The trick question Joan of Arc couldn’t lose

After her capture in 1430, Joan of Arc was sold to the English and put on trial for heresy in Rouen. She faced dozens of learned churchmen and lawyers. She was about nineteen and could not read.

On 24 February 1431, one of them asked her whether she knew if she was in God’s grace. It was a trap. If she said yes, she was claiming a certainty Church teaching said no one could have: heresy. If she said no, she was admitting her guilt.

Joan replied: “If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.” According to the record, her questioners were stunned. She had answered with a prayer instead of a claim.

She was still condemned and burned at the stake that May. But a retrial in 1456 overturned the verdict, and the trial transcript, kept by her own enemies, became the best evidence of her intelligence. She was declared a saint in 1920.