[In the essay that follows, Hatzfeld provides a technical analysis of Joinville's style and descriptive methodology in Vie de Saint Louis.]

Histories of Old French Literature of the future will present a new schema; besides the customary type and amount of information, they will include style sketches of the individual authors. These sketches will be objective if they are based on correct analysis, not on impressions. They will be unequivocal if they place in relief the nuances in the single forms of expression, and if they stress the uniqueness of the style elements in their constellation.

As a first attempt of the sort, I present, in the following lines, a sketch of Joinville's style. In contributing to this volume dedicated to Professor Ford, I should have preferred, however, to offer my whole material with examples and references. Since lack of space renders this impossible, the complete study is reserved for future publication elsewhere.

Joinville's descriptive method consists in linking a few well-observed features by a “pale” line of action. One means of effecting this is the avoidance of colors in particular and of epithets in general, of long descriptions and similes. He sometimes tries to develop the outline into a tableau, but because balance is lacking in the details which he selects to describe, he achieves only a disproportionate presentation. Most of his descriptions are interrupted by critical remarks. The visualizing power of the sentences is thereby weakened; the picture becomes less sharp.

A temporal circumstance, a modality, an intention, or a souvenir, inserted after the description has been initiated, interrupts the line of design precisely at the point where the eye is drawn to follow it. The inserted remarks are disturbing also because they stop the normal rhythmic flow of the sentence. We are, therefore, confronted with an element of rhythmical disproportion, even though the remark may be so “melted” with the described action as to belong to the action as much as to any critical or sentimental reflection.

“Pure” pictorial details themselves, if compressed in relative or conjunctional clauses, generally tend to accelerate the rhythm for this reason. The details given in these subordinate clauses are digressions in relation to the main action which has been expressed in the principal clause and is “waiting” to be resumed. This fact deprives the picture which appears in the subordinate clause of its importance and prevents the visualizing details from assuming their right proportions. The polysyndeton used for a description, in contradistinction to the acceleration in the dependent clauses, has a retarding effect as far as the rhythm is concerned. It is true that it gives the action poise by means of rhythmical onomatopoetic aid; but just this slow—too slow—progress in description reveals another defect in visualization—one which is due to lack of congruity in connecting the details. This hinders the polysyndeton from expanding into a frame to fit a tableau. The visualized parts appear, then, as though they were isolated and extraneous to the compound.

Only in his impressionistic “moving” pictures is Joinville able to keep the power of visualization on a high level because with verbs of vision (voir, regarder, trouver) he succeeds in creating a frame within which the picture develops stroke by stroke. Critical remarks have no room in this frame and consequently preserve their absolute, parenthetical character, which is less disturbing. However, even the pictorial impressionism of Joinville should be mistrusted, for his propensity to interpret and judge finds another way to throw the picture out of proportion. A hasty outline is only a pretext for a clever comparison or an anecdote. Voir is exchanged, then, for the more critical sembler. The anecdote underlines that another person saw (vit) or told (conta). The impression is metaphorically rendered and only added or retranslated; that is, it is rationally reconstructed almost as it was done by the pointillists of the nineteenth century.

There is only one example in Joinville where a tableau, or at least a tableautin, is large enough to absorb critical remarks and dialogue elements to the point of admitting them in full harmony and proportion with visualization. It is the famous scene where Joinville, standing in a corner near a window, is sulking because he thinks he has fallen into disgrace with the king, and is told after a time that the contrary is true. There is a colorful strip of pictorial cut-outs made more vivid by bits of scenic explanations and direct speeches: the railed window behind the king's bed, the pouting knight, the king placing his hands slowly on Joinville's shoulders, head, and eyes, the sénéchal deceived, thinking (“et je cuidai que ce fust”) the blindfolding hands belong to Philip d’Anemos and shouting, “Lessiez moy en paiz!” until he notices the king's emerald ring, and his embarrassment which gives way to relief when the king begins to talk to him in a very friendly manner.

