Maid of Miracles: Virgin to Victory

By T.C. Richert and R.L. Montclair

A sweeping account of the works of the Great God of Heaven through Jehanne d’Arc, Maid of France, given by those who lived in her day and who knew her and fought along beside her. In an amazing genre of writing known as a celestography, the authors interviewed people brought by Jehanne herself and recorded their accounts through the medium of spirit writing. The journey of Jehanne d’Arc is presented here from miracle to miracle as never before told. The first in a series, this book presents the legendary saga of the national heroine of France from her humble beginnings to her astounding first victory at Orléans--through miraculous means in the actual telling--as perhaps the most accurate version of the history of Jehanne d’Arc ever to be presented to the world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638858621

T.C. Richert

T.C. Richert: Sitting in her second grade class in California, T.C. first heard the French language. Later, she found that her ancestors had come to America from Lorraine, the same area where Joan of Arc was born. Her connections deepened when she went to France in Christian service to the people, later finding that her path there had crossed Joan's many times. After a family and career in education, T.C. feels she has done so much the same as Joan of Arc and obeyed God's directions for her in giving His encouragement to people everywhere to believe in miracles, trust in God's will, and remind us all that-- just as Joan of Arc-- each person has a part to play, for good or for ill, in God's timeline for this world! Southern-born R.L. Monclair eventually found that her ancestors were from Provence, in the southern-most region of France. Sporting a drawling accent, probably handed down for generations, she went on to visit France as a young woman and had several poignant experiences, which left an indelible mark in her life. Pursuing a math-oriented college career, she still felt compelled to study French. Then after marriage, family, and a teaching career were underway, she met and became fast friends with co-author, T.C. Richert, R.L. also felt inspired and compelled to write Joan's story and experienced miraculous visions, angelic interviews, and heavenly direction in so doing. In all these endeavors, she was prone to ask-- much the same as Joan did-- "Why me?" Still exploring the answer she adamantly testifies that in doing God's will her faith has increased, and her abilities have been greatly magnified, confirming that the power behind anything of note that she may accomplish-- including this book-- is her friend, counselor, and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Book preview

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, France was considered the Flower of the Western World. With a population of more than twenty million, France far outnumbered her neighbor England, with a significantly smaller citizenry of nearly five million. Each area of France flowed with abundance, and her kingdom seemed invincible.

Lilies of France

In the bright outlook, the wool industry of Flanders in the northeast was unsurpassed in the known world. To the southwest, Guienne and Gascony had never-ending vineyards and lush farmlands, with plentiful crops and wine without equal the world over. Gascony had a lengthy coastline, crowned with the flourishing City of Bordeaux.

Navigable rivers provided transport for commerce throughout France. Her thriving economy extended to every corner of the country and burst forth from bustling ports to international destinations. From the coastal cities along the North Sea, the Atlantic, and on down to the southeast hub of Marseille on the Mediterranean, a stream of trade went out to a desiring world that clamored for the treasures of France.

The northern climes of the country were colder, wetter, and more humid with a variety of terrains. It was more arid to the south, but the soil in all of France was wonderfully rich and produced abundantly. Lush fields burgeoning with flora were surrounded by thick forests teaming with fauna. All manner of wildlife like deer, boar, and game birds abounded. Herbs and flowers grew plentifully such as muguet des bois (lily of the valley) and crimson red poppies to the north and lavender, sage, and rosemary to the south.

Heart of France

Paris was a bustling city with the king’s palace arising in the middle of Îsle de la Cité, an island on the Seine at the heart of Paris. Situated close by was the Notre Dame cathedral that was started in AD 1163 and meticulously erected until its final year of construction in AD 1345. Spread on the left bank of the river was the University of Paris—a beacon of learning for all of Europe. The cutting-edge institutional standards of this innovative international educational center introduced student nations and doctorate degrees to the world of academia.

Paris Garden

Carefully sectioned areas of the city each specialized in trade and commerce, such as textiles, inns, and tavernes (taverns), produce and livestock markets, smithies, wood crafting, and other industrial businesses. Public baths provided respite from the grime and dust of the traveling and working life. Middle-class merchants and guilds were growing and prosperous here and in all of France. The breadbasket of Europe was fragrant and blossoming with promise.

Philip the Fair ruled this splendid kingdom. Known for his strikingly handsome visage, he was married to Joan I of Navarre, which made him King of Navarre as well. A small but strategic principality in the Pyrenees to the south of France, Navarre bordered both Spain and Aragon and kept a lookout on possible invasions by the Saracens and the Spaniards.

