0:00 The book felt heavier than it looked.0:03 Its leather was cracked, dry as old bone.0:07 I found it in a little shop in Rouen, tucked away on a shelf of forgotten histories.0:16 The shopkeeper just shrugged.0:19 An old book of psalms, he thought.0:22 Latin.0:23 But the clasp… it was iron, and shaped like a fleur-de-lis.0:29 I had to see inside.0:31 And as I eased it open, this single, folded sheet of parchment slipped out and landed on the floor.0:41 It’s so thin.0:42 Almost translucent.0:44 The ink is faded brown, the script a flurry of old French.0:50 Last week on the show, we talked about how these lost pages seem to find us.0:58 How history whispers if you know how to listen.1:03 I think… I think I’m holding one of those whispers right now.1:09 The date at the top… I can just make it out.1:14 July 17th.1:15 1429.1:15 I have to read this to you.1:18 It’s not a letter.1:20 It’s… a diary.1:21 A single day.1:22 A life.1:23 “July 17, 1429.1:25 Reims.1:25 The bells.1:26 They have been ringing since before dawn.1:30 I think they will ring forever.1:34 I woke on my cot and for a moment, I did not know where I was.1:40 I thought I was home in Domrémy, with the sheep bells in the fields.1:47 But this sound is not gentle.1:50 It is made of iron and victory.1:53 It shakes the very bones of the city.1:57 My head aches from it.1:59 Or perhaps it is not the bells.2:02 My saints are quiet this morning.2:05 Usually, their voices are the first thing I hear.2:10 A comfort.2:11 A command.2:12 But today… there is only the ringing.2:16 Perhaps they do not need to speak.2:20 Perhaps today speaks for itself.2:23 The work is done.2:25 They brought me a gown of fine cloth to wear.2:29 Gold thread at the cuffs.2:32 I refused it.2:33 I will stand beside my king in the clothes of a soldier.2:39 It is what I am.2:40 It is what God made me.2:43 My armor feels a part of my own skin now.2:47 The leather straps are worn soft.2:50 Every dent and scratch is a memory.2:54 Patay.2:55 Jargeau.2:55 Orléans.2:56 I carry the road to Reims on my back.3:00 It is a heavy thing to carry.3:03 The cathedral is a forest of stone.3:06 It smells of a thousand years of prayer.3:11 Incense and cold rock and melting wax.3:14 So many people.3:16 Their faces are turned up like flowers to the sun.3:21 When they see me, they gasp.3:24 Some kneel.3:25 They reach out, trying to touch my standard, my armor, my hands.3:31 They whisper my name.3:34 ‘La Pucelle.’ The Maid.3:36 But they are not looking at me.3:39 Not at Jeanne, the girl who ran from her father’s house.3:45 They are looking at what God sent.3:48 I feel like a borrowed vessel.3:51 A cup filled with something too bright for it to hold.3:57 I am afraid I will shatter.4:00 Charles is… different today.4:02 The Dauphin is gone.4:04 I see a king in his place.4:07 He stood so straight as the Archbishop anointed him with the holy oil from the sacred phial.4:16 The sun came through the great rose window just then.4:22 It lit the dust motes in the air like a thousand tiny angels dancing.4:29 I held my standard high.4:31 Its white cloth is torn and stained with mud and blood, but it is the banner of Heaven.4:40 In that moment, watching the crown settle on his head, I felt such a wave of… completion.4:49 It was as if God himself sighed in relief.4:54 The long war.4:55 The doubt.4:56 It was all for THIS.4:58 My father was there.5:00 I saw him in the crowd.5:02 His face… he looked so lost.5:05 So proud, and so terrified.5:08 Our eyes met for just a second.5:11 He did not see a saint.5:13 He saw his daughter, standing in a place she does not belong, surrounded by lords and bishops.5:23 I wanted to run to him.5:25 I wanted to tell him I miss the smell of our hearth and the taste of my mother's bread.5:34 I wanted to ask him if the lambs are well.5:38 But I could not move.5:41 I am a statue now.5:42 A symbol in a cathedral.5:45 A girl made of stone and prayer.5:48 The king knelt before me after.5:51 Before ME.5:52 He thanked me.5:54 The great lords of France stared, their faces like masks.6:00 They do not understand.6:02 Sometimes, I do not understand.6:05 I only obey.6:06 Now it is night.6:08 The bells have finally stopped.6:11 The city is feasting, but I am here, in this small room.6:17 The voices have returned.6:19 They are soft.6:21 Not commands, just… presence.6:24 Catherine.6:25 Margaret.6:26 Michael.6:26 They are with me.6:28 But they will not tell me what comes next.6:32 The king is crowned.6:34 France has its true leader.6:37 My task… is it finished?6:40 I feel a strange coldness creeping in.6:43 The shouting in the streets sounds very far away.6:48 There is a road from Reims, but I do not know where it leads.6:55 I only know that the road here was straight.6:59 It was lit by God.7:01 The road forward… is dark.” That’s it.7:05 That’s the end of the entry.7:08 Can you believe that?7:10 We have the chronicles.7:12 The official accounts of the coronation of Charles the Seventh.7:19 We know the lords who were present.7:22 We know what prayers were said.7:25 We know that Joan of Arc stood beside him with her battle standard, the triumphant culmination of her impossible campaign.7:38 It’s a scene of pure, uncomplicated victory.7:42 But this… this changes the color of it all.7:47 This isn’t the triumphant saint from the history books.7:52 This is a nineteen-year-old girl.7:56 A girl whose head aches from the noise.8:00 Who feels like a borrowed cup that’s about to shatter.8:05 She sees her father in the crowd and what does she think of?8:11 Not of glory.8:12 Not of France.8:14 She thinks of her mother’s bread.8:17 She is standing at the absolute peak of her life.8:22 She has done what no army could do.8:26 She has crowned a king.8:28 And in her most private thoughts, she is not triumphant.8:34 She is exhausted.8:36 She is lonely.8:37 And she is scared.8:39 “The road forward… is dark.” She had no idea HOW dark it would be.8:46 Less than two years.8:48 That’s all she had left.8:50 Two years from this moment of ultimate glory in Reims Cathedral to the smoke and the fire of the marketplace in Rouen.9:02 Right here.9:03 In the city where I found this book.9:07 We remember Joan of Arc as a legend carved in stone.9:12 A warrior.9:13 A martyr.9:14 A saint.9:15 But this piece of paper… it gives us back the girl.9:20 The one who felt the weight of her armor, who missed her home, and who stood in the middle of a cheering crowd, feeling utterly and completely alone.9:35 This isn't just a lost page.9:38 It's a lost soul.9:40 Heard for the first time in six hundred years.