While disproportioned description is naïve as a composite with views and judgments put together at random, its single elements are not. But on the contrary, if Joinville, the causeur, evokes his youthful loves and hates, indignations and irritations, jubilations and triumphs, the decisive word or expression at the beginning of the sentence is a single element of naïveté, created by his unrestrained emotion. If his desire to impress the “chambre des dames” with old warrior's adventures leads him into exaggerations that come from inadvertence to having said “so much that …,” the consequence has to be something naïvely gigantic contrived on the spur of the moment. If, in his extemporaneous talk, something is added like a patch or a tail, or if, in the attempt to report on strategic, diplomatic, scientific matters, he runs into a maze of anacolutha which finally obscure the meaning, we have, in these instances also, single elements of a naïve narration.

A preference for consecutive clauses seems symptomatic of early French prose and is found in Villehardouin as well as in Joinville. Even a propensity to exaggeration—the gab of the warrior—is found in Villehardouin. If with the latter, there appear, however, exaggerated comparisons in the consecutio, they are frozen; they belong to the langue, not to the parole. But Joinville, in his naïvely stressed consecutive clauses, makes of his exaggerations personal “visions.” It is there that his most original comparisons appear. If they do not occur, at least a plastic situation is related in the consecutio.

One of the most naïve features of Joinville's causerie is the neglect to integrate his afterthoughts within the compound of his narration. This fact can be discerned from the manifold “patch-like” additions found at different points in the narration where they do not fit as far as composition and rhythm are concerned. Joinville's “add as you write” language, more suitable for conversation than for “literature,” follows, nevertheless, the same rules as does the “prose nombreuse” because the principle of rhythm must be taken into account in all types of prose. Therefore, we can say that the cauda in Joinville's prose deprives the sentence of a more effective clausula by adding unnecessary weight at the end. Or it deviates the normal cursus of the sentence by erecting “hurdles.” A naïve emotional outburst is often responsible for this rhythmical damage. Syntactical proof for the existence of this cauda is the expression et-aussi—typical formula of the afterthought. It is the more indicative of an appendage since one would expect two or three substantives combined with et and followed by a verb in the plural. This exteriorly visible et-aussi is the key for the more hidden “sentimental” or “pondering” et which is rhythmically different from the ordinary conjunctive or polysyndetic et, because it has a marked long pause before it. This pondering et, introducing an emotional cauda, is very effective in its expression of hesitation, sorrow, repentance, indignation; love, melancholy, tenderness; irony, surprise; admiration, awe. The cauda can be, finally, of a deeper conceptual quality and comprehend a whole sentence. In this case an unwilled irony crowns the naïve report which aims at being complete.

The genuine polysyndeton, on the other hand, where the et (no longer si) links sentences through whole paragraphs, is the solemn expression of complicated diplomatic transactions like peace making. The report on juridical problems is underlined by long titles and appositions; strategic and other important actions are reported by the formula: “Il avint que.” If the event is particularly important for Joinville himself, he makes dramatic circumlocutions giving circumstances of time. Grave “faits divers” of a general interest are lengthily explained with une aventure, manière, qui fut teix que, or by the anacoluthon teix, car …, or more expletively with si est (fut, estoit) teix que. This is the way in which he reports the fire which broke out in the cabin of the queen, the first discovery of the unusual weapon of the Saracens called feu gregeois, the trick of the Tartar king to deprive the host of the leaders by inviting them into his camp in order to conquer easily the town of Bagdad.

A naïve pseudoscientific presentation often buttresses an attempted explanation which is no explanation at all, but a mere statement; or it lends a scientific tone to a report which, although ostensibly focused on a juridical problem, is simply the play of a child-like imagination. Thus Joinville, setting out to explain that earthen jars are bad heat conductors, explains rather that the water of the Nile is particularly cold. Or, wanting to discuss the juridical validity of a letter the seal of which has been broken, he is carried away by the fantasy roused in his imagination by “the legs and the stool of the king,” which are still visible on the broken seal.

