Joan Of Arc Statue - Pondicherry

Joan of Arc (ca. 1412 - 30 May 1431), nicknamed "The Maid of Orleans", is considered a heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. She was born to a peasant family at Domremy in north-east France. Joan said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years War.

The uncrowned King Charles VII sent Joan to the siege of Orleans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted in only nine days. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims. On 23 May 1430, she was captured at Compiegne by the English-allied Burgundian faction, was later handed over to the English, and then put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges, was convicted on 30 May 1431 and burned at the stake when she was about 19 years old.

Twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is one of the nine secondary patron saints of France.

Due to the French influence in Puducherry this life-size statue in white marble, a gift by Francois Gaudart, was erected in 1923 in the middle of a garden and facing the Church of Our Lady of Angels.

YouTube : Joan of Arc History (Tamil)