47 



CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



an active part in the fourth Crusade, furnished a model for prose history in 

 his Chronicle, or rather Memoir, upon the conquest of Constantinople by the 

 crusaders in 1202. It is surprising to find in so ancient a work such a 

 faithful and spirited account of the great events which this nobleman, who 

 was a warrior and a statesman as well, had seen happen. His work is, so to 

 speak, the starting-point for those private memoirs which have always been 

 highly appreciated in France, and of which there has been a large supply 

 ever since. The Chronicle of the Sire de Joinville, written more than seventy 

 years after that of Villehardouin, also belongs to the category of private 

 memoirs, though the worthy knight, who composed it in his old age, had 



Fig. 363. " How the Comte de Foix took strong Places in Guienne." Miniature from the " Vigiles 

 de Charles VII., by Martial d'Auvergne. Manuscript dated 1484 (No. 5,054). In the 

 National Library, Paris. 



intended to write the Life of St. Louis rather than a history of his own. He 

 had not assuredly the keen penetration of Villehardouin, but unconsciously 

 he has written one of the most exquisite works in the ancient literature of 

 France. He was not a writer, yet he surpasses all the writers of his day by 

 the charm, the grace, the sensibility, and the piquant artlessness of his 

 narrative (Fig. 364). 



These excellent Memoirs, written by eye-witnesses of unquestionable 

 authority, had not, however, at the time they appeared, the amount of 

 success which their authors may well have expected. They remained in 

 the archives of the Sire de Villehardouin in Eomania, and in those of the 