Reducing the rich Old French linguistic material to a minimum, Joinville can not avoid repetitions. These repetitions, when used with variations, bring liveliness to the style. To the repetitive forms Joinville adds a lively dialogue which uses all types of speech to make the tone of the discussions and the report on the discussions animated.

Earlier critics intimate that Joinville's repetitions are awkward. This is out of the question. For we have many examples where he does not repeat the same noun after a short interval, but replaces it logically with a pronoun. From this we may conclude that, if Joinville repeats the noun, he does it for a specific reason. The first reason is clarity. The repetition of an expression, sometimes slightly varied, becomes the symbol of passionate complaint, of mournful pride, of ironical threat, of sarcastic indignation. Elevated to a witty pointe, repetition assumes the role of a spirited leitmotif, connected with word-play. Examples of longer parallelisms with repeated words have preferably a chiastic or half-chiastic character implying a lively satisfaction, or the spontaneous result of a premeditated action. Finally, Joinville in his repetitions is led by the delight he takes in echo sounds, a sign of his playfulness. These echo sounds range from a childish rhyme, or a more or less meaningful game with a simplex and compositum, to the repetition of a verb containing such wealth of connotations that the mere repetitive pondering on it creates new comparisons.

Half a century after all the words of the king, his counsellors, the military chievetains and other prudhommes have been spoken, Joinville makes bold to quote them. In this he is not different from other historians from Livy to Villehardouin who indulge so much in quoting direct speeches that in cases of uncertainty they even succumb to forgery. But Joinville's interest is centered more on a kaleidoscope of changing speech styles than on quotations. Whereas to our surprise he quotes direct speeches that were allegedly made by Saracens, Turks, Tartars, Egyptians, Bedouins and even their wives, he quotes words of the king and his close associates which he could possibly have known, in indirect, semidirect, or objective-narrative reports. But he does it in such a way that these different styles of speeches and reports constantly interchange and mingle, producing an extraordinary vividness. The direct answers to questions often consist of one or two words; the dialogues wax stichomythic; longer direct speeches are interspersed with secondary quotes of celebrities who are supposed to have said “this” or “that.” Embryonic cases of the modern “style indirect libre” give certain passages an animated balance and serve as a spring board for new, direct, still livelier repartee between king and sénéchaus—pièces de résistance of the Histoire de Saint Louis.

The seemingly correct, but impossible, quotes from sayings of the enemies which were current in the French camp are all the more charmingly arrogant as they appear introduced by two verba dicendi instead of one. The indirect speeches of the French leaders are made savory by a kind of X-rayed quotations stemming from proverbs and popular comparisons which appear to have been taken directly from the mouth of the people. The direct speeches of the pagans do not transform sufficiently the French viewpoint, so that a Saracen carefully introduced as “qui avoit nom Sebreci qui estoit nez de Morentaigne” finally declares the French king to be “li plus forz ennemis que la loys paienime ait.” The accelerato of lively dialogue is retarded to the moderato of indirect speech, when the subject matter takes a grave and serious turn. The “style indirect libre” is in Joinville's hand a fine means of distant empathy with the speaker whose problems, however, are not entirely his own. When the king asks the mariners whether they would abandon a ship loaded with precious merchandise simply for fear of death, Joinville, after beginning their answer in indirect form, continues and completes it in semidirect form. Joinville knows also the stronger type of the “style indirect libre”—that modern substitutionary report where the dividing lines between speaker and reporter are entirely effaced, because a general truth is shared by both of them—which leaves the reader to decide whose voice he is hearing. This occurs in the instructions on faith and morals given by the saintly king where the indirect speech is sometimes continued in a substitutionary way so that it could be understood also as the comment of the author.

There may be other features in the prose style of Joinville. Those mentioned certainly are original enough to make this early French writer the representative of a most personal “art de la prose.”