878 JODÎYILLE'e MEMOIRS OF SAINT LOUIS IX. £PT. Tt» that several of our men entered that city with them, and were made prisoners. I have heard from some among them, that daring that night there was much discord between the king of England and the count de la Marche in Saintes,* as they were informed ; and that the king of England should tell the count that he had sent for him, under promise that he would find great aid in France ; and that, perceiving the fallacy of his information, he should return to Gasoony, whence he had come. The count de la Marche thus deserted, and knowing that he could not amend himself for the evil he had done, surrendered himself, his wife and children, prisoners to the king, who gained, on consenting to a peace, many considerable territories from the count I know not what quantity, for I was not present at the treaty, not having then put on the coat of mail ;t but I have heard, that with the lands the king acquired, the count de la Marche gave him an acquittance for ten thousand livres parisi*, which he was wont to receive from him annually. Shortly after this, the good king was taken grievously ill at Paris ;% and so bad was his state, that I have heard that one of the ladies who nursed him, thinking it was all over, wanted to cover his face with a cloth, but that another lady, on the opposite side of the bed (so God willed it), would not * See William Guiart and Matthew of Westminster, among others, respecting the treaty, and this new war of the count de la Marche. Τ John, lord of Joinville, was not a knight in the year 1243, and consequently had not attained the age of twenty-one, which was the age to receive the order of knighthood, and put on the hauberk, which wea a species of armour peculiar to knights. Hence it comes that those who possessed fieni of hauberk In Normandy, " qui per loricaa terras suaa serviebat," to the terms of the laws of William I., king of England, were obliged to have horse and arms, and from the time they were twenty-one years of age to be created knights, in order that they might join the armies of (heir prince or other superior lord, on the first summons, as ie noticed in the ancient MS. Contunder of Normandy, 1, P. sect 3, chap. 8. When the term loricati is met with in ancient Latin authors, it must be understood to mean such knights alone as were entitled to wear the henberk, for previously they wore but the arms of squires. t The ford de Joinville says this happened at Paris ; but Nangis and the author of the Chronicle of Saint Denis say that it was at Pontoise, William Guiart particularly mentions the king being ill at the monastery of Maubuisson, and marks the year 1243 for the period, while the others place it in the following year.