It has been a rough year for the French, not that anyone here is shedding any tears for them. Now, comes the worst news of all: that St. Joan of Arc, the demi—goddess national hero of France's greatest patriotic tale, has been debunked as a fake, a phony martyr used by the monarchy to fabricate a miracle and lend itself legitimacy.

 A Ukrainian orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Serhiy Horbenko, with an extraordinary international reputation for his ability to examine skeletons and draw conclusions about appearance, nutrition, battle injuries, fitness, and other data, was invited by French authorities to examine the skulls and skeletons of France's medieval royals, and shed light on that period's history.

Once the good doctor got access to the crypts at Basilica of Notre Dame de Cléry near Orléans, he asked for and received permission to investigate all the remains therein, not just the immediate royal family. Pity the poor bureaucrat who signed that permission order!

He concluded that the woman who was burned on the pyre was not St. Joan at all. The woman who led the troops against the British at Orleans was in fact a noblewoman called Marguerite de Valois, the illegitimate daughter of the previous monarch Charles VI. She performed her role in battle so well that she would have become a threat to the sitting monarch. Thus, in Dr. Horbenko's words, 'I believe that a group of nobles thought up the plan, in a time when people were deeply religious and believed in miracles, to influence the French people and armies and to demoralise the English. They wanted a woman sent by God to defend France and to legitimise the Dauphin's claim to the throne... I think that if she had revealed her Valois lineage, she could have secured the backing of enough nobles and soldiers to overthrow the Dauphin'

The actual woman known as Joan, whose identity was appropriated for reasons of state, lived on for decades afterward. The poor nobody who was actually burned at the stake was most likely a woman already convicted of witchcraft, and therefore readily available for immolation.

The French, of course, are doing their best to keep the story out of the press, and to cast aspersions in the very expert they themselves invited into their country to shed light on their history. Olivier Reffier, a senior official within the French Culture Ministry sniffed that the expert's conclusions was nothing more than speculation.

According to the London Independent, 'Denise Reynaud, the deputy mayor at Cléry who commissioned Dr Horbenko described the Ukrainian as a 'very difficult man to work with owing to his Slavic temparment'.'

How very French of him.

Posted by Thomas 12 27 03