Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently
    pronounced “Too-eese!  Too-eese!”

[16] [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the
    Roxburghe Club, and to my own paper in the T’oung Pao, Vol.  II., No.
    4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville. 
    Also App.  L. 13—­H.  C.]

[17] L’Ystoire de li Normand, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac,
    Paris, 1835, p. v.

[18] “Porce que lengue Frenceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus
    delitable a lire et a oir que nule autre, me sui-je entremis de
    translater l’ancien estoire des Veneciens de Latin en Franceis.”
    (Archiv.  Stor.  Ital. viii. 268.)

[19] “Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans,
    selonc le langage des Francois, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie
    que ce est por. ij. raisons:  l’une, car nos somes en France; et
    l’autre porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune a
    toutes gens.” (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.)

[20] It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano’s hasty and
    abbreviated original was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing
    of French; otherwise it is hard to account for such forms as
    perlinage (pelerinage), peseries (espiceries), proque (see vol.
    ii. p. 370), oisi (G.T. p. 208), thochere (toucher), etc. (See
    Bianconi, 2nd Mem. pp. 30-32.)

[21] Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta.

X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO’S BOOK.

[Sidenote:  Four Principal Types of Text.  First, that of the Geographic, or oldest French.]

55.  In treating of the various Texts of Polo’s Book we must necessarily go into some irksome detail.

Those Texts that have come down to us may be classified under Four principal Types.

I. The First Type is that of the Geographic Text of which we have already said so much.  This is found nowhere complete except in the unique MS. of the Paris Library, to which it is stated to have come from the old Library of the French Kings at Blois.  But the Italian Crusca, and the old Latin version (No. 3195 of the Paris Library) published with the Geographic Text, are evidently derived entirely from it, though both are considerably abridged.  It is also demonstrable that neither of these copies has been translated from the other, for each has passages which the other omits, but that both have been taken, the one as a copy more or less loose, the other as a translation, from an intermediate Italian copy.[1] A special difference lies in the fact that the Latin version is divided into three Books, whilst the Crusca has no such division.  I shall show in a tabular form the filiation of the texts which these facts seem to demonstrate (see Appendix G).