April 5—When, in 1429, the 17-year-old army commander Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) looked before her at the city of Orleans, and considered how she would break the English siege against it, what was her vision of the plan of battle? What directions did she give her troops? It was not Joan’s comprehensive grasp of military strategy which inspired the French army, defeated by the English for nearly 100 years, to follow her. It was her “warrior soul,” fighting on behalf of a higher purpose, which transmitted to that very competent, but very uninspired, French fighting force, the concept of victory that they had lacked for decades, and that she embodied.