company I was, from her beginning even till her end.

Obedient, therefore, to my Superior, I wrote, in this our cell of
Pluscarden, a Latin book containing the histories of times past, but when
I came to tell of matters wherein, as Maro says, "pars magna fui," I grew
weary of such rude, barbarous Latin as alone I am skilled to indite, for
of the manner Ciceronian, as it is now practised by clerks of Italy, I am
not master: my book, therefore, I left unfinished, breaking off in the
middle of a sentence. Yet, considering the command laid on me, in the
end I am come to this resolve, namely, to write the history of the wars
in France, and the history of the blessed Maid (so far at least as I was
an eyewitness and partaker thereof), in the French language, being the
most commonly understood of all men, and the most delectable. It is not
my intent to tell all the story of the Maid, and all her deeds and
sayings, for the world would scarcely contain the books that should be
written. But what I myself beheld, that I shall relate, especially
concerning certain accidents not known to the general, by reason of which
ignorance the whole truth can scarce be understood. For, if Heaven
visibly sided with France and the Maid, no less did Hell most manifestly
take part with our old enemy of England. And often in this life, if we
look not the more closely, and with the eyes of faith, Sathanas shall
seem to have the upper hand in the battle, with whose very imp and minion
I myself was conversant, to my sorrow, as shall be shown.

First, concerning myself I must say some few words, to the end that what
follows may be the more readily understood.

I was born in the kingdom of Fife, being, by some five years, the younger
of two sons of Archibald Leslie, of Pitcullo, near St. Andrews, a cadet
of the great House of Rothes. My mother was an Englishwoman of the