Joan of Arc: Voices From Heaven (Part 1)

A teenage peasant girl claims God is speaking directly to her—and medieval Europe has a problem.

In Part 1 of The Maid’s Divine Politics, we rewind to the winter of 1429, when France is on the brink of extinction and the Hundred Years’ War looks all but lost. Into that collapse walks Joan of Arc: seventeen, illiterate, unheard of—and utterly convinced that saints are commanding her to save a kingdom. This episode follows Joan from a burned border village to the halls of power, tracing how private religious visions become a public political weapon powerful enough to terrify kings, theologians, and generals alike.

This isn’t the Joan of stained glass and slogans. This is Joan as a revolutionary idea—someone who proves that authority doesn’t only flow from crowns or churches, but can be claimed by ordinary people appealing to something higher. We explore the violence that shaped her childhood, the voices that drove her forward, and the moment she walks into the Dauphin’s court and does something that should have been impossible.

In this episode:

• A France collapsing under occupation, betrayal, and endless war
• A farm girl who hears voices—and refuses to ignore them
• The dangerous theology of direct divine authority
• Joan’s first confrontation with power at Vaucouleurs
• A throne room test that leaves the future king asking one question: What if she’s telling the truth?

This is the beginning of a four-part deep dive into how faith becomes politics, prophecy becomes power, and how one girl rewrites the rules of legitimacy forever.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Joan’s Story Matters
• 2:43 Reframing Legitimacy And Revolution
• 5:23 France On The Brink
• 9:42 Bacouleurs: Hope In Winter
• 13:10 Joan’s Claim Of Heavenly Voices
• 18:20 A Nation’s DNA And Destiny
• 20:30 France’s Collapse Explained
• 26:20 Border Life And Routiers
• 32:10 The First Visions In The Garden
• 37:55 From Piety To A Plan

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Alright. So for those of you who have been with the show since the early days, you might remember that we actually covered Joan of Arc before. Way back, I think it was episode five or six. We tried to cram her entire story into one episode, and it was about forty-five minutes or so. And honestly, I've been thinking about that episode a lot lately, and I realized that I did not do her justice. Because Joan of Arc is one of those figures where the more you dig, the more you realize you're dealing with someone who has genuinely altered the course of human history, not just French history, really world history. So we're doing it again. Properly this time. Three full episodes. And here's why I believe Joan of Arc deserves this treatment. Take every revolution you know about, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, anti-colonial movements across Africa and Asia. Every single one is built in this idea that regular people can claim political legitimacy through the appeal to higher authority, that peasants can challenge kings, that nations have sacred missions, that foreign occupation isn't just inconvenient, that it is morally wrong on a cosmic level, universal law. I believe Joan of Arc invents that. Keep this in mind. She was a seventeen-year-old illiterate farm girl from a village so small that it barely made its name known in medieval times, and she makes a claim that God speaks to her directly through an angel. She walks 300 miles through a war zone, convinces the heir of the French throne to give her an army, and then proceeds to change the outcome of the Hundred Years' War. She creates a template, a moment when she proves that divine authority can flow directly to the people. And that becomes embedded in French DNA so deeply that you can trace it through to Charles de Gaulle, through the resistance, to Nazi occupation, through modern French exceptionalism. France still thinks of itself as having a special mission, a unique relationship with destiny. Today we're gonna see how this happens. How a teenage girl hearing voices in her father's garden becomes a hinge point of European history, how religious visions becomes political revolution, and how Joan weaponized piety so effectively that it terrified every power structure in medieval Europe. And an important part of her story is the setting into which it happened. By the time she comes into the scene, the Hundred Years' War has been grinding on since 1337. England controls most of France. The French king is basically powerless. Everything points towards English victory being inevitable. And then Joan shows up and just rewrites the script. Before we dive in, if you're getting something out of these episodes, again the best thing that you can do is leave us a rating or a review wherever you're listening. It actually makes a huge difference in helping other people discover the show. And if you know someone who'd be into this kind of deep dive into how single moments can create national character, please share it with them. Word of mouth is always the best approach and is how the show spreads. Alright, we're going to January of 1429, a French garrison town where hope has frozen solid and a peasant girl is about to thaw it. It is winter in Bacouleurs, France. Bacouleurs is a French garrison town that's been holding out against English and Burgundian forces for years now. It is a place where hope has frozen solid. The only thing keeping people going is the fact that giving up means certain death. We are in Bacouleurs, Friends, on January the 13th, 1429. Robert de Budget Corps is in his hall. Trying to conduct a routine business of