Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and valor of the French nation, the author and example of the crusades:
Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida .... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus videamus, non illico Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478).
He owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into petulance among foreigners (p. 488), and vain loquaciousness (p. 502).