Long before Thelma and Louise and Charlie’s Angels, the first “action-babe” was a 19-year-old cross-dressing French girl who claimed she could see angels, gave the French one of their few military victories, and altered the course of English history before — not much later — getting executed. For this bizarre-but-true story, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920 and immortalized on film by Hollywood dozens of times, most famously by the “Fifth Element” team of Luc Besson and Milla Jovovich, on television by Leelee Sobieski, even as far back as 1895, and what seems to be an upcoming animated TV version with Anna Paquin.

D.C. is blessed with its own tribute to Ms. Arc, also known by her French designation, Jeanne D’Arc. The statue, seen here in an older photo from Yakusha, is a nine-foot replica of a more famous one (by the relatively well-known Paul DuBois) that stands outside the Rheims Cathedral (after the jump). The local copy was the gift of Le Lyceum, the Society of Women in France in New York, in 1922. She sits astride her trusty steed in the middle of Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, at the southern end of the park’s upper section. From there she looms over statues of fellow ancient foreign notable Dante Aligheri, and the pathetic figure of James Buchanan, profiled by DCist just a few weeks ago.