Full text of "Francois Villon A Documented Survey"

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IEHSION ENVELOPL CQKP,

KANSAS CITY MO PUBLIC LIBRARY

JAN 13

s.r

FRANCOIS VILLON

SIR SAMP. Has he not a rogue's face?
Spea^, brother, you understand phys-
iognomy; a hanging loo]( to me. He
has a damn'd Tyburn-face, without
the benefit o' the clergy.
FORE. Hum truly I don't care to dis-
courage a young man. He has a violent
death in his face; but I hope, no danger
of hanging. LOVE FOR LOVE.

A NOTE ON THE MAP OF PARIS IN 1530

REPRODUCED AS THE FRONTISPIECE

THIS Map, by G. Braun, is one o the three earliest maps of Paris, and the
most beautiful. The others, both made at this time, Sebastien Munster's and
the map called de la Tapisserie, are in no way comparable. Braun's map was
made just before the hand of the Renaissance touched Medieval Paris, and
therefore presents essentially the Paris Villon knew.

On such a reduced scale many street and other names are impossible to
decipher: nevertheless certain landmarks are easily discoverable. The Uni-
versity quarter on the Left Bank is the half-moon on the right of the map,
with the road from Orleans entering at the Porte St. Jacques, becoming
thence the Grant Rue St. Jacques, the theatre of most of Villon's life, and
driving across the Petit-Pont and the Pont Notre-Dame (whose houses can
be plainly seen) through to the Porte St. Martin and out into the country
again.

To the east of University the abbey of St. Victor and the bourgs of St.
Marcel and St. Me*dard are plain, and to the west the great abbey and bourg
of St. Germain-des-Pres, within its walls: equally plain are the fortresses of
the Louvre, the Bastille, and the Temple, the prisons of the Grant- and the
Petit-Chatelet, the other main thoroughfares of Medieval Paris, the Grant
Rue St. Denis, the Grant Rue St. Martin, and the Grant Rue St. Honore; and
the other bridges, the Pont St. Michel, the Pont au Change, and the Pont
aux Meuniers.

The gibbet of Montfaucon, with fruit, is seen on its hillock to the ex-
treme left of the map, that is, to the north, outside the walls.

The walls of Paris shown in this map are of two periods: the whole wall
of the Left Bank and the inner wall of the Right were built by Philippe-
Augute between 1190 and 1209. Etienne Marcel, Charles v. and Charles vi.
expanded the Right Bank and built its outer wall between 1356 and 1383.

FRANCOIS
VILLON

A DOCUMENTED SURVEY
BY D. B. WYNDHAMJJEWIS

WITH A PREFACE BY
HILAIRE BELLOC

NEW YORK: COWARD-McCANN, INC.

HARTFORD: EDWIN V. MITCHELL, INC.

1928

PRINTED AND BOUND BY J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK, IT. S. .

a *
/v:*--- / DEDICATION.

f , v - -' -

tf^tf Red-Headed Cerberus, regardant between the Pont Royal and
the Petit-Pont; to the Frothing Vorticifl; to the Harpy behind
the Little Grille; to the Bilious but Gaitered Platonic; to
the Surgical, Hairy t yet Invisible Troll of the Dieppois; to
the Stout Love-Child of the Pierides who Believes Aquinas
to be a Mineral-Water; to the Bouncing Benthamite of
Bloomsbury who is Unaware of the Medieval; to That
Other, the Cramoisy One; to the Dodging Lutheran
of the Rue de Crenelle; to the Pythoness of Bays-
water; to the Commandant of Infantry who Babbled
of the Grand-Orient; to the Lady with the Hard
Grey Eyes; to the Levantine of London who Did
Not 1hin\ Poetry Would Do; to the Military
Character who Sacked the Lot; and to all pratt-
ling Gablers, sycophant Varlets, forlorn Snakes,
blockish Grutnols, fondling Fops, doddi-
pol Joltheads, slutch Calf -Lollies, cods-
head Loobies, jobernol Goosecaps,
grout-head Gnat-Snappers, noddie-
peaJ^ Simpletons, Lob-Dotterels,
and ninniehammer
Flycatchers,

THIS,

IK VERISIGN:.

Fleurs de gaic-te, do-nez moy joy-e et hoy -

- e I Et my do-nez al - le

ge-ment.

PREFACE

I DO not know why I should have undertaken to write a Preface
for Mr. Wyndham Lewis' Villon. It was a presumption, and one
which perhaps I ought not to have made. I am putting these few
words introductory to a work of great scholarship and research
wherein the author has discovered all that Villon was, within and
without. I myself can pretend to no such scholarship, I have no
more position in the matter than that of the man of general edu-
cation who from early youth has felt an unchanging admiration
for that distinctive and typical voice of the later Middle Ages and
of its France. All I could do was to put, as beSt I may, the effect
produced by Villon upon myself; and what I believe to be the es-
sential's of his greatness: though in this I know that I have no
Standing, and that Mr. Wyndham Lewis' work is there to tell the
reader a hundred times more than I can.

Villon, as it seems to me, attained at once the very high place
he took, has increased in the scale of European letters, Stands higher
now even than he did in the height of the Romantic movement,
and will in the future (if we retain our culture which is a big
"If") appear as one of the very few unquestioned permanent sum-
mits in WeStern letters, through the quality of hardness.

Mr. Wyndham Lewis says it in this book (p. 297) in three
words: "clarity: relief: vigour:" and these are the marks of hard-
ness: of the hard-edged Stuff: the surviving.

They say that when men find diamonds in primitive fashion,
they scrouch and grope in thick greasy clay till they come upon
something hard, quite different in material from its surroundings;
that is the Stone. In the monuments of Europe, when they fall into

ruin, there survive here and there what seem almost imperishable
things; it is marble,, it is granite which survives.

Now in letters the simile applies. I heard it well said by a
great critic weighing one of the beSt of our modern versifiers (and
"the beft" is not saying much), that he liked the Stuff well enough,
but that it had no chance of survival because it was "carved in but-
ter": an appreciation profound and juSt. It is with the production of
verse as with the chiselling of a material. You handle a little figure
of the fourteenth century in boxwood; it is smooth, Strong and per-
fed. So is the cut oak of the medieval Stalls. But the pine has per-
ished.

Now this quality of hardness in any poet or writer of prose is
difficult or impossible to define more easy to feel.

It is to be discovered by certain marks which are not the causes
of it, but are its accompaniments. Of these the chief is what the
generation before our own used to call "inevitableness": the word
coming in answer (as it were) to the appeal of the ear: the con-
vidion, when you have read the thing, that the leaSt change destroys
it; the corresponding conviction of unity through perfection.

Villon has that. There are times when he seems to have ar-
rived at it by heavy Strain of search, "working the verse," as the
French say. More often it seems to have come to him with what
our fathers called "inspiration" and after all> that is the beSt word.
But everywhere in Villon, sought by him or discovered by him,
you find it.

There goes with this, and is inseparable from it, a run, a se-
quence, which is not smoothness, but which is a sort of linking or
leading on without the leaSt threat of dislocation; that also is a
mark of hardness. Further, carving in hard matter is alive with the
power of economy, which most certainly is not an economy of ex-
cision, but the economy of dire<5t speech. And that again you find
in Villon everywhere. He puts into a phrase all that could be said
to Strike home:

Paradls paint, ou sont harpes et lus.
Or:

Sire, et clart& perpetuette.

And again:

Empericre des infernaux palus.
And again:

Hclas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne

Duquel je ne sgay fas le nom?

Take the moft famous, the Ballad of the Dead Ladies. Look
how exaft and immediate are the subsidiary phrases, the sharp
arrowpoint of

Qul beaultS ot trof plus qu'humaine?

or the rise and swell of

Berte au grant pie, Bietris, Alts,
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine.

It will be said that this intensity of Style for that is "hardness"
does not alone make up a poet. The criticism is juft. It is but
the manner of the poet; were he not a poet no manner could save
him. But till it is the manner which preserves his achievement.

As for the matter, Villon has, being French, that supremely
national acquaintance with the grandeur and bitterness of reality,
and therefore the power of jefting with it; bitter sometimes, some-
times sombre, and sometimes almost genial. And he has what
goes with the bold appreciation of reality, the refuge in beauty, and
the natural (not weak) refuge in affetion. But of these last he is
a little afraid wherein again he is national.

