Review: Joan of Arc: The Night Before by Ad Astera

by Michael Meigs
Published on October 15, 2009

'Joan of Arc, The Night Before. . . . ' has the naked force of psycho-drama, a quality that is both its strength and its weak point.

Imprisoned by the English, unransomed by Charles VII although he owed his coronation to her, the 19-year-old Jeanne d'Arc was convicted of heresy by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake in Rouen in 1431. From the age of 12, this illiterate girl from a peasant family had had visions of saints urging the expulsion of the English armies from France. Through force of personality she managed to reach the court of the despairing …

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