Death Review - The Lives, Deaths, & Legacies of Mata Hari, Princess Diana, & Joan of Arc

Plutarch wrote Lives to compare great men. Let us turn to death and review great women. In Joan of Arc, Mata Hari, and Princess Diana, we find not just historical figures but powerful myths of the saint, the whore, and the princess, whose struggles with power, survival, and authenticity only became clear once they were gone.

Joan of Arc, Mata Hari, and Princess Diana each represent a distinct path in the feminine experience: the Maiden, the Vixen, and the Damsel. Below is a look into their inner lives, moral journeys, and reviews of those travels as reflections for our own, inviting us to think about the choices that shape who we become; whether to stand, bend, or break.

Joan of Arc grew from a sheltered peasant into a brave leader who answered a divine call. She left her home to challenge the rigid institutions of her time, even though it meant sacrificing everything, including her life. Her transformation, marked by a willingness to embrace danger and reject traditions, shows us the power and cost of conviction to stand by one’s beliefs.

Mata Hari took a very different route. She reinvented herself using her charm and allure, navigating a world where seduction could be both shield and weapon. Her life, full of shifting identities and calculated moves, reveals how relying on surface appearances can hide inner doubts. In the end, her downfall teaches us that using illusion as a substitute for genuine self-growth leads only to ruin.

Princess Diana lived a life of public adoration and personal struggles. Born into high privilege, she still felt the weight of dependency and the pain of vulnerability. Her experiences highlight the risks of passivity in a world that calls for both emotional openness and firm decision-making. Her legacy is a complex blend of compassion and lost potential, urging us to find a balance between empathy and independence.

By comparing their lives and deaths, we learn that each journey carries its own lessons. Joan shows us the value of inner strength and sacrifice, Mata Hari warns against the perils of hiding behind sexual power, and Diana challenges us to turn vulnerability into more genuine empowerment. Their stories call on us to examine our own paths and strive to build identities that are both true and resilient.

Programming Note: Unlike Plutarch, I’m not going to go through the lives of these three women in an academic and distanced way. Such truths are better done by the biographers. Instead, I wanted to try out, with your permission, a more intimate method. I’m going to write vignettes of the critical moral junctures in their lives. Episodes that are up close; that are in the room. The places where their lives diverged, often over a single decision. To be clear, I am trying to maintain as much truth as we can know, but this method incurs heavy speculation. I hope you will agree that this better fits the aim.  

Three Deaths

Mata Hari

The military office reeks of paper and power. Mata Hari sits stiffly, her eyes fixed on the French intelligence officer; a face she will remember as the shots ring out. Outside, Paris of 1916 carries on its wartime rhythm; the Great War has transformed the City of Light into a place of shadows and suspicion. In here, time narrows to a single choice that will undo her.

"Your Russian captain lost an eye at Brimont," the agent states, sliding a photograph across the desk. The image shows Vadim Maslov in a hospital bed, his face partly shrouded in bandages. Mata Hari's fingers hover over it.

"I need to see him," she says.

"As a Dutch national, you can't visit the front unless you offer something to France," he reminds her.

"My connections are social, not military," she replies in a deliberately exotic accent. "Men talk to me of pleasure, not war plans."

"But, they do talk," he counters. "And in this war, even soft comfort matters."

Her chest tightens. Vadim matters to her. Unlike the parade of aristocrats who have shared her bed, the young Russian captain stirred something in her she believed was dead: raw affection.

"What exactly do you want?" she asks, her voice dropping.

The War had destroyed her livelihood. With all of Europe's aristocracy either fighting or dead, her exotic dances play to sparse halls. Her bank accounts dwindled as borders closed. Espionage wasn't a choice; it was the only path remaining.

"Information. About German officers, especially those in Madrid. You have connections, use them."

The choice is clear: betray her German admirers or abandon the wounded captain she loves. Her mind drifts to her transformation from a powerless colonial wife to a drunken officer into Mata Hari, "eye of the day" in Malay, a supposed Javanese princess. She had turned men's exotic fantasies into power, all by herself.

But war shifts the balance. Her beauty, though still present, no longer commands high sums.

"I'll be paid," she states with cold precision.

"Absurdly," the agent replies, naming a sum that eases immediate requirements.

"I am Dutch. I am neutral."

"Neutrality is a luxury for those who need nothing," he says.

Her hands tremble as she signs the papers. Damnation, again.

"Here are your papers for the hospital visit. You'll hear from us about the next steps," he adds.

She nods and steps into the hallway. The door closes behind her like a cell lock.

As she walks the corridor with perfect posture, Mata Hari feels the first tremors of an earthquake that will topple her life. She once believed she was the hunter, but now, she realizes, she has always been prey.

$$$

The Grand Hotel suite gulps in the light. Even with every lamp on, shadows cling to the corners like conspirators in the February nights of 1917. Mata Hari sits at her vanity, dusting powder over exhaustion, dragging kohl along eyes that have seen too much. Her hands work fast. Her mind, faster.

Escape routes. Safe houses. Ships to Spain. She counts possibilities like a gambler tallying chips before the last bet.

The mirror gives her back a face still striking, but years have settled in. Fine lines trace the territory of forty, each one a receipt for survival in a world built to devour her.

"One more night," she murmurs to the glass. "One more performance."

Six months since Captain Ladoux made his offer: one million francs for intelligence on German military plans. The timing had been perfect. War had dried up her clientele. Debts were piling up.

She didn't tell him she was already bought: Agent H-21. Three months earlier, the Germans had paid her 20,000 francs for vague promises about French secrets. A game, really. She fed them gossip any diplomat could hear over dinner.

A knock. A messenger. Another note from Ladoux: INFORMATION INSUFFICIENT. MORE SPECIFICS REQUIRED: CROWN PRINCE'S CONTROL OF ARMY GROUP. TOMORROW: 9 AM.

She crumples the paper. The Crown Prince is a fraud, a playboy who cares more for women than war. Ladoux won't hear it. They want her to extract secrets that don't exist.

The room feels too small. She goes to the window. Paris is out there, still trying to be Paris. Couples stroll through the Tuileries, pretending.

