in the last century express strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.[22] Marden’s edition might well have extinguished the last sparks of scepticism.[23] Hammer meant praise in calling Polo “der Vater orientalischer Hodogetik,” in spite of the uncouthness of the eulogy.  But another grave German writer, ten years after Marsden’s publication, put forth in a serious book that the whole story was a clumsy imposture![24]

[1] M. d’Avezac has refuted the common supposition that this admirable
    traveller was a native of Brabant.

The form Rubruquis of the name of the traveller William de Rubruk has been habitually used in this book, perhaps without sufficient consideration, but it is the most familiar in England, from its use by Hakluyt and Purchas.  The former, who first published the narrative, professedly printed from an imperfect MS. belonging to the Lord Lumley, which does not seem to be now known.  But all the MSS. collated by Messrs. Francisque-Michel and Wright, in preparing their edition of the Traveller, call him simply Willelmus de Rubruc or Rubruk.

    Some old authors, apparently without the slightest ground, having
    called him Risbroucke and the like, it came to be assumed that he
    was a native of Ruysbroeck, a place in South Brabant.

But there is a place still called Rubrouck in French Flanders.  This is a commune containing about 1500 inhabitants, belonging to the Canton of Cassel and arrondissement of Hazebrouck, in the Department du Nord.  And we may take for granted, till facts are alleged against it, that this was the place from which the envoy of St. Lewis drew his origin.  Many documents of the Middle Ages, referring expressly to this place Rubrouck, exist in the Library of St. Omer, and a detailed notice of them has been published by M. Edm.  Coussemaker, of Lille.  Several of these documents refer to persons bearing the same name as the Traveller, e.g., in 1190, Thierry de Rubrouc; in 1202 and 1221, Gauthier du Rubrouc; in 1250, Jean du Rubrouc; and in 1258, Woutermann de Rubrouc.  It is reasonable to suppose that Friar William was of the same stock.  See Bulletin de la Soc. de Geographie, 2nd vol. for 1868, pp. 569-570, in which there are some remarks on the subject by M. d’Avezac; and I am indebted to the kind courtesy of that eminent geographer himself for the indication of this reference and the main facts, as I had lost a note of my own on the subject.

It seems a somewhat complex question whether a native even of French Flanders at that time should be necessarily claimable as a Frenchman;[A] but no doubt on this point is alluded to by M. d’Avezac, so he probably had good ground for that assumption. [See also Yule’s article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Rockhill’s Rubruck, Int., p. xxxv.—­H.  C.]