After “The Making of Joan of Arc,” the married couple Caroline and Thierry Dehayes continue their investigations into the Maid of France up to the castle of Jaulny (54) where one can still admire the portrait of Joan des Armoises.
They are teachers, history and literature professors in Le Mans. But Caroline and Thierry Dehayes could just as well have been cops conducting meticulous investigations in search of the perpetrator(s) of sordid crimes, tracking down drug trafficking networks, or hunting down the big shots of mafia networks. Nothing of the sort. Their research focuses on an extraordinary historical figure who changed the course of our history and whose life and death remain shrouded in thick mystery. Who was this medieval woman who dared to break free from all the codes and taboos of her time and whom we mistakenly call Joan of Arc?
A myth fabricated from whole cloth
To answer this simple question, Caroline and Thierry Dehayes went hunting. They searched libraries, public and private archives, visited dozens of castles and cathedrals, and questioned witnesses (from that era). And finally, they published two works.
The first, in 2021, is titled “The Making of Joan of Arc.” The authors demonstrate, with supporting evidence, that the myth of the little Lorraine shepherdess who saved the King of France was fabricated from whole cloth. A legend designed to feed the national narrative. No, Joan, called “of Arc,” was not born in Domrémy, she was not a shepherdess, she was not burned at Rouen on a great pyre. Nor was she the daughter of poor laborers, but a princess of royal blood. Joan of the Lily, Maid of France, was the daughter of the Queen of France, Isabeau of Bavaria, and her notorious lover, Louis of Orléans.
A Second Life
The second work titled “The Second Life of Joan of Arc, A Lorraine Firebrand,” published in June 2025, is the logical sequel to the first. The authors discuss with abundant detail and irrefutable documents the life of Joan after Wednesday, May 30, 1431, the date of the famous pyre of Rouen, until her death presumably in 1449.
The Maid of France reappears in 1436; she is recognized by all, notably by her brothers Pierre and Petit Jean, but also by the citizens of Metz, the bourgeois of Orléans, by Bishop Regnault de Chartres—the very same who crowned King Charles VII at Reims. And even by the king! The documents are there. Incontestable. The authors go even further; they examine Joan’s banner under a magnifying glass, her coat of arms, the various statues and images of the Maid left over time. The clues are numerous. Each one confirms the previously gathered elements and opens toward new leads, each one more solid than the last.
Sculptures on the Beams
Up to the castle of Jaulny, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, where Joan of the Lily, Maid of France, who became Lady Joan des Armoises, lived. It is here that one can still admire her portrait in medallion on the fireplace of the ceremonial salon, facing her husband, the knight Robert des Armoises.
Caroline and Thierry Dehayes also discovered on the beams of the old castle enigmatic sculptures for an uninformed eye. But which, for them, refer to a figure from the king’s entourage. The ornamentation of the medieval beams brings us back to Joan and her illustrious lineage.
The authors continue their quest for clues all the way to the church of Pulligny-sur-Madon (54), then their investigation leads them to the royal basilica of Cléry-Saint-André.
No, Joan of Arc is not the little uneducated and almost idiotic shepherdess of our history books, as Caroline and Thierry Dehayes brilliantly demonstrate. But a woman of high birth with a strong character whose faith and courage changed the course of History.
“The Making of Joan of Arc” by Thierry and Caroline Dehayes (Atlande Publishing) €19
“The Second Life of Joan of Arc, A Lorraine Firebrand,” by Caroline and Thierry Dehayes (Atlande Publishing). Preface by the new owners of Jaulny castle, Emmanuel Pénétrat and Aurore Thiébaut. June 2021. €21