Purified with Fire

Wow, it's been a long time since I did a pic in this dark and gritty style. It's Joan of Arc again, a sketch from the character meme I did before. The blurry unreadable text is from a very long, very old French poem about her. The translation goes like this:

And you, blessed Maid, are you to be forgotten, given
that God honoured you so much that you untied the
rope which held France so tightly bound? Could one
ever praise you enough for having bestowed peace on
this land humiliated by war?

Blessed be He who created you, Joan, who were born
at a propitious hour! Maiden sent from God, into whom
the Holy Spirit poured His great grace, in whom [Le.
the Holy Spirit] there was and is an abundance of noble
gifts, never did Providence refuse you any request.
Who can ever begin to repay you?

I used two brushes downloaded from here: Medieval Crosses by =Scully7491 ( [link] ) and Medieval Dingbats by ~Hermit-stock ( [link] )

UPDATE: Expanded the background so the cross is now fully visible. I think it looks a lot better this way.