For four hundred years many people thought Joan was only a legend. It seemed impossible such a person could have really existed. Then in the 1830s a Frenchman found the original documents relating to her trial and the "Rehabilitation" investigation done years after her death. The impossible legend was true! If anybody else had set out to do what Joan did they would have failed miserably. But Joan of Arc was a genius in the highest rank. Mark Twain said Joan was "easily and by far the most remarkable person the human race has ever produced." (1906 essay) Winston Churchill said, "Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years." (The Birth of Britain) Yet can you believe it, ladies and gentlemen? I went into a Catholic bookstore and found only one book about Joan, which I already had. There were no pictures or statues of her at all. What a tragic waste of an example in whom anybody, male or female, young or old, meek or aggressive, ignorant or genius, can find something to relate to.
from an article by Boutin.
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