994 JOINVILLE'S MEMOIRS OF SAINT LOUIS IX . f PT.IL der had been deposited, which tbey burnt, for fear we might make any advantage of them. It would be the same thing if fire were set to the Petit Pont of Paris, which God preserve from such an accident ! Now let us ask ourselves, what grace did not God the Creator shew us in preserving us from death and danger OD our landing, and when we joyfully advanced to our enemies who were on horseback ? What other greater grace did not our good Lord shew us in delivering up Damietta without any risk of our lives, and which we never could have gained but by starving the garrison ? These graces, we may say, were wondrous great, and apparent to every one. King John had indeed taken it by famine in the times of our ancestors : but I doubt if the good Lord God may not say as much of us as he did of the children of Israel, when he had conducted and led them into the land of promise ; for which he reproached them, saying, " Et pro nihilo ka buerunt terrain desiderabilem, et qua* seouuntur." He said this, because they had forgotten him, who had showered down on them so much good. He had saved them, and brought them out of the captivity of Pharaoh, and given them the land of promise. Thus may he say of us, who forgot him, as shall hereafter be told. I shall begin with the person of the king himself, who assembled all the barons and prelates that had accompanied him, and asked their advice what he should do with the riches he had found in Damietta, and how he should divide them ? À patriarch who was present* spoke first, and said, and taken from the common puree of the merchants, for fimda signifies a purse, in Macrobius, 1. 2, Saturasi, c. 4 ; and in some Greek authors, quoted by Meursius in his Glossary, v. φοννδα. This may be the cause that, in some of the towns of Germany, the Low Countries, and in England, the public places for the meetings of merchants have retained the name of Bourse, or Purse, on account of its being the common purse of the companies of merchants. * It was the patriarch of Jerusalem, of whom mention is made hereafter, and who, according to the account of the lord de Joinrille, was eighty years old at the time of this expedition. His name was Guy, and a native of La Puglia. Pope Gregory IX . promoted him to the bishop, rie of Nantes in Brittany after the death of the patriarch Girold. Albericus in the year 1236. The epistle of Pope Gregory, mentioning his promotion to this dignity, may be found in the Annale of Odoricus Raynaldus, anno 1240, n. 47.