If you desire one word to use as an antithesis to the word senti-
mental, use the word Villon.

Now apart from all this, Villon is also the ending of the Middle
Ages. The verse is the living voice of a man speaking right out
of fifteenth-century Paris, as though you heard him at your elbow.
But were I to follow up the fascination of the historical, of the
pi<5ture from the past, I should make this Preface much too long
with kennels and gables, spires, black icy water, Paris under a
snowy winter of Louis XL Since I must not make this Preface too
long, nor keep you from your author, I will end.

HILAIRE BELLOC.

OPPIAN was (if I remember rightly) the firsl:
poet o the Greeks to reduce Fishing and
Venery to an art; Ovid the first Latin Poet to
reduce Love to an art; and the learned
German Vincentius Opsopceus the firs! who
taught the art of trowling the Bowl, buffet-
ing the Flagon, and passing a long and
merry time at table; 1 but Villon was the firsT:,
and (I believe) the only French Poet to make
a profession of plunder and larceny.

GuiLLAUME COLLETET, 1650.

x V. Opsopeei Victoria "Bacchi seu de Arte Bibendi,
Nuremberg, 1536.

FOREWORD

Nam neque adhuc Vario videor nee dicere Cinna
Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores.

VERG., Buc. ix.

I nor to Cinna' $ ears, nor Varus' ' , dare aspire,
But gabble, like a Goose, amidst the swanlike Quire.

DRYDEN.

Tms boo\ began in my mind on a gray day, heavy with snow,
of la ft winter, as 1 was loitering in the courtyard of St. Julien-
le-Pauvre, that little hidden church which is the heart of the Latin
Quarter and is so charged with memory: for it Hands on the great
Roman road marching from Paris to Orleans , Genabum, and in the
earlier shrine on its site St. Gregory of Tours sang the night Office
in the sixth century; and much later (having been rebuilt) it be-
came the official church of University and the scene of Rectorial
elections for four centuries^ and was served by the Cluniacs t and
Dante himself said his prayers in it for such was a quaint cuftom
of the time. He came (as I had come myself that day) from Straw
Street f where the Schools were, and in his great mind there Hill
shone the refulgence of

la luce eterna di Sigieri
Che leggendo nel vico degli strarni,

though since Siger de Brabant ceased to letture in 1277 (as well he
might t being vanquished in debate by the Angelic Doflor and as\ed
to ta\e his Averroism elsewhere by Eflienne Temfier, Bishop of
Paris^ I do not see how Dante can ever have sat at his feet, Boc~

xiii

caccio's story notwithstanding. But what has all this to do with

Villon? _ ,

Here, then, in the little courtyard, contemplating the weft front
of St. Julien, so damnably defaced by Matter-Mason Bernard
Roche, pacing those Stones and thinking of that winter when the
wolves were abroad in the Greets of Paris, I firtt thought of writing
this boo{. It began in a glow of pleasure, was continued with pleas-
ure, and is now ended; also with pleasure. Praise be to God and
St. Thomas of Canterbury for the same!

On this day before this boo\ floated into my mind, I had been
wandering down the Rue St. Jacques, the dode Rue St. Jacques,
and over the Petit-Pont, as I had often done before, repeating verses
of this poet, whom I have revered since that day of my boyhood
when I firfi lighted on Robert Louis Stevenson's essay, evoked (as
will be easily remembered) by the great biographical tfudy of Fran-
fois Villon by Augufte Longnon. Of Stevenson's essay I Bill thin^
with gratitude; and indeed it must be acknowledged the beft fludy
of the medieval world (with "The Blac\ Arrow") ever put on
paper by a nineteenth-century Calvinitto-Agnoflic. From the day of
reading it I became eager for more of this poet, and so having passed
without much hurt through the pale antechambers of the Pre-
Raphaelite myflicocards and the Mflhetes ('^fthetic: refined.
(G{.) G\. al<r8iiTU(&s> perceptive." SKEAT) / came at loft to the
fountain-head, as joyously as ever did Pantagruel and his compan-
ions to the Dive Bouteille. It is now impossible for me ever to be
alone in this ancient heart of Paris; the whole University quarter is
alive with the thronging ghotts I \now. I have Hepped aside for
the Provofl Robert d'Ettouteville, riding home to the Rue de Jouy
in his scarlet and fur, attended by his twelve Archers, and have
brushed againft Matter Jehan Cotart, Promoter Curix, Daggering
home after a flout night with the bottles: and on the Petit-Pont the
voices of the fishwives are shrill.

"Nobody" said Dr. Johnson, blowing his tea in Conduit Street,
"can write the Life of a man, but those who have eat and drun\
and lived in social intercourse with him" This I believe to be true,
and 1 have done it. Villon I fynow now almofl as I know some of my
friends or more, for how much does a man \now his friends?

xiv

7 have fingered manuscripts concerning him. I %now his tempera-
ment. I tyiow his Faith, and I have at one time or another fallen
into some of his follies, excluding (at this moment) manslaughter
and burglary. His physical appearance lives in his verse. If I believed
any Oriental dribblings about transmigration I should have \nown
Francois Villon to have been a transport driver attached to a British
infantry battalion on the We Bern Front in the year 79/5; for this
fellow resembled the poet in every way, scarred upper lip, long nose,
swarthy features, and shinny dried-up body, saving that he was no
poet, only a great rascally thief and runner after women.

I have traced Villon's footfleps in the banlieue and along the
Loire, in what remains of the great Innocents Charnel (it is now a
neat little, tidy little Bloomsbury square), along the Rue St. Denis,
the way of the condemned, out through the ghottly Porte St. Denis
in the vanished ramparts to the gibbet of Montfaucon, which is near
the Gare de I'Eft; the way he often went to see men hanged. I have
flood on a midnight near Chriflmas outside the Ecole Polytech-
nique, which was the College of Navarre, on the Hill of St. Gene~
vieve, and reconstructed the burglary of 1456. In the Rue des
Parcheminiers by St. Severin I have lingered many a night, watch"
ing for the jour companions to issue from the sign of the Chariot,
all drun\, and involve themselves in that row with Matter Francois
Ferrebourg which all but hanged Villon for the second time in
1462. 1 %now the fellow, his habits and his haunts.

Of the authorities (one muft have Authorities) by whose light
in varying degrees I have proceeded ', I give a lift in an Appendix.
It is not an exhaustive lift, and the names of BijvancJ^, Vitu, Schone,
and others do not appear in it: the reason for this is that I have not
read them, or only in extracts. I have, indeed, tried to obtain one or
two of them, but with no success, since they are all long out of print
and difficult to discover, except in libraries. In my pursuit I have
been greatly hindered and discouraged by the red-haired man who
Hands firft in my Dedication. May St. Anthony's Fire scorch his
snout. Happily they were not essential. As for P. Champion's two
volumes on Villon's age, they are a monument of erudition, but they
are not to be possessed by me, nor will they ever be in this world.
Once I was within an ace of laying hands on them, but they turned

into hornbeam leaves, li\e fairy gold. I do not doubt that they are
Troll boo\s, of the fynd in which Morgan le fay wrote the true
hittory of the DarJ^ Mere of Locmariaquier. They were published
mortally in 1913, and became faery shortly after.

Of the documents which enrich and adorn this boo\, and are
not only translated but successively numbered and described with
their official numbers and descriptions for the convenience of those
honefl men who may wish to see them in the original, the more
important I have examined myself in the Bibliotheque Nationale:
but as for the deciphering of them from their crabbed originals, I
have not troubled about this, but have taken them, manibus lilia
plenis, from Longnon and Thuasne, in whose editions they appear
in fair print: for only a fool goes rooting about in the Hubble when
harveB is laid up.

