Note 3 — BOOK XV.

One of the principal difficulties that an historian of this epoch experiences, is, to preserve the connection in his narrative, from having to speak at the same time of the West and of the East, of the Christians, the Mamelukes, and the Tartars. Here a new people start up upon the stage, there an old empire falls to decay: all the events are hurried and confounded together, and the march of history is embarrassed among so many ruins. We endeavour to be as clear as possible.