise are ones of dogma. The reviewer has chosen a 'truth' and thus when DeVries says anything against that truth or does not mention the supporting evidence of that truth he becomes 'wrong'.

A bestial culture ruled Europe at that point: Imperial law mandated that man was an animal, and it seemed that nothing in the world could change this fixed oligarchical condition.

This is rather oddly phrased, it is indicative that the author is not building a fair and balanced appreciation of the circumstances in fifteenth-century Europe but instead imposing a mandated (see that odd directive letter at the bottom) interpretation of history onto the past. This is likely sourced from Gabriel Hanotaux's text of 1910. At this point Joan of Arc had become the centre of a three-way struggle for her symbolism. Between c.1890 and c.1920 she was incorporated into religious, republican, and nationalist traditions and Hanotaux's thesis falls into both the republican and nationalist ones. This text had a clear agenda and it is not one which has remained popular (certainly in Anglophone historiography, I could not find it in any of the bibliographies of the major works on Joan of Arc).

Then, in 1429, a young peasant girl burst on the scene, and, through her determination and genius, changed not only the course of the Hundred Years War, but also wrenched all of humanity out of the orbit of feudalism, into the light of the Golden Renaissance. It was the power of her ideas, and the passions with which she fought for them, that incited kings to bend to her will, hardened generals to follow her, and the masses to take action, and fight for a country that for the first time, they realized belonged to them.

Now we see the thrust of Hanotaux's work in full reworked for the purposes of selling issues of the journal. This is to be a conspiracy which changed the world (please renew your subscription). This might be in part why Hanotaux is not cited in many major works today, because it is polemical hogwash now and was hogwash when he published it.

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Conspiracy, Conspirators, and the Birth of the Nation-State

Although DeVries does not disclose the known facts of Jeanne's background other than the "legend" of her divine inspiration, it is known from other sources, that Jeanne's education must have come from the circles of the Brethren of the Common Life.

This is a bastardisation and willful misinterpretation on the author's part. The concept at hand here is devotio moderna (modern devotion) a form of popular devotion which Joan of Arc certainly represents but which does not necessitate that she was 'educated' by the heretical Brethren of the Common Life. What the author is doing is creating a connection between several figures across several centuries which will ultimately aimed to '[deconstruct] the Christian Church' (see the editorial directive at the bottom).

There is no evidence that Joan was educated by any members of this order to emerge from her testimony at the Rouen Trial nor from the deponents at the Nullification Trial. The in the opening of the Rouen Trial Joan was questioned on her religious education and participation in the sacraments on 21 February 1431.

Then questioned about the place of her origin, she replied that she was born in the village of Domremy which is joined with the village of Greux, and it is in Greux that the principal church is found.

Item, questioned about the name of her father and mother, she replied that her father was called Jacques d’Arc and her mother, Isabelle.

Asked in what place she was baptised, she replied [that it was] in the church of Domremy.

Asked who were her godfathers and godmothers, she said that one of her godmothers was called Agnès, another Jeanne, another Sibille [Isabelle?]; one of her godfathers was called Jean Lingué, another Jean Barrey; she had many other godmothers, according to what she heard from her mother.

Asked which priest baptised her, she replied that it was my lord Jean Minet, or so she believed. Asked if he is still alive, she replied yes, or so she believed.

Item, asked how old she was, she replied that, as far as she knew, she was around nineteen years old. She also said that her mother taught her the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria and the Credo; and that she did not derive her knowledge from anyone other than her mother.

(ed. and trans.) Taylor, C.D., La Pucelle, (Manchester, 2006), no.34.

Nothing is mentioned about the Brethren, nothing about any education aside from what she received from her mother, and nothing that did not meet the basic requirements of the laity. Joan was insistent that her knowledge came from God, not from man. She certainly fits the pattern of devotio moderna, in her ostentatious and frequent confessions and intimately personal connection to God, but this is an abstract measure not an educational path. The subsequent claim:

Evidence shows that Jeanne's parents and brothers were very much a part of Jeanne's conspiracy to free France. It is also known, that the religious order of the Monks of St. Augustine played a pivotal role in this mission.

Is entirely unsubstantiated, at least where Joan is involved. This is Illuminati/Masonic-lodge levels of conspiracy. There are dozens of conspiracy theories about Joan. It is rather puzzling how a young girl of around 18 years of age managed to convince even a weakened monarch such as Charles VII to listen to her.

