Jeanne D'Arc, de Maagd van Orléans

This is the remarkable story of Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who heard divine voices and rode into battle to crown a king. Koopmans van Boekeren traces her journey from humble origins in Domrémy through her stunning military victories that lifted the siege of Orléans and changed the course of the Hundred Years' War, to her capture, show trial, and brutal execution at the stake. The account does not end with her death, however: it follows her rehabilitation and eventual canonization as a saint in 1920, when the church finally reversed the verdict of heresy. Published in 1916, during the cataclysm of the First World War, this Dutch account carries an eerie resonance, a story of a young woman who defied impossible odds, was betrayed by those she served, and was later vindicated. It is a meditation on faith, martyrdom, and the terrible price of conviction.