At first, King Philip IV was adored by his people—mesmerized by his stunning appearance. But his character soon emerged as less than authentic. Frequently, those of noble birth have been known to display a haughtiness from wealth and power. Another common affliction was heavy metal poisoning from the pewter dinnerware of the time. Among those who could afford such luxuries, contamination of the brain sometimes caused strange behavior and brash decisions.

King Philip IV of France, known as King Philip the Fair (1268–1314).

King Philip recklessly began to empty the royal treasury. He incurred immense debt. To alleviate the situation, he resorted to the usual method used by kings to increase accounts receivable: he raised taxes. Then he drastically decreased the accounts payable of France by attacking and expelling his main creditors—the Jews.

Christian teachings of the day taught the Zion concept that if a brother was in need, then he should be gifted any help his neighbor was able to render. These interpretations of the Gospel of Christ discouraged the practice of usury, making loans which included interest payments. Hebraic law included no such restrictions, and the Jews became expert and vastly wealthy financiers, amassing large profits from offering credit. Kingdoms, monarchs, and nobles all sought loan privileges among the Jewish pioneers of modern-day banking systems.

With great wealth being a precursor to greed, some of the Jewish mechanisms for debt collection became so financially crippling that they could rival some of the loan shark methods of today! The wrath of their borrowers certainly fueled King Phillip’s enmity for the Jews. All debts were canceled as the Semitic investment engine ground to a halt in the wake of their systematic expulsion from the country.

Next, King Philip went after his other main group of creditors: the Knights Templar. Up until this point, the king had maintained amicable relations with this brotherhood who had virtually eradicated nefarious activities on the roads to various places of pilgrimage and in the surrounding areas where their enclaves were established. Most people respected and revered the Knights Templar who were paid well for their righteous protection. This devout group of champions was gifted extensive wealth and property for their noble acts of service and were exempt from taxation to encourage their continued help and protection.

A true principle exists that any group that begins with good intentions is immediately targeted by opposition and darkness. The Knights Templar were no doubt plagued with infiltration of evil and wrongdoing from within, the results of the agency of man. Their reputation has suffered greatly from these weaknesses—belonging to any association—but the principles embodied in their oaths to Almighty God shone in a time of darkness and still ring with truth today.

These monastic superheroes pledged to maintain spartan lives, to embody might for right in all their dealings, and to dedicate themselves to helping and serving God and their fellowmen. The true principles which guided the Knights Templar were embodied by some members of their order and ignored by others, as is the case in any institution. People are flawed. Looking to principles—not to people—most readily exposes truth.

This logic concerning flawed people affecting worthy organizations could certainly be applied to another of King Phillip’s relationship challenges. He seemed to continually clash with the Holy Roman Catholic Church. This organization had effectually become the only available religious vehicle for the practicing Christian, which lent enormous power to this world-wide conglomerate.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Pope Boniface VIII had established a reputation for indulging in any and all acts of debauchery and corruption. His tendencies to the vilest of fleshly gratifications also seemed to give him a reckless appetite for seizing power. Boniface snatched property and gifted it to family members, exempted himself and the entire church from taxation (in the papal bull of 1296), and he also banished, excommunicated, or imprisoned all who opposed him. He was continually locking horns with those in power and would not concede to King Philip’s opposition to the Knights Templar.

Finally, in 1302, the pope issued the Unam sanctam. This papal decree stated, It is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff. That was the last straw.

Papal Bull: a proclamation or edict issued by the pope (leader of the Roman Catholic Church)

King Philip charged the pope with heresy, murder, sodomy, and other perversions and burned Boniface’s bull in Paris (bull being another term for a papal decree; an edict or statement issued by the pope). The pontiff retaliated by initiating excommunication procedures against the king. On September 7, 1303, while vacationing at his sumptuous summer retreat near Rome, Boniface was seized and beaten by mercenaries of the king and antipapist constituents. At the age of eighty-four, the pope, from the shock of the assault, lived little more than a month.

King Philip was then free to position his own yes-man at the top of the religious hierarchy. Pope Clement V became France’s newly appointed religious puppet, paving the way for King Philip’s unabated destruction of the Knights Templar to eradicate his debts to them. Clement V immediately sidled up to his French supporters by moving the papal seat to Avignon, causing opposing repercussions in Rome.