DeVries recounts the popular version of how Jeanne attained an audience with the Dauphin Charles VII, but he does not fully understand the political faction to which Jeanne belonged.

So who was this 'political faction'? The indication is that anyone who came into contact with the Brethren became members of this noble cult and, for them:

[Joan] was the only military leader whose faction had no other agenda than the liberation of France.

Ultimately this faction remains largely unidentified by Beaudry, operating in the shadows but apparently including Joan's family, the Monks of Augustine, the Brethren, numerous important figures in the medieval Church, and supposedly numerous important figures in the court of Charles VII. This rests, largely, on one deposition made in the Nullification Trial by Isambard (or Ysambard) de la Pierre that he had recommended Joan seek judgement from the Council of Basel (1431), and that those who composed the Council of Basel would be eventually responsible for pushing through the Nullification Trial (1455-6). Such an approach hinges on the fact the heresy trial is unreliable, but does not take into account that the Nullification Trial record is also a questionable source. The very intention of the trial was to ensure Joan's heretical shadow was lifted from Charles's reign - this is why the heresy trial sentence was nullified Joan was not rehabilitated.

This is 'creative' thinking or outright paranoia. It creates a network spanning centuries who apparently operated with the intention of bringing France into modernity before they knew what modernity was.

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Prophecy, Missions, and Ahistorical Certainty

Here determining what Joan's actual mission was is really important. Unfortunately the adamant claims made by the reviewer are circular. They are substantiated by events and not by contemporary records. Let's have a look at how Joan's 'mission' might be assessed based on contemporary evidence and not evidence from after-the-fact. I have done this at length and by extended reference to the primary materials here but let's break these down quickly now.

Jeanne's mission was twofold (...) It would have to free the city, and also, would have to bring a halt to the gentlemanly sport of continuous warfare, which had cost so many lives, military and civilian. A crushing blow was urgent and vital; however, since none was coming from the King, Jeanne deployed herself to carry out that task.

Joan might have thought it imperative to liberate the city of Orléans but she did not say that she would do it personally leading an army. She instead promised to give a 'sign' at Orléans which was never, at least in record, defined. This sign became, later, the French victory.

Secondly, Jeanne understood the strategic urgency of quickly securing the official coronation of the King at the Cathedral of Reims, where all of France's kings had been consecrated, in order to lay to rest the Anglo-Burgundian claim that the Dauphin (as France's Crown Princes are known) was illegitimate.

Well if this was true it was remarkably prescient of Joan. The accusations of illegitimacy emerged in 1437 a good six years after Joan was burned at the stake in Rouen. Then again, I'm probably just ignoring the 'genius [of a woman] whose every action exemplified the highest ideal of mankind.' /s

This is evidence enough that the reviewer is talking out of her arse. She has no authority or knowledge from which to offer any meaningful criticism. Instead this is a hatchet-job ordered by her employer. Other ridiculous statements include:

The Augustinian concept of a just war was as foreign an idea, up until this time, as the idea of a war for the general welfare of all men equal before God.

What a complete load of bollocks. Augustine's ideas, very limited ones, had been developed and refined over the centuries. This reviewer has obviously never heard of St Thomas Aquinas (a thirteenth-century authority on just war), and it is entirely implausible that they would have heard of Gratian and the Decretists (many of whom were based at the University of Paris in the twelfth-century).

Jeanne's letter declared war not just on the English, but on feudalism itself, the evil order of man subjugating man.

This doesn't mean anything! It's likely to have been lifted directly from the polemical republican/nationalist treatise of Hanotaux because I doubt the author understands that these kinds of letter formed a frequent part of diplomacy in the Middle Ages and were usually given without the expectation that they would actually be fulfilled (much like offers of personal combat to settle the conflict without recourse to battle).

Joan was also not offering to end war for the good of all humans. She was taking the moral high-ground by complaining that the war betwixt the English and the French meant that the Hussite heretics were not being challenged. If Joan had her way then she would be leading a bloody crusade through Bohemia although this, again, was a trope of medieval high diplomacy (from Joan's Letter to the English: 'If you will settle your account, you can join her company, in which the French will achieve the finest feat in Christendom').

At the royal residence, Jeanne continued to make public, noisy interventions as to the necessity of liberating Orléans and having the Dauphin crowned King at Reims. She was the only military leader whose faction had no other agenda than the liberation of France. It was clear that, if there were any chance of saving the nation, some radical, revolutionary action had to be taken. After much delay and bureaucratic footdragging, Charles finally gave Jeanne a commission to lift the siege at Orléans and to resupply its desperate people.

