The learned Du Cange searched in vain for more trustworthy materials for restoring the text of Joinville. Invaluable as are the dissertations which he wrote on Joinville, his own text of the History, published in 1668, could only be based on the two editions that had preceded his own.
It was not till 1761 that real progress was made in restoring the text of Joinville. An ancient MS. had been brought from Brussels by the Maréchal Maurice de Saxe. It was carefully edited by M. Capperonnier, and it has served, with few exceptions, as the foundation of all later editions. It is now in the Imperial Library. The editors of the “Recueil des Historiens de France” express their belief that the MS. might actually be the original. At the end of it are the words, “Ce fu escript en l'an de grâce mil CCC et IX, on moys d'octovre.” This, however, is no real proof of the date of the MS. Transcribers of MSS., it is well known, were in the habit of mechanically copying all they saw in the original, and hence we find very commonly the date of an old MS. repeated over and over again in modern copies.
The arguments by which in 1839 M. Paulin Paris proved that this, the oldest MS. of Joinville, belongs [pg 162] not to the beginning, but to the end of the fourteenth century, seem unanswerable, though they failed to convince M. Daunou, who, in the twentieth volume of the “Historiens de France,” published in 1840, still looks upon this MS. as written in 1309, or at least during Joinville's life-time. M. Paulin Paris establishes, first of all, that this MS. cannot be the same as that which was so carefully described in the catalogue of Charles V. What became of that MS. once belonging to the private library of the Kings of France, no one knows, but there is no reason, even now, why it should not still be recovered. The MS. of Joinville, which now belongs to the Imperial Library, is written by the same scribe who wrote another MS. of “La Vie et les Miracles de Saint Louis.” Now, this MS. of “La Vie et les Miracles” is a copy of an older MS., which likewise exists at Paris. This more ancient MS., probably the original, and written, therefore, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, had been carefully revised before it served as the model for the later copy, executed by the same scribe who, as we saw, wrote the old MS. of Joinville. A number of letters were scratched out, words erased, and sometimes whole sentences altered or suppressed, a red line being drawn across the words which had to be omitted. It looks, in fact, like a manuscript prepared for the printer. Now, if the same copyist who copied this MS. copied likewise the MS. of Joinville, it follows that he was separated from the original of Joinville by the same interval which separates the corrected MSS. of “La Vie et les Miracles” from their original, or from the beginning of the fourteenth century. This line of argument seems to establish satisfactorily the approximate date of the oldest MS. of Joinville as belonging to the end of the fourteenth century.
Another MS. was discovered at Lucca. As it had belonged to the Dukes of Guise, great expectations were at one time entertained of its value. It was bought by the Royal Library at Paris in 1741 for 360 livres, but it was soon proved not to be older than about 1500, representing the language of the time of François I. rather than of St. Louis, but nevertheless preserving occasionally a more ancient spelling than the other MS. which was copied two hundred years before. This MS. bears the arms of the Princess Antoinette de Bourbon and of her husband, Claude de Lorraine, who was “Duc de Guise, Comte d'Aumale, Marquis de Mayence et d'Elbeuf, and Baron de Joinville.” Their marriage took place in 1513; he died in 1550, she in 1583.
There is a third MS. which has lately been discovered. It belonged to M. Brissart-Binet of Rheims, became known to M. Paulin Paris, and was lent to M. de Wailly for his new edition of Joinville. It seems to be a copy of the so-called MS. of Lucca, the MS. belonging to the Princess Antoinette de Bourbon, and it is most likely the very copy which that Princess ordered to be made for Louis Lasséré, canon of St. Martin of Tours who published an abridgment of it in 1541. By a most fortunate accident it supplies the passages from page 88 to 112, and from page 126 to 139, which are wanting in the MS. of Lucca.