keeping a garrison town alive during a seemingly endless war. He's a garrison commander, a minor nobleman who spent the last few years watching France collapse around him. He's forty something, tired, deeply skeptical of anything that sounds like good news because good news in 1429 is usually a prelude to something worse. He's a severe and ruthless man. One who has lived through a violent age through the period of the Hundred Years War. A guard enters. Melor, there's a girl here. Again. Budra Courseites. The one with the voices? Yes, Melor. She's brought her uncle this time. This is the third time. Sixteen year old Jean Dioc, we'll call her Joan because that's what history remembers, has walked twenty five miles from her village of Don Remy to tell Baudricor that God has sent her to save France. The first two times he threw her out. Politely the first time, less politely the second. Joan walks in, and Baudricor later admits he has trouble describing her. She's short, maybe five feet tall. Dark hair cut in a bowl shape that makes her look even younger than the 17 years she claims. She's dressed in a patched red wool dress that seemed better days. Nothing about her appearance suggests anything except poverty and determination. But her voice. Her voice has this quality that makes people listen even when they don't want to. She's using the formal French of a peasant addressing nobility, but there's something in her tone that makes it sound less like a petition and more like a reminder of something he's forgotten. I have come in the name of my Lord to tell you to send word to the Dauphin to hold firm. Before Midland, my Lord will give him aid. Badricor leans back. You mean God? I mean the King of Heaven. This is the moment that changes everything. Though nobody in the room knows it yet. Because what Joan is doing here, what she's claiming, is so theologically and politically dangerous that it should get her arrested immediately. She's saying she has direct communications with God, not through a priest, not through the church hierarchy, not through any normal channels that medieval Christianity uses to regulate religious authority. Just her. She continues. And now her voice is getting stronger, more confident. But my Lord will make him king in spite of his enemies. I myself will lead him to his coronation. Roger Kor stares at her. Maybe throws her in jail. But something stops him. Maybe it's the absolute certainty in her voice. Maybe it is that he's been defending and losing in a war for so long that even impossible hope sounds better than the alternative. And who, he asks slowly, is this Lord who speaks to you? Joan's answer is immediate, rehearsed through months of practice in her father's garden. Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. They come to me in the light and tell me what God commands. Here's what you need to understand about that answer. Joan just claimed that three of the most important saints in Christian tradition, Michael the Archangel, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch, are personally instructing her to overthrow the established political order. She's saying heaven itself has chosen her, a peasant, to do what kings and armies have failed to do. This is either divine revelation or heresy. There's no middle ground. Badrikor is looking at the teenage girl and trying to figure out which one he's dealing with. My lord, Joan says, now her voice drops lower, more intimate. I would rather spin beside my mother, for this is not my proper work. But I must go and I must do it because my Lord wills it. Wadric Court doesn't answer immediately. Outside, his garrison continues his daily routine. Soldiers training, merchants haggling, life grinding forward in the war zone. Inside this room, a seventeen-year-old girl has just claimed that God has chosen her to save France. In four weeks, Baudrecourt will give her an escort to Chinon. In two months, she'll be meeting the Dauphin. In three months, she'll be leading an army. Right now, in this frozen moment in January of 1429, is looking at Joan and thinking one simple thought. What if she's telling the truth? This is part one of the Joan of Arc Story, Voices from Heaven. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes? Well, I'd argue you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history. Not just to highlight Rio or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA. Those defining moments that shaped everything that came after. Those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, Paul, and this is Double Helix, Blueprint of Nations, where we unraveled the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are today. Before we can understand what Joan does, we need to understand the France that she grows up in. And that means understanding how completely, catastrophically broken, France is by the 1420s. