En la Foret de Longue Attente: Recovery and Reform

Abstract

Joan and her supporters knew what would happen were she captured. For Bedford, Joan was initially, “a woman of disorderly and infamous life, dressed in men’s clothes, and of immoral conduct,”¹ and later, after her trial and execution, a “Disciple and lyme of the Feende,”² rightly punished for her transgressions and those of her party. Although there is no evidence attesting to Yolande’s reaction to Joan’s capture, trial, and execution, judging from her established pattern of behavior, she was a woman more than naturally in tune with the tide of events and the temperature of the people, refining her strategies to accommodate whatever direction the wind blew. With Richmont’s exile, Yolande continued to work toward unity; with Joan eliminated and pilloried, she resorted to other means to advance her projects, and her next responsibilities and hurdles would be still more challenging.