The text of the two Testaments and the remainder of Villon's
verse I have chosen, with some care, from the three befi editions
available, which are Longnon s of 1892, Foulet's third edition of
Longnon, revised, 192.3, and Louis Thuasne's Edition critique,
7923. And since in any half-dozen critical editions of Villon's
verse you may find one and the same line given in three different
ways, I have occasionally found the problem, of choice exacting.
This may seem drudgery to some, but to me as the Landgrave of
Hesse observed when assured by Luther that the rich were permitted
bigamy it is a paftime. When, therefore, one scholar has carefully
amended a clear line of another scholar into something obscure, I
have where possible ta\en the clearer line: for Life is short. As to
my running translation in footnotes of the documents and passages
of the text scattered throughout this boo\, I will say only that it pre-
tends to no elegance, but simply to plain brevity; 'Brong sense un-
graced by sweetness or decorum,' as Mr. Hill said about Dr. John-
son's ttage-play. Other footnotes, with the exception of a few em-
ployed for {t ritual adornment and terror" * / have used, 1 hope, as
sparingly as possible.

Pedantry in presenting the text I have avoided: hence I have
given the Petit Testament and the Grant Teftament these names by
which they are commonly \nown. But since the titles given in the

*H. Belloc, First and Last. ("On Historical Evidence.")

xvi

moH ancient manuscripts are Les Lais and Le Testament respect-
ively, I have placed these underneath, in brackets. Similarly, the title
of the greater part of the Ballades in the ancient editions is simply
Balade or Autre Balade. The more celebrated titles are the wor\ of
Clement Marot chiefly, in his edition of 1533, and also of Promp-
sault after him, and perhaps one more. I have therefore continued
to use these Marot' s juHly, since they are the titles of a poet and
have included the ancient titles, where they are worth including
at all, in brackets also; in this way provoking neither the sneer of
frantic impiety nor the screams of outraged virtue.
' As much of the Testaments (a considerable amount) as reveals
valuable aspects of Villon's life and adventure I have used in the
chapter called "The Life," and much of the same verse again, if,
necessary, in reviewing the Wor\s. It is even possible that a small
amount may occur a third time in that final short chapter called
"The Cream of the Teliaments," which contains a selection of the
finefk of his verse in its own pattern, not wrenched from the con-
text: but there should be no complaint about such repetition, for
great poetry can never be read too often. If there should be any fuss
over this, why, I am completely indifferent; li\e the gentleman in
the eighteenth-century poem:

Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.

The boo\ is rounded off by a selection of English renderings of
Villon from the hands of Rosetti, Swinburne, Henley, and /. M.
Synge, though I ta\e it to be axiomatic and Matter of Breviary that
to translate great poetry into great poetry is impossible, Dry den and
Pope notwithstanding. The celebrated Rossetti rendering of the
Ballade of Dead Ladies I have included, therefore, in spite of its
"yefler-year" and its "overword," and the very terrible swapping
of rhymes twice which occurs in it, destroying the Ballade form and
flying dead in the teeth of the Rubrics. The Swinburne version of
the Ballade of the Hanged I have included as well, suppressing my
personal feelings about (t yea, perdie," which affects me in much the

same manner as those booths on travel called "The Lure of "

xvii

which are written by maiden ladies in New England. J. M. Synge's
brief prose-paraphrase of the Ballade to Our Lady goes in because
the speech of Catholic Kerry chimes naturally with the Strong and
simple passion of this noble poem; and lattly, W. E. Henley' s^ exer-
cise in nineteenth-century London thieves' slang is a jolly thing of
itself, and Villon would, I t/iin{, have grinned with pleasure at
"mos\eneer" and "rattle the tats!'

There is no fiction in this boo\ that I \now of. I have on the
other hand permitted myself occasional Legitimate Assumptions.
For example, in the opening chapter, the news of the ringing of
the Angelus at Sorbonne is Villon's own testimony. I have assumed
(I trufl not too daringly) that

(a) the bell did not ring of itself,

(b) it was therefore rung by some agency,

(d) the bell was probably rung, therefore, by the minor of-

ficial of University appointed to ring bells, rather than
by (say) the Rector Magnificus, or the landlord of the
Mule tavern.

Again, in recording the death-sentence of 1462, 1 have assumed
that it was not handed to Villon on a silver salver, but that he was
brought before the Provofl in the prescribed form; and during the
ceremony experienced some of those feelings which a man in his
position would mo/f generally feel. And so forth. I believe such
assumptions, within ttrict limits, to be allowable and agreeable. If
1 am to be damned for making them, why, then, I am damned in
the excellent company of AuHin Dobson (see his Essay on Swift) :
not to speal^ of the malignant Gibbon, the glittering Macaulay, and
the amiable John Richard Green; all three Authorities or so Mrs.
Ramboat of Bloomsbury assures me. My own assumptions, how-
ever, have no ulterior motive.

I have to than\ the following: M. Pierre Champion, for per-
mission to reproduce the frontispiece map, which is published by
the Societe de VHistoire de Paris; Dr. Theodore Gtrold, of the Fac-
ulty of Letters of the University of Strasbourg, for permission to use

xviii

the music of five fifteenth-century songs from his edition of the
Manuscript of Bayeux, so full of historical value, described in my
Bibliography; Mr. Belloc f for permission to quote from "Avril,"
and also for writing a Preface; and Mr. E. V. Lucas, for bringing to
my notice a letter from Marcel Schwob to Sir Sidney Colvin,
Acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Charles Whibley and Messrs.
Macmillan for permission to print "Villon's Straight Tip to all Cross
Coves" by W. E. Henley; to Messrs. Heinemann for permission to
print Swinburne's versions of the "Ballade of the Hanged" and of
some flanzas from the "Lament of the Belle Heaulmiere"; and to
Messrs. Allen & Unwin for permission to print /. M. Synge f s para-
phrase of the "Ballade to Our Lady/'

And in conclusion, this is not a boo\ for a rabble of pedants
nuzzled in the brabbling-shop of Sophifiers, but for those dear souls
who love high poetry and the unfortunate for if it is not in the
nature of misfortune to be shoved into prison at regular intervals,
to be forced to absorb huge and unreasonable quantities of water,
and to be all but hanged on two known occasions at leafi, what is?
To these, and to none other, I lovingly present Ms boo\. As for
those others, vietsdazes, visaiges d'anes, may the Maulebec truss
them all.

ST. GERMAIN, January 1928.

XIX

CONSPECTUS TEMPO RUM

OR
SHORT VIEW OF THE LIFE OF FRANCOIS VILLON, A.M.

1431 (O.S.). Birth of Villon in Paris.

[1436. The English withdrawal.

1437. Entry of Charles vn.]

1443 (circa). Villon entered of Faculty of Arts.

1449 (N.S.) . Villon received a Bachelor.

[1451-2. The riots of the Pet-au-D cable. ]

1452. Villon received Licentiate and Master of Arts.

1455. Corpus Chrifli, June 5:

The killing of Chermoye.
Villon's flight from Paris.

1456. Villon returns.

The Petit Teflament.
Chriftmas Eve (?):

The burglary at the College of Navarre.
Villon quits Paris
[Four years' wandering.]

1460. Villon sentenced to death at Orleans: released July 17.

1461. Villon imprisoned by Thibault d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans,

at Meun-sur-Loire.
October 20:

Villon released by the passage of Louis XL
The Grant TeHament.

1462. Villon returns to Paris.
November 3-7:

Villon imprisoned in the Chatelet and released on a bond to

the Faculty of Theology.

Villon implicated in the stabbing of Mailer Francois Ferre-
bourg, re-arrested, and sentenced to be "hanged and
strangled."

1463. January 3:

Parliament, on Villon's appeal, commutes the death-sentence

to banishment for ten years.
Villon vanishes from history.