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337 as a dynastic dispute. The English king, Edward III, claimed the French throne to his mother. The French said inheritance couldn't pass through women, and what should have been resolved by lawyers instead got resolved by armies. For the first 80 years, it's mostly English victories punctuated by French defeats. Chrissy, Poitiers, Agincourt. These battles become synonymous with English military supremacy and French humiliation. But by the 1420s, it's evolved into something worse than military defeat. It's become existential crisis. In 1420, the insane French king, Charles VI, and I mean literally insane, suffering from recurrent psychotic episodes where he thinks he's made out of glass and will shatter if he's touched, signs the Treaty of Trois. This treaty disinherits his own son, recognizes the English king, Henry V as heir to France, and essentially the Souls France as an independent kingdom. Charles VI's son, the Dauphin, Charles, and later called Charles VII, holds a rung kingdom south of the Loire River. The English controlled the north, including Paris. Duke of Burgundy, who should be a French vassal, has allied with England because the Dauphin's supporters murdered his father in 1419 during peace negotiations. So now France is fighting both England and a significant chunk of itself. This is the France that Joan is born into around 1412. A France where the question isn't, will we win this war, but rather, will France exist in ten years? Let me take you to the village where Joan grows up. Don Remy sits right on the frontier between French loyal territory and Burgundian controlled land. It is small, maybe 50 families, a church, some fields, and a mill. Joan's father, Jacques D'Yard, is what historians called a peasant of meats. He owns his land, pays rent to a local lord, has a stonehouse instead of a waddle and dub cottage. By peasant standards the family is doing well. By any other standard, they're poor. The village's position on the border means allegiance is complicated. Most of Don Remy is loyal to the Dauphin, but the next village over supports Burgundy. This is an abstract political theory. This is which tax collector shows up, which soldiers you have to feed, which side will burn your crops if you bet wrong. And then there are routers. These are mercenary companies, disbanded soldiers, armed men who figured out that in a country with broken authority, you can take whatever you want. These are not armies with flags and commanders, they're predators in armor who raid villages for food, money, or anything valuable or sellable, including people. Let me take you to a scene Joan will remember for the rest of her life. It is the summer of 1425. Joan is 13 years old, tending her father's sheep in the fields outside Don Remy. The warning comes from a boy running from the direction of the main road. Routiers are coming. The village has 10 minutes to prepare. Everyone who can runs to the fortified church. Joan, her parents, her siblings, and her neighbors. Maybe 50 people total crowd into a space meant for stunning men. Outside, you can hear horses shout and the sounds of doors being kicked in. Furniture smashed, the rootiers search for hidden values. Joan is pressed against a stone wall, trying to make herself small, listening to her mother pray the rosary in a whisper. She can hear Madame LeBlanc crying because the rootiers are in her house. She can hear the smoke from burning thatch starting to drift through the church's high windows. The root tiers eventually leave. They always do, moving on to the next village. But something fundamental shifts in Jones during those hours. She'll testify at her trial. In my youth, I saw blood spilled on the ground. Not metaphorical blood, actual blood. From people she knew, spilled by men who wore crosses on their armor and called themselves Christian soldiers. This is what war looks like for peasants in fifteenth century France. Not glorious charges or noble sacrifices, just random violence from men in armor who take what they want because there is no authority strong enough to stop them. And this is when Joan starts hearing voices. Let me take you to Jock D. Arc's garden about a week after the raid. It is summer, around noon. And Joan is supposedly watching the family's sheep, but mostly she's praying. She's been doing this a lot lately. Going to the church every day, sometimes multiple times. Her mother thinks she's becoming obsessive about religion, which for a medieval peasant is saying something. Joan will describe this moment very precisely at her trial. I was in my father's garden. I heard a voice coming from the direction of the church, and with the voice came light. The way she tells it, the light is overwhelming, brilliant, almost blinding. And in that light, shapes form. First, Saint Michael the Archangel, armor and carrying a sword. Later, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, the virgin martyrs, crowned and glowing. The message is simple at first. Be good, go to church, live piously. France needs you. At thirteen, Joan has no idea what to do with this last part. France needs her? She's an illiterate peasant girl from a village so small most maps don't include it. She's never been more than a few miles from Dont Remy. Her biggest responsibilities are making sure the sheep don't wander and helping her mother with household work. The idea that France, this vast broken kingdom she's heard about but's never seen, needs her specifically is absurd. So she tries to ignore that part. She focuses on being good, going to church, praying more. Her family notices she's becoming unusually devout. The local priest starts to worry she's taking piety a little too far. The Joan keeps hearing the voices, and gradually, over months and then years, the message becomes more specific. Go to Vaucolieuse, find Robert de Vaudricord, the garrison commander. Tell him to give you an escort to Chinon. Find the Dauphin. Tell him he's a true king. Lead an army to Orleans, crown the king at Ron. Now, here's what makes Joan's story psychologically extraordinary. These aren't vague spiritual promptings. These are specific, detailed instructions that require intimate knowledge of French politics. Somehow she knows about the Siege of Orleans, the city that's become the linchpin of French resistance, currently surrounded by English forces and hanging by a threat. She knows about Rome, being