In fact, it originates with my father. I say this without the least sense of shame. You must understand that if I were out to hide anything I would never have begun this story at all. My design is to write it straight out, without any deviation, the way you’d go about ploughing a field. Some have dared to claim that my great-grandfather was a mere lackey: a falsehood which I shall be glad to prove to anyone who will listen. In fact, my great-grandfather, François Siorac, never served a day under anyone. He owned and worked with his own hands a rich piece of farmland near Taniès, in the Sarlat region. I cannot tell you the exact extent of his land, but it was neither small nor unproductive, judging by the fact that he paid the highest tithes to the king of any man in his parish. Nor was he a miser, since he gave ten sols a month to his curate so that his younger son Charles could study Latin, hoping, no doubt, to see him become a priest in his turn.My grandfather Charles was a handsome man, whose beard and hair verged on red, like my half-brother Samson’s.