She turns back to her ledger. The numbers confirm what she already knows: she's running out of time. Ladoux doles out money like a miser. The Germans pay better, but they're getting nervous. Her balancing act is slipping.

The decision comes quick. The trunks are already half-packed. Spain is neutral. From there, she can disappear.

"One last performance," she tells herself, sorting through papers. Dutch passport. French identification. A letter of safe passage from the German consul. Useful. Or damning, if the French find it first.

She doesn't notice how the hotel staff lingers near her door. How the switchboard operator holds the line a beat too long. How the shadows have started watching.

That evening, she dresses for dinner. A Spanish diplomat who can smooth her passage. She descends the grand staircase like a queen, unhurried. No one would guess she's running.

She doesn’t see the telegram sent minutes after she leaves, about the warning for British port authorities to watch for her on the Zeelandia, to arrest her, to take her to London, and to make Scotland Yard loosen her lips yet again.

In the taxi, she exhales, thinking herself the master of her fate.

$$$

Madrid feels untouched by the war. At the Hotel Ritz, chandeliers glow, champagne flows, and laughter bounces off marble columns. Mata Hari moves through the glittering scene like a ghost of her past self, her eyes always watching. Across the room, Major Arnold Kalle stands with military stiffness. He doesn't look at her like a man drawn in, but like a man taking notes.

"Major," she says, voice warm against January's chill. "How gracious of you to meet me."

"Fräulein Zelle." He uses her real name, a quiet reminder of control. "Spain agrees with you."

"Neutrality always does." She sits with the practiced ease of a dancer who knows exactly how to be seen. Just enough décolletage to catch his eye, not enough to cheapen it.

She leans in. "I could be useful to the Kaiser. For the right price, I might share the French officers' whispers."

No thrill passes between them, just the cold friction of a deal being struck. Her real goal is bigger: access to the Crown Prince. Captain Ladoux promised a million francs for information on Wilhelm's son.

"And what exactly could you provide that my own intelligence officers cannot?" Kalle asks.

"Access," she says, accent thickening. "Men tell me things they wouldn't tell their shadows. I dance between worlds."

What she doesn't say is that her world is shrinking. The British interrogation at Canon Row stripped away her mystique.

Kalle names his price: ten thousand francs.

An insult. Once, men had thrown fortunes at her feet. Men in his own government. Now, war drains Europe's appetite for indulgence.

"The French are more generous," she says smoothly.

"The French are desperate." Kalle smiles thinly. "Germans are careful investors."

Once, this game had felt like power. But now, both sides want more than pillow talk.

"I'll need documents," she says. "Safe passage. Recognition."

She doesn't realize how her hand trembles, how forced her charm feels. Kalle sees it all. H-21 is no longer an asset. She's a risk.

"Of course," he says too easily. "I'll arrange what's necessary. And perhaps, a meeting with someone important."

"The Prince?" Her eyes light up. He notices.

"Perhaps. You'll see."

She takes the elevator to her suite, picturing the gown she'll wear for the Prince Wilhelm. Meanwhile, Kalle walks to the secure communications office.

He drafts a message to Berlin about agent H-21, deliberately using a cipher he knows the French have broken. It paints her as a double agent, with falsehoods about troop movements tied directly to her. The message isn't just a report; it's a death sentence. Still, he waits to send it.

The French will think they've uncovered the reason for their battlefield losses. The Germans eliminate a liability while making her death serve the war effort; perfect usefulness for a woman who has outlived her value.

In her suite, Mata Hari prepares for bed. In the mirror, she still sees the woman who dazzled Europe, who transformed from the discarded wife of a drunk colonial officer into a legend. What she doesn't see is that the game changed. The world doesn't need courtesans who trade in charm. It needs fodder. And she is an aperitif.

$$$

The military courtroom is all sharp angles and hard surfaces, built to intimidate. Five officers sit in judgment, their faces as rigid as their uniforms. No public, no press, no defense witnesses. This isn't justice; it's theater. And Mata Hari has been cast as the seductress-spy, the woman who lured men to doom.

The European war machine needs scapegoats for the millions dead in the trenches, and she's perfect: foreign, female, and too familiar with men on both sides.

Captain Pierre Bouchardon stands. For months, he's been her interrogator, picking apart her past. Now he's her prosecutor.

"We have before us a woman who took from France while serving Germany," he says. "A woman who made her body a weapon, whose promiscuity led to the deaths of thousands."

Mata Hari sits straight-backed in the dock, dressed in a tailored suit instead of flowing silks. She prepared for this moment like she once prepared for the stage. Hair pinned neatly, makeup suggesting vulnerability without weakness.

She watches Bouchardon like a chess player sizing up an opponent. He lays out the evidence: meetings with German officers, travels across borders, payments from the enemy. Taken alone, each fact means nothing. Together, they paint her as a traitor.

Her lawyer, Édouard Clunet, sits beside her, powerless. He can't cross-examine witnesses or call his own.

When she finally speaks, her voice is steady. "The telegrams are fake," she says. "Yes, I took German money, to recover what was taken from me in Berlin." She lifts her chin defiantly, eyes meeting each judge. "A harlot? Yes, but a traitoress, never!" The historic words hang in the air. "I'd never betray Paris."

Bouchardon holds up intercepted messages about "Agent H-21." The details match her life exactly. The Germans sent them in a code they knew was broken. Yet they don't specify what information she passed on.

"You met Major Kalle in Madrid," Bouchardon presses. "After that, these messages were sent. You admit to taking German money. You traveled freely while others could not."

"I'm an artist and a courtesan," she replies. "My work requires travel. The Germans paid me for property they seized, not for secrets."

It doesn't matter. France in 1917 needs a scapegoat. The war is going badly. The army nears mutiny. A scandalous spy trial is exactly the distraction needed.

Bouchardon moves in for the kill. "At Canon Row, you told British intelligence you worked for the French. Why, unless you were playing both sides?"

"I said I had an arrangement with Captain Ladoux," she clarifies. "I never claimed to be a French agent."

"But you presented yourself as one when it suited you," he counters. "Just as you were Dutch to Germans, Javanese to audiences, whoever you needed to be."

That lands hardest. Her whole life has been reinvention. Now that adaptability makes her untrustworthy.

