The arguments by which in 1839 M. Paulin Paris proved that this, the oldest MS. of Joinville, belongs 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.