Cujus animam de morte ceterna libera, Dominel

CONTENTS

MAP OF PARIS, 1530 Frontispiece

A NOTE ON THE MAP ill

DEDICATION vii

PREFACE, BY HILAIRE BELLOC ix

FOREWORD Xiii

A SHORT VIEW, OR CONSPECTUS XXi

I. PRELIMINARY

I. PORTRAIT OF A MASTER OF ARTS 3

2. THE UNIVERSITY 12

3. THE TOWN 27

II. THE LIFE 63

III. THE WORKS

I. THE LITTLE TESTAMENT 227
2. THE GREAT TESTAMENT, WITH THE CODICIL AND THE

LESSER POEMS 255

IV. THE CREAM OF THE TESTAMENTS

THE BALLADE TO OUR LADY 343

THE BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES 349

THE BALLADE OF THE HANGED 35 2
THE BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL

THE BALLADE AND PRAYER FOR THE SOUL 360

THE DOUBLE BALLADE 364

A BALLADE FROM THE JARGON 368

A SELECTION FROM THE LITTLE TESTAMENT 37!
A SELECTION FROM THE GREAT TESTAMENT, WITH THE EPITAPH

AND RONDEAU 376

THREE ENGLISH VERSIONS 385

VI. APPENDICES

A. THE EARLIER SCHOOLS 39!

B. VILLON-PANURGE 392

C. THE DOUBLE REMISSION 394

D. THE ROAD TO ORLEANS 396

E. THE BLAZON OF BEAUTY 397

F. "LAUDEMUS VIROS GLORIOSUS" 398

G. BIBLIOGRAPHY 405

PRELIMINARY

Si
PORTRAIT OF A MASTER OF ARTS

Cultu non proinde $pecio$u$, ut facile appareret cum ex hac nota litteratorum
esse, quos odisse divites solent.

In his appearance not over-dazzling: so that you might without difficulty
recognise him as belonging to that class of men of letters who are con-
tinuously hated by the Rich. PETRONIUS, Satiricon, Ixxxiii.

A LITTLE before nine o'clock of a bitter night in Paris, on the thresh-
old of ChriSlmas 1456, the sacriftan or minor beadle of the Univer-
sity whose duty it was to ring the bell' of Sorbonne for the night
Angelus climbed into the rope-chamber, grasped his rope and
jerked it, and set the tongue in the fteeple above him swinging:
Borne. Borne. Borne.

A pause.

Borne. Borne. Borne.

The waves of sound rolled heavily over University, over the
sloping huddled roofs, down to die river, reverberating and shaking
the air. In a few years onward, when a decree of Louis xi. shall have
made national what is now a custom peculiar to University and
to the devout Celts of Brittany, the firft note of Angelus from Sor-
bonne will be answered by a brazen salvo, tintamarre, and clangour
from all the bells of Paris full volley, as it were Ringing Island
itself: by the deep bay of St. Germain-des-Pres, St. Severin clamour-
ing over the river to St. Merri, a fainter jangle coming down the
wind from Notre-Dame and St. Germain TAuxerrois, St. Peter of
the Bulls chiming to St. Gervais and the Celeftines by the Ba&ille,

St. Martin's Priory awaking the bells of the Chartreux and the Do-
minicans of the Rue St. Jacques, and joining all together in a flurry,
all the three hundred churches and convents of Paris. This was the
holy clamour and tintinnabulation which caused Pontanus the sec-
ular poet (as Mafter Janotus de Bragmardo the Sophift observed
in his great SorbonnicaU discourse on Bells) very profanely and
wantonly to express the wish, while composing his carminiform
verses, that all the bells of Paris had been made of feathers and the
clappers thereof of foxes' tails. But on this December night of 1456
the University salutes Our Lady alone, and the booming of its sol-
itary bell in the darkness is to be fixed and to echo in men's memory
as long as poetry can quicken and enlarge the human spirit. For
at the firSt Stroke of the bell of Sorbonne 1 a dark young clerk sitting
alone in an upper chamber of a house called the Porte Rouge in the
cloifter of St. Benoit-le-Bientourne, in the shadow of Sorbonne,
lower down the hill towards the river, having paper and inkhorn
and candle before him, looks up from his writing and, laying down
his pen, with fingers tiff with cold signs himself and begins to re-
cite hastily, half under his breath, the Salutation:

Angelus Domini nuntiavit Maries, et concepit de Spiritu SancJo:
Ave Maria f gratia plena . . .

And so to the end. The night is silent. He pauses, picks up his
pen again, and contemplating for a moment his distorted shadow
blackening the ceiling, with sudden resolution bends to his manu-
script.

Finablement (he writes), en escripvant,

Ce soir, seulet, eftant en bonne,

Diftant ces laiz et descripvant

F'ots la cloche de Sorbonne,

Qui tousjours a neuf heures sonne

Le Salut que VAnge predit;

Si suspendis et y mis bonne

Pour frier comme le cuer dit.

[Lastly, as I describe and set down these bequests in writing
to-night, being alone, and in good dispositions, I hear the bell of

*The name of this bell was Mary. It bore the inscription: GALTERVS DICTVS JWENTE
ME FECIT. . . . EGO VOCOR MARU. (Diarium, Bibl. Mazarine, MS. 5323, fol, 203.)

Sorbonne, which rings every night at nine o'clock die Salutation
brought by the Angel: and I pause to pray, as the heart directs.]

He shivers, gathers round him more closely his shabby gown,
and continues writing. It is permissible, while the candle-flame
ceases for a moment to flicker in the draught and throws his satur-
nine visage into relief, to Study for a moment the appearance of
this scholar: Francois de Montcorbier, dit Villon, Master of Arts in
the University of Paris.

He is lean and lank, bony of arms and legs, sharp-featured,
dark, secret, "dry and black as a maulkin," as he has juSt described
himself in the verse on which he is now engaged: with eyes, as
they look up at the shuddering of the flame, that have already a
quick sideways glance, instinctively on guard againSt the leap from
the shadows and the hand clapped suddenly on his shoulder. This
uneasy roving of the eyes has become his normal habit. His upper
lip has a permanent twiSt, the result of a dagger-slash received a
year ago outside the church of St. Benoit-le-Bientourne in the Street
below. It is impossible to imagine that this improves his features.
As he sits writing he is nearing the end of his manuscript, and his
teeth are chattering; the candle is beginning to gutter (he has noted
it in a verse) and his ink is beginning to freeze a chuckle breaks
from him. Within the hour a select company at the Pomme de Pin,
the Mule, or the Grant Godet> will be sniggering at some of the
rhymed bequeSts set down in this, his Lais, his burlesque will and
testament. It is the eve of a journey to Angers in Anjou, where he is
withdrawing to ease him of the cruelty of a miStress; probably of
his creditors too; and (as will appear in due time) moSt likely for a
practical and sinister purpose also.

He rises, Stuffs his papers into his breast, blows out the expiring
candle, and with a natural cat-like tread passes out and down the
Stairs. The outer door closes gently. Francois Villon's night has be-
gun.

His own works, and a sequence of documents drawn up by the
officers of juSHce, enable the portrait to be faithfully completed.
MaSter 2 Francois Villon is now, in this year 1456, in his twenty-

3 "Master" is not tushery, but his academic right Dominus (or Magister) Franciscus
and part of his &tat civil,

sixth year, and has already drunk deep of the cup which is to in-
ebriate him almost continuously henceforth. The Street, the tavern,
and the brothel know and hail him as ung ban follaflre; his recur-
ring moodiness and lovesickness apart. He has already killed his
man in the afiair outside St. Benoit, and has only recently returned
to Paris after a prudent withdrawal to the neighbourhood of Bourg-
la~Reine, on the Orleans road. Of the Seven Deadly Sins known to
the Medievals (for they had not yet been abolished by a Viennese
Jew) he is already held firmly in bond by at leaSt five: Covetous-
ness, LuSt, Sloth, Gluttony, and Anger. Of these LuSt most of all,
I think, has him captive in her bailiwick. The pensionnaires of the
house of Mistress Overdone, Fat Margot, in the dark Street across
the river behind the Precinft of Notre-Dame, a procession of Jehan-
netons and Bknches and Guillemettes (their names are set in his
verse), , have already enslaved in turn his senses and helped to
empty* his lean purse: and in return he has begun (or will soon
begin) to levy on one or two of them the tribute which in all ages
gentlemen of imperious appetite and slender means have levied on
the goodnatured fair. His own evidence a little later shows him a
souteneur. No pimp before or since him has ever made a ballade
about it.

