he knew that his father's name was Symon.
Joinville replied he knew it because his mother had told him so. "Then,"
the King said, "you ought likewise firmly to believe all the articles of
faith which the Apostles attest, as you hear them sung every Sunday in the
Creed." The use of such an argument by such a man leaves an impression on
the mind that the King himself was not free from religious doubts and
difficulties, and that his faith was built upon ground which was apt to
shake. And this impression is confirmed by a conversation which
immediately follows after this argument. It is long, but it is far too
important to be here omitted. The Bishop of Paris had told the King,
probably in order to comfort him after receiving from him the confession
of some of his own religious difficulties, that one day he received a
visit from a great master in divinity. The master threw himself at the
Bishop's feet and cried bitterly. The Bishop said to him,--

" 'Master, do not despair; no one can sin so much that God could not
forgive him.'

"The master said, 'I cannot help crying, for I believe I am a miscreant:
for I cannot bring my heart to believe the sacrament of the altar, as the
holy Church teaches it, and I know full well that it is the temptation of
the enemy.'

" 'Master,' replied the Bishop, 'tell me, when the enemy sends you this
temptation, does it please you?'

"And the master said, 'Sir, it pains me as much as anything can pain.'

" 'Then I ask you,' the Bishop continued, 'would you take gold or silver
in order to avow with your mouth anything that is against the sacrament of
the altar, or against the other sacred sacraments of the Church?'

"And the master said, 'Know, sir, that there is nothing in the world that
I should take; I would rather that all my limbs were torn from my body
than openly avow this.'

" 'Then,' said the Bishop, 'I shall tell you something else. You know that
the King of France made war against the King of England, and you know that
the castle which is nearest to the frontier is La Rochelle, in Poitou.
Now, I shall ask you, if the King had trusted you to defend La Rochelle,
and he had trusted me to defend the Castle of Laon, which is in the heart
of France, where the country is at peace, to whom ought the King to be
more beholden at the end of the war,--to you who had defended La Rochelle
without losing it, or to me who kept the Castle of Laon?'

" 'In the name of God,' said the master, 'to