Saint Joan

It’s a June night in 1456, 25 years after Joan’s execution. Charles VII—now 51 years old and known as Charles the Victorious on account of his military successes—lies reading in bed. Beside him is a table, upon which rests a picture of the Virgin Mary. Ladvenu enters Charles’s room and tells him that Joan has finally received justice. He’s come from an inquiry that exposed the court’s perjury. The Church now sees Joan as innocent and her accusers as corrupt. Charles doesn’t care about Joan’s reputation; he is only relieved to know that he wasn’t crowned by a heretic so many years before. Now, nobody can question his legitimacy as king. Wryly, he speculates that, if Joan could be magically resurrected, “they would burn her again within six months.” Ladvenu exits the room.

Suddenly, the candles go out. Charles hears Joan’s voice. She appears as an apparition, revealing herself to be a dream. Joan tells Charles she doesn’t remember much about being burned, and Charles tells her about the successful military pursuits he forged after her death. More importantly, he informs Joan that the court’s conduct has been ruled corrupt, her sentence has been reversed, and the Church will place a cross where they burned Joan to memorialize her. Joan replies simply: “it is the memory and the salvation that sanctify the cross, not the cross that sanctifies the memory and the salvation.” She believes her memory will “outlast that cross.” Charles scoffs at her characteristic “self-conceit.”

Suddenly, the apparition of Cauchon appears. After the Church declared Joan’s innocence, Cauchon—who was already dead—was excommunicated, his corpse tossed into the sewer. Embittered, he complains that his dishonoring “saps the foundation of the Church.” Cauchon maintains that he showed great mercy in his treatment of Joan—he was neither corrupt nor cruel. To Cauchon’s complaint, the Dauphin replies: “yes: it is always you good men that do the big mischiefs,” yet he defends his own inaction in saving Joan by claiming that he was acting on behalf of France’s national interest. Joan asks Charles if the English are gone, and the apparition of Dunois appears. Dunois—who is still alive—tells Joan he drove the English out using her successful military tactics. Dunois expresses remorse for letting the English burn Joan, making the excuse that he was busy fighting and couldn’t help her.

The clock strikes and the apparition of an English soldier appears, singing a rough, “improvised tune.” The soldier, a “saint,” has come “straight from hell.” He is granted one day free from damnation each year for his “one good action.” Joan recognizes the soldier and explains that he was the man who gave her the improvised cross in the final moments before her death. The soldier says that hell isn’t so bad; in fact, there are plenty of “emperors and popes and kings” there to keep him company.

The door opens and an old man enters: he reveals that he is Chaplain de Stogumber. Stogumber expresses remorse for the cruelty he inflicted upon Joan, though in his old age he does not recognize her before him. Joan’s execution might have been horrific, but Stogumber says it “saved” him, forcing him to become “a different man ever since.” Cauchon scoffs at this: “must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?” he asks. 

The Executioner appears, announcing that Joan’s strength of spirit makes her “more alive” than Stogumber. Warwick enters next and congratulates Joan on her cleared name. He apologizes, maintaining that her execution was not personal—it was “purely political,” and a mistake, at that. A “clerical looking gentleman” appears dressed in 1920s clothing, which the medieval characters find hilarious. The gentleman disregards their laughter, for he comes to them with serious business: he’s been sent to tell them that, 500 years after her death, the Catholic Church has canonized Joan as a saint, and she will be celebrated every year on May 30, the anniversary of her death. Joan is elated. One by one, each of the characters in the room kneel and praise Joan, offering the good she brings to the different sectors of society they represent.  

In response to everyone’s praise, Joan proposes that she rise from the dead and join them—she’s a saint now, after all, and can perform miracles. Darkness falls upon the room as everyone rises rapidly to their feet, making nervous and hasty excuses for why Joan cannot be resurrected: unanimously, they agree it would be best for Joan to remain dead. One by one, everyone leaves the room.

The soldier is the last character to go. He tries to comfort Joan, asserting that all those who left her to die are not worth her time. He insists that Joan has the same right to her own convictions as they do to theirs, if not more so. Suddenly, the clock strikes midnight and it is time for the soldiers to go: his day off from damnation is over, and he must return to hell. Alone, Joan cries out: “O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?”