It must be admitted, therefore, that for an accurate study of the historical growth of the French language, the work of Joinville is of less importance than it would have been if it had been preserved in its original orthography, and with all the grammatical peculiarities which mark the French of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. There may be [pg 164] no more than a distance of not quite a hundred years between the original of Joinville and the earliest MS. which we possess. But in those hundred years the French language did not remain stationary. Even as late as the time of Montaigne, when French has assumed a far greater literary steadiness, that writer complains of its constant change. “I wrote my book,” he says in a memorable passage (“Essais,” liv. 3, c. 9)—
“For few people and for a few years. If it had been a subject that ought to last, it should have been committed to a more stable language (Latin). After the continual variation which has followed our speech to the present day, who can hope that its present form will be used fifty years hence? It glides from our hands every day, and since I have lived it has been half changed. We say that at present it is perfect, but every century says the same of its own. I do not wish to hold it back, if it will fly away and go on deteriorating as it does. It belongs to good and useful writers to nail the language to themselves” (de le clouer à eux).
On the other hand, we must guard against forming an exaggerated notion of the changes that could have taken place in the French language within the space of less than a century. They refer chiefly to the spelling of words, to the use of some antiquated words and expressions, and to the less careful observation of the rules by which in ancient French the nominative is distinguished from the oblique cases, both in the singular and the plural. That the changes do not amount to more than this can be proved by a comparison of other documents which clearly preserve the actual language of Joinville. There is a letter of his which is preserved at the Imperial Library at Paris, addressed to Louis X. in 1315. It was first published by Du Cange, afterwards by M. Daunou, in the twentieth [pg 165] volume of the “Historiens de France,” and again by M. de Wailly. There are, likewise, some charters of Joinville, written in his chancellerie, and in some cases with additions from his own hand. Lastly, there is Joinville's “Credo,” containing his notes on the Apostolic Creed, preserved in a manuscript of the thirteenth century. This was published in the “Collection des Bibliophiles Français,” unfortunately printed in twenty-five copies only. The MS. of the “Credo,” which formerly belonged to the public library of Paris, disappeared from it about twenty years ago; and it now forms No. 75 of a collection of MSS. bought in 1849 by Lord Ashburnham from M. Barrois. By comparing the language of these thirteenth century documents with that of the earliest MS. of Joinville's History, it is easy to see that although we have lost something, we have not lost very much, and that, at all events, we need not suspect in the earliest MS. any changes that could in any way affect the historical authenticity of Joinville's work.[31]
To the historian of the French language, the language of Joinville, even though it gives us only a picture of the French spoken at the time of Charles V. or contemporaneously with Froissart, is still full of interest. That language is separated from the French of the present day by nearly five centuries, and we may be allowed to give a few instances to show the curious changes both of form and meaning which many words have undergone during that interval.
Instead of sœur, sister, Joinville still uses sereur, which was the right form of the oblique case, but was afterwards replaced by the nominative suer or sœur. Thus, p. 424 E, we read, quant nous menames la serour le roy, i.e. quand nous menâmes la sœur du roi; but p. 466 A, l'abbaïe que sa suer fonda, i.e. l'abbaïe que sa sœur fonda. Instead of ange, angel, he has both angle and angre, where the r stands for the final l of angele, the more ancient French form of angelus. The same transition of final l into r may be observed in apôtre for apostolus, chapitre for capitulum, chartre for cartula, esclandre for scandalum. Instead of vieux, old, Joinville uses veil or veel (p. 132 C, le veil le fil au veil, i.e. le vieux fils du vieux); but in the nom. sing., viex, which is the Latin vetulus (p. 302 A, li Viex de [pg 167] la Montaingne, i.e. le Vieux de la Montagne; but p. 304 A, li messaige le Vieil, i.e. les messagers du Vieux.) Instead of coude, m., elbow, we find coute, which is nearer to the Latin cubitus, cubit. The Latin t in words like cubitus was generally softened in old French, and was afterwards dropped altogether. As in coude, the d is preserved in aider for adjutare, in fade for fatuus. In other words, such as chaîne for catena, roue for rota, épée for spatha, aimêe for amata, it has disappeared altogether. True is voir, the regular modification of verum, like soir of serum, instead of the modern French vrai; e.g., p. 524 B, et sachiez que voirs estait, i.e. et sachez que c'était vrai. We still find ester, to stand (“Et ne pooit ester sur ses pieds,” “He could not stand on his legs”). At present the French have no single word for “standing,” which has often been pointed out as a real defect of the language. “To stand” is ester, in Joinville; “to be” is estre.