It is interesting to watch the history of books, and to gain some kind of insight into the various circumstances which contribute to form the reputation of poets, philosophers, or historians. Joinville, whose name is now familiar to the student of French history, as well as to the lover of French literature, might fairly have expected that his memory would live by his acts of prowess, and by his loyal devotion and sufferings when following the King of France, St. Louis, on his unfortunate crusade. When, previous to his departure for the Holy Land, the young Sénéchal de Champagne, then about twenty-four years of age, had made his confession to the Abbot of Cheminon; when, barefoot and in a white sheet, he was performing his pilgrimages to Blehecourt (Blechicourt), St. Urbain, and other sacred shrines in his neighborhood, and when on passing his own domain he would not once turn his eyes back on the castle of Joinville, “_pour ce que li cuers ne me attendrisist dou biau chastel que je lessoie et de mes dous enfans_” (“that the heart might not make me pine after the beautiful castle which I left behind, and after my two children”), he must have felt that, happen what might to himself, the name of his family would live, and his descendants would reside from century to century in those strong towers where he left his young wife, Alix de Grandpré, and his son and heir Jean, then but a few months old. After five years he returned from his crusade, full of honors and full of wounds. He held one of the highest positions that a French nobleman could hold. He was Sénéchal de Champagne, as his ancestors had been before him. Several members of his family had distinguished themselves in former crusades, and the services of his uncle Geoffroi had been so highly appreciated by Richard Cœur de Lion that he was allowed by that King to quarter the arms of England with his own. Both at the court of the Comtes de Champagne, who were Kings of Navarre, and at the court of Louis IX., King of France, Joinville was a welcome guest. He witnessed the reigns of six kings,—of Louis VIII., 1223-26; Louis IX., or St. Louis, 1226-70; Philip III., le Hardi, 1270-85 ; Philip IV., le Bel, 1285-1314; Louis X., le Hutin, 1314-16 ; and Philip V., le Long, 1316-22. Though later in life Joinville declined to follow his beloved King on his last and fatal crusade in 1270, he tells us himself how, on the day on which he took leave of him, he carried his royal friend, then really on the brink of death, in his arms from the residence of the Comte d’Auxerre to the house of the Cordeliers. In 1282 he was one of the principal witnesses when, previous to the canonization of the King, an inquest was held to establish the purity of his life, the sincerity of his religious professions, and the genuineness of his self-sacrificing devotion in the cause of Christendom. When the daughter of his own liege lord, the Comte de Champagne, Jeanne de Navarre, married