VII. JOINVILLE.[29]

Our attention was attracted a few months ago by a review published in the “Journal des Débats,” in which a new translation of Joinville's “Histoire de Saint Louis,” by M. Natalis de Wailly, a distinguished member of the French Institute, was warmly recommended to the French public. After pointing out the merits of M. de Wailly's new rendering of Joinville's text, and the usefulness of such a book for enabling boys at school to gain an insight into the hearts and minds of the Crusaders, and to form to themselves a living conception of the manners and customs of the people of the thirteenth century, the reviewer, whose name is well known in this country as well as in France by his valuable contributions to the history of medicine, dwelt chiefly on the fact that through the whole of Joinville's “Mémoires” there is no mention whatever [pg 152] of surgeons or physicians. Nearly the whole French army is annihilated, the King and his companions lie prostrate from wounds and disease, Joinville himself is several times on the point of death; yet nowhere, according to the French reviewer, does the chronicler refer to a medical staff attached to the army or to the person of the King. Being somewhat startled at this remark, we resolved to peruse once more the charming pages of Joinville's History; nor had we to read far before we found that one passage at least had been overlooked, a passage which establishes beyond the possibility of doubt the presence of surgeons and physicians in the camp of the French Crusaders. On page 78 of M. de Wailly's spirited translation, in the account of the death of Gautier d'Autrèche, we read that when that brave knight was carried back to his tent nearly dying, “several of the surgeons and physicians of the camp came to see him, and not perceiving that he was dangerously injured, they bled him on both his arms.” The result was what might be expected: Gautier d'Autrèche soon breathed his last.

Having once opened the “Mémoires” of Joinville, we could not but go on to the end, for there are few books that carry on the reader more pleasantly, whether we read them in the quaint French of the fourteenth century, or in the more modern French in which they have just been clothed by M. Natalis de Wailly. So vividly does the easy gossip of the old soldier bring before our eyes the days of St. Louis and Henry III., that we forget that we are reading an old chronicle, and holding converse with the heroes of the thirteenth century. The fates both of Joinville's “Mémoires” and of Joinville himself suggest in fact many reflections apart from mere mediæval history; and a few of [pg 153] them may here be given in the hope of reviving the impressions left on the minds of many by their first acquaintance with the old Crusader, or of inviting others to the perusal of a work which no one who takes an interest in man, whether past or present, can read without real pleasure and real benefit.

It is interesting to watch the history of books, and to gain some kind of insight into the various circumstances which contribute to form the reputation of poets, philosophers, or historians. Joinville, whose name is now familiar to the student of French history, as well as to the lover of French literature, might fairly have expected that his memory would live by his acts of prowess, and by his loyal devotion and sufferings when following the King of France, St. Louis, on his unfortunate crusade. When, previous to his departure for the Holy Land, the young Sénéchal de Champagne, then about twenty-four years of age, had made his confession to the Abbot of Cheminon; when, barefoot and in a white sheet, he was performing his pilgrimages to Blehecourt (Blechicourt), St. Urbain, and other sacred shrines in his neighborhood, and when on passing his own domain he would not once turn his eyes back on the castle of Joinville, “pour ce que li cuers ne me attendrisist dou biau chastel que je lessoie et de mes dous enfans” (“that the heart might not make me pine after the beautiful castle which I left behind, and after my two children”), he must have felt that, happen what might to himself, the name of his family would live, and his descendants would reside from century to century in those strong towers where he left his young wife, Alix de Grandpré, and his son and heir Jean, then but a few months old. After five years he returned from his crusade, full of honors and [pg 154] full of wounds. He held one of the highest positions that a French nobleman could hold. He was Sénéchal de Champagne, as his ancestors had been before him. Several members of his family had distinguished themselves in former crusades, and the services of his uncle Geoffroi had been so highly appreciated by Richard Cœur de Lion that he was allowed by that King to quarter the arms of England with his own. Both at the court of the Comtes de Champagne, who were Kings of Navarre, and at the court of Louis IX., King of France, Joinville was a welcome guest. He witnessed the reigns of six kings,—of Louis VIII., 1223-26; Louis IX., or St. Louis, 1226-70; Philip III., le Hardi, 1270-85 ; Philip IV., le Bel, 1285-1314; Louis X., le Hutin, 1314-16 ; and Philip V., le Long, 1316-22. Though later in life Joinville declined to follow his beloved King on his last and fatal crusade in 1270, he tells us himself how, on the day on which he took leave of him, he carried his royal friend, then really on the brink of death, in his arms from the residence of the Comte d'Auxerre to the house of the Cordeliers. In 1282 he was one of the principal witnesses when, previous to the canonization of the King, an inquest was held to establish the purity of his life, the sincerity of his religious professions, and the genuineness of his self-sacrificing devotion in the cause of Christendom. When the daughter of his own liege lord, the Comte de Champagne, Jeanne de Navarre, married Philip le Bel, and became Queen of France, she made Joinville Governor of Champagne, which she had brought as her dowry to the grandson of St. Louis. Surely, then, when the old Crusader, the friend and counselor of many kings, closed his earthly career, at the good age of ninety-five, he might have looked forward to an [pg 155] honored grave in the Church of St. Laurent, and to an eminent place in the annals of his country, which were then being written in more or less elegant Latin by the monks of St. Denis.