The arrangement of the book is, considering its circumstances and the date of its composition, sufficiently methodical. According to its own account it is divided into three parts--the first dealing generally with the character and conduct of the hero; the second with his acts and deeds in Egypt, Palestine, &c., as Joinville knew them; the third with his subsequent life and death. Of these the last is very brief, the first not long; the middle constitutes the bulk of the work. The contents of the first part are, as might be expected, miscellaneous enough, and consist chiefly of stories chosen to show the valour of Louis, his piety, his justice, his personal temperance, and so forth. The second part enters upon the history of the crusade itself, and tells how Joinville pledged all his land save so much as would bring in a thousand livres a year, and started with a brave retinue of nine knights (two of whom besides himself wore bannerets), and shared a ship with the sire d'Aspremont, leaving Joinville without raising his eyes, "pour ce que le cuer ne me attendrisist du biau chastel que je lessoie et de mes deux enfans"; how they could not get out of sight of a high mountainous island (Lampedusa or Pantellaria) till they had made a procession round the masts in honour of the Virgin; how they reached first Cyprus and then Egypt; how they took Damietta, and then entangled themselves in the Delta. Bad generalship, which is sufficiently obvious, unwholesome food--it was Lent, and they ate the Nile fish which had been feasting on the carcases of the slain--and Greek fire did the rest, and personal valour was of little avail, not merely against superior numbers and better generals, but against dysentery and a certain "mal de l'ost" which attacked the mouth and the legs, a curious human version of a well-known bestial malady. After ransom Acre was the chief scene of Louis's stay in the East, and here Joinville lived in some state, and saw not a few interesting things, hearing besides much gossip as to the inferior affairs of Asia from ambassadors, merchants and others. At last they journeyed back again to France, not without considerable experiences of the perils of the deep, which Joinville tells with a good deal of spirit. The remainder of the book is very brief. Some anecdotes of the king's "justice," his favourite and distinguishing attribute during the sixteen years which intervened between the two crusades, are given; then comes the story of Joinville's own refusal to join the second expedition, a refusal which bluntly alleged the harm done by the king's men who stayed at home to the vassals of those who went abroad as the reason of Joinville's resolution to remain behind. The death of the king at Tunis, his _enseignement_ to his son, and the story of his canonization complete the work.