There is no reason to doubt that during his late journey into
the country Villon has affiliated himself to the company called the
Coquillards, in whose secret jargon or jobelin he will later write
half a dozen ballades. In the ranks of the Coquille, whose activities
extend over a large part of France, are found the beSt card-sharpers,
brigands, footpads, dice-coggers, crimps, Mohocks, mumpers,
pimps, ponces, horse-stealers, confidence-men, bruisers, thugs, lock-
pickers, coin-clippers, housebreakers, hired assassins, and all-round
desperadoes in Europe, true children of wing-heeled Mercury, pa-
tron of thieves and politicians.

Speticans,

Qui en tous temps

Avancez dedens le pogois

Gourde piarde

Et stir la tarde

Desbousez les povres nyois, . . . 3
3 See p. 318, A Ballade from the Jargon.

[Light-fingered blades, who at all times go swaggering into the
cabaret, drinking the good liquor, and at night issue forth to rob
poor ninnies. . . .]

so he joyously addresses them in the Third Ballade of the Jargon.
And again in the Fifth, addressing particularly his joncheurs, sharp-
ers, and bidding them with a whoop beware of the High Jump:

Joncheurs jonchans en joncherie
Rebignez bien ou joncherez,
QuosJac nembroue voUre arerie
Ou acolez sont vos aisnezl
Poussez de la quitte et brouez,
Car tosJ seriez rouppieux f
Eschec qu'acollez ne soiez
Par la poe du marieux,

[Sharpers, sharping in sharpery, have a care, my lads, how you
sharp, or you'll find yourselves hoicked and Strung up where your
elders and betters are! Be nimble, slip out o it quickly before
they clink you, and be wary, or sooner or later you're had, and
the fist of Jack Ketch wallops down on you.] (One or two of
these words of the Jargon are conjectural.)

To the same rattling boys he will also, in a sombre mood, ded-
icate the Ballade of Good Counsel with its shrugging refrain:

Car ou soles porteur de bulles,
Pipeur ou hasardeur de dez,
Tailleur de faulx coings, tu te brusles
Comme ceulx qui sont eschaudez,
Traistres parjurs, de joy vuydez;
Soies larron, ravis ou f tiles:
Ou en va I* acquest, que cuidez?
Tout aux tavernes et aux filles!

[Whether you be a peddler of faked indulgences, a sharper, a
dice-cogger, or a good hand at coining, you'll burn your fingers,
like those false traitors landed for treason. Or be a sneak-thief,
ravish and rob: where does the profit go, d'ye think? Taverns
and wenches get the lot.]

which Henley so dexterously echoes in his Ballade called "Villon's
Straight Tip to all Cross Coves":

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
7

It is a pleasant life in Capua while the money lasts. Flesh
is cheap, and the wine flows, and the song is loud, and the
Seven Deadly Sins clash their merry cymbals. There is a
tavern chorus of the time which Villon and his companions
muft often have bellowed under the grimy beams of the
Trumelieres and the Espee de Bois, with the dawn, announced
by the sentinel's trumpet from the high platform of the Donjon
of the Louvre, oozing through the window-squares of cloudy glass
or oiled linen:

t
Gen - tils gal- lans, com -fat - gnons du rat - sin, Be-

d'au-tant au soir et

/TN //

wa - fon, Jusqu'a cent

sols, Et hoi A no&re hos - tes - se ne

;ii

Fors

paye-ron point d'ar - ^^ ors ung

Si no fire hoflesse nous faisoit adjourner,
Nous luy diron qu'il fault laisser passer

Quasimodo,

Et ho!
A noHre hottesse ne payeron point d'argent,

Fors ung credo/

ere - do!

[Jolly fellows, companions of the Grape, let us drink our fill
night and morning, to the tune of a hundred sols what ho! We
will not pay our ho&ess a cent, save a credo! (Credo = a brass
farthing; or alternatively, credit.)

If our ho&ess wants to get rid of us, we'll tell her she must
wait till after Quasimodo. (= Low Sunday, the Sunday after
Easter) what ho! We will not, etc., etc.]

But when his recurring heaviness, "allicholy and musing," as
Miftress Quickly said, seizes him, like a Quartan Ague, he can be
no company, huddled in his black gown and brooding in his cor-
ner, with the empty hanap before him and his dark eyes Staring
into nothing. Nevertheless of the popularity of this scholar there
can be no doubt. He has (in his gay or desperate moods) a quick,
salt wit, and he can put his friends and enemies into verses which
arouse yells of laughter, so biting and so apt they are. He can rhyme
drunk or sober; and he is already acknowledged around the Halles
quarter the best sneak-thief and trompeur of his year: so brilliant
that some years hence he will have become a legend and his exploits
will! be written down in verse, crowning him the hero of more
than one trick which rings familiar in the ears of readers of Tyl
EulenspiegeL Altogether this Master of Arts is in the year 1456
fairly well advanced, as we observe, along the road to Montfaucon
gibbet, where the pretty gentlemen swing high, keeping their sheep
by moonlight. It has been suggested, and with plausibility, that a
hundred years later Rabelais drew Panurge from the figure and
fame of Francois Villon: Panurge with his faulx visaige, his slim
middle Stature and his long nose, like a razor-handle, his misfortune
of being fond of women yet subject to panic, and his other worse
misfortune of being eternally short of money, and his horse-play,
and swindling, and trickery, and debauchery, and rude jeSts
"pipeur, beuveur, batteur de pave, ribleur, s'il en estoit a Paris . . .
et tousjours rnachinoit quelque chose contre les sergens et centre le
guet" * All this is very Villon.

Finally, to round off this portrait, apologetically, and in the
teeth of good taste and modern scruples, I have to suggest that this
deboshed ruffian, whose companions are blackguards and trulls, has
within him not only filial love and patriotism but also a glowing
spark of the faith which he learned from his mother and has never
loSt: to which he returns, as in his verse, breaking out afterwards

*[A wicked lewd Rogue, a cosener, drinker, royaler, rover, and a very
dissolute and debautch'd Fellow, if there were any in Paris . . . and still
contriving some Plot, and devising mischief against the Serjeants and the
Watch. 4 ]

* Pantagruel, Bk. n., xvi, Urquhart's tr., 1653. See Appendix B: Villon-Panurge .

and sinning, and repenting with groans, and returning once more
to his vomit, like some other sinners and some saints. This faith of
his flames out often in the two Testaments, so Stuffed with ribaldry
and laughter, moSt of all in the Ballade of the Hanged, in his own
Epitaph, and in that great Ballade in which he caSts from him for
a moment the crapulous years and kneels by his mother's side,
Stretching out his hands with her to the compassionate Mother of
God and uttering that prayer which begins,

Dame du del, regente terrienne,
Emperiere des infernaux palus,

[La3y of Heaven and earth, and therewithal,

Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell.]

(Rossetti).

and is his noblest work. This religion of his I excuse myself once
more: it is imperative to mention it runs through the drab
chronicle of his life like a bright gold thread, and is as much part
of the essential Villon as his mocking humour and his sardonic
philosophy. On the eve of being led out to be hanged he can com-
pose a quatrain predicting that his neck will shortly discover how
much another part of his body weighs: but before his wry grin, as
you might say, has completely faded, he is commending himself
and his doomed companions (whom he already sees swinging, sun-
dried and blackened, on Montfaucon, with the birds Slabbing at
their hollow eyes) devoutly to the prayers of men and the mercy
of ChriSt, in words which are written in the blood of his heart.

In the symphony of Medieval Paris which is Villon's poetry,
in its rich tumult, its vivid colour, its cruelties and generosities and
riotings and obscenities and crimes and dirt and splendour and pre-
vailing largeness the Middle Ages were sometimes scandalous,
but never vulgar in its Strange pathos and preoccupation with
Death, in all this there is mixed the brawl of the Streets and the
laughing loud song of taverns, the screams and giggling of daugh-
ters of joy and the everlasting disputations of the Sorbonnical Doc-
tors, the clink of goblets and the clash of Steel, the thud of flying
feet and the jangle of chains and the creak of ropes on Montfaucon
gallows: but under all these noises there runs, with a Steady beat,

permanent, like ground-bass, the chant of DC Profundis and the
Salve Regina.

On this night of December 1456 Mailer Francois Villon is
already, I think, emptying a cup by the fire in the tavern of his
choice and exchanging rude jokes with the ladies and gentlemen
there assembled. It is profitable to leave him there for the moment
and to turn and contemplate the University which has bred and
the Town which nourishes this scholar.

