oldier would speak. He seems to know that people will
listen to him with respect, and that they will believe what he tells them.
He does not weary them with arguments. He rather likes now and then to
evoke a smile, and he maintains the glow of attention by thinking more of
his hearers than of himself. He had evidently told his stories many times
before he finally dictated them in the form in which we read them, and
this is what gives to some of them a certain finish and the appearance of
art. Yet, if we speak of style at all,--not of the style of thought, but of
the style of language,--the blemishes in Joinville's History are so
apparent that one feels reluctant to point them out. He repeats his words,
he repeats his remarks, he drops the thread of his story, begins a new
subject, leaves it because, as he says himself, it would carry him too
far, and then, after a time, returns to it again. His descriptions of the
scenery where the camp was pitched, and the battles fought, are neither
sufficiently broad nor sufficiently distinct to give the reader that view
of the whole which he receives from such writers as Caesar, Thiers,
Carlyle, or Russell. Nor is there any attempt at describing or analyzing
the character of the principal actors in the crusade of St. Louis, beyond
relating some of their remarks or occasional conversations. It is an
ungrateful task to draw up these indictments against a man whom one
probably admires much more sincerely than those who bespatter him with
undeserved praise. Joinville's book is readable, and it is readable even
in spite of the antiquated and sometimes difficult language in which it is
written. There are few books of which we could say the same. What makes
his book readable is partly the interest attaching to the subject of which
it treats, but far more the simple, natural, straightforward way in which
Joinville tells what he has to tell. From one point of view it may be
truly said that no higher praise could be bestowed on any style than to
say that it is simple, natural, straightforward, and charming. But if his
indiscriminate admirers had appreciated this artless art, they would not
have applied to the pleasant gossip of an old general epithets that are
appropriate only to the masterpieces of classical literature.

It is important to bear in mind what suggested to Joinville the first idea
of writing his book. He was asked to do so by the Queen of Philip le Bel.
After the death of the Que