During a break, she's taken to a side room with Clunet. "If you admit to taking German money but say you passed nothing of value, they might show leniency. They almost never execute women."

"They decided my guilt when they arrested me," she says.

"A confession could mean prison instead of a firing squad."

She turns to him, jaw set. "I won't give them the satisfaction. I wasn't a spy, and I won't play that part." A bitter smile flickers. "The woman they've created in that courtroom isn't me. And I won't become her."

The verdict: "Guilty of espionage." The sentence: "Death by firing squad."

That night, in her cell at Saint-Lazare, she writes letters proclaiming her innocence. But deep down, she understands. She spent a lifetime playing roles, believing seduction, her body, could keep her safe. Now she's learned the truth: power borrowed is never really power at all.

$$$

Dawn comes slow at Vincennes, the sun reluctant for this performance. A thin mist clings to the field where twelve soldiers stand in formation. Their faces are hollow-eyed from war, none looking at the wooden post awaiting its occupant.

The prison transport arrives. Mata Hari steps out on her own. No chains. Nothing like the seductive myth that will come later. She walks to the post without hurry, her movements controlled. Not defiant. Not submissive. Something in between.

"Would you like a blindfold, madame?" an officer asks.

"No." Her voice is clear. Not a plea. A command.

"Must I be seated?"

"No, madame."

She nods. A final courtesy granted. The soldiers shift uncomfortably, used to deserters who tremble and beg. Not women who meet them with steady eyes.

In this moment, her last, Margaretha Zelle could rage at the injustice. She could tell them the truth: she wasn't the mastermind spy they claimed, but she wasn't innocent either. She had taken money from both sides, played a game without knowing the stakes.

She could mention her children, one dead, one taken. She could speak of the husband who broke her, the life built from wreckage.

But that wasn't her.

She had spent a lifetime crafting illusions: the Javanese princess, the temple dancer, the courtesan. Now she makes one last creative choice. No explanations. Just a final gesture to steal the crowd.

She straightens her spine, lifts her chin, and blows a kiss to the firing squad.

A soldier blinks. The journalist scribbles, knowing he's witnessing something that will outlive them all.

"Ready!" the officer calls.

Mata Hari doesn't flinch.

"Aim!"

She looks past them, to some distant place no bullet can reach.

"Fire!"

The shots crack through the cold morning air. For a moment, she remains upright. Then slowly, she sinks to her knees, head still up, expression unchanged. For a fraction of a second, she totters there. Then falls backward, bending at the waist, legs doubled beneath her.

A non-commissioned officer approaches. He draws his revolver and fires a final shot into her head, ensuring execution, and immortality.

Mata Hari, born Margaretha Zelle, died on October 15th, 1917, age 41, four miles from the heart of Paris.

$$$$$$

Margaretha Zelle's execution wasn't just the death of a spy; it was a reckoning with how women survive in a world that both objectifies and erases them. Her journey from colonial wife to exotic dancer to condemned traitor was a constant negotiation with forces that gave her visibility only on their terms.

Mata Hari turned circumstances into leverage. She played the role men wanted, using the mystique of the "Oriental" seductress to make herself valuable. If society would see her as an object, she would monetize it. But such borrowed power was never truly hers to keep.

During the war, taking money from German intelligence while working with the French wasn't about loyalty; it was survival. Captain Ladoux's offer wasn't a moral dilemma but another transaction. German money wasn't treason in her eyes, just income in a war that had eliminated her clientele.

The tragedy wasn't her execution but how every move to control her fate tightened the trap. She played the game without realizing it was rigged. Her sexuality gave her access to men in power, but only on their terms. Her espionage was less about strategy and more about staying afloat in a system designed to discard women once they stopped being useful.

When she refused the blindfold before the firing squad, she defined herself on her own terms. No pleading, no fear, just a woman facing the void. Yet even this became legend, while Margaretha Zelle, the woman, disappeared behind the myth.

Her story still unsettles because it raises questions we continue to struggle with. She wasn't villain or hero; just a broken someone trying to survive in a world that would never let her win.

Diana

The July light slipped through the heavy brocade curtains of Diana's borrowed room at Buckingham Palace. Three weeks before the wedding that would turn her into the Princess of Wales, she sat alone, swallowed by the gilded furniture and thick silence.

Outside, London carried on. Inside, time dragged. Nothing happened without approval.

She hadn't seen Charles in three days. "Royal duties," they told her. At nineteen, she still believed in fairy tales, despite the growing evidence. Her gaze fell on the wedding dress sketch. Twenty-five feet of train. Too tight to breathe in. A dress fit for, well, a princess.

She thought of Park House, her childhood home. That loneliness had been simpler. Parents who split when she was seven. Boarding school. But this was different. This loneliness came with titles, protocols, invisible lines she kept crossing.

A lady's maid entered with a silver tray of correspondence. "His Royal Highness asked that these be delivered for his review, Your Ladyship."

"Leave them on the desk."

One letter slipped loose. Diana picked it up. The handwriting was elegant, confident. A woman's. Camilla.

Before she could second-guess, she slid the letter from its envelope. "My darling," Her stomach turned. "...such a wonderful weekend at Highgrove... when this tedious business is concluded, we can..."

"Your Ladyship? The Commonwealth Youth reception is in thirty minutes."

Diana tucked the letter back, lining up its edges like it had never been touched.

She caught her reflection: a girl who suddenly saw the cracks in her own future. Then, the expression vanished. Her face rearranged itself into the one the world expected.

Her dresser entered with the afternoon outfit. "The blue suit, with matching hat. Conservative, but youthful."

Diana nodded, watching as she was shaped into someone fit for cameras. For a moment, she imagined another life. Walking away. Going back to the kindergarten classroom. The moment passed. She squared her shoulders.

"The public is waiting."

Her dresser smiled. "You're learning fast. You'll be a perfect princess."

Diana turned away from the letter and left the room.

&&&

January rain streaked down the nursery windows at Kensington Palace, turning the gardens into a soft watercolor blur. Diana sat beside her sleeping five-year-old son, her finger tracing the black embossing on a manila folder labeled "Confidential." Inside were detailed records of her husband's betrayals: photographs, hotel receipts, telephone logs, and witness accounts gathered by private investigators she had hired.

