Here Comes Joannie! Part Four

DISCLAIMER : This is the finale of a 4 post series! Don’t be a tete de cul, (butthead) if you haven’t read parts 1-3, don’t read any further! Here’s a handy link to them below..

RECAP: I’ve just found the contact for the man incharge of the Joan of Arc Association and he’s asked me to send him an email detailing why I want to see the mosiac. I write up a lengthy explaination and he responds within a day. It turns out the mosaic was moved after renovations at the school (it would have been destroyed otherwise, Yikes!) to the entryway at 8 rue Vavin in the 6th, the building that is currently the headquarters for “The Rights for the Ancient Religious Combatants” and a friend to the JOA Association.

Surprisingly, Pierre senses my desperation and gives me the code for the door so I can visit the mosaic when I want. (I like Pierre a lot already. I bet he would be a good partner in crime to solve HISTORY MYSTERIES) He sends me attachments of the JOA Association activities and I’m impressed. They meet several times a year to walk the same route JOA took when she was here in 1429. The mosaic was also recently blessed by a priest. So I go to 8 bis rue Vavin and I’m nervously sweating. What’s the next step if it’s not here? I’ve had enough of waiting outside doors for nothing damnit!

I enter the code Pierre gave me and the door effortlessly opens. And there it is. The mosaic of Joan of Arc. I found it. I SOLVED A PARIS HISTORY MYSTERY THAT NO ONE EVEN KNEW EXISTED.

The ironic thing was that after all these trips to the 1st arrondissement waiting outside that door, harassing people living there, and pissing off a high school door guard- the mosaic was literally like 600 meters from my apartment the whole time. I let myself study it awhile before I took pictures. I got close to it, I touched it. I briefly humped it. It was bigger than I imagined. I looked at Joan and I tried to picture myself in her boots, standing before Paris, wanting so badly to take it back from the English. Motivated by God yet surrounded by death, how did she find the strength?

I was disappointed to see she was in a dress (one of the reasons she was executed was for cross dressing. At her trial shd explained that she wore male clothing so that she could wear armor to fight and also to deter men from attempting to rape her) but then again, the mosaic is based upon the medieval manuscripts of Martial d’Auvergne written in 1484 entitled “Vigiles du Roi Charles VII”.

I took a few pictures and I turned around to leave. I looked back one more time at Joan. I found her and I felt lighter. No angels appeared at my shoulder to fist pump me, but I had the impression they were smiling at me from above.