Fact1: Joan lead French army against English at siege of Orleans, Fact2: military triumphs have made her popular with masses, Fact3: voices beliefs self-confidence and apparent supernatural powers have given fearful enemies in high places, Fact4: Charles expects her to return to father 's farm, Fact5: English commander hands her over to be tried for heresy
Output: In 1456, Charles VII Richard Widmark, experiences dreams in which he is visited by Joan of Arc Jean Seberg, the former commander of his army, burned at the stake as a heretic twentyfive years earlier. In the dream he tells Joan that her case was retried and her sentence annulled. He recalls how she entered his life as a simple, seventeenyearold peasant girl; how she heard the voices of Saints Catherine and Margaret telling her that she would lead the French army against the English at the siege of Orleans and be responsible for having the Dauphin crowned king at Reims cathedral. When Joan arrives at the Dauphins palace at Chinon she discovers that he is a childish weakling with no interest in fighting. After being tested by the members of the court, who conclude that she is mad, Joan imbues the Dauphin with her belief and fervor and he gives her command of the army. Shortly thereafter, Joan witnesses the coronation of Charles. Although her military triumphs have made her popular with the masses, her voices, beliefs, selfconfidence and apparent supernatural powers have given her fearful enemies in high places. Charles, who has no further use for her services, expects her to return to her fathers farm. When Joan challenges Charles to retake Paris from the English, he tells her he would rather sign a treaty than fight. All refuse Joans plea to march on Paris, and the archbishop warns her that if she defies her spiritual directors, the church will disown her. Nevertheless, Joan puts her faith in God and appeals to the common people to march on Paris. She is captured and handed over to the English. To assure that Joan will never again become a threat to England, the English commander hands her over to the Catholic Church to be tried for heresy. Joan spends four months in a cell and is visited frequently by the Inquisitor Felix Aylmer. The English become impatient with the delay in her prosecution and press for the trial to begin. Joan holds to her faith, as always, refusing to deny that the church is wiser than she or her voices. In a moment of panic when she learns she is to be burned at the stake, and worn down by the constant pressures applied by the Inquisitor, Joan signs a document of recantation in which she confesses that she pretended to hear revelations from God and the saints in the belief that this will result in her freedom to return to her life as a peasant girl. When she learns that the sentence of the Inquisition is her perpetual, solitary imprisonment, Joan destroys the document, refusing to face a life away from nature, the life that opened her spirit to hear God and the saints. She now believes that God wants her to come to him through the ordeal of being burned at the stake. After Joan is excommunicated, the English commander, weary of the Churchs endless and delaying rituals, decides that Joan can be executed long before the Vatican learns about it, and so orders his soldiers to drag her to the square to be burned. The Inquisitor chooses to look the other way and let the English burn her. Those who witness Joans death are stricken with remorse. The Kings dream continues as he and Joan are visited by other significant figures from her life. Growing weary of all the spirit visitors, Charles tells Joan he has dreamed of her long enough and returns to his bed and his troubled sleep.