THE UNIVERSITY

The alme, inclyte, and celebrate Academic, which is vocitated Lutetia.

Pantagruel, Bk. n.

Holy God of Gods in Sion, what a mighty Stream of pleasure gladdened our
hearts when we have leisure to visit Paris, the Paradise of the world! . . .
There are delightful libraries, more aromatic than stores of spice, there
abundant orchards of all manner of books. RICHARD OF BURY.

OF the three towns which composed Medieval Paris, the City on
the islands, the Town on the right bank, the University on the
left, the University was the latest to develop. It was not until the end
of the twelfth century that the centre of Parisian learning began
to shift from the Cloisters of Notre-Dame, St. Germain 1'Auxerrois,
and the monastic schools of the right bank across the river to the
Hill of St. Genevieve: across the Petit-Pont, that little scholarly
bridge. "The Petit-Pont," wrote Guy de Bazoches, the fine Latin
poet, towards the end of the twelfth century, "belongs to the dia-
lecticians, who walk there deep in argument." These free professors,
the Parvipontani, had been licensed by the Chancellor of Notre-
Dame to accept pupils some time before the general migration.*

By the mid-thirteenth century the University of Paris, or more
properly the University (universitas, corporation) of the Chancellor,
Makers, and Scholars of Paris, 1 was the centre of the intellectual

* See Appendix A: The Earlier Schools.

1 The charter of 1215, in which die words Universitas magi&rorum et scolarium occur
for^ the jfirft time, was drawn up by the Papal Legate Robert de Common, and placed the
University under the direct authority o the Holy See. Philippe-Auguste had already, in

life of Christendom, the theological arbiter of Europe, stupor
mundi, the darling, filia carissima, of the Kings of France, rich in
privilege and honour and orgulously insisting on the same, recog-
nising no overlord but the Pope: the sole mailer of the University
of Paris from 1215 to the eve of the Revolution. 2 In the year 1453
counsel for the University, opening an interesting alion before the
Court of Parliament which we shall examine in due course, rehearses
the ancient pride of University thus:

On sect, de I'UniversitS de Paris, quel corps c'eft en I'Eglise & en ce
Royaume qui ell ordonne four introduire science & sapience, & inter
mundana n'y a autre plus grande ne plus haute que I'Universite de Paris, &
pour ce nest de merveilles se les roys de France I'ont honnoree & trouv
quils I'ont honnoree en deux chases, primo: en ce que le Roy I'appelle filiam
carissimam &, par ce moien, ladite Universite & les supposJz d'elle sont en
I' especial garde du Roy leur pere; la seconde chose est en grans privileges
donnez par les Roys a elle & sans lesquelz elle ne peut entretenir ne pourveoir;
& ont les prevostz de Paris la cure de garder lesditz privileges & autres
sermens servans a la matiere, lesquelx ses lieuxtenans & sergens doivent aussy
jurer.

[It is well known, concerning the University of Paris, what position she
holds in the Church and in this Realm, being ordained to impart knowledge
and wisdom, and that of earthly things there is none greater or higher than
the University of Paris, and on that account it is no wonder that the Kings
of France have honoured and held themselves to honour her in two things,
primo: in that the King calls her filiam carissimam, and therefore the said
University and her members are in the especial care of the King their father;
and secondly, in the great privileges accorded her by our Kings, without
which she could neither flourish nor exist: and it is the duty of the Provosts
of Paris to guard the said privileges and all pertaining, which is also binding
on their lieutenants and Serjeants.]

Before the firt half of the thirteenth century -sixty colleges had
risen on and around the sacred Hill. The earliest, that of the Dix-
Huit for eighteen destitute Students, endowed by the Englishman

1200, made professors and students independent of the civil jurisdiction , and hence is
the founder o University. University tradition, on the other hand, claimed (not very
seriously) Charlemagne for its founder. The feast of St. Charlemagne, January 28, is
still the students* and schoolboys' holiday.

a It is to be noted that University, so cherished by the Holy See, nevertheless on
two occasions at least opposed it: in 1281, in the matter of a Bull of Martin iv. granting
the Orders privileges deemed by University excessive, and again in the conflict between
Boniface vni. and Philippe le Bel, when University took the King's side.

Josse de Londres on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Places,
was founded in 1180. The College de Constantinople for the
Orientals followed in 1204; the Bons Enfans St. Honore in 1209.
By the end of the century the University sprawled over a great
demilune of territory, beginning on the quay where the InStitut de
France now Stands, taking a wide sweep behind the Hill of St.
Genevieve and its now vanished abbey, and meeting the Seine
again at the place occupied now by the Halle aux Vins, but then
by the Abbey of St. Victor. To the eaSt of the academic kingdom,
outside the walls, lay the bourgs of St. Marcel and St. Medard: to
the weft the fortified bourg of St. Germain-des-Pres, clustered
round its powerful abbey, proud with three Steeples.

The map of University in Villon's time shows a huge confused
agglomeration of spires and colleges and convents, ledture-halls
and hoStels, taverns and shops, houses for University officials,
beadles, mace-bearers, apparitors, messengers, servants, and the
fringes of the academic horde, open-air bookstalls, escriptoires, and
the shops of those engaged in the academic trades, the parchment-
makers, the binders, the writers, the copyiSts, the booksellers, and
the illuminers, whose reputation had become world-wide by the
time of Dante,

Quell' arte
Ch f alluminare & chiamata in Parisi.

Purgatorio, xi.

The ttationarii employed the writers, the librarii sold the books.
Both were under the Strict control of University. The University's
parchment was for a long time bought processionally at the great
fair called the Foire du Lendit in the plain of St. Denis, the Nijni-
Novgorod of its age, by the Rector himself, issuing forth from the
Hill of St. Genevieve at the rear of a joyous crowd of Students, and
attended by banners, drum, and trumpet. Of the greater libraries
open for the use of Students, that of St. Victor was celebrated down
to the time of Rabelais, whose parody of its catalogue every man
knows: the others were the library of Sorbonne and the library of
Notre-Dame. The colleges, at firSt simply hoStels endowed by
monasteries and private benefactors, became in the late thirteenth
century and onwards places of education, as diStind from the

schools. They took their names generally from their founders: the
College de Lisieux, for example, from Guy d'Harcourt, Bishop of
Lisieux; the College d'Harcourt, from Raoul d'Harcourt, Chan-
cellor of Bayeux; the College de Navarre (which will enter inter-
eftingly into this history before long in connection with a very
pretty burglary), from Jehanne de Navarre, Queen of Philippe le
Bel; the College des Ecossais, from David, Bishop of Moray; the
College de Narbonne, from Bernard de Farges, Archbishop of
Narbonne; the College du Plessis, from Geoffrey du Plessis, a monk
of Marmoutiers in Touraine; the College des Chollets, from Cardi-
nal Jehan Chollet; the College des Lombards, from Andrea Ghini
of Florence, Bishop of Arras; the College de Cluny, from Yves,
abbot of that great monastery; the Scandinavian colleges the Col-
lege de Danemark, the College d'Upsal, the College de Linckoping.
Out of the thick cluster of names I seled: one more, a celebrated
one, that of the College de Montaigu, founded by Gilles Aycelin
de Montaigu, Archbishop of Rouen, in 1314, reformed during the
fifteenth century, and a byword till Rabelais' time and after for the
ferocity of its discipline and the aufterity of its living. "My sovereign
Lord," says Ponocrates to Grandgousier, discussing the education
of Gargantua, * 'think not that I have placed him in that lowsie
Colledge, which they call Montague . . . for the Galley-Slaves are
far better used among the Moores and Tartars, the murtherers in
the criminal Dungeons, yea the very Doggs in your House, than
are the poor wretched Students in the aforesaid Colledge." The
learning dispensed at Montaigu was extremely sound, and the col-
lege lasted in plein exercice till the Revolution, Erasmus and St.
Ignatius of Loyola were bred there, and Calvin,

John Calvin, whose peculiar fad

It was to call God murderous;
Which further led that feverish cad

To burn alive the Servetus.

