ost completed his work at the date of
Queen Jeanne's death (April 2, 1305); to her son, afterwards Louis
X., it was dedicated. His purpose was to recite the pious words and
set forth the Christian virtues of the royal Saint in one book of
the History, and to relate his chivalric actions in the other; but
Joinville had not the art of construction, he suffered from the
feebleness of old age, and he could not perfectly accomplish his
design; in 1317 Joinville died. Deriving some of his materials from
other memoirs of the King, especially those by Geoffroy de Beaulieu
and Guillaume de Nangis, he drew mainly upon his own recollections.
Unhappily the most authoritative manuscripts of the _Histoire de
Saint Louis_ have been lost; we possess none earlier than the close
of the fourteenth century; but by the learning and skill of a modern
editor the text has been substantially established.

We must not expect from Joinville precision of chronology or
exactitude in the details of military operations. His recollections
crowd upon him; he does not marshal them by power of intellect, but
abandons himself to the delights of memory. He is a frank, amiable,
spirited talker, who has much to tell; he succeeds in giving us two
admirable portraits--his own and that of the King; and unconsciously
he conveys into his narrative both the chivalric spirit of his time,
and a sense of those prosaic realities which tempered the ideals of
chivalry. What his eyes had rested on lives in his memory, with all
its picturesque features, all its lines and colours, undimmed by time;
and his curious eyes had been open to things great and small. He
appears as a brave soldier, but, he confesses, capable of mortal fear;
sincerely devout, but not made for martyrdom; zealous for his master's
cause, but not naturally a chaser of rainbow dreams; one who enjoys
good cheer, who prefers his wine unallayed with water, who loves
splendid attire, who thinks longingly of his pleasant chateau, and
the children awaiting his return; one who will decline future
crusading, and who believes that a man of station may serve God well
by remaining in his own fields among his humble dependants. But
Joinville felt deeply the attraction of a nature more under the
control of high, ideal motives than was his own; he would not himself
wash the feet of the poor; he would rather commit thirty mortal sins
than be a leper; but a kingly saint may touch heights of piety which
are unattainable