896 JOINVJLLE'S MEMOIRS OF SAINT LOUIS IX. £PT. IL workmen at as dear a rate as they possibly could. This conduct was spread abroad to distant countries ; and those who would have supplied the army with provisions delayed doing so, which was a great evil and loss. The barons, knights, and others, who ought to have attended to their money concerns, and to have practised economy, as a resource in times of need, began to give sumptuous banquets in rivalship to each other, with the utmost abundance of the most delicious meats. The commonalty likewise gave themselves up to debauchery, and violated both women and girls. Great were the evils in consequence ; for it became necessary for the king to wink at the greatest liberties of his officers and men. The good king even told me, that at a stone's throw round his own pavilion were several brothels,* kept by his personal attendants. Other disorders were going forward, and to a greater extent than any person had hitherto seen. But let us return to our prinoipal object. After we had remained some time in this city of Damietta, the sultan laid siege to it on the land side, with a numerous army. The king and his men-at-arms were soon properly drawn out. In order to prevent the Turks from taking possession of the camp we had on the plain, I went to the king fully armed, whom I found in the same state of preparation, as well as all his knights seated around him on benches,! and most humbly requested that he would permit me and my people to make a course against the Saracens. But the moment Sir John de Belmont heard me, he cried out with a loud voice, commanding me, in the king's name, not to dare to quit my quarters until I should be so ordered by the king. You must know that there were with the king eight good and valiant knights, who had several times won the priie of * The word bordel, which signifies a place of infamy, broiktl, takes its origin from loose women and suchlike characters inhabiting small houses, which in the old French language were called bordels, from the diminutive of borde, a house, and is probably borrowed from bord of the English Saxons, with whom this word has the same meaning. See likewise Spelman's Glossary. From the word borde comes bordel, to mark a small house. There are some who conceive that the word bort, which the Gascons formerly used to signify bastard, took iti rise from the term bordel, as born " incerto patre," and in places of puDlic resort. f That is to say, mounted on their war-horses.