Compiègne is less than an hour by train from Paris. It pays tribute to Joan’s life with a statue in the main square. However, this town became better known in the twentieth century for the signing of the armistice to end World War I. The famous peace treaty was signed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 with the surrender of the Germans. Hitler had sweet revenge in 1940 when he forced the French to surrender in exactly the same spot in 1940 during the early days of World War II. The French World War I memorial was destroyed by the Germans but was restored to its pre-1940 state in 1950.
I headed toward the cathedral assuming Joan would meet me there. Almost three hundred years after Joan’s time, the cathedral in Compiègne had a considerable upgrade during
