The Maid and the Miracle: Joan of Arc at Orleans
There is something that modern minds consistently misunderstand about miracles, and it is precisely this misunderstanding that makes the story of Joan of Arc both incomprehensible to them and yet more miraculous than ever. They suppose, in their curious way, that a miracle must mean the suspension of natural law, when in truth it often means the supreme assertion of it. They imagine that a divine intervention must disrupt the ordinary course of things, when frequently it simply restores them to their proper order. And nowhere is this paradox more perfectly illustrated than in that strange and luminous figure who, in the darkest hour of France, appeared like a light in armor: Joan of Arc.
Consider first the peculiar state of affairs at Orleans in 1429. The English had nearly completed their stranglehold on the ancient city, having built a ring of fortresses around it that grew daily more complete, like a noose slowly tightening around the neck of France. The French armies, which had once been the terror of Europe, had forgotten how to win. The Dauphin, who should have been a king, cowered in his castle at Chinon, half-doubting his own legitimacy. Everything was, as we might say, upside down. And it was precisely then, at this moment of supreme disorder, that Heaven sent its most orderly reply.
For what could be more natural, more deeply aligned with the true order of things, than that France should defend herself? What could be more proper than that a king should claim his crown? What could be more right than that soldiers should remember how to fight? Yet it took what we call a supernatural intervention to restore these most natural of things. This is the first paradox of Joan, and we shall find it is only the beginning.
Consider next the instrument chosen for this restoration. The modern mind, stuffed full of progress and efficiency, might have expected a great general, or at least a minor noble. God, with that peculiar sense of humor that skeptics never seem to grasp, chose instead a peasant girl who could neither read nor write. Here again we find that strange inversion that marks all truly divine things: the wisdom of the world turned foolish, and the foolishness of God proved wise. Joan was not chosen despite her limitations but, in some mysterious way, because of them. Her illiteracy meant she could read the will of Heaven all the clearer; her peasant simplicity meant she could see through the complexities of courts and generals with the terrible directness of a child.
At Orleans, this divine simplicity manifested itself in ways that confounded both friend and foe. The professional soldiers, who had spent months in careful hesitation, found themselves led by a girl who understood that sometimes the only clever strategy is to charge straight ahead. The English, who had dominated the French through superior organization and morale, suddenly found themselves facing an army that believed itself invincible – not because of any tactical advantage, but because a peasant girl had told them God willed their victory.
Here we stumble upon another paradox that our age finds particularly difficult to grasp: Joan was not a great leader despite being a mystic, but precisely because she was one. Her visions of St. Michael and St. Catherine, far from distracting her from military realities, gave her a clarity about them that professional soldiers lacked. While others debated tactics, she understood strategy. While they worried about supplies, she concerned herself with spirits. And somehow – here is the miracle – the supplies turned out better when the spirits were attended to first.
The siege itself presents us with a perfect picture of how Heaven works in history. It does not, as a rule, simply sweep away all obstacles with some grand gesture. Instead, it works through human instruments, requiring both divine grace and human effort in a cooperation so intimate that it becomes impossible to say where one ends and the other begins. Did Orleans fall to Joan's military genius or to her sanctity? The question itself misses the point. Her genius was her sanctity, and her sanctity expressed itself in genius.
Consider the famous moment when Joan was wounded by an arrow while scaling a ladder during the assault on Les Tourelles. A merely human leader might have retreated to tend to her wounds. A merely spiritual one might have continued regardless of physical reality. Joan did neither and both. She withdrew long enough to weep – here again we see that characteristic combination of divine mission and human frailty – then returned to lead the final assault. The arrow that should have ended her mission instead became its symbol: the physical wound proving the spiritual battle, the human weakness channeling divine strength.
The victory at Orleans reversed not just the fortunes of a siege but the entire logic of the Hundred Years' War. Before Joan, it had seemed inevitable that England would eventually dominate France. After her, French victory became inevitable instead. Yet this reversal itself points to a deeper truth about all divine interventions in human affairs. God does not typically change the laws of nature; He reveals their true operation. Joan did not make France stronger than England; she revealed that it had been stronger all along, if only it had faith in its own mission.
This brings us to what might be called the master paradox of Joan's story, which is that it demonstrates both the absolute necessity of divine intervention in human affairs and the absolute necessity of human cooperation with divine grace. The miracle was not that God did everything while humans watched; the miracle was that humans discovered they could do what needed to be done because God was watching.
The modern world, in its curious blindness, tries to explain Joan either as a purely psychological case – a girl suffering from hallucinations who happened to be useful to the French cause – or as a purely political phenomenon – a tool used by clever courtiers to rally national sentiment. Both explanations fail because they cannot account for the central fact of Joan: that she was most practical when she was most mystical, and most mystical when she was most practical.
At Orleans, she insisted on regular prayer before battle – a mystic's concern – but also on proper positioning of artillery – a tactician's obsession. She carried a banner instead of a sword into battle, yet knew precisely where the sword-wielders should strike. She spent hours in confession and hours studying fortress defenses, and somehow the two activities seemed to reinforce each other. In short, she demonstrated that peculiarly Christian principle that the supernatural, properly understood, does not negate the natural but fulfills it.
This is why the relief of Orleans remains, after all these centuries, not just a military victory but a theological lesson. It teaches us that miracles are not the suspension of the natural order but its restoration. It shows us that divine intervention does not make human effort unnecessary but makes it effective. It reminds us that God's greatest works in history are not those that break all patterns but those that reveal the pattern that was always there.
In the end, Orleans fell because a peasant girl believed her voices and the soldiers believed the girl. The city was saved because Heaven chose to work through the weakest of instruments to accomplish the strongest of results. And perhaps this is the final lesson of Joan at Orleans: that God's strength is most perfectly revealed not in breaking human weakness but in working through it. The miracle was not that Joan did what was impossible, but that through her, the impossible revealed itself to be what was natural all along.
So it remains today, though our sieges may be of a different kind. We still require the courage to believe our own voices when they speak of higher things. We still need the wisdom to see that the supernatural may be most present when it seems most practical. And we still must learn, as Joan taught us at Orleans, that sometimes the deepest miracle is simply the restoration of what should have been obvious from the start: that right is stronger than wrong, that light drives out darkness, and that Heaven, when it seems furthest away, may be preparing its most decisive intervention.
For in Joan we see not the contradiction of nature but its fulfillment, not the abandonment of reason but its perfection, not the denial of human effort but its divine completion. And perhaps that is why her story, especially at Orleans, remains not just history but prophecy – a reminder that God's greatest works do not bypass the natural order but reveal its true nature, do not ignore human weakness but transfigure it, do not contradict common sense but fulfill it in ways that only Heaven could have imagined and only faith could have achieved.
-The Seeker's Quill