ABSTRACT
Jeanne d’Arc, certified virgin and visionary, apparently possessed a remarkable power: while on the road and sleeping alongside of her soldier-companions, she was able to deflect any prurient thoughts that they might be having about her. At Jeanne’s posthumous Rehabilitation, the Duke of Alençon said that, even after seeing la Pucelle’s breasts-“quæ pulchræ erant” (“which were beautiful”)—he was not sexually aroused.1 One of the King’s men, Gobert Thibault, testified that he had questioned a number of soldiers, who asserted that “they never felt sensual desire when they saw her.”2 Jeanne’s squire Jean d’Aulon concurred:
[S]ometimes when I was dressing her wounds I have seen her legs quite bare, and I have gone close to her many times-and I was strong, young and vigorous in those days-never…was my body moved to any carnal desire for her, nor were any of her soldiers or squires moved in this way, as I have heard them say and tell many times.3
