Teen Angel

Painters used her, too, and with comparable license. Sir Peter Paul Rubens's armored Joan is characteristically Rubenesque; like so many of his women she has long, red uncut hair. In 1854, long before the Vatican canonized her in 1920, J.A.D. Ingres, that meticulous French master, supplied her with a halo. In 1904, Howard Pyle, who illustrated books for boys, made her an action hero, but then she wasn't yet a saint.

The best of the Joan paintings in the Corcoran's exhibition are the six by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1851-1913) that belong to the museum, and they are one of the good reasons for this thorough show.

It's no wonder all these artists have found her irresistible. Her story, the stuff of legend, is as fabulous as Helen of Troy's, or the Amazons', or Wonder Woman's, except it isn't a legend. At both of her long trials every word was written down, and both transcripts survive. Joan is not a fantasy. She may be the best-documented woman of her age. You have to read a lot of exhibition labels, and absorb a lot of information, before Joan's concentric dramas start whirling through your mind.

War dramas: The tide of battle turned in the Hundred Years War when Joan's swarming army raised the siege of Orleans in 1429. "I was the first to set a ladder against the fortress," she remembered, "and, as I raised it, I was wounded in the throat by a cross-bow bolt. But I did not cease to ride . . ."

Mystery plays: Joan was just 13 when she heard the voice of Michael the Archangel. She said: "The first time, I was terrified. The voice came to me about noon: it was summer, and I was in my father's garden. . . . There was a great light all about. . . . And the voice said that I would raise the siege of Orleans."

The wondrous sword: Joan's was found beneath a stone "behind the altar" in a church at Fierbois. "It was found there all rusted, and on it there were five crosses . . . , and the rust fell away of itself." Joan swore she never killed a man, but she often carried steel. "I loved that sword," she said.

Legal dramas: After she'd been captured, and handed to her enemies, Joan underwent two long iffy trials. She was convicted at the first, in May 1431, after scores of learned theologians allied with the English testified against her. Young Joan, the judges ruled, was "a witch," an "enchantress" and "a caller-up of evil spirits" whose inexcusable behavior had been "perturbing and obstructing." Also she'd "indecently put on the ill-fitting dress of men." Offered life in prison, Joan was willing to recant "for fear of the fire," but her recantations did no good. They burnt her two weeks later in the Old Market Place in Rouen.

Boutet de Monvel's paintings, with their ruby reds and emerald greens and hammered-in gold leaf, look like medieval reliquaries, except there aren't any Joan reliquaries because there aren't any Joan relics. Her executioners, to ensure this, first burnt her into ashes, then threw her ashes in the Seine.

Twenty-five years later she was exonerated on appeal, a worthy decision, but late.

We don't know what she looked like, but we'll never lose her voice.

Asked if she could read the charges lodged against her, she said, "I do not know A from B." When asked if the Archangel had appeared before her naked, she had just the right response: "Do you think that God has not wherewith to clothe him?"

As to dressing like a man: "I was many times admonished to wear women's clothing: I refused, and I still refuse. As to other womanly duties, there are enough other women to perform them."

To intimidate the witness, the prosecuting clerics kept administering new oaths.

"I promise to tell the truth," said Joan, "and the more you make me swear, the longer it will be before I tell you."

The more you read her words the more you feel you know her. She never lies or dodges. She is never impolite. She doesn't seem the least bit crazy. Although frightened, for good reason, she seems utterly sincere.

There are 200 objects in the Corcoran's exhibit. Lots seem hyped or hokey. Many serve their own agendas (Napoleon's medal, for example). Some are souvenirs, others are just ads. Joan rises above all of them. Those things are merely artifacts. She's the real thing.