Joan of Arc, Jeanne d’Arc, Maid of Orléans, symbol of France, immortal saint, a teenager in armor confronting the world, is perhaps the most famous voice-hearer in history. I saw Carl Dreyer’s black-and-white The Passion of Joan of Arc on a great screen hanging before the choir in the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, the aching harmonies of Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light playing as Joan turned her eyes this way and that, terrified by her inquisitors, searching for her angels. She had what we all want: utter confidence in her conviction, an absolute and guileless moral vision. That conviction delivered her nation but brought her to the stake. Which of us would stick to our truth in the face of the flames?

She didn’t seem to feel that she had a choice. Born at a time when the English controlled much of what we now call France and were greedy for the rest, she started hearing the voices at around age 13 that urged her to liberate her country. Against all odds—she was young, a girl, a peasant—she walked into a king’s court and told him to give her an army to free Orléans from its siege, and he did, and they won the battle. Eventually she was captured. She refused to turn against her voices. That is, she recanted for a while—she was terrified of the fire—but she could not bear to deny what felt so real to her, even to get herself out of the courtroom alive. “I am more afraid of failing the voices by saying what is displeasing to them than of answering you.” So they burnt her. She was nineteen.

She was in the garden the first time a voice reached out to her. The voice came from the right, from the direction of the church. Then and thereafter, the voice came surrounded by light. At first, she was frightened. Then she knew that the voice came from God. She heard it daily, and it brought her joy. Here is the transcript from her trial:

It seemed to her a worthy voice, and she believed it was sent from God; when she heard the voice a third time she knew that it was the voice of an angel. She said also that this voice always protected her well and that she understood it well.