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Joan of Arc
(ärk)
(Fr. name Jeanne d'Arc) 1412-31; Fr. heroine: defeated the English at Orléans (1429): burned at the stake for witchcraft: called the Maid of Orléans
also Saint Joan of Arc
See Joan of Arc in American Heritage Dictionary 4
French military leader and heroine. Inspired and directed by religious visions, she organized the French resistance that forced the English to end their siege of Orléans (1429). The same year she led an army of 12,000 to Rheims and had the dauphin crowned Charles VII. Captured and sold to the English by the Burgundians (1430), she was later tried for heresy and sorcery and was burned at the stake in Rouen. She was canonized in 1920.
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