The papal palace at Avignon eventually became an opulent retreat for church aristocracy. This sprawling acropolis was equipped with every worldly and frivolous accessory: banqueting halls, gardens, money chambers and offices, a steam room for the pope heated by a boiler, huge stables, and courtyards. The floors were tiled and decorated in intricate floral designs and mythical beasts. Everything was embellished with gold gilding and elaborate motifs. Special artisans were brought in to ornament the palace with sculptures and paintings from the life of Christ and other Christian themes, but in the pope’s quarters, a lurid mural wrapped around the walls filled with lascivious scenes of every kind, including a scene of nude bathers—women or children, depending on the observer’s perspective.

Papal Palace at Avignon, France. Second papal seat during the ‘Great Western Schism’ of the Catholic Church spanning the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.

A famous Italian philosopher and poet of the day, Petrarch, called the clergymen rich, insolent, and rapacious. Repulsed by the church in more ways than one, he described the City of Avignon as the living Babylon of the West. He cut short his visit to the decadent city and moved to a nearby suburb, claiming, to prolong my life.

Much of the upper clergy had morphed into something very different than the simple fishermen from Galilee of so many years before. Everything was about money. From men seeking a religious office ensuring themselves a lavish future to indulgences that would legitimize children—most of them fathered by priests and prelates—money could buy anything.

You could divide a corpse for a favorite custom of burying family members in two or more places, nuns could have maids, close family members could intermarry, you could buy a lucrative church position for your seven-year-old son, as one account claimed, or you could trade with the heathen Muslims. And if you were a Jewish convert, you could even visit your unconverted parents—for a fee. Most every coin gleaned by the church ended up in the pockets of the upper clergy.

Each pope began to propagate most or all the unscrupulous practices of his predecessor, engaging in wanton immorality and glutinous power-grabbing. This evil trickled down the levels of church offices until the degeneracy of the church wreaked havoc on the moral foundation of France. Though there were certainly some honorable servants of God among the church clergy, the evil done was faith shattering, converting the Templar’s creed of might for right to the dishonorable pretense of might is right. This profligate decay of the Christian religious vehicle would seem to lend veracity to the prophetic writings of old stating,

Be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled… that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

~2 Thessalonians 2:2–4

The church climate roiled for decades. The Catholic empire eventually became unlike anything Jesus Christ had instituted. In the fourteenth century, this religious superpower split into two factions—and ultimately three—before finally ending in unification once again over a hundred years later. In the meantime, murder and mayhem ensued, no doubt creating a huge, negative impact on the populace whose spiritual welfare the nefarious church leadership was supposed to be nurturing.

Perhaps the great wealth and popularity of the Knights Templar—the judicial arm of the church— intimidated the very greedy and powerful executive branch of the Catholic institution. For whatever reason, Pope Clement V joined King Philip in turning against these worthy allies. At dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307 (known as Black Friday), a little over a year after expelling the Jews, French officials appeared at every Templar residence and arrested all the Knights Templar they could find.

Grand Master Jacques de Molay, prophet and leader of the Knights Templar (1240–1314).

Many knights had already left, being warned in premonitions and inspirations to flee. Escaping to neighboring countries with the lion’s share of their valuables, most of the knights retreated to safety. In the end, the unjust king did not profit as much as he had hoped.

He was barely able to pay his mercenaries for destroying one of France’s greatest assets. The remaining knights by and large were peacefully taken and went knowing that justice would exonerate them, believing the truth would set them free. King Phillip, enraged at his failure to confiscate the majority of their wealth, ordered they be imprisoned and tortured into all sorts of forced confessions—some being executed.

Jacques de Molay, grand master of the Knights Templar, along with many others, was held captive and tortured for over seven years. At the venerable age of seventy, he was burned at the stake with other Templar leaders on March 18, 1314, behind Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. King Phillip venomously ordered only the pyre of de Molay to be sparsely fueled in order to burn slowly so as to effect a much more agonizing death.

As the flames grew hotter, Molay exclaimed, I am an innocent man. Let evil swiftly befall those who have wrongly condemned us. God will avenge us.

While tied to his pyre, Grand Master de Molay had gone on to prophesy, saying he would meet both Pope Clement V and King Philip I before God within the year. He also said Philip’s bloodline would reign in France no more. These three prophecies were fulfilled exactly as he pronounced them. Within one month, the pope died of a sudden terminal disease. Six months later, the king mysteriously died of a stroke while hunting. His family had ruled France for three hundred years, but by 1328, his three sons and grandsons were all deceased, eliminating the Capet line.