Across the room, three-year-old Harry slept with one arm flung over his head, his red hair bright against the pillow. The nursery, with its hand-painted countryside mural and carefully chosen toys, stood in stark contrast to the formal splendor of the rest of the apartment. Here, Diana had built them a palace of normalcy.

She opened the folder. A photograph slipped out: Charles and Camilla at Highgrove during a weekend when he had claimed to be fishing in Scotland. They weren't touching, but the closeness of their bodies spoke a damning language.

Her throat tightened as she reread a transcript of a telephone conversation between Charles and his lover, their casualness hitting her hard. Their familiar language, cultivated over fifteen years, now made it impossible for her to speak with Charles.

A soft knock pulled her from her thoughts. Her personal secretary entered quietly. "The rain isn't letting up, Your Royal Highness," he said, careful not to disturb the princes.

"Neither is this situation," Diana replied, gesturing to the folder.

"I've reviewed the findings. There's no question the affair resumed, at least since late 1986."

Diana closed the folder. "And the Prince of Wales's schedule?"

"Unchanged for the coming month. The overlaps we noted remain."

Her knuckles went white around a small gold locket containing photographs of her sons.

"There are options beyond silent endurance," the secretary offered carefully.

"What becomes of my children?" she whispered. "What becomes of my duties?" They both recalled the history of royal divorces: the exile of wives who dared break vows. She dismissed him with a wave.

With deliberate movements, Diana crossed to her writing desk. She unlocked the bottom drawer with the key she wore on a chain, placed the folder inside, and locked it again. "Arrange my schedule for the AIDS hospice visit tomorrow," she instructed, her voice steadier. "No photographers for the first hour, and confirm my meeting with Captain Hewitt. Tea at four, here at Kensington."

Returning to her sleeping children, Diana settled by William's bedside. The line between her public performance and inner doubts grew sharper; a split that would soon define her life. It wasn't freedom, but it was resistance.

&&&

The fluorescent lights of London Middlesex Hospital cast a harsh glow over the AIDS ward, where the smell of disinfectant barely hides the scent of medicine and decay. Diana, Princess of Wales, moves through the quiet corridor with cameras following at a respectful distance. Her lapis blue suit stands out against the gray walls, a deliberate splash of cheer. Six years into her royal role, she has learned that every color, every accessory, every gesture is scrutinized.

"Perhaps Your Royal Highness would prefer not to enter directly," the medical director suggests. "We could bring some of our less acute cases to the day room."

Diana meets his gaze steadily. "This Royal Highness has come to see your patients where they live, not where it's convenient to show them off."

AIDS is still shrouded in fear and misunderstanding. Headlines scream about a "gay plague," and even doctors treat patients like dangerous objects rather than humans. The royal family has kept its distance from the epidemic, addressing topics like sex and homosexuality only in vague terms.

At the threshold of the first room, Diana pauses. Inside, a young man, no more than thirty, with sunken cheeks and paper-thin skin, lies in bed. The sound of clicking cameras fills the air. Everyone expects a princess to remain distant, to offer words of support without breaking the invisible line between the healthy and the afflicted.

Diana slowly removes her gloves and hands them to her lady-in-waiting, sending a ripple through the staff. In an era when fear suggests even casual contact might spread the virus, the sight of the Princess approaching a patient with bare hands is radical.

"Hello, John," she says, extending her hand gently. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

Their fingers touch. She feels the slight tremor of his grip, the cold pressure of his skin. In that moment, it's not the illness she registers, but the relief of genuine human contact.

"Your Royal Highness," he whispers, voice rough with disuse. "You really shouldn't, your hands..."

Diana smiles the smile they made her practice a thousand times. "I have two good hands that are much happier being useful than hidden away in gloves, don't you think?" Her eyes flick to just glimpse the crews aflutter.

Behind her, camera shutters click faster. Newspapers have already received their front-page image: the Princess of Wales, breaking protocol by holding the hand of a dying man with AIDS.

For the next hour, Diana moves from room to room, sitting on beds, adjusting pillows, listening to stories that cannot be faked.

"You're the first visitor Simon's had in three months," a nurse whispers. "His family disowned him when they learned he was gay, even before the diagnosis."

"You're not like what I expected from TV," Simon tells her. "You're beautiful, but you're real, aren't you?"

Diana feels a lump in her throat. "I'm trying to be," she replies softly.

Later in the car, Diana reviews her planner, running her finger along carefully chosen engagements: visits to children's hospitals, meetings with marginalized communities, charity events where her style brings attention to important causes.

She notices a newspaper clipping in her diary; a picture of her embracing a child at a homeless shelter. But her eyes now betray a calculation: these moments build a separate narrative, one that gives her independence.

The car glides toward Kensington Palace. Diana has acted with real compassion, yet she has used that compassion as a tool in the battle for public opinion and personal freedom. She is building her identity on an unstable foundation, creating a scaffold of dependency no different from the one she longs to escape.

&&&

Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the windows of Diana's office at Kensington Palace, illuminating dust motes dancing in golden beams. She sat surrounded by photographs of her sons, watercolors, and gifts from humanitarian travels, reviewing a letter outlining her post-divorce financial responsibilities.

The telephone rang. "Diana speaking," she answered.

"Princess! Mo here." Mohamed Al-Fayed's voice filled the line. "I'm inviting you and the boys to my compound in France. My yacht is at your disposal, a perfect break from the press. Dodi would ensure you have everything you need."

"That's very kind," she replied noncommittally. "Let me check the boys' schedules."

Her thoughts drifted to Hasnat Khan, the heart surgeon whose relationship with her had recently ended. "I cannot live in a gilded cage," he had told her. The irony wasn't lost on Diana: she had escaped one cage only to find fame had built her another.

A Metropolitan Police officer entered with a folder. "We've completed the security assessment. We recommend a full detail, especially when traveling with the princes."

"You mean surveillance," Diana countered firmly.

"Our concern is your safety. The recent campaign has generated several credible threats."

Diana walked to the window, gesturing vaguely toward Buckingham Palace. "I need distance from all that."

After he left, she read a letter bearing the Prime Minister's seal, Tony Blair had written about government platforms for her charity work.

