A nice potted history. One of the Marshals of France who fought with her was tried for horrific crimes.Bluebeard is thought to be based on his character.
"Jeanne d'Arc" has been shared to the blog from the French reading exercises section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills. This article also has audio for you to practice your French listening skills; you can find many more listening activities in the French listening practice section.
Jeanne d’Arc is one of the most famous women throughout French history. Listen and then read our bilingual article, the third in our series of Portraits français.
Note: The tenses in this French article and its English translation don’t match! In French, we use the present tense to describe historical stories like this to evoke a sense of immediacy, whereas in English, we commonly use the past tense – learn more about historical French tenses.
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More about Jeanne d’Arc
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Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since. She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!
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Comments: 4
One of the Marshals of France who fought with her :
Gilles de Montmorency-Laval, plus connu sous le nom de Gilles de Rais.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais
Is it normal to narrate history in the present tense like a sports commentary? Or is it just to spare beginners the dreaded passé simple?
I recently read the "Big book of French history" which appeared to be targeted to young adults and which was almost entirely in the present tense.
Bonjour Pete - yes, it is very common, and has nothing to do with age or language level. Did you see the link to "historical tenses" above the article?