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2024.01.06 Joan of Arc Parade
D'Arcy and I went to the Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) parade, the first parade of the 2024 Mardi Gras season. The parade happens on January 6 each year. Besides being known as Epiphany, Little Christmas and Twelfth Night it is also her birthday.
St. Joan of Arc is a national heroine of France and is also considered the patron saint of New Orleans. She was a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans in 1429 that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War. But a series of missteps, including her failure to liberate Paris followed, and on May 23, 1430, she was captured by the Duke of Burgundy's men, jailed for more than a year and put on trial for charges including heresy, witchcraft and violating divine law for dressing like a man.
Although pro-English clergy had Joan burnt at the stake for heresy in 1431, she was rehabilitated in 1456 after a posthumous retrial. Subsequently, she became a folk saint among French Catholics and soldiers inspired by her story of being commanded by God to fight for France against England.
Joan's real name was Jehanne d'Arc, Jehanne Tarc, Jehanne Romée or possibly Jehanne de Vouthon—but she didn't go by any of these. Joan didn't hail from a place called Arc, as the typical Anglicization of her father's surname, d'Arc (sometimes rendered as Darc or Tarc), might imply. Interestingly, D'Arcy's name probably comes from the same root.
We always try to go to the Joan of Arc Mardi Gras Parade.
