460 JOINVILLE'S MEMOIBS OF SAINT LOUIS IX. QPT. II· him ; they were of a black silken staff, lined with squirrel skins, with a number of golden buttons. While we were on our voyage to Acre, on account of illness, I was always seated near the king ; and it was then he related to me how he had been taken, and how, through the aid of God, he had accomplished his own ransom and ours.was likewise obliged to tell him how I had been captured on the river, and how a Saracen had saved my life. The king said, I ought to feel myself under the greatest obligations to our Lord, who had delivered me from such imminent dangers. At times, the good and holy king bewailed bitterly the death of his brother the count d'Artois. He one day inquired what his brother the count d'Anjou was doing, and complained, that notwithstanding they were in the same galley, he never once thought of being in his company a single day. When the king was told that he was playing at tables* with Sir Walter de Nemours, he arose hastily, though from his severe illness he could scarcely stand, and went staggering to where they were at play, when, seizing the dice and tables, he flung them into the sea, and was in a violent passion with his brother for so soon thinking of thus amusing himself by gaming, forgetful of the death of his brother the count d'Artois, and of the great perils from which the Lord had delivered them. But Sir Walter de Nemours suffered most, for the king flung all the money that layon the tables after them into the sea. [After these words, the Poitiers edition contains a whole chapter, which is wanting in the edition of Menard, in the following terms :— " When we arrived before Acre, the oitizens came ont to meet the king as far as the shore with grand processiona* and received him joyfully. " I attempted to mount the palfrey that had been brought for me from the town ; but 1 was no sooner mounted than I fainted, and should have fallen to the ground had it not been for him who brought the horse, who held me tight, and with * Among the orders laid down for the more regular discipline that was to be observed in these expeditions to the Holy Land, all playing with dice was strictly forbidden : " Statntum est etiam, ut nullna enormiter juret, et quod'nullus ad aleas, vel ad decdos ludat." In William de Neubourg, 1. 3· ch. 23.