Beaudry has no evidence for any of this. It is entirely based on the fact that Joan was at Orléans and led the forces there. Beaudry is creating a narrative and fleshing it out entirely with supposition. She is also getting it wrong. It is made very clear that Joan was 'going to Orléans with his men-at-arms' not leading them!

These commanders had tremendous difficulty understanding that Jeanne was determined to actually fight and win, rather than engage in the outmoded rules of gentlemanly combat that had decimated so many men on both sides. She ran roughshod over their objections, not only citing the authority of God for her action, but also confronting every objection by a personal demonstration that her method led to victory.

This is turn-of-the-century nonsense drawn, again, from Hanotaux. It is utterly ridiculous that Joan could 'run roughshod' over anyone let alone that she could confront objections by personal demonstration before the events had actually occurred!

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The Betrayal of Joan

I wrote on this subject as an undergraduate, literally 'Did Charles VII betray Joan?'. I concluded that there was no plausible reason for Charles VII to betray Joan to the English. Beaudry is thoroughly overstating Joan's influence up to her death and thoroughly misunderstands the political realities of the fifteenth-century in France. See this contextual post for more information.

Malcolm Vale discusses a conspiracy, variants of which were popular among Burgundian writers of the period, which labelled Joan as an agent of the Angevin faction at Charles’s court. The Angevins were a powerful network, including Charles’s wife Marie of Anjou, the Duke of Lorraine (who summoned Joan under a safe-conduct before she entered France), whose son-in-law and heir was René of Anjou, a childhood friend and brother-in-law of Charles VII. Yolande of Aragon, René and Marie’s mother was an ‘important influence’ on Charles and her husband, Louis II of Anjou, had mediated meetings between Charles VI and another female visionary Jean-Marie de Maillé. While these Burgundian theories envision Joan as a tool for reinvigorating French morale, Vale argues the Angevins were working towards a reconciliation of Charles VII and the Breton Arthur Richemont, who had openly rebelled when Charles supported a rival house for the inheritance of the duchy of Brittany, however, after this was achieved, and her defeats at Paris and La Charité, this faction had little practical use for Joan. The estrangement of Richemont and Charles VII had been orchestrated by Georges lord of La Trémoïlle. This faction was the most rabid in its attacks on Joan, though this only occurred after her capture and execution when Charles was forced to distance himself from her. La Trémoïlle and his allies, Raoul de Gaucourt and Regnault des Chartres, Archibishop of Reims, had the most to benefit from betraying Joan to the Burgundians and English, as they were working towards a reconciliation between Philip the Good and Charles VII, to which Joan was a hindrance. They were also actively attempting to keep Joan and Alençon apart – afraid that Alençon would ally with Richemont and threaten their position at Charles’s court.

Here Beaudry again demonstrates no knowledge of the political realities. Joan was anathema to the Burgundians and she was rabidly anti-Burgundian herself. While Joan lived any true reconciliation between the two parties, and ultimately the end of the English presence on the Continent, was next-to-impossible. There is no indication that the Burgundians would have sold Joan back to Charles at all, let alone pissed off their English allies to do so. Once the trial had commenced it was an official affair and after the judgement it behooved Charles not only to distance himself from Joan, a convicted schismatic and lapsed heretic, but to maintain his friendly reconciliation with Philip the Good of Burgundy. When the Hundred Years War ended Charles was quick to ensure that overtures were made to the Pope regarding Joan's name, but he ultimately used Joan's family as a cover so that he did not stir up civil war in Normandy so shortly after it had returned to the fold.

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Conclusion

The article is biased, polemical, and teleological based on reading one text from the turn of the twentieth-century and whatever vague scrapings of memory Irene Beaudry had of the legend of Joan of Arc. Ultimately the grand theory is unsubstantiated and uncorroborated by convincing contemporary evidence and plagued by a distinct lack of knowledge of the basic facts of the period. There are elements of truth and it is entirely plausible that there was a court faction which did support Joan. To claim that we can definitively prove that as 'truth' is utter bollocks, we can point to certain groups reactions to Joan before and after her death but we cannot identify these as 'truths' because they rely on supposition and circumstantial evidence.

Be critical of the sources you read and always clarify who wrote them and why. This is especially true of second-hand knowledge. I've seen a couple of blogs on the internet which are repeating this article verbatim and taking it at face-value.