Robert de Clari (died c. 1220), a member of the Lesser Picard nobility from the vicinity of Amiens, left a chronicle of the Fourth Crusade in which he took part. This is an important work in the study of the development of the French language, because it is one of the first original prose texts in French, neither translated from Latin nor resulting from "prosification" of verse-compositions.Professor Dembrowski's study is a close analysis of language and style, revealing Robert de Clari's ability in the narration of short anecdotes and in the reproduction of dialogue. University of Toronto Romance Series, Number 6.