Of all this mass of colleges the Sorbonne, late in order of
foundation, had soon become the head, captain, and maSter-house,
and then as now an occasional synonym for the whole University.
It was established in 1257 and 1259 with a gift of houses to the
Royal chaplain Robert de Sorbon by St. Louis the King, a college

for theologians only. Popes and kings nourished and protected
Sorbonne and showered privileges on it. It conferred its supreme
degree, Doflor Sorbonnicus? and under its roof in 1469 the firft
printing-press in France was set up. As Villon saw Sorbonne, passing
it daily in the Rue St. Jacques, it was a tall Gothic pile, with towers
flanking the high arch of the main door, a Steeple rising above:
its especial glories, its great square Hall and its Latin library, the
"aromatic orchard" of Richard of Bury's panegyric, which held a
thousand volumes. 4

In 1450, when Villon was Still a Bachelor of Arts, the University
counted at the very leat 2500 members in residence, of whom about
800 were graduates. 5 These were divided among the four Faculties
of Theology, Canon Law, Medicine, and Arts; the great majority
in the Faculty of Arts, although die dominant note of University
had always been theology, and all dialectic bent in that direction.
The Relor Magnificus ruled not only the whole University but
also, directly, the Faculty of Arts; the other three Faculties had
each a Dean, It is diftafteful to use the word "democratic," but it
rises almost inevitably as one contemplates the procedure governing
the eledion of the Rector. His office lasted three months only, he
might be a foreigner, for he was not immediately re-eligible, and he
was chosen by a committee of delegates of the Faculty of Arts,
meeting for that purpose in the little ancient church of St. Julien-
le-Pauvre by the river: and every University historian I have read
thinks it necessary to explain that the elelion generally took place
amid scenes of turbulence. In 1524, I observe, the Students forced

8 "The Doctors of the Sorbonne are all equal. . . . For the Doctorate three dispu-
tations, Major, Minor, Sorbonica." Dr. Johnson's Paris notebook, 1775.

* Richelieu destroyed this building, reconstructing it 1627-1642. Of Richelieu's Sorbonne
only -the church now remains, with his tomb in it. The modern Sorbonne was built over
and beyond the old site by Nenot, between 1885 and 1901. In the pavement of a court
in the Rue de la Sorbonne traces of the medieval outline could be seen till quite recently.
A print of the medieval Sorbonne, from which I have roughly described it, exists, dated
1550-

5 Rashdall, "Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1895. -^ n Italian,
Giovanni di Neri Cecchi, writing in 1462, places the total at that day as high as 18,000.
I find the Venetian Ambassador in Rabelais' time, Maximo Cavalli, makes the total
between 16,000 and 20,000, De Breul (Antiquitez de Paris, 1612) says that there were
so many students in University in the fifteenth century that on the occasion of the annual
procession to St. Denis the Rector would be still passing the Mathurins' church in the
Rue St. Jacques when the head of the procession was entering die town of St. Denis, a
couple of leagues away. I make no effort to reconcile all these foreigners with an English
Don.

the church doors, manhandled the delegates, smashed the windows,
and hooted the new Redlor. The clergy of St. Julien appealed to
Parliament, which ordered elections to be held elsewhere; but you
cannot wave away tradition like that. In 1660, at the last Retorial
Election in the University, almost the same thing happened, at the
same place.

So much, in this place, for Authority.

The Students, excluding die Orientals, were grouped loosely in
four Nations: the Nation of France, combining the Parisians and
those of the Midi; 6 the Nation of Picardy, including the Walloons
and the men of Artois; the Nation of Normandy; and the Nation
of England, in which was reckoned a mixed rabble of Germans,
Scots, Swedes, and Dutch. In Villon's time, when the Hundred
Years' War had made the name of England poisonous, the fourth
Nation had become the Nation d'Allemagne; but it does not seem
that the new name was generally used. The Schools of the Four
Nations Stood in Straw Street, the Rue du Fouarre; Dante himself
wrapped his chill feet in the Straw there, and put Straw Street into
the Commedia? Towards the end of the fifteenth century, and
much more a little later, the colleges, having completely supplanted
die schools, divided themselves into two kinds: colleges de flein
exercicc, which gave the full University curriculum, excluding Law
and Medicine, and colleges d' exercicc restreint, which gave only a
part. The professors lived in their colleges, which supported them,
but it was not until the reign of Francois i. that they began to receive
a regular salary. The Student came in theory under one; of four
headings. The boursier or bursar lived and was educated under the
provision of the pious founder of his college. The fortionifle paid
for his board and education. The cameriste, a gold-tuft, kept his
own chamber, and often a tutor as well. The martinet, a non-col-
legiate man, paid his leiture fees directly to his professor. The
Standard University fees, called the bourse in Villon's time, were
payable weekly and calculated by the authorities on the apparent

* The French Nation was subdivided into five groups, corresponding to the five eccle-
siastical provinces.

7 Certain Orders, as the Friars Minor and the Cistercians, had their own schools.
The Law Schools (in which Guillaume de Villon was for a time professor) were in the
Rue St. Jean-de-Beauvais, the Medicine Schools in the Rue de la Bucherie.

resources of the &udent: In Villon's case they came to two sols
Parisis, exclusive of graduation fees. For the bursar the bourse was
held to cover not only books and tuition but, when necessary, food
and clothing as well. 8 Long before Villon colleges had been or-
ganised, with some sort of discipline, under a principal Doors
were locked at night, and there was a necessary number of sconces
and sandions. Undergraduates had to ask leave to go out, and might'
only walk the Streets in couples. The academic dress was the black
gown falling to the heels. From a verse of the Grant Testament,

Chaperons auront enformez
Et les foulces sur la sainture,

[They will wear their hoods well over the eyes, and thumbs in
the belt.]

it would seem that to wear the hood pulled well over the eyes and
the thumbs tucked into the belt was the prescribed academic de-
portment in walking abroad. A type of the severer discipline exit-
ing in University, though not so rigorous as that of Montaigu, is
the rule of the College de Beauvais, founded by Jehan de Dormans,
Bishop of -Beauvais, in 1370. Its bursars, ruled by a Master, an under-
mafter, and a procurator, wore a ditin6tive-coloured gown of violet.
Meals were taken in common and in silence, and, as in a monastic
house, a lector read aloud from the Bible while the community
was at table. Students were forbidden to pernocter hors du college
without legitimate reason; the roll was called every night at an early
hour, and absentees were severely punished. By Villon's day, no
doubt, this discipline had relaxed, like mot other.

We shall look for Villon in vain among any of the pious and
the well-behaved. At a time when Paris, Starved and sick from the
wars, saw her vagabond population reinforced alike by unpaid
mercenaries and destitute priests and Students of ruined colleges,
and when poor scholars were forced to beg their bread from door
to door so dry was the town bled, and so openly did misery Stalk
everywhere it is not to be thought that Villon and his immediate

* An interesting ordinance of 1309 allows poor Students in extreme necessity to sell
their books for food, with two strict exceptions, the Bible and the works o St. Thomas
Aquinas: Biblia dumtaxat & fratris T homes o-peribus exceptis (Dcnifle, Chartularium Uniu. t
Paris, ii.). In such honour was the Angelic Doctor held within thirty-five years of his
death.

friends knew no easier way of living than by asking alms humbly
of the greasy bourgeois cap in hand with the poor scholars of
Madame de Navarre,, whose whine was one of the notable ftreet
cries of Paris. His own method will be amply set forth as this
history proceeds. There was about University in his time a large
brigade of the declasses, the lazy, the dissolute, and the Ishmaels,
snapping up what they could. Villon himself was apparently a non-
collegiate man, living at home and subject to little discipline, 9

The battalions of luSty youth from all over Christendom for
the mot part, I think, joyous, for what is an empty belly and a
punishment or two when one is not yet twenty and there is wine
at the Mule'? were naturally divided fiercely by national feuds.
Jacques de Vitry has preserved from the late thirteenth century the
git of the insults buffeted to and fro from one side of the direct to
another:

[Because of the differences of their homes they disagree and are envious
and insulting, and without shame offer insult and contumely, saying that
the English are drunkards and have tails, 10 the French proud, soft, and
womanish, the Germans mad and indecent in feeding, the Normans stupid
and boastful, the Picards traitors and fair-weather friends. The Burgundians
they hold brutish and slow, and thinking the Bretons fickle they often throw
in their teeth the death of Arthur. The Lombards they call avaricious, full
of malice, and unwarlike, the Romans seditious, violent, and nail-biters, the
Sicilians tyrannical and cruel, the men of Brabant men of blood, incendiaries,
and bandits, the Flemings prodigal, given over to feasting, and soft as butter.
And because of such wrangling they often proceed from words to blows.]

