Holy Land--to the assault
upon Constantinople. In the events which followed he had a prominent
part; before the close of 1213 Villehardouin was dead. During his
last years he dictated the unfinished Memoirs known as the _Conquete
de Constantinople_, which relate the story of his life from 1198 to
1207. Villehardouin is the first chronicler who impresses his own
personality on what he wrote: a brave leader, skilful in resource,
he was by no means an enthusiast possessed by the more extravagant
ideas of chivalry; much more was he a politician and diplomatist,
with material interests well in view; not, indeed, devoid of a certain
imaginative wonder at the marvels of the East; not without his moments
of ardour and excitement; deeply impressed with the feeling of feudal
loyalty, the sense of the bond between the suzerain and his vassal;
deeply conscious of the need of discipline in great adventures;
keeping in general a cool head, which could calculate the sum of profit
and loss.

It is probable that Villehardouin knew too much of affairs, and was
too experienced a man of the world to be quite frank as a historian:
we can hardly believe, as he would have us, that the diversion of
the crusading host from its professed objects was unpremeditated;
we can perceive that he composes his narrative so as to form an
apology; his recital has been justly described as, in part at least,
"un memoire justificatif." Nevertheless, there are passages, such
as that which describes the first view of Constantinople, where
Villehardouin's feelings seize upon his imagination, and, as it were,
overpower him. In general he writes with a grave simplicity, sometimes
with baldness, disdaining ornament, little sensible to colour or
grace of style; but by virtue of his clear intelligence and his real
grasp of facts his chronicle acquires a certain literary dignity,
and when his words become vivid we know that it is because he had
seen with inquisitive eyes and felt with genuine ardour. Happily for
students of history, while Villehardouin presents the views of an
aristocrat and a diplomatist, the incidents of the same extraordinary
adventure can be seen, as they struck a simple soldier, in the record
of Robert de Clari, which may serve as a complement and a counterpoise
to the chronicle of his more illustrious contemporary. The unfinished
_Histoire de l'Empereur Henri_, which carries on the narrative of
events for some years subsequent to those related