il deeds was
mostly to despise and be angered with them--not to beware for myself.
And that lore cometh not of God. Thou mayest learn from such things set
down in Holy Writ: but verily it takes God to pen them, so that we may
indeed profit and not scorn,--that we may win and not lose. Be sure
that whenever God puts in thine hand a golden coin of His realm, with
the King's image stamped fair thereon, Satan is near at hand, with a
gold-washed copper counterfeit stamped with his image, and made so like
that thou hast need to look close, to make sure which is the true.
`Hold not all gold that shineth'--a wise saw, my daughter, whether it be
a thing heavenly or earthly."

"I will endeavour myself to profit by your good counsel, Father," said
I. "But mine husband bade me write this chronicle, though, sooth to
say, I had no list thereto. And if I shall leave to deal with he and
she, how then may my chronicle be writ?"

"Write thy chronicle, my daughter," he answered. "But write it as God
hath writ His Chronicles. Set down that which men did, that which thou
sawest and heardest. Beware only of digging into men's purposes where
thou knewest them not, and sawest but the half thereof. And it is
rarely possible for men to see the whole of that which passeth in their
own day. Beware of setting down a man as all evil for one evil thing
thou mayest see him to do. We see them we live amongst something too
close to judge them truly. And beware, most of all, of imagining that
thou canst get behind God's purposes, and lay bare all His reasons.
Verily, the wisest saint on earth cannot reach to the thousandth part
thereof. God can be fully understood, only of God."

I have set down these wise words of good Father Philip, for though they
be too high and wide for mine understanding, maybe some that shall read
my chronicle may have better brains than she that writ.

So now once again to my chronicling, and let me endeavour to do the same
as Father Philip bade me.

It was on the eve of Saint Michael, 1325, that the Queen and her meynie
(I being of them) reached Paris. We were ferried over the Seine to the
gate of Nully [Note 1], and thence we clattered over the stones to the
Hotel de Saint Pol [Note 2], where the Queen was lodged in the
easternmost tower, next to our Lady Church, and we her meynie above.
Dame Isabel de Lapyoun and I were appointed to lie in the pallet by
turns. The Queen's bedchamber was hung with red sindon,