Do these precise fulfillments of his predictions seem to validate the holiness of Jacques de Molay as the prophetic leader of the sacred Knights Templar? With the plagues let loose at this time, could it be that the earth and the heavens and He who made them were not a little enraged with what had happened to this devoted brotherhood? Perhaps these horrific deeds enacted against the noble knights sealed the fate of this century of woe.

With the Knights Templar out of the way, the absence of their protection and redemptive services was keenly felt by the peasantry. Knights and noblemen descended into acts of brigandry, and feuds between vassals were rampant. Since the serfdom fueled the production of the land—the largest portion of the nobleman’s wealth—these working families became the targets of the territorial feuds. Peasants were maimed and killed; and their homes, animals, tools, and crops were destroyed. A farmer could be plowing in his field when his faithful ox would be suddenly snatched and butchered on a whim by a passing band of pirating cavaliers.

Brigand Knights attack a helpless plowman and his oxen.

Because of the adverse growing conditions and the rise in brigandry, the flow of wealth to the entitled ruling class was staunched, which prompted them to adopt the easy fix of raising taxes to preserve their lavish lifestyles. The prophecy of Jacques de Molay seemed to cover the French throne in a dark cloak of death; for between 1314 and 1328, five different kings reigned, as the royal Capet line was finally choked into extinction. The country was a hot potato of God’s wrath—seething with curses for its offenses against the heavens. At least, that was the perception of many, including neighboring kingdoms, some of whom curtailed dealings with France, further crippling the economy.

Each new kingship raised taxes in order to revamp, redecorate, and refinance. The wealth of the Knights Templar and the Jews was no longer available for usury, and living within their means was definitely not a strong point of the bourgeois. Over and over taxation increased while production was decreasing.

Another problem afflicting this period were local skirmishes with small numbers of peasants refusing to bow under the constant oppression of their powerful masters. Thirteenth-century religious writer Jacques de Vitry warned, Ye nobles are like ravening wolves. Therefore, shall ye howl in hell who despoil your subjects and live on the blood and sweat of the poor. Whatever the peasant amasses in a year, the knight, the noble devours in an hour.

Limousin breed of French cows—out standing in their field.

His warning must have fallen on deaf ears. The lower castes were burdened to the breaking point until the steadfast and hardworking—the foundation of prosperity the world over—finally could take no more. In 1320, a frenzied revolt broke out among the peasantry, led by a group of shepherds; thus, it was called the Pastoureaux.

Starting in the north, the gentle poor burst out into a tirade of destruction. In a reversal of Isaiah 2:4, they beat their plowshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears. Sweeping through the countryside, they pillaged abbeys and castles, burned town halls and tax records, and opened prisons. Being no match for the truly well-armed and fortressed, they steered their anger and violence toward easier prey.

One of King Philip’s sons, eager for the prosperous Jews to return and the usury to resume, had invited them back under heavy taxation agreements. This recently reestablished group of dispossessed citizens became an easy target. The enraged Pastoureaux murdered nearly every Jew in their path, perhaps causing the justified perception of their righteous indignation to turn into more sinister and evil intentions.

It has been said that the God of Heaven uses the wicked to destroy the wicked. This might have been the case when the Pastoureaux sacked the papal palace at Avignon. Out of control, the mob boldly attacked the clergymen and indiscriminately annihilated the art and expensive decor throughout the newly established papal stronghold. This destruction added the church, which also exacted exorbitant tithes and offerings from the poor, to their conquests of quarry.

Chaotic barrages of violence by the Pastoureaux continued on, rising in magnitude by comparison to the exploits of Spartacus and eventually sealing them to the selfsame fate. Their annihilation was made official by royal ordinance in 1321. After Pope John XXII excommunicated them and their constituents wholesale, the king decreed that anyone who provisioned or assisted them in any way would be put to death. These conditions and their final offense—the massacre of three hundred Jews at the fortress of Montclus—effectually ended their reign of destruction. The trees hung thick with the bodies of the Pastoureaux, and the ruinous storm of vented suppression ended as suddenly as it had begun.

In the first part of this century of suffering, there came to France yet another vehicle of death and destruction. Now known as the Hundred Years’ War, this conflict between England and France culminated in the miraculous saving powers of God through La Pucelle (The Maid), Jehanne D’Arc. How this war began and continued longer than just about any other continuous conflict in recorded history is due to much of the tragedy laid out in this chapter and also to the manipulations and intrigues of