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
Debatable Land, a Storey of Netherby, and of me, in our country speech,
it used to be said that I was "a mother's bairn." For I had ever my
greatest joy in her, whom I lost ere I was sixteen years of age, and she
in me: not that she favoured me unduly, for she was very just, but that,
within ourselves, we each knew who was nearest to her heart. She was,
indeed, a saintly woman, yet of a merry wit, and she had great pleasure
in reading of books, and in romances. Being always, when I might, in her
company, I became a clerk insensibly, and without labour I could early
read and write, wherefore my father was minded to bring me up for a
churchman. For this cause, I was some deal despised by others of my age,
and, yet more, because from my mother I had caught the Southron trick of
the tongue. They called me "English Norman," and many a battle I have
fought on that quarrel, for I am as true a Scot as any, and I hated the
English (my own mother's people though they were) for taking and holding
captive our King, James I. of w