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Mark Twain was a devotee of Saint [[Joan of Arc]], and even spent twelve years researching (including traveling to France to access archives) and writing a biography of her that he called his "best and favorite work":<ref name="Joan">http://www.stjoan-center.com/twain/atheists.html</ref>

Mark Twain was a devotee of Saint [[Joan of Arc]], and even spent twelve years researching (including traveling to France to access archives) and writing a biography of her that he called his "best and favorite work":<ref name="Joan">http://www.stjoan-center.com/twain/atheists.html</ref>

{{cquote|I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none.}}

{{cquote|I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none.}}

In his biography of Saint Joan of Arc, Twain passionately wrote that she was:<ref name="Joan"/>

In his biography of Saint Joan of Arc, Twain passionately wrote that she was:<ref name="Joan"/>

{{cquote|asked at her trial why it was her standard (The standard depicts the Virgin Mary and two angels) [that] had a place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral of Reims rather than the standards of the other captains, she uttered that touching speech, "It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor" -- a phrase which fell from her lips without premeditation, yet whose moving beauty and simple grace it would bankrupt the arts of language to surpass.}}

{{cquote|asked at her trial why it was her standard (The standard depicts the Virgin Mary and two angels) [that] had a place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral of Reims rather than the standards of the other captains, she uttered that touching speech, "It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor" -- a phrase which fell from her lips without premeditation, yet whose moving beauty and simple grace it would bankrupt the arts of language to surpass.}}