y sincere mortals--had about it something simple and ingenuous
which Joinville records with equal frankness. When they first embarked
on their voyage to the Crusade, the clerks and the seigneurs were
fearfully seasick and much repented themselves; when they had somewhat
recovered, the king would draw them into serious conversation. On one
day, says Joinville:

"'Senechal,' said the king, 'what is it that is God?' 'Sire, it is so
sovereign and so good a thing that nothing could be better.' 'Truly,
that is very well replied, for this response is written in this little
book which I hold in my hand. Another question I will put to you, that
is to say: 'Which would you prefer, to be leprous and ugly, or to have
committed a mortal sin?' And I," says Joinville, "who never wished to
lie to him, I replied to him that I would rather have committed thirty
mortal sins than to be a leper. When the brothers had all departed from
where we were, he called me back alone and made me sit at his feet, and
said to me: 'How have you dared to say that which you said to me?' And I
reply to him that I would say so again. And then he says to me: '_Ha,
fou musart, musart_, you are deceived there, for you know that there is
no leprosy so ugly as that of being in mortal sin. And I pray you, for
the love of God in the first place, and for the love of me, that you
retain this in your heart.'"

The king's piety did not prevent him from showing an unyielding front to
the turbulent nobles and duly strengthening the royal authority at their
expense. By enforcing the regulations of Philippe-Auguste, he well-nigh
put a stop to the private wars and the judicial duel; he decided that
the royal coinage alone should circulate in the kingdom; at his death,
"Royalty already appeared as the unique centre of jurisdiction and of
power, and the _tiers etat_ amassed every day more science and more
riches--which always ends by giving also more influence." The French
language, disengaging itself from its Latin idioms, had become the
language of legislation; it was that of the _Assises_, or laws of the
kingdom of Jerusalem. The poetry of the troubadours had perished in the
atrocious crusade against the Albigeois, but, "north of the Loire, the
_trouveres_ were still composing the _chansons de geste_, veritable epic
poems which were translated or imitated by Italy, England, and Germany.
So that we are quite justified in saying that, from the twelfth century,
the intellect