And so on many a summer evening a game of tennis or a sober
promenade, two by two, thumbs in belt, on the Pre-aux-Clercs n
might develop suddenly into a battle in mass and a procession of
bloody heads after it.

9 The burglary at the College de Navarre is very slender evidence of Villon's having
belonged to this college.

* This has never been true, except of the men of Kent. Observe an echo of Vitry 's
passage in Du Bellay's sonnet o the Fourteen Hates.

11 The Grant Pre-aux-Clercs , a vast meadow bordering the river, occupying the
rectangle bounded now by the Quais d'Orsay and Voltaire on the north, the Rue Bona-
parte on the east, the Rue de Bourgogne on the west, and the Rue de 1 l'Universit on the
south. In it the clercs walked or played games, the jeti de paume, rounders, bowls, and
what not. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth century possession of the Pre-aux-Clercs
was continually disputed by; University and the Abbey or St. Germain-des-Pre*s. Univer-
sity finally parted with it in 1539.

The official language of University, and the language in
which all leftures were delivered, was Latin. Latin was also the
common communication between makers and Students an easy
colloquial Latin, a lingua franca founded on the living tongue, and
a better international language, I fancy, than the synthetic twitter-
ings in "O" which dim persons in pince-nez try to fob off on our
own apathetic age. This jargon I believe to be essentially the one
which Rabelais parodies a hundred years later in the scene between
Pantagruel and the Limousin scholar:

Luy demanda, "Mon amy, d'ou viens-tu a ceste heure?" Uescolier re-
spondit, "De I'alme, inclyte, & celebre Academic, que Von recite Lutece."

"Et a quoy passez-vous le temps, vous autres messieurs eHudians, audift
Paris?" Respondit Yescolier, "Nous transjretons la Sequane au dilicule &
crepuscule, nous deambulons par les compites & quadrivies de I'urbe, nous
despumons la verbocination Latiane, & comme verisimiles amorabons } cap-
tons la benevolence de Vomni]uge, omnijorme, & omnigene sexe jeminin!'

[He asked him thus: "My friend, from whence corned thou now?" The
Scholar answer'd him: "From the alme, inclyte, and celebrate Academic,
which is vocitated Lutetia."

"Thou comes!: from Paris then" (said Pantagruel), "and how do you
spend your time there, you my Mafters the Students of Paris?" The Scholar
answer'd, "We transfretate the Sequane at the dilicul and crepuscul; we
deambulate by the compites and quadrives of the Urb; we despumate the
Latial Verbocination; and like verisimilarie amorabons, we cap tat the Benevo-
lence of the omnijugal, omniform, and omnigenal Fceminine Sexe."]

(Sir Thomas Urquhart's trans., 1653)

It is not difficult to perceive that deambulating thus through an
Urb so rich in opportunity could lead occasionally to trouble with
the secular arm, with which the University, a State within a State,
lived in perpetual jealousy and conflict, although by an ordinance
of Philippe-Auguste the ProvoSt of Paris was bound by an oath,
renewed every two years in St. Julien-le-Pauvre, to respe6t and guard
all the rights and privileges of University, masters and cscholiers.
The Students, being clerks that is, holding minor Orders, for the
University went hand in hand with the Church and opened the
gate to office in and outside religion were answerable only to
ecclesiastical authority. A little later in this history we shall perceive
a furious clash between University and the lay power, in which

University has (as usual) the final victory; for by virtue of
Statutes of 1228 and 1244 and a Papal Bull of 1231 University could
always bring the lay power to its senses, if it loomed threateningly
over the Left Bank, by suspending not only all lectures in hall but
also sermons in all the churches of Paris. 12 In June 1452, when
Villon became a Master of Arts, the Papal Legate had indeed juSt
arbitrated in such a conflict and instituted certain University reforms
and discipline, after the lefture-halls and pulpits of Paris had been
closed for many months. The riots over the Pet-an-D cable followed.
"Pires ne trouverez que escoliers," says a contemporary Parisian
proverb. The position of the Parisian undergraduate at this moment
may be grasped by imagining an ordinary Oxford rag greatly en-
larged and carried on intermittently but with gentle persistency
over a couple of years; with every partaker in it joyously conscious
that if he, or any of his friends, were seized or handled by the
enemy in such a way as to infringe in the leaSt any privilege, the
whole of University might presently rise in deliberate majeSty. A
procession might be formed, silver pokers and all. Headed by the
Vice-Chancellor, followed by the High Steward, the Public Orator,
Bodley's Librarian, the Keeper of Archives, the Sub-Librarians, the
Organist, and the Presidents, MaSters, Principals, and Dons of
Colleges and all their meinie, the rear brought up by the junior
scout of Keble, the procession might move forth, terribilis ut cas-
trorum acics ordinata> and demand the inStant return of the prisoner.
O frabjous Day! O happy Groves! It is true that in Paris at this
period the captive might have been already despatched out of hand,
as happened after the University FeaSt of Fools in 1304, when a
Student accused of Stabbing a citizen in a Street-brawl was given a
quick trial and hanged. University rose, and the ProvoSt was com-
pelled to eat duSl. Such a mishap does not aff e<5t the principle.

The Faculty of Arts, with which we are chiefly concerned (since
it gave Franf ois Villon his letters) taught the Seven Liberal Arts
Grammar, Rhetoric (which included poetry and the elements of

M This tremendous power was successfully combated in 1482 by Louis XL, who ob-
tained a Bull from Pius n. against the suspensions. In 1499 the privilege was taken
from University definitely and for ever.

law), and Dialectic, forming the trivium; and Arithmetic, Music,
Geometry, and ASlronomy, forming the quadrivium. In the very
year, 1452, in which Villon satisfied the examiners for his Master's
degree, the curriculum had been reformed. Hitherto the professor
had been required to deliver his lefture extempore and in a stated
manner, not drawling or draggingly, tractim, but briskly, raptim.
The form of the lediure was traditional. On a selected passage in
a classical author questions on parsing, scansion, and grammatical
figures were followed by die lecture or commentary proper, de-
livered as I have said: and this was followed by an analysis and
annotation of the subjed-matter. 13 In 1452 it was ordered that the
mafter was to prepare his le<lure beforehand, and to read it from
the manuscript, not to hand it to a ftudent to read for didation.

So much for the bones of learning. There was little else. By
Villon's time the fire had gone out of University, the intense intel-
lectual blaze of the thirteenth century, under which the Summa and
the Gothic cathedrals flowered together, had faded into a twilight
of lethargy and indifference. Who would not have been a Student
at Paris when St. Thomas Aquinas was lecturing in the vat halls
of the Dominicans of the Rue St. Jacques, too small to hold his
audiences? Who would not gladly have heard the Angelic Doctor,
with his five guiding principles of Claritas, Brevitas, Utilitas, Suavi-
tas y and Maturitas, expounding and commenting Arifitotlc? Who
would not have sat at the feet of Albert the Great, or listened to
Roger Bacon discussing Mathematics disgusting as that subjed
must be to every man of sensibility? All this glory has vanished
from the University of Paris by the mid-fifteenth century, and with
it all spiritual vitality, and even some of the snarly, healthy love of
combat which sustained the Dodors against the Friars two centurief
earlier. Already the preftige and supremacy of University have be-
gun definitely to totter. Among the patriotic French its name has
stunk long before the day in 1431 when it is decided in full Sor-
bonne, at the command of the English and the Burgundians, that
St. Joan is a damnable heretic and sorcerer, ripe for the fire. It has
for years allied itself definitely with Anglo-Burgundian politics.
"Fillc du Roy d'Angkterre" say the nationalists contemptuously,

"Evans, Medieval France, Oxford.

remembering the filia carissima