Honouring Joan of Arc

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 625, 30 March 1929, Page 17

Honouring Joan of Arc

rhhpkHIRTY known* descend- , ants of Joan of Arc’s brothers, and of her uncle and aunt on her mothers side, coming from different parts of France, have formed a family association to take part in the 500th anniversary soon to be celebrated. Her proper work was finished in 1429, when Orleans was delivered from the French invader, and the French King was brought to be crowned in Rheims Cathedral. But the work pushed her on until her enemies burned her at Rouen two years later. In this generation, several of the young girls are 17 years old—the age at which Joan left her flocks and folk to ride away with the king’s soldiers on her mission. These girls are to take part in the celebration at Vaucouleurs, where she started her 800mile ride, twice across France through forests and waste lands after years of war. Girls of the same age are to come from all the neighbourhoods where the milestones of .Tpan’s halts are being set. up.

• It should not be thought strange that a humble family of shepherds should persist and be known for 500 years. One of her brothers became a king’s soldier, and grand-nephews and nieces were brought to testify in the family’s name when the Popes court reversed the sentence of her condemnation. In some of these eastern villages of France, there are still land registers with the same family names as present land workers, and for a time much before Joan of Arc. Hef career and the controversies about it for five centuries have been more than enough to keep the family memory alive. The living members of her family range from soldiers and the professions to those still fixed on the land, like the majority of the true French race. There is mention of a notary, and notaries have always been the guardians of French family descent. # The descendants of Jacques, her soldier brother, quite naturally married into noble families in the course of centuries. Among such families !• that of Malelssye.