ed Dunois, the bastard son of Louis d'Orleans, and others of the Dauphin's circle to attack at Orleans. The city was delivered to the French in 1429, and on the wave of victory, Joan led Charles to the sacred ceremony of coronation at Reims two months later. She was captured by the Burgundians at Compiegne
in May 1430 and was then sold to the English. She was tried as
a heretic by the Church in the service of the English, and she was burned at the stake at Rouen in May 1431. It was essential to the English that she be so condemned because she claimed to have been inspired by God: if this claim were not disallowed, then God, the arbiter of the affairs of men, would have been shown to be on the side of France against the English. Charles VII owed her his crown, but neither he nor any of the French made any effort to ransom or save her, perhaps from the embarrassment of the nobility at having been led to victory by a village girl. Joan's life and death did not instantly generate a national resistance, but still the English thereafter were fighting a losing battle. Reunification was a process that took some time to accomplish, but the path was now clear (Tuchman 588-589).
At the last, nothing would move Joan of Arc from her convic-tions concerning the intervention of the saints in her life. She was positive that she had heard, seen, touched, and even smelled them hundreds of times over a period of seven years. She finally prefe
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