Her assistant interrupted: "Frances Shand Kydd has called again. That's the third time this week."

Diana's jaw tightened at mention of her estranged mother. "Tell her I'm unavailable."

The assistant placed a newspaper on her desk. The headline read: DI AND DODI: ROMANCE ON THE RIVIERA? Grainy photos showed Diana on Al-Fayed's yacht with Dodi.

Left alone, Diana studied photographs of her sons. William, fifteen, resembled his father, while Harry remained unmistakably Spencer, her spirit shining through.

Through her window, photographers gathered at the palace gates: the public fascination that had become both her strength and vulnerability.

The competing demands pulled at her; charities, media, family, and now Al-Fayed. His invitation promised luxury and protection, but at what cost?

She picked up the phone. "Tell Mr. Al-Fayed we accept his invitation. His compound's security will do." As she spoke, she pushed aside Blair's proposal.

When Dodi called to arrange her visit, Diana made the arrangements while part of her watched from a distance. She recognized the pattern: an eager companion, luxurious settings, protection without complications; a comfortable escape.

Blair's letter caught her eye again, offering something tougher but more fulfilling: purpose instead of pleasure, impact instead of escape.

For a moment, Diana's face showed full awareness of her choices. Then she returned to thinking about which clothes to pack, as photographers focused their lenses on her window, capturing the silhouette of a woman whose search for freedom had led her into captivity again.

&&&

The pale light of Parisian streetlamps spilled through the tall windows at the Ritz Hotel’s rear entrance, pooling beneath the awning. Faces gathered in the dim glow, their features softened. Diana stood with her arms crossed, a gesture of quiet self-protection, as Henri Paul outlined their plan to evade the paparazzi.

“We’ve confirmed almost thirty photographers at the main entrance,” Paul said, his French accent taut. “The decoy vehicle will leave from the front. Meanwhile, you and Mr. Fayed will exit through the service door on Rue Cambon.”

Diana nodded, glancing toward the idling black Mercedes. The car was both an escape and a trap, freedom in motion, but with no real exit. Its waxed paint and tinted windows distorted her reflection: the same girl, the same cycles, the same people, moving her.

Dodi Fayed stood apart, checking his watch. “It’s nearly midnight. We should move if we want to reach the apartment without incident.”

The hotel manager approached. “Madame, we have a secure private suite if you prefer to stay until morning. We can arrange a safe departure later.”

Diana looked back at the plush interior, a haven, perhaps. But Dodi’s hand came to rest lightly at the small of her back.

“The apartment is minutes away. Father has arranged everything for our comfort.”

Trevor Rees-Jones, Mohamed Al-Fayed’s protection officer, shifted uneasily. “The paparazzi presence is heavy tonight. Perhaps it’s wiser to wait.”

For a moment, Diana’s face reflected not fear, but clarity. She saw the pattern of her life: cameras chasing, choices narrowing. The pursuit had been both torment and validation: shaping her image, confirming her relevance.

She glanced again into the hotel: safety behind doors. Then at the Mercedes, at Dodi. Symbols of movement, escape, and everything that had defined her.

In that moment, Diana recognized the complicity. She had been running for so long; from Charles, the palace, the expectations of her name. The illusion of choice was its own prison.

She moved toward the exit.

“We’re going,” she said, voice flat and steady.

Paul took the wheel, his eagerness shadowed by the glassiness in his eyes. Diana slid into the backseat without fastening her seatbelt; a small act of neglect, or defiance.

The Mercedes pulled into the Parisian night. For this moment, Diana existed fully in the present, defined by the flight that had always been her way.

Diana, Princess of Wales, died August 31st, 1997, age 36, three miles from the heart of Paris.

&&&&&&

In death, Diana won a strange kind of freedom from the institutions that had always confined her and secured her place in the public imagination. The wreckage in the Parisian underpass beneath the Seine marked the collision of forces that had defined her life: relentless media attention, endless evasion that only fueled scrutiny, and a series of relationships that promised protection but imposed new constraints.

This was the hollow victory for the damsel; immortalized by public adoration yet never allowed to shape her own identity. Her death did not free her memory; it froze her as an eternal icon of vulnerability instead of allowing her true self to manifest.

Throughout her 36 years, Diana swapped one form of dependence for another. Once, she was the fairy-tale princess, the bride curtsying before her husband's portrait. Later, she became a wronged wife defined by victimhood, and then a celebrity humanitarian whose worth was measured by public approval. Every role demanded an audience; every phase, validation. The cameras she both chased and fled became mirrors, reflecting a life defined by others.

Even after shedding the formal constraints of royal life, she never broke from the invisible chains of public expectation. The divorce that should have freed her only deepened her reliance on the spotlight. Her rejection of royal security meant one form of control ended, only to be replaced by even more invasive scrutiny. Each apparent step toward independence entangled her further in the web of observation she had spent decades trying to escape.

In her relationships, Diana moved from one dependency to another, seeking in others the validation she could not find within herself. From Charles, who offered status without love, to her later companions, each connection represented a desperate bid for security that ultimately failed to provide the freedom she sought.

Diana's final tragedy was not simply her death, but that she never discovered who she might have become if she had allowed herself to claim her own power. Her legacy is a blend of extraordinary compassion and a life defined by others' reflections, her true self always just out of reach.

Joan of Arc

The stone floor bites cold against Joan’s kneecaps. The dank tang of last night’s rain clings to her woolen skirt, and each shift sends cramps spiraling up her thighs. She presses her forehead to the low bench, the hearth’s glow barely chipping through the chill. Outside, the wind rattles the shutters like angry fists.

Then, no warning again, the voices slice into her thoughts, neither shout nor whisper, but as sharp as a lance between her ears. Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine.

“Joan, daughter of France, the Dauphin must be crowned at Reims. You will lead his armies. You will drive the English from Orléans.” commands the archangel.

Her breath catches. Fever‑dream or divine command? A hot spike of dread cuts through her stomach: What will the neighbors say? Already Old Marguerite at the bakehouse whispers of witchcraft. The local priest edges closer by the day. She sweats into the rough wood crucifix beneath her shift and wonders: am I hearing His messages, or chasing some secret longing?

