ore than once in French literature, the first, or one of the
first, was also the best. The _Conquete de Constantinoble_[132] of
Geoffroy de Villehardouin was written in all probability during the
first decade of the thirteenth century. Its author was born at
Villehardouin, near Troyes, about 1160, and died, it would seem, in his
Greek fief of Messinople in 1213. His book contains a history of the
Fourth Crusade, which resulted in no action against the infidels, but in
the establishment for the time of a Latin empire and in the partition of
Greece among French barons. Villehardouin's memoirs are by universal
consent among the most attractive works of the middle ages. Although no
actually original manuscript exists, we possess a copy which to all
appearance faithfully represents the original. To readers, who before
approaching Villehardouin have well acquainted themselves with the
characteristics of the Chansons de Gestes, the resemblance of the
_Conquete de Constantinoble_ to these latter is exceedingly striking.
The form, putting the difference between prose and verse aside, is very
similar, and the merits of vigorous and brightly coloured language, of
simplicity and vividness of presentation, are identical. At the same
time either his own genius or the form which he has adopted has saved
Villehardouin from the crying defect of most mediaeval work, prolixity
and monotony. He has much to say as well as a striking manner of saying
it, and the interest of his work as a story yields in nothing to its
picturesqueness as a piece of literary composition. His indirect as well
as direct literary value is moreover very great, because he enables us
to see that the picture of manners and thought given by the Chansons de
Gestes is in the main strictly true to the actual habits of the
time--the time, that is to say, of their composition, not of their
nominal subjects. Villehardouin is the chief literary exponent of the
first stage of chivalry, the stage in which adventure was an actual fact
open to every one, and when Eastern Europe and Western Asia offered to
the wandering knight opportunities quite as tempting as those which the
romances asserted to have been open to the champions of Charlemagne and
Arthur. But, as a faithful historian, he, while putting the poetical and
attractive side of feudalism in the best light, does not in the least
conceal its defects, especially the perpetual jarring and rivalry
inevitable in armies where hu