n of the
Lombards, might he not say even now:--

" 'When women are heroes,
What must the men be like?
Theirs is the victory;
No need of me.' "

1864.

VII. JOINVILLE.(29)

Our attention was attracted a few months ago by a review published in the
"Journal des Debats," in which a new translation of Joinville's "Histoire
de Saint Louis," by M. Natalis de Wailly, a distinguished member of the
French Institute, was warmly recommended to the French public. After
pointing out the merits of M. de Wailly's new rendering of Joinville's
text, and the usefulness of such a book for enabling boys at school to
gain an insight into the hearts and minds of the Crusaders, and to form to
themselves a living conception of the manners and customs of the people of
the thirteenth century, the reviewer, whose name is well known in this
country as well as in France by his valuable contributions to the history
of medicine, dwelt chiefly on the fact that through the whole of
Joinville's "Memoires" there is no mention whatever of surgeons or
physicians. Nearly the whole French army is annihilated, the King and his
companions lie prostrate from wounds and disease, Joinville himself is
several times on the point of death; yet nowhere, according to the French
reviewer, does the chronicler refer to a medical staff attached to the
army or to the person of the King. Being somewhat startled at this remark,
we resolved to peruse once more the charming pages of Joinville's History;
nor had we to read far before we found that one passage at least had been
overlooked, a passage which establishes beyond the possibility of doubt
the presence of surgeons and physicians in the camp of the French
Crusaders. On page 78 of M. de Wailly's spirited translation, in the
account of the death of Gautier d'Autreche, we read that when that brave
knight was carried back to his tent nearly dying, "several of the surgeons
and physicians of the camp came to see him, and not perceiving that he was
dangerously injured, they bled him on both his arms." The result was what
might be expected: Gautier d'Autreche soon breathed his last.

Having once opened the "Memoires" of Joinville, we could not but go on to
the end, for there are few books that carry on the reader more pleasantly,
whether we read them in the quaint French of the fourteenth century, or in
the more modern French in which they have just been clothed by M. Natalis
de Wailly. So vividly does the easy g