At last, the arbalests were brought out from the camp, and the Saracens drew off—fled, says the Sire de Joinville. And the king was there, and
“I took off his casque, and gave him my iron cap, so that he might get some air. And then comes brother Henry de Ronnay, Prevost of the Hospital, to the king when he had passed the river, and kisses his mailed hand. And the king asked him whether he had news of the Count of Artois, his brother; and he said that he had indeed news of him, for he was sure that his brother the Count of Artois was in Paradise. ‘Ha! sire,’ said the Prevost, ‘be of good cheer; for no such honour ever came to a king of France as is come to you. For to fight your enemies you have crossed a river by swimming, have discomfited your enemies and driven them from the field, and taken their engines and tents, where you will sleep this night.’ And the king replied that God be adored for all that He gave; and then the great tears fell from his eyes.”
One need not follow on to the ill ending of the campaign, when king and knights all had to yield themselves prisoners, in most uncertain captivity. The Saracen Emirs conspired and slew their Sultan; the prisoners’ lives hung on a thread; and when the terms were arranging for the delivery and ransom of the king, his own scruples nearly proved fatal. For the Emirs, after they had made their oath, wished the king to swear, and put his seal to a parchment,
“that if he the king did not hold to his agreements, might he be as shamed as the Christian who denied God and His Mother, and was cut off from the company of the twelve Companions (apostles) and of all the saints, male and female. To this the king consented. The last point of the oath was this: That if the king did not keep his agreements, might he be as shamed as the Christian who denied God and His law, and in contempt of God spat on the Cross and trod on it. When the king heard that, he said, please God, he would not make that oath.”
Then the trouble began, and the Emirs tortured the venerable patriarch of Jerusalem till he besought the king to swear. How the oath was arranged I do not know, says Joinville, but finally the Emirs professed themselves satisfied. And after that, when the ransom was paid, the Saracens by a mistake accepted a sum ten thousand livres short, and Louis, in spite of the protest of his counsellors, refused to permit advantage to be taken and insisted on full payment.
Many years afterwards, when Louis was dead and canonized, a dream came to his faithful Joinville who was then an old man.
“It seemed to me in my dream that I saw the king in front of my chapel at Joinville; and he was, so he seemed to me, wonderfully happy and glad at heart; and I also was glad at heart, because I saw him in my chateau. And I said to him: ‘Sire, when you go hence, I will prepare lodging for you at my house in my village of Chevillon.’ And he replied, smiling, and said to me: ‘Sire de Joinville, by the troth I owe you, I do not wish so soon to go from here.’ When I awoke I bethought me; and it seemed to me that it would please God and the king that I should provide a lodging for him in my chapel. So I have placed an altar in honour of God and of him there, where there shall be always chanting in his honour. And I have established a fund in perpetuity to do this.”
Godfrey of Bouillon and St. Louis of France show knighthood as inspired by serious and religious motives. We pass on a hundred years after St. Louis, to a famous Chronicle concerning men whose knightly lives exhibit no such religious, and possibly no such serious, purpose, so far at least as they are set forth by this delightful chronicler. His name of course is Sir John Froissart, and his chief work goes under the name of The Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and the adjoining Countries. It covers the period from the reign of Edward II. to the coronation of Henry IV. of England. Have we not all known his book as one to delight youth and age?
Let us, however, open it seriously, and first of all notice the Preface, with its initial sentence giving the note of the entire work: “That the grans merveilles and the biau fait d’armes achieved in the great wars between England and France, and the neighbouring realms may be worthily recorded, and known in the present and in the time to come, I purpose to order and put the same in prose, according to the true information which I have obtained from valiant knights, squires, and marshals at arms, who are and rightly should be the investigators and reporters of such matters.”[687]
“Marvels” and “deeds of arms”—soon he will use the equivalent phrase belles aventures. With delicious garrulity, but never wavering from his point of view, the good Sir John repeats and enlarges as he enters on his work in which “to encourage all valorous hearts, and to show them honourable examples” he proposes to “point out and speak of each adventure from the nativity of the noble King Edward (III.) of England, who so potently reigned, and who was engaged in so many battles and perilous adventures and other feats of arms and great prowess, from the year of grace 1326, when he was crowned in England.”