the traditional coronation site for French kings, and why Charles the Seventh's failure to be crowned there undermines his legitimacy. She knows about the political crisis created by the Treaty of Troy, about the Dauphin's doubts regarding his own legitimacy, and about the desperate state of French morale. How does an illiterate 17-year-old peasant girl know any of this? The answer is probably less mystical than it sounds. It's about the news. News travels, even to small villages. Soldiers pass through, bring in stories, merchants gossip at markets, refugees from besieged cities stop and honor me and share what they've seen. The church is where most information congregates. Priests read letters, discuss politics, share news from other parishes. Joan spends all her free time in the church. She's listening, absorbing, piecing together a picture of France's political situation from fragments of overheard conversations. But this is crucial. Joan genuinely believes the voices are real. This isn't theater. This isn't a calculated political move. She'll maintain this belief through three weeks of theological examination, through imprisonment, through torture, through being burned alive. Either she's experiencing authentic religious visions, or she's experiencing auditory hallucinations so convincing that they override every survival instinct, every social pressure, every rational calculation telling her to shut up and live quietly. Let me take you to the The Arc House in early 1428. Joan is now sixteen, and the voices have become urgent. They are telling her she must go to Baucoliers, that France is running out of time, that Orléans will fall unless she acts. She's trying to explain this to her father, and it's going about as well as you can expect. Jack the Arc is a practical man. He survived decades of war by keeping his head down, paying his taxes, staying out of politics. The idea that his daughter wants to leave home, travel through a war zone, approach a garrison commander, and claim she's on a divine mission to save France. This is the kind of thing that gets families destroyed. You will not go to Bauculiers, he tells her. People will think you're mad. Jones' response is quiet but absolute. I must do what God commands. God commands that you stay home and help your mother. And why do the saints keep telling me to go? There's a silence that falls over the room, a kind of silence that comes when someone has just said something that can't be unsaid. Jock has actually had a dream about Joan running off with soldiers. In the dream to preserve the family's honor, he drowns her. He's told Joan's brothers that if she tries to leave with soldiers, they should drown her. And if they won't, he will. This is how seriously medieval families take reputation and honor. Jack isn't evil or abusive. He's just terrified that his daughter is going to destroy everything the family has built, and possibly get herself killed in the process. But Joan has made her decision. The voices are getting more urgent. Orleans is under siege. She knows this because refugees pass through Donremy constantly now, telling stories of English bombardment, starvation, of the city hanging on by its fingernails. If Orléans falls, the war is basically over. Dauphin's kingdom will be reduced to a rump state in the south. France will cease to exist as an independent kingdom. In May of 1428, Joan convinces her uncle, Duran Laxat, to take her to Vaucolieus. Baudricor throws her out. He tells Laxat to take his niece home and give her a good slap to cure her of the foolishness. She tries again in January of 1429. Baudricor throws her out again, less politely this time. And then she tries a third time. On January the 13th, 1429, this is where we open the episode. Joan is standing in Baudricourt's hall, telling him that God has sent her to save France, that before mid-Lent she'll deliver the Dauphin from his enemies. This time, Baudricor listens, because this time something has changed. What changes between Joan's second and third visit to Bacoliers is the military situation, and by changes, I mean it collapses completely. Orleans, the last major French held city north of the Loire River, is under full siege now. If Orleans falls, the war is over. Dauphin's kingdom will be cut off from the northern territories that still support him. England will control everything that matters economically and symbolically. Charles VII might as well pack up and become a minor southern duke, because King of Friends will be a title that means absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, Charles himself is running out of everything money, soldiers, allies, and hope. His treasury is nearly empty. His armies keep losing. His opposed vassals are making separate peace deals with England. He's twenty six years old, uncrowned because the English hold wrong, and watching his inheritance dissolve. Into this disaster zone comes Joan's prophecy. Before Midland, my lord will give him aid. Midlent is March 14th, and it is now late January. Joan is promising divine intervention in six weeks. Bodracor has been investigating Joan since her second visit. He's a practical military commander, a ruthless man, not given to mysticism, but he's also desperate enough that he's willing to at least look into whether this passing girl might be something other than delusional. What he discovers is interesting. Joan is exactly who she claims to be, daughter of Jacques D'Arc from Dont Remy, known in her village as unusually pious but otherwise ordinary. Her neighbors describe her as spending excessive time in church, but her priest vouches for her religious orthodoxy. There's no