Joan Of Arc: Pet & Pest

National myths are the paradigms of the plebs. When all they do is exalt nationalism, for nationalism’s sake, they foster fascism. And only atavism, not justice, then justifies this sorry rage.

Joan of Arc incarnated Nazism without any Social pretense (the “z” in Nazism is for “socialism”). It’s even worse: D’Arc effectively turned a three way civil war in France into a religious war.

The French Front National uses Jeanne D’Arc as a front. That’s an affront, but not the way common wisdom would have it. Indeed, even under the worst scenarios, Marine Le Pen could never turn into as much a historical monster, as Joan of Arc was. D’Arc relaunched a civil war, that, thanks to her demonic efforts, lasted another four centuries.

Separatist Sister Souls In Fanatical Bigotry

Once Yolande’s pet, now recycled by Marine.

[By the way, in case Le Pen did not notice, Brussels used to be in Gallia and Francia, for more than 2,500 years. So Marine Le Pen, rendered mad by greed, wants to cut France in two.]

The president-elect in Ukraine just identified the separatists there to “Somali Pirates“. That’s exactly what Johanne was: a separatist, an outlaw.

Indeed what was the alleged work of Joan of Arc? A secession. Far from being a French heroine, Joan of Arc split France in two. Far from being a liberator, Johanne enslaved Western Europe to centuries of war. Her call to ethnic hatred against the “Anglois”does not help her modern philosophical depiction.

Indeed an accord had been found between the two feuding French governments, one in Paris, and illegitimate, the other in London, and legitimate. That was after nearly 90 years of (un)civil war. An accord reunited the government. After his death, the king in Paris, was to be succeeded by the king in London, Henry V of England, who was much younger.

Henry V appears in three Shakespeare plays, and is called the “Star of England”. grandson of Edward III of England. The latter being the one and only grandson of Philippe Iv Le Bel, of France. Edward III was the true king of France, being the son of Isabelle of France, queen of England, and legitimate (according to the Salic Law), queen of France (as the only child left of Philippe Le Bel).

So this 485 year war was all a Franco-French affair. To present it, as too much nationalist histories do,  as a national conflict, with the redeeming figure of 19 year old Johanne on top, is to put nationalism and a monster war on an altar, and worship them.

From the heights of wisdom, it is more judicious to put view them as garbage, and stomp on them.

The settlement with Henry V as king of the reunited kingdom, was infinitely better than the ferocious three way civil war between Anglois, Armagnac and Bourguignons. (At the time, all sorts of languages were spoken in “France”; even by 1900, only half of the population spoke “French” as a native language!)

After months of negotiation with Charles VI of France, the Treaty of Troyes (1420), agreed to by the queen of France Isabeau de Baviere, recognized the 34 year old Henry V as regent and heir-apparent to the French throne. This treaty deprived Isabeau’s own five sons of the throne. Henry was not just an invincible conqueror, he was the legitimate king.

Henry V, the victor of Agincourt, was subsequently married to Charles’s daughter, Catherine of Valois (1401 – 1437). However, following Henry V’s sudden and unexpected death in France two years later, two months before the sickly Charles VI did, Henry was succeeded by his infant son, who reigned as Henry VI (1421 – 1471). It was a case when lethal dysentery changed history.

When Jeanne said:”King of England, and you, duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of the kingdom of France… settle your debt to the king of Heaven; return to the Maiden, who is envoy of the king of Heaven, the keys to all the good towns you took and violated in France,” she is actually a child addressing an even smaller child, the king, and the legitimate head of the state of France.

All this mythology was prompted by Yolande of Aragon, queen of four kingdoms, who did not want to be vassal to a super power in the north. Or just loved power, whatever (she was in power, and a power, for 43 years).

The bottom line is that the events that Joan of Arc came to symbolize are all wrong (and it’s no wonder the so called Front National embraced her). Prior to this triumph of bigotry, what’s now called France and England, had been part of the same polity of more than a millennium. To celebrate Joan of Arc is to celebrate religious fanaticism of Osama bin Laden’s intensity, and the 400 years of further strife the victory of Yollande and Charles VII brought.

More details can be found in:

Was JOAN OF ARC ROASTED TOO LATE?

Nowadays, common commentators remember only this of the period: the Agincourt victory by the “English”, and the martyrdom of Jehanne. In Anglo-Saxon countries, the first is often used to prove the French are worthless, cowardly, inferior militarily idiots. The second is evoked to prove the viciousness of the English. Never mind that the victors of Agincourt were annihilated in a battle later, and that the southern French army developed a new weapon, field artillery, that allowed to kick the “English” out.

“English” that were French truly. Never mind too, that the main accuser of Jehanne was bishop Cauchon, who was French, whichever way one wanted to look at him (his aggressive philosophy led him later to accusations of heresy).

Joan of Arc, national hero, was nothing but: ultimately the war between Paris and London was rather lost by Paris. Certainly, that spirit of division and conflict weakened France: remember Louis XIV, chasing millions of Protestants out of France (maybe because he had been rendered mad by a festering hole in his nether region, which lasted decades).

Thus, in a way, Joan of Arc is the perfect festering, fanatical symbol for would be simple minded fascists.

Writing a new, and more correct, history, means throwing a lot of old myths, and their accompanying deleterious illusions, into the fire.

Patrice Ayme

 

 

 

Joan of Arc

Tags: Bigotry, Fanaticism, fascism, Joan of Arc, Le Pen, Myth, Nationalism