“Joan!” Her mother’s voice cracks, seeing the now familiar signs. She kneels beside her, hands fluttering. “Not this again. You’ll ruin us, everyone’s talking. Your godmother swears you dance with spirits in the woods.” Her eyes plead: stay, be sensible.

Snowflakes lilt as her father storms in, shoulders hunched against the draft. He halts, gaze hard, he knows. “Speak of these voices once more, and I’ll bury you out back where no one finds you.” His threat trembles with fear: of English patrols, of scandal, of losing everything.

Joan’s heart hammers between obedience and something fiercer. The crucifix’s edges gouge her skin as she squeezes it. Doubt and conviction coil together: is this her own will rising up, or a heavenly command?

She lifts her head. “Father… I can’t unhear them.” Her voice wobbles on the brink of tears and steel. “I’m sworn… to a higher oath.”

Her mother’s face drains pale; her father’s jaw clenches. In that frozen instant, Joan feels both the weight of home and the pull of a destiny she barely understands.

She quickly gathers her few possessions: a coarse linen shift, a length of hemp cord, a handful of prayer beads: tools of a peasant girl turned pilgrim. Each item tugs her body away from safety and toward unknown roads.

At the threshold, she pauses. Panic flutters: Will they rush after her? Will her courage hold when she names Robert de Baudricourt? A fragment of doubt lingers: Am I choosing this path, or has it chosen me?

The door thuds shut, muffling her parents’ voices and the hearth’s warmth. The wind softens, as though yielding to her resolve. She steps into the hush of falling snow, her footprints carving a trembling line between doubt and purpose. Beneath her shift, fingers slide under the fabric to press the crucifix against her heart, trembling at her own audacity.

Inside Baudricourt’s fortified manor, the air is thick with torch smoke and the sour tang of boiled cabbage drifting from the kitchens. Horses shift in their stalls, chains clinking against stone. Joan stands before a tarnished bronze mirror, fingertips hovering over her uncle’s borrowed knife, cold metal against calloused skin.

She hesitates: is she really about to do this? A stablehand snorts in the corridor; a steward snickers through the crack of the door.

With a breath, Joan grasps her hair. As the blade bites through strands, a soldier glances sideways, lips pressed tight, then whispers, “Hell, she means it.” Dark locks drift to the floor like discarded banners. Her scalp pricks with rawness; liberation or foolishness?

From behind, Baudricourt’s boots clank across stones. He stops. “Planning to storm our kitchen next?” he jibes, eyebrows raised.

Joan’s throat tightens. She brushes hair from her face. “Some battles need more than knives.”

He snorts. “Prophets have bigger swords.”

A distant horn blast echoes. A footman stumbles in, breath ragged. “Milord, Domrémy… it’s ashes.” Joan’s jaw clenches so hard wood crackles in her skull. Fingers whip the knife’s hilt until her knuckles whiten. The mirror’s tarnish blurs.

She swallows. Does this path serve her own will, or something else? The gambeson’s padded bulk chafes her shoulders, the linen beneath prickles against fresh skin. Still, she inhales the manor’s stale air and stands straighter: between doubt and resolve, she’ll carve her own course.

The acrid sting of smoke clings to Joan’s nostrils as mud sucks at her boots. Horses snort in the half‑light, their flanks heaving against fraying reins. She braces on a slick rise overlooking Orléans’s battered walls, steel armor cold against her ribs, breath misting in the dawn chill.

Around a stained table, commanders argue over curled parchments. “If we wait for the supply wagons,” Dunois snarls, “our men starve in the trenches.”

La Hire slams a fist on the map. “But if we charge before nightfall, we bleed half our force under those ramparts!”

Joan presses her sword pommel, feeling its cold weight. A distant trumpet blares. She blinks against the smoke, the saints in her head clamoring: now, Now. Yet a knot of fear tightens in her gut; this isn’t prophecy, it’s a gamble. She inhales damp air, tastes iron and ash, she knows this is the only way to convince them that God has sent her. She makes her choice.

“Ready,” she says, voice barely above the wind. The commanders exchange doubtful glances, then nod.

At her signal, trumpets sound. French lances surge forward, the ground shuddering under hooves. Within moments, chaos: a sergeant’s cry, “Lieutenant! At my side!” A wounded soldier clutches her cuirass, eyes glazed. “Joan… help me…” His plea lodges in his throat, raw and human.

She hesitates. Save one man or press the assault? Her gauntlet sweats; the banner’s weight snaps against wood. Determination flares. “Onward!” she shouts.

The line falters under English arrow storm from the flank. Heads crack, armor dents, men fall screaming in the mud. The Bastille de Saint-Loup looms ahead, its defenders steel‑bright and grim. As French ranks splinter, Joan reels, heart pounding, lungs burning, but she spots a riderless destrier slipping from the fray. She vaults onto its back, the beast lurching beneath her.

Holding her white banner high, she shouts” In the Name of God!”. Over and over, until she is hoarse. Around her, the tide reverses: a grizzled veteran pauses mid‑step, mouth half‑open, then mutters, “I thought her white banner was a beacon, or a curse, ’til it turned the tide.” His wonder carries through the line, and fresh courage surges.

By dusk, the walls shudder as the gate gives way. In the commanders’ tent, Dunois leans forward, finger tracing spilled ink on the map. “Do we press on?” he asks.

Joan’s gaze drifts to the flickering lanterns, to the smoky rafters above. She tastes dust and sweat. “I…” She falters, recalling the wounded soldier’s plea, the frantic trumpet, the ache of uncertainty. Finally: “We follow the best path we have: faith in our men, in ourselves, in Him.”

Silence settles, not holy hush but the weight of decision. Even her allies regard her with wary respect: a peasant girl whose courage feels both gift and burden.

That night, she kneels on cold planks, mud crusted beneath her ribs. The saints have quieted to a dull thrum. She rubs her collarbone where the cuirass chafes, questions flutter: Was this her own will or something more? Her fingers brush the crude cross at her throat, a reminder that every step forward is both choice and calling. Soon, Orléans stands free, or falls, and Joan must own the path she carved.

The cell’s damp cold settles into Joan’s bones. Water drips from a fissure overhead, each plip echoing in the tight stone circle. Behind her, rats scratch the mortar; the damp seeps through her thin tunic, clinging to chilled skin. Iron shackles bite into her wrists where banners once sat easy.