evidence of demonic influence, no sign of the kind of heresy that would get you burned. Or intriguingly, there are stories. Small things. Joan apparently predicted a French defeat at the Battle of Foubray, the so called Battle of the Herrings, where a supply convoy was destroyed before news officially reached Enri. People remember her saying things were going to happen and then they did. Is this prophecy? Or is it a smart girl with good sources paying attention to military movements and making educated guesses? Fadricor has no idea. But here's what he does know. The French are losing, morale is broken, and Joan is promising that God is in on France's side. What's the worst that can happen? Dauphin laughs at her and sends her home. What's the best that can happen? Maybe having someone claim divine mandate helps you when you're fighting a war, everyone assumes you've already lost. But before Baudricor commits to sending Joan to Chinon, he needs to be sure she's not possessed. Let me take you to the parish church in Vaucoliers in late January 1429. Father John Fonnier is conducting what essentially is an exorcism examination. Joan kneels before him while he performs the ritual test. Holy water, sacred relics, the questions designed to reveal demonic influence. Fournier watches her carefully. Demons, according to medieval theology, can't tolerate the presence of holy objects. They blaspheme, they flee, they reveal themselves through fear and hatred of God. Joan does none of these things. She prays calmly. She answers his theological questions with surprising sophistication for an illiterate peasant. Her faith appears genuine, orthodox, and deeply held. Fonier would later testify that he found nothing wrong with her. Whatever the source of Joan's voice is, she's not possessed, she's not a witch, and she's not a heretic. She's either genuinely experiencing divine communication, or she's so convinced she is that the distinction becomes meaningless. This is the theological loophole Joan has found. Probably without understanding she's finding it. She's too orthodox to become down a heretic, but she's claiming direct divine communication that bypasses every layer of church hierarchy. She's saying God talks to her, a peasant, without needing priests or bishops to interpret. This is revolutionary. This is dangerous. But it's also technically permissible within the Catholic theology, provided the content of the revelation doesn't contradict church teaching. And Joan's revelations are brilliantly safe. Save France, crown the king, expel the English. These aren't radical theological claims, these are patriotic political programs wrapped in divine authority. On February 23, 1429, Vaudrecourt makes his decision. He's going to send Joan to Chenon with the armed escort and a letter of introduction to the Dauphin. The letter essentially says, I'm sending you this girl who claims God speaks to her. I have no idea if she's legitimate, but at this point, what have you got to lose? But before Joan leaves, she makes a request that scandals everyone present. She wants to wear men's clothing. Let me take you to a small room where Joan is being fitted for traveling clothes. This is a much bigger deal than it sounds to modern ears. In medieval Christian theology, cross-dressing is associated with moral corruption, sexual deviance, and demonic influence. Deuteronomy explicitly forbids it. Women who wear men's clothing can be accused of witchcraft. She also has a theological argument, though she doesn't fully articulate it until her trial. God commanded me to wear this clothing. If the voices are divine, then they supersede Old Testament prohibitions. Quadricor allows it, probably because he figures if Joan gets arrested for cross-dashing before reaching Shinon, that's one less thing he has to explain to his superiors. Joan is given a tunic, hose, boots, a sword, and a horse. She's given an escort of six men at arms, including John de Metz and Batran de Pouligny, two minor nobles who decided Joan might actually be legitimate. And then they ride out into one of the most dangerous military zones in Europe. Let me take you into one night during the eleven-day journey to Chinon. It's maybe the fourth night, somewhere between Bacoliers and Auxerre, deep in territory that's nominally French but functionally anarchic. Joan's escorts have chosen to travel at night to avoid English and Burgundian patrols. They're moving through a forest, single file, trying to keep the horses quiet. Jean de Metz is in front, guiding them through a path that might or might not still be safe. Joan rides in the middle, clutching her reins, her male clothing helping her blend into the group, but doing nothing to calm her nerves about being this far from home. Suddenly, from somewhere to their left, they hear voices. English voices, judging by the accent. Though it's hard to tell in the darkness. The patrol is maybe two hundred yards away, close enough that if Joan's group makes a wrong move, they'll be detected. Demets signals everyone to stop. They freeze, listening to the English soldiers pass close enough that they can hear individual conversations, someone complaining about the cold, someone else laughing at a joke. The patrol passes within fifty yards of where Joan's group is hiding. When the English are finally gone, the Mets turns to check on Joan, expecting to find her terrified. Instead, she's calm. God is protecting us, she says simply. As if this is an obvious fact that requires no further discussion. This happens multiple times during the journey. Close calls, near misses, moments when by old rights they should have been captured or killed. Each