The first slanted rays of the sun as it rises over the Bay of Bengal glide over the statue of Joan of Arc, the revered patron saint of France, and light up the altar of the Notre Dame des Anges (Our Lady of Angels) on Rue Dumas.
The posture of the white marble sculpture of the celebrated French war-heroine poised on a granite pedestal, with its back to sea and the head slightly bowed in the direction of the church altar, is suggestive of a guardian figure. Her warrior gear, is reminiscent of the valour around the legend from the Middle Ages of a peasant girl-turned liberator who would be canonised by the Catholic Church centuries after her martyrdom.
Now, for the first time, the city prepares to host a St. Joan of Arc remembrance on May 30 marking the anniversary of the day she was burned at the stake on heresy charges in 1431.
Led by the Our Lady of Angels Church, custodian of the Joan of Arc garden with the statue as centre-piece — an important symbol of the city’s past as a French outpost — the city will join ‘Feast Day’ commemoration events in France and across Europe.
Unlike the colourful parades, processions and medieval market that still are part of the “Johannine Festivals”, between April 29 and May 8 to mark the anniversary of Joan of Arc’s liberation of Orleans in 1429, after the Hundred Years’ War, the ‘feast day’ events are more solemn in tone and smaller in scale. The celebrations planned by the church parish and Friends of Pondicherry Heritage, which maintains the garden, too are likely to be in similarly low-key vein.
“There will be a gathering of the faithful in celebration of the Feast of St. Joan of Arc at 6 p.m. in front of the church”, said Fr. John Kennedy, parish priest at the Church of Our Lady of Our Angels.
The garden, and its centre-piece the Joan of Arc statue, is the property of the Church, and maintained by the Friends of Pondicherry Heritage, a not-for-profit association that had taken up the revival from a state of disuse with support from Paris-centred Foundation Vieilles Maisons Françaises (VMF) that is dedicated to preserve and promote heritage.
“As she is a symbol of national pride in France, statues of Joan of Arc are a feature in almost all erstwhile French enclaves”, said Charles H. De Brantes, president of the Friends of Pondicherry Heritage, who pays periodic visits to the city to supervise the upkeep of the garden.
The garden and the patron-saint’s statue were gifted to the Church by French industrialist-politician Francois Gaudart shortly before his return to France in 1919. The statue is believed to have been formally installed in April 1923.
Mr. Brantes says the design philosophy that guided the restoration of the garden from a state of disuse was to offer visitors a spiritual experience, a precinct to reflect and meditate. The project has benefited from a host of partners, including the excellent artisanal expertise available in the city.
“The craftsman we engaged sometime ago to carry out repairs on the statue of Joan of Arc did a commendable job to fix the broken toe and a crack in the distaff”. An enclosure around the plinth of the statue was subsequently built to serve as a water-filled square-shaped moat, and is now beautified with lilies and varieties of small fish.
A presentation on the history of the statue and the renovation of the Le jardin de Jeanne d’Arc, along with prayers and songs, will mark the Feast of St. Joan of Arc event next week.
