Joan of Arc, national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned to death as a heretic.
Huguenot, any of the Protestants in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, many of whom suffered severe persecution for their faith. The origin of the name is uncertain, but it appears to have come from the word aignos, derived from the German Eidgenossen (confederates bound together by oath), which used to describe, between 1520 and 1524, the patriots of Geneva hostile to the duke of Savoy. The spelling Huguenot may have been influenced by the personal name Hugues, “Hugh”; a leader of the Geneva movement was one Besançon Hugues (d. 1532). After the Protestant Reformation began in Germany (1517),
St. Joan of Arc, byname the Maid of Orléans, French Sainte Jeanne d’Arc or La Pucelle d’Orléans, (born c. 1412, Domrémy, Bar, France died May 30, 1431, Rouen; canonized May 16, 1920; feast day May 30; French national holiday, second Sunday in May), national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned to death by the English and their French collaborators as a heretic.