time, Joan remains eerily confident. She tells her escorts that the voices guide her, that they'll arrive safely, that God has already determined the outcome of this journey. The Mets will later testify about this with something approaching awe. He describes Joan as fearless, riding through enemy territory like she knows exactly where she's going and has zero doubts about arriving safely. Either she's experiencing genuine divine protection or she has such absolute faith in her mission that fear becomes impossible. They cross the Loire River at night. They avoid major roads, they sleep rough, Joan always maintaining her male clothing, never once acting like the danger therein might be real, and somehow, impossibly, they make it. On March 6, 1429, eleven days after leaving Baculiers, Joan arrives at Chinon Castle. She's traveled 300 miles through occupied territory. She's crossed enemy lines multiple times. She's evaded English patrols and Burgundian forces. And now she's about to meet the heir to the French throne. The Dauphin's court has no idea what to make of her. Charles VII makes Joan wait two days before agreeing to see her. This is partly prodigal, heirs to kingdoms don't immediately receive peasants who show up claiming divine missions, and partly strategic caution. Charles has learned through bitter experience to be skeptical of anything that sounds too good to be true. But Charles is also curious. Wadricor's letter describes Joan as claiming she can identify the Dauphin through divine revelation. So, Charles decides to stage a test. When Joan is finally brought to the throne room on the evening of March the 9th, he's dressed in ordinary court clothing and standing among a group of courtiers. Someone else, a nobleman in a fancy dress, sits on the throne. Let me take you into that moment. The doors to the great hall open, and Joan walks in wearing the male clothing she's adopted for travel. Tunic, hose, boots that are probably still muddy from three hundred miles of hard riding. The court is peck. Maybe fifty nobles, advisers, clerks, all watching to see if this peasant girl who claims to speak with God is legitimate or just another in a long line of people claiming divine authority to get close to power. The men on the throne, dressed in fine clothing, sitting with appropriate royal bearing, must be the Dauphin, right? That's the obvious conclusion. But Joan doesn't even glance at him. She walks straight past the throne, her eyes scanning the crowd, and then she moves directly towards a cluster of courtiers near the wall. She kneels before a man in relatively plain clothing who's been trying to blend in into the background. God give you life, gentle Dauphin, she says. The hall goes silent, absolutely silent. The kind of silence that comes when something impossible has just happened in front of fifty witnesses. Charles stares at her. He's twenty six years old, struggling with constant doubt about his legitimacy. His mother had multiple affairs, and there's a persistent rumor that he's not actually the son of Charles VI. He's on crown because the English control wrong. He's losing a war that's been grinding on for nearly a century. And now, a seventeen-year-old peasant girl has just identified him in a room full of nobles without even having seen him before. I am not the king, Charles says carefully. The king is over there, gestures towards the man of the throne. Joan looks at Charles with something approaching pity. You are, she says simply, the king of heaven sends me to you with the message that you shall be anointed and crowned in the city of Ron, and that you shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is the King of France. We will leave the story here for now, with Joan kneeling before the Dauphin in a crowded throne room, fifty witnesses watching something that should be impossible. A peasant girl who's just walked past the obvious decoys and identified the heir to the French throne through what she claims is divine revelation. How did she know? That's the question spreading through Charles's court within minutes of this scene. Did someone describe Charles to her during the two days she was waiting? Did one of her escorts recognize him and tip her off? Or did God actually reveal it to her the way she claims? Medieval people chose the divine explanation. They start seeing Joan as either a miracle or a witch, with basically no middle ground. Modern historians lean towards the practical. Joan was smart, she had good intelligence, she knew what Charles looked like because someone told her. But here's what matters. Joan believes the divine explanation with such absolute conviction that she'll maintain it through examination, imprisonment, torture, and execution. And Charles Charles is looking at this teenage girl thinking one very simple thing. What if she's telling the truth? Because if Joan can identify him through divine revelation, then maybe the other things that she's claiming is also true. Maybe God does speak to her. Maybe God has chosen her. Maybe there is a way out of this nightmare that's been consuming the kingdom for nearly a century. Next time, on double helix, Joan faces the theologians. How does a 17-year-old illiterate peasant girl defend claims of divine communication against some of the best theological minds in France? How does she thread the needle between heresy and orthodoxy? And what happens when Charles finally decides to gamble everything on the voices of a teenager's head? The examination at Poitiers, the sacred store of Fierbois, and Joan's journey to the deceased city that will make or break her divine mission. Until then, thank you for listening.