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Jeanne's House 06 (L)

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6 THE HOUSE OF JOAN OF ARC IN DOMREMY

This statue, made by the sculptor C. Pètre and cast by Vittoz, represents the heroine standing, in warrior costume, holding her famous banner in her right hand and placing her left on the crown of France, which she thus seems to protect; in the middle of the pedestal is the following inscription:

MONUMENT ELEVATED TO THE MEMORY OF JOAN OF ARC
BY THE CITY AND DISTRICT
OF NEUFCHATEAU
IN THE YEAR 1859
AND THE VI CENTURY OF THE REIGN OF H.M. NAPOLEON III

One of the faces contains a bas-relief representing Joan of Arc visited by an angel, while she is guarding her flocks.
On the opposite face we read:

THESE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS WORK:
HIS MAJESTY NAPOLEON III.
THE DEPARTMENTS OF
THE SEINE, THE VOSGES, THE LOIRET, THE AISNE, THE BAS-RHIN.
THE TOWNS AND COMMUNES OF......

communes
(The following are the names of a hundred towns or among which I had the regret of not seeing that of Compiègne appear).
It is true that 20 years later, in 1880, this town nobly repaired this oversight by erecting in turn, in honor of the heroine, the statue which today appears in front of its beautiful Town Hall.
After having sufficiently traveled Neufchâteau,

7 THE HOUSE OF JOAN OF ARC IN DOMREMY

I took the railway going to Pagny-sur-Meuse, and in less than twenty-five minutes, I reached the station of Maxey-sur-Meuse which serves Domremy. This small village of Maxey played a certain warlike role in the time of Joan of Arc. It had declared itself in favor of the Duke of Burgundy, while the inhabitants of Domremy, with the exception of one, were Armagnacs in heart and will. It was Joan herself who declared it in her third public interrogation on February 24, 1431: "I have known," she said, "in Domremy only one Burgundian. And I would have liked his head to be cut off, if such had been God's pleasure." And when, in the presence of Bishop Pierre Cauchon, of sinister memory, and sixty-two assessors, the former rector of Paris, Jean Beaupère, canon of Paris and Besançon, asked the unfortunate captive: "Were you ever with the little children who fought for the party you belong to? >>
Jeanne replied: "I don't remember. But I did see several of those from Domremy, who had fought with those from Maxey (Maxey-sur-Meuse), come back all wounded and bloody. >>
Indeed, full of enthusiasm, the young people of Domremy often gathered at the end of the day and went to provoke those from Maxey, with whom they engaged in real fights where blood flowed.
A little before the station, we begin to see on the height the famous castle of Bourlemont whose numerous turrets seem, as in the White Lady, to touch the sky, then


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