Eight guards in patched tabards shift at the bars, their lanterns throwing long shadows. Through the narrow window, bells toll for mass, promised to her, yet never granted.

Bishop Cauchon strides in, his crimson robe whispering across the flagstones. He smiles, measuring her from eye to shivering toe. “You’re far too interesting to burn without extracting every last secret,” he coos. Then, voice shifting: “Refuse me, and I’ll see you roasted in common witchcraft; and I’ll enjoy the show.”

Joan lifts her chin, breath catching on the rasp of her own voice. “You promised me a woman’s ward, female guards, mass… and these chains off my wrists.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Promises change with convenience.” He steps closer, ring glinting. “Have your voices spoken since, after, you signed that confession?”

Three days ago, under the torch’s glare, she’d signed away her visions to save her skin. “Yes,” she admits, throat tight and dry. “Did He hear that lie?” she thinks. In the hollow silence, the old certainty returns, not thunderous, but an insistence that she erred.

Cauchon’s lips curve. “Ah. So you still fancy yourself the Lord’s mouthpiece?”

Her pulse pounds in her ears. The cell’s drip sounds louder. She swallows, the metal collar chafing her neck. “I’d rather die than deny Him again.”

He inclines his head, mock solemn. “Very well. You’re relapsed. Tomorrow, the English will claim your body and scatter your ashes. No relics, no legends, just coals on the Seine.”

Outside her thin walls, the wind howls against Rouen’s stones. She presses her back to the cold bricks, the voices inside her stirring, neither comfort nor torment but both. One part of her clings to each breath as a choice; faith or her own stubborn will. And in that tight, dripping dark, Joan knows the final act is hers.

The scrape of Joan’s moldy sandals on the cobblestones echoes in her ears as she steps into Rouen’s Vieux‑Marché. Tears sting her eyes, not from pain, but from dread. The spring air is cool, and each breath feels borrowed.

Around her, English soldiers heft heavy timbers. Their faces are set, but one youth’s hand trembles as he aligns a beam for the pyre. Behind him, the crowd shifts uneasily, some avert their gaze, others press forward, curiosity and pity warring in their expressions.

Joan walks between her guards with measured dignity. Her coarse leggings and tunic hang loose on her wasted frame; each ragged fold reminds her of what she’s left behind. The sentence is read aloud in clipped Latin no one else understands: heresy, schism, idolatry, demon worship. Joan’s eyes stay fixed on the wavering flame of a single torch.

Soldiers bind her wrists to the pillar’s rough surface. The ropes cut into her skin, and for a moment she hesitates: “Is this my choice, or a destiny forced upon me?” She presses her cheek to the cold, feeling its grain beneath tears.

An older soldier, gaunt and silent until now, steps forward clutching a crude cross he’s fashioned from broken sticks. His fingers are stained with ash and sweat. “Here,” he murmurs, voice low. Joan accepts it, fingers brushing his in an accidental spark of human connection. She kisses the cross, throat tight.

When the executioner approaches with a torch, she does not plead or rail. Her voice is barely above the crackle of kindling: “He knows my heart.” It’s neither boast nor prayer, but a last fragile confession.

As flames lick the pyre’s base, Joan closes her eyes. The heat presses against her face, and she thinks of fields left behind, of voices that once guided her, now silent. Some in the crowd cross themselves; others drop to their knees. But none can name the feeling that grips them. Joan is last seen muttering the words “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” before the flames and smoke take her.

Later, when the pyre has burned low, soldiers gather the ashes. In the Seine’s current, cinders float downstream and blur into dusk, neither triumph nor tragedy, but something in between, carried onward by wind and water, leaving each to reckon with what remains.

Joan of Arc died May 30th, 1431, at age 19, 71 miles northwest of Paris.

Joan of Arc's journey began in innocence, a peasant girl tending hearth and home in Domrémy, existing in the protected but limited space society allowed her. When her saints first called, they disturbed this simple harmony, presenting her with a profound choice: remain in safety or risk everything for a truth that burned within.

Her initial hesitation revealed the depth of her internal conflict. The familiar world offered security but demanded she deny her deepest knowing. By embracing her visions despite warnings of pride or devilry, Joan performed her first act of courage: trusting her inner truth above external authority.

Leaving home marked her severance from protection. Each step away from Domrémy's familiar paths was a step toward self-sovereignty, trading dependence for the burden of purpose. This departure required more than physical courage; it demanded she reject the very framework that had defined her existence.

When Joan cut her hair and donned soldier's garb, she shed the confines and protections of prescribed femininity. The transformation was both practical and symbolic, an outward manifestation of her evolving consciousness. Though armor chafed and boots pinched, these discomforts represented liberation from old constraints, allowing her true strength to emerge.

At Orléans, Joan confronted the responsibility of leadership. Hesitating briefly before charging forward, she experienced the weight of decisions that risked others' lives. Here, conviction transformed from private belief to public action, bringing both inspiration and isolation. Her banner raised high revealed that authentic leadership flows not from dominance but from embodied truth.

Her imprisonment presented Joan's greatest test. In Rouen's cell, with her voices dimmed to whispers, she confronted her mortality. Her momentary surrender and signature on a confession revealed her humanity, the flickering doubt that accompanies even the most steadfast heart. Yet when pressed to permanently renounce her truth, Joan reclaimed her integrity, choosing death over compromise.

As flames engulfed her at the stake, Joan completed her transformation. The girl who once feared speaking her truth now proclaimed it with her very life, transcending fear not through absence of terror but through courage that encompassed it. Her ashes scattered on the Seine represented the dissolution of her individual self into something eternal, a soul fully realized through surrender to its highest calling.

Review of the Deaths

Mata Hari & Diana: The Price of Performance

Mata Hari and Princess Diana navigated patriarchal systems through opposing yet parallel performances: one wielding exotic allure, the other calculated vulnerability. Both strategies transformed disadvantage into influence, but neither delivered true freedom.

