AMONG the barons whom Louis the Ninth summoned to Paris, to renew their homage to him and swear loyalty to his children, was the Sieur de Join-ville, destined to be known as chronicler of the crusade.
Joinville was chief of a noble family in Champagne, and appears, at this time, to have been approaching the age of thirty. Some years earlier, he had succeeded his father as Seneschal of Champagne, and espoused a daughter of the Count de Grand Pre. He seems, however, to have been a widower when Louis assumed the cross, and in no degree disinclined to take part in an expedition to the East. Accordingly, when the crusade was proclaimed throughout France, he assumed the cross and prepared to accompany Louis to Palestine. He did not, however, comply with the King's request to renew his fealty. "He summoned me also," says Joinville; "but I who was not his subject, would not take the oath. Besides, it was not my intention to remain behind."
After making his preparations, and indulging in a week of feasting with his friends and kinsmen, Joinville prepared to be gone. Ere setting out, he sent for the abbot of Cheminon; and having received from that holy man the scarf and staff, he made pilgrimages to several places in the vicinity, barefoot, and in his shirt. His vow did not admit of any return to his own castle; bat the temptation would seem to have been strong. "As I was journeying from Bliecourt to St. Urban," he says," I was obliged to pass near the castle of Joinville. I dared never turn my eyes in that way, for fear of feeling too great regret, and lest my courage should fail on leaving my two fine children, and my fair castle of Joinville, which I loved in my heart."
Having joined company with two of his kinsmen, the Seneschal departed from Champagne; and the three brothers-in-arms, with their knights and attendants, embarked on the Soane for Lyons; while their war-steeds and cavalry travelled along the banks of the river. On reaching Lyons, they proceeded in the same way by the Rhone to Aries le Blanc, and in August, 1248, reached Marseilles.
On arriving at Marseilles, Joinville and his friends hired a ship; and embarked at that port with their men and horses. " All their courage was necessary to enable them to encounter the dangers of the sea; but the priests having chanted psalms in God's praise, and the crusaders sung the " Veni Creator," they committed themselves to Providence. The skipper then ordered the mariners to set the sails; and a breeze carrying them from the shores of France, the knights observed, with mysterious awe, that no other objects but the sea and the sky were visible.
After suffering much from sea-sickness, Joinvillo landed at Cyprus, and found that King Louis had reached that island. The Seneschal's difficulties immediately commenced. "On my arrival at Cyprus," he says, "I had but twelve score livres in gold and silver, after paying the freight of the ship, so that many of my knights told me they would leave me, if I did not better provide myself with money. I was somewhat cast down in courage on hearing this, but had ever my confidence in God; and, when the good King St. Louis heard of my distress, he sent for me, and retained me in his service, allowing me, like a kind lord, eight hundred livres Tournois. I instantly returned thanks to God."
No sooner was Joinville presented to Louis, than an intimacy sprung up between them; and the Seneschal of Champagne became one of the men whom the King of France delighted to honor. Joinville, it b true, had about him little of the courtier, and was not quite so saintly in theory or practice as Louis could have wished. He had, however, the merit of being thoroughly honest, and of resisting every temptation to affect a degree of piety which he did not feel.
"Seneschal," said Louis one day at Cyprus, "I marvel that you do not mix water with your wine."
"Sire," said Joinville, " physicians have told me that as I have a large head and a cold stomach, the water might prove injurious."
"Ah!" exclaimed Louis, " believe me, they have deceived you. Be advised; for if you do not begin to drink water-till you are in the decline of life, you will increase, any disorders you may then have; and if you take pure wine in your old age, you will frequently be intoxicated; and verily it is a beastly thing for an honorable man to make himself drunk."
"Whether would you he a leper, Seneschal, or have committed, or be about to commit, a deadly sin? " asked the King on another occasion, when two friars were present.
"Rather than be a leper, Sire," exclaimed Joinville, "I would have committed thirty deadly sins."
"How could you make such an answer to my question? " asked Louis, upbraidingly, when the friars were gone.
"Sire," replied Joinville, M were I to answer again, I should repeat the same thing."
"Ah!" said Louis, " you deceive yourself on the subject, for you know there can be no leprosy so filthy as deadly sin, and the soul that is guilty of such is like the devil in hell."
"And pray, Seneschal," demanded Louis after a pause, "do you wash the feet of the poor on Holy Thursdays?"
"Oh, Sire, no!" cried Joinville; "and never will I wash the feet of such fellows."
"This is in truth, very ill said," remarked Louis, shaking his head. 'o For you should never hold in disdain what God did for our instruction. I therefore beg that you will, first out of love to Him, and then from regard to me, accustom yourself to do so."
With such conversations the winter passed over at Cyprus, Joinvule quaffing his wine without water, and Louis expatiating on the perils of such indulgence. At length, March arrived; and the King embarked with the Queen and their household. Joinville, with the other crusaders, prepared to tempt the seas once more, but not without a vague kind of terror. "I must say," he remarks, "that he is a great fool who puts himself in such danger, haying wronged any one, or having any mortal sin on his conscience; for, when he goes to sleep in the evening, he knows not if, in the morning, he may not find himself under the sea."
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From John G. Edgar
The Crusades and the Crusaders, 1860
