hop
of Tyre, and translated into French, so that even the ground which
Joinville had more especially selected as his own was preoccupied by a
popular and authoritative writer. Lastly, when Joinville's History
appeared, the chivalrous King, whose sayings and doings his old brother in
arms undertook to describe in his homely and truthful style, had ceased to
be an ordinary mortal. He had become a saint, and what people were anxious
to know of him were legends rather than history. With all the sincere
admiration which Joinville entertained for his King, he could not compete
with such writers as Geoffroy de Beaulieu (Gaufridus de Belloloco), the
confessor of St. Louis, Guillaume de Chartres (Guillelmus Carnotensis),
his chaplain, or the confessor of his daughter Blanche, each of whom had
written a life of the royal saint. Their works were copied over and over
again, and numerous MSS. have been preserved of them in public and private
libraries. Of Joinville one early MS. only was saved, and even that not
altogether a faithful copy of the original.

The first edition of Joinville was printed at Poitiers in 1547, and
dedicated to Francois I. The editor, Pierre Antoine de Rieux, tells us
that when, in 1542, he examined some old documents at Beaufort en Valee,
in Anjou, he found among the MSS. the Chronicle of King Louis, written by
a Seigneur de Joinville, Senechal de Champagne, who lived at that time,
and had accompanied the said St. Louis in all his wars. But because it was
badly arranged or written in a very rude language, he had it polished and
put in better order, a proceeding of which he is evidently very proud, as
we may gather from a remark of his friend Guillaume de Perriere, that "it
is no smaller praise to polish a diamond than to find it quite raw"
(_toute brute_).

This text, which could hardly be called Joinville's, remained for a time
the received text. It was reproduced in 1595, in 1596, and in 1609.

In 1617 a new edition was published by Claude Menard. He states that he
found at Laval a heap of old papers, which had escaped the ravages
committed by the Protestants in some of the monasteries at Anjou. When he
compared the MS. of Joinville with the edition of Pierre Antoine de Rieux,
he found that the ancient style of Joinville had been greatly changed. He
therefore undertook a new edition, more faithful to the original.
Unfortunately, however, his original MS. was but a modern copy, and his
edition, though an