In the heart of the park that bears her name stands an equestrian statue of the French heroine and saint Joan of Arc since autumn of 1938.
Joan of Arc (1412-1431) was a 17 years old young woman who followed the saints’ calling and led an army to the French victory in the Hundred Years’ War. Two years later, she was captured by the English, sentenced, found guilty of heresy, and burned at stake.
This sculpture is the fifth and last replica of the statue made by the American sculptress Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington. In 1910, Huntington created the first model of Joan after doing extensive research to come up with an original design. Joan of Arc’s first statue was dedicated on December 6th, 1915, in Riverside Park in Manhattan, New York. It was the city’s first statue honoring a real woman. The other three replicas stand in Blois, France, Gloucester, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California. Thirty years after the first dedication, Huntington and her husband gifted the statue to the Canadian National Battlefields Commission, offering it as “an emblem of the patriotism and valour of the brave in 1759 and 1760.”
Joan of Arc Park is one of the parks on the Battlefields Park, which stands on the grounds of the battle site of the Seven Years’ War. The park was created in 1938 by landscape architect Louis Perron. It combines the classic French style with English-style mixed flowerbeds with many varieties planted every summer.
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