Charred remains could be Joan of Arc’s

PARIS (RNS) — Nearly 700 years after the death of Joan of Arc, a French forensic team hopes a series of tests will prove whether charred fragments of skin and bones might be those of the 15th-century heroine.

The farm girl from Champagne helped mount a campaign against the British in Orleans, after she was said to have received messages from God that she would be France’s savior in the Hundred Years’ War. But Joan of Arc soon fell from grace, and was convicted of heresy and witchcraft in a politically motivated trial.

In 1431, two years after the Orleans campaign, the 19-year-old was burned at the stake no less than three times.

But just 25 years later, a French court declared her innocence in a “rehabilitation trial.” In 1909, Joan of Arc was beatified, and in 1920 made a saint.