Joan’s Noble Political Career

This chapter explores de Conte’s views of Joan’s divinity, views which depend on his understanding of Joan’s noble character and her amazing political career. It makes the case for Joan’s nobility before presenting in the next two sections the novel’s evidence that Joan’s nobility is neither selfless nor free. In fact, Joan’s understanding of human nature comes much closer to the kind of material determinism that Twain presents in great detail in his lengthy dialogue “What Is Man?” It then takes up Joan’s political career and shows that while her successes appear the product of divine authority, they are better understood as the product of her natural talents. Joan is not a divinely chosen savior of France, as de Conte believes, but a political and military genius whose success can be attributed to her understanding of human nature, an understanding which also allows her to manipulate our narrator to write a “gospel” glorifying her exploits.