After King Charles died, who was king of France, I had been in his service for a long time; and afterwards I was in the service of king Joan of Aragon, whose first knight I was and he was my natural lord; and for a long time I was his intimate and loved by him as much as a servant may be by his lord; and I was aware that the aforesaid lord showed me great love — this I found in him and loved him as much as a servant may love his lord, inasmuch as there would be nothing that I could possibly do in this world that I would not do for him. And I left the aforesaid lord with his permission in the kingdom of Valencia and came to the place called Millàs which is my patrimony of the viscountcy of Perellós. And then there occurred the death of pope Clement V1 who was of the family of the Count of Guyenne2; and a few days later Cardinal de Luna was elected pope by the cardinals and took the name of Benedict XIII.
And as in some journey had found myself in Italian waters where I was with three armed galleys, and also on land, it happened that they were in the service of pope Clement and his college; and I was well acquainted with his cardinals who left Italy on my galleys and two belonging to the seneschal of Provence, whose name was Fouquet d'Agout. They came to me in the first year of the schism which has lasted so long. And the bishop of Bari, the pope who was called Urban3, stayed in Rome. And I was well acquainted with the cardinals, in particular with Cardinal de Luna who had been recently elected [pope] and the aforesaid pope Benedict sent me a message ordering me to go and serve with him. This I did and served him with the permission of my aforesaid lord the king.
It happened that I was with the aforesaid pope when my lord the king died4 and for this death — despite the will of God — I was very sad and sorrowful, as much as any servant can be on account of the death of his lord, and I set my heart at that time to go to Saint Patrick's purgatory to find out if it was possible to find my lord in purgatory and the pains he was suffering. Thus I conceived the aforesaid things because of what I had heard about the purgatory.
And after some days of this desire which I had to go and enter the purgatory, by way of confession I spoke to the pope, telling him about all my intention. He rebuffed me very strongly and put great fear in me, advising me by no means to do this; and over and above what he said, he had me told by some cardinals who were close to him, in particular two: one was the dean of Tarazona who was of the family surnamed Calviello5; the other cardinal was called Jofré de Santa Elena6. And a brother of mine called Sir Ponç of Perellós was present. And the pope strongly advised me not to go, so that they held me back so strongly that I was hard put to it to escape them.
And after some days I spoke to the pope, telling him that for nothing in the world would I abandon this journey; and having obtained his blessing, I departed from him on the feast of Our Lady in September in the aforesaid year and went my way through France to the king's court in Paris — I was a former servant of his and his father, whose name was Charles, had reared me from a very early age and had likewise made me his chamberlain; and from the king of France and from his uncles, the brothers dukes of Berry and Burgundy, I had letters of recommendation to the king of England (who was his son in law) and other lords of England (on beginning the marriage they had made a truce for 30 years7). I left Paris and by daily stages came to Calais where I took ship for England.