[315] See the extract from Soyouti in Appendix.
[316] This is the Minieh of Aboul-Abdallah.
[317] What a lesson is this letter to all such as designate their God “the God of armies,” or are worshippers of military glory! The archbishop of Canterbury could not have written a better, or one apparently more pious, after the battles of Trafalgar or Waterloo.—Trans.
[318] Très volontiers le ferai, et si ai-je eu en pensée d’ainsi faire, si le cas y échéait.—Joinville.
[319] I am unable to discover the nature of this punishment, or the meaning of the word, but cannot help thinking they are connected with the French proverbial expression, Envoyer quelqu’un au berniquets, as meaning to ruin him.—Trans.
[320] Joinville speaks of a sum of five hundred thousand livres. Ducange has made a dissertation on this head, that gives very little information:—in the first place, we must be able to ascertain what was then the value of 500,000 livres of our money.
[321] The continuator of Tabary and the History of St. Louis, by Joinville, furnish information upon this event. Their accounts agree exactly.
[322] Would not the death of the accomplished Sidney assort worthily with these pictures, as not only exemplifying the good and true knight, but the Christian hero, imbued with charity, the great principle of the Gospel?—Trans.
[323] This is really one of those tales that require “seven justices’ names” to vouch for their authenticity. How such a man, at such a time, could be ambitious of the honour of knighthood, it is very difficult to imagine. But when we recollect that the evidence of sixty-five miracles performed by him, was produced to procure his canonization, we must not be sceptical in what regards Louis IX.—Trans.
[324] We had at first consulted the edition of Ducange; and we have been surprised to find an account and expressions totally different in that of Caperonier, otherwise called the edition of the Louvre; however this may be, we cannot conclude, from either one version or the other, that any proposal of the kind was made to Louis IX. [As the reader may like, without trouble, to see the opinion of our great historian upon this interesting subject, I venture to subjoin it:—“The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is seriously attested by Joinville, pp. 77-78, and does not appear to me so absurd as to M. de Voltaire. The Mamelukes themselves were strangers, rebels, and equals; they had felt his valour, they hoped for his conversion; and such a motion, which was not seconded, might be made perhaps by a secret Christian, in their tumultuous assembly.”—Gibbon.]—Trans.