[265] The Chronicles of the middle ages often speak of Prester John. A letter written by a prince of this name to Louis VII. has been preserved. Seven barbarous princes have been reckoned who bore the name of Prester John. The researches made to ascertain the truth would be uninteresting nowadays.—See the Precis de la Geographie Universelle, by M. Malte Brun, tom. i. p. 441.
[266] According to what we know of Gengiskhan, we should with difficulty believe that among modern historians he has been able to find panegyrists; but Petis de Lacroix has not been able to avoid the example of most historians, who generally appear infatuated by the hero whose life they are writing. An Arabian historian relates, that on learning the massacre of his ambassadors, Gengiskhan was not able to refrain from tears. Here Petis de Lacroix is very angry with the Arabian, and reproaches him bitterly with having given the emperor of the Moguls a feminine character. All others, says he, have given a portrait of him more worthy of a hero.
[267] There have been long disputes upon the terms Mogul and Tartar. We think we can make out, amidst much uncertainty, that the Moguls originally formed a distinct tribe of the vast countries of Tartary; and that the Tartars, being in great numbers in the armies of the conquering Moguls, obliterated in a degree the names of their conquerors in the kingdoms of Europe and Asia to which these armies penetrated.
[268] Father Gaubil has translated a Chinese history of Gengiskhan; this history yields but little information, and gives no curious details but upon the family and the successors of the conqueror.
[269] Matthew Paris speaks of the terror which the Moguls spread through Europe: his history contains an exhortation to all the nations of the West to fly to arms; each nation is in this history characterized by an honourable and flattering epithet.
[270] The reader may consult Thurocsius, vol. i., Rerum Hungaricarum, and particularly the Carmen Miserabile of Roger of Hungary, canon of Varadin, who has described in poetical prose the disasters of which he himself was a witness.
[271] See in the Appendix the details which many of the Chronicles give of the ravages of the Carismians in Palestine.
[272] Joinville gives many particulars of this war which he had learnt during his sojourn in Palestine. The continuator of William of Tyre may likewise be consulted. Matthew Paris has preserved two letters, one from the patriarch of Jerusalem, the other from the grand master of the Hospitallers, which describe this battle.
[273] This is the opinion of M. Deguignes, in his Histoire des Huns.
[274] Consult Matthew Paris, and the Annales Ecclésiastiques, for particulars concerning the council of Lyons.