Mata Hari's carefully crafted persona played into male fantasies, turning her body into currency as she traded secrets and sexuality for power. Diana, meanwhile, staged emotional openness as the "Queen of Hearts," transforming personal pain into public appeal through AIDS patient embraces and candid confessions about her struggles. Where Mata Hari leveraged mystery, Diana deployed transparency; opposite methods serving identical purposes.

Both women ultimately confused exposure with empowerment. Their strategies, whether Mata Hari's covert seduction or Diana's strategic vulnerability, relied on revealing intimate aspects of themselves to control other’s perception. Yet this control remained illusory; neither escaped the systems exploiting them. Their performances merely negotiated slightly better positions within rigid structures.

Their shared legacy reveals a bitter truth: systems rewarding women's performance rarely permit transformation. Their temporary influence only deepened reliance on the very structures they sought to navigate. Both disappeared behind imposed identities, the seductive spy and the wounded princess, proving that genuine agency requires more than skillful role-playing. It demands dismantling the stage itself.

Joan of Arc & Diana: The Courage of Conviction and Cost of Compromise

Joan of Arc and Princess Diana represent contrasting approaches to moral authority. Joan's power stemmed from unshakable inner conviction, a teenage peasant who transcended her era's limitations through inspired certainty. Her armor symbolized sacred purpose rather than rebellion. This unwavering faith led her to abandon family, lead armies, and ultimately embrace martyrdom because her inner truth mattered more than survival.

Yet Joan's conviction came at a profound cost: isolation. Her refusal to compromise alienated potential allies and left her standing alone against powerful institutions. The purity of her conviction made connection with others nearly impossible; a lonely path few could follow.

Diana, conversely, operated within inherited duty's constraints. Her genuine compassion remained tethered to royal expectations and public performance. Where Joan rejected societal rules outright, Diana navigated within them, often mistaking visibility for freedom. Her vulnerability, wielded as a weapon against royal coldness, ultimately trapped her in an endless cycle of seeking external validation.

Their divergent approaches highlight a fundamental tension in human agency. Joan's courage to define her own truth demanded complete sacrifice, including meaningful human connection. Diana's struggle to reveal her authentic self while maintaining public approval meant constantly compromising her voice to meet others' expectations.

One reminds us that moral authority begins with absolute faith in oneself; the other cautions that well-intentioned defiance can become another form of imprisonment when dependent on public perceptions. Joan's path transformed the world but at unimaginable personal cost; Diana's path offered connection but surrendered autonomy.

Joan of Arc & Mata Hari: Conviction's Flame vs. Survival's Mirage

Joan of Arc and Mata Hari embodied opposing responses to oppression. Joan's power flowed from unshakable conviction; a divine certainty that transcended her era's limitations. She wore armor not as disguise but as expression of sacred purpose, making choices guided by unwavering faith rather than self-preservation. Even facing death, she remained His messenger first.

Mata Hari instead wielded meticulous artifice. She transformed her identity into a commodity, her moral code flexible as she navigated a hostile world through seduction and deception. Where Joan's armor proclaimed truth, Mata Hari's silks concealed it, using men's fantasies as tools for survival in a system designed against her.

Their approaches to agency reveal a fundamental tension: Joan found freedom through absolute commitment to principles, while Mata Hari sought it through strategic adaptability. Yet Joan's rigidity isolated her from human connection, while Mata Hari's flexibility ultimately trapped her within the very systems she manipulated.

One woman's uncompromising stance created lasting moral authority that challenged power itself. The other's tactical compromises secured temporary advantage at the cost of authentic self-expression. Joan's legacy demonstrates that moral clarity, even at tremendous personal cost, transforms collective possibilities. Mata Hari's story suggests that survival-driven flexibility, though pragmatic, risks dissolving the self it aims to protect.

The contrast illuminates a central paradox: conviction provides genuine agency but demands great sacrifice; adaptability offers immediate survival but can erode identity. Joan's unwavering faith redefined what women could be across centuries; Mata Hari's resourcefulness showed what women could accomplish under duress; yet only Joan's approach left an enduring example beyond her lifetime.

Joan of Arc, Mata Hari & Diana: Moral Strategies in Hostile Systems

Joan of Arc, Mata Hari, and Princess Diana each forged unique paths in societies designed to control women. Their approaches to agency reveal truths about power, authenticity, and survival.

Joan's power came from unyielding faith and conviction. As a peasant girl claiming divine mission, she transformed gender limitations into spiritual armor, leading with certainty rooted in higher truth. She showed that challenging broken systems demands tremendous sacrifice but offers the possibility of genuine transformation.

Mata Hari built her influence on carefully crafted mystique, turning exotic allure into a tool and using male desire for leverage. Her strategic shapeshifting provided temporary advantage, but at devastating cost: Margaretha Zelle gradually disappeared behind her own creation, sacrificing authentic selfhood for survival.

Diana navigated with genuine compassion and calculated vulnerability. As the "People's Princess," she connected by revealing both warmth and wounds. Her openness won hearts but locked her into dependency on public validation, demonstrating how even sincere emotion becomes a trap when boundaries dissolve.

Their deaths revealed the true cost of their choices. Joan's execution transformed steadfast conviction into lasting moral authority; her refusal to compromise eventually elevated her from deeply controversial figure to literal saint. Mata Hari faced the firing squad with controlled performance until the end, yet her carefully crafted survival strategy ultimately condemned her. Diana's fatal pursuit by media she both welcomed and feared captured her life's central contradiction: vulnerability without boundaries creates inescapable dependencies.

These women's stories reveal that true agency demands conviction above all else. While Joan's path required extreme isolation and martyrdom, it alone created lasting transformation. Tactical flexibility and strategic vulnerability offered temporary advantages to Mata Hari and Diana but ultimately reinforced the very systems they sought to navigate.

The revolutionary choice, then, is anchoring in unshakable inner conviction despite its costs. Integrity isn't about perfection, it's about remaining faithful to what matters most, especially when this stance demands profound sacrifice. Though Joan's path required surrendering human connection and ultimately life itself, only her approach broke free from the performance trap that consumed both Mata Hari and Diana.

In systems designed to control, conviction is the foundation for agency. The hard lesson from these three extraordinary women is that while flexibility and vulnerability may ease immediate survival, only unwavering faith and inner conviction, despite its terrible price, offers the possibility of real freedom.