The second part enters upon the history of the crusade itself, and tells how Joinville pledged all his land save so much as would bring in a thousand livres a year, and started with a brave retinue of nine knights (two of whom besides himself wore bannerets), and shared a ship with the sire d'Aspremont, leaving Joinville without raising his eyes, "pour ce que le cuer ne me attendrisist du biau chastel que je lessoie et de mes deux enfans"; how they could not get out of sight of a high mountainous island (Lampedusa or Pantellaria) till they had made a procession round the masts in honour of the Virgin ; how they reached first Cyprus and then Egypt ; how they took Damietta, and then entangled themselves in the Delta. Bad generalship, which is sufficiently obvious, unwholesome food—it was Lent, and they ate the Nile fish which had been feasting on the carcases of the slain—and Greek fire did the rest, and personal valour was of little avail, not merely against superior numbers and better generals, but against dysentery and a certain "mal de lost" which attacked the mouth and the legs, a curious human version of a well-known bestial malady. After ransom Acre was the chief scene of Louis's stay in the East, and here Joinville lived in some state, and saw not a few interesting things, hearing besides much gossip as to the affairs of Asia from ambassadors, merchants and others. At last they journeyed back again to France, not without con siderable experiences of the perils of the deep, which Joinville tells with a good deal of spirit. The remainder of the book is very brief. Some anecdotes of the king's "justice," his favourite and distinguishing attribute during the 16 years which intervened between the two crusades, are given ; then comes the story of Joinville's own refusal to join the second expedition, a refusal which bluntly alleged the harm done by the king's men who stayed at home to the vassals of those who went abroad as the reason of Joinville's resolution to remain behind. The death of the king at Tunis, his enseignement to his son, and the story of his canonization complete the work.
The book in which this interesting story is told has had a literary history. It seems to have undergone very much the same fate as that which befell the originals of the first two volumes of the Paston Letters which Sir John Fenn presented to George III. Several royal library catalogues of the 14th century are known, but in none of these does the Histoire de St. Louis appear. It does appear in that of Charles V.
(14u), but apparently no copy even of this survives. A copy at first or second hand which belonged to the fiddler king Rene of Provence in the 15th century was used for the first printed edition in Other editions were printed from other versions, all evidently posterior to the original. But in 1741 the well-known mediaevalist, La Curne de St. Palaye, found at Lucca a manuscript of the 16th century, evidently representing an older text than any yet printed. Three years later a 14th century copy was found at Brussels; this is the standard manu script authority for the text of Joinville, and appears in the well known collection of Michaud and Poujoulat as well as in that of Buchon, and in a careful and useful separate edition by Francisque Michel. The modern science of critical editing, however, which applies to mediaeval texts the principles long recognized in editing the classics, has discovered in the 16th century ms. and still more in the original miscellaneous works of Joinville, the letters, deeds, etc., already alluded to, the materials for what we have already called a conjectural restora tion, which is not without its interest, though perhaps it is possible for that interest to be exaggerated.
For general readers Buchon's or Michaud's editions of Joinville will suffice amply. Both include translations into modern French, which are hardly necessary, for the language is easy. Natalis de Wailly's editions of 1868 and, particularly, 1874 are critical editions, embodying the modern research connected with the text, the value of which is considerable, but contestable. They are accompanied by ample annota tions and appendices, with illustrations of great merit and value. Much valuable information appeared for the first time in the edition of F. Michel (1859). To these may be added A. F. Didot's Etudes sw Join vale (187o) and H. F. Delaborde's Jean de Joinville (1894). A good sketch of the whole subject will be found in Aubertin's Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaises au moyen age, ii.; see also Gaston Paris, Litt. francaise au moyen age (1893), and A. Debidour, Les Chroniqueurs (1888). There are English translations by T. Johnes (1807), J. Hutton (1868), Ethel Wedgwood (1906), and (more liter ally) Sir F. T. Marzials ("Everyman's Library," 1908).