When most people think of Joan of Arc, they picture the siege of Orléans or the coronation at Reims. But Paris played a crucial—and initially hostile—role in the story of France’s most celebrated heroine, a role that would later transform into one of redemption and remembrance.
In September 1429, fresh from her victories in the Loire Valley, Joan of Arc led an assault on Paris itself. The city was then held by the Burgundians, allies of the English during the Hundred Years’ War. On September 8th, Joan’s forces attacked the Porte Saint-Honoré, attempting to breach the city walls. The attack failed. Joan herself was wounded by a crossbow bolt to the thigh as she stood in the moat, urging her soldiers forward. The failed siege of Paris marked the beginning of the end of her military career—within months, she would be captured and eventually burned at the stake in Rouen.
But Paris’s connection to Joan of Arc didn’t end with that failed assault. Twenty-five years after her execution, the city became central to her rehabilitation. In 1456, Pope Callixtus III ordered a retrial of Joan’s case, and much of the appellate process took place in Paris. The rehabilitation trial, which overturned her conviction for heresy, heard testimony from witnesses and examined documents at Notre-Dame de Paris. Theologians from the University of Paris—the same institution whose faculty had supported her original condemnation—now participated in clearing her name. The nullification trial declared her innocent and proclaimed her a martyr.
Monuments and Memory
Today, Paris honors the woman who once bled trying to liberate it. The most prominent memorial stands in the Place des Pyramides, near the Tuileries Garden and the spot where Joan was wounded in 1429. The gilded equestrian statue, created by Emmanuel Frémiet and inaugurated in 1874, shows Joan in full armor astride her horse, holding her banner high. Every year on the second Sunday of May, a ceremony is held at the statue to commemorate her mission to save France.
Inside the Panthéon, the great mausoleum of French heroes, Joan appears in the monumental murals by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu, depicting scenes from her life. The church of Saint-Augustin in the 8th arrondissement contains a statue of her, and numerous street names across the capital bear her name, including Rue Jeanne d’Arc in the 13th arrondissement.
A Complex Legacy
The relationship between Paris and Joan of Arc reflects the complex, often contradictory nature of French history. The city that once resisted her, whose university doctors condemned her, later became instrumental in her vindication and ultimately embraced her as a symbol of French courage and unity. From her canonization as a saint in 1920 to her adoption as a symbol by political movements across the spectrum, Joan’s image has been continually reinterpreted in the Parisian imagination.
For visitors interested in the full story of this remarkable figure, her journey from peasant girl to military leader to martyr to saint remains one of France’s most compelling narratives. In Paris, the monuments and places associated with her offer a window into how a city once hostile to her cause eventually became one of the primary guardians of her memory, transforming a military defeat into a story of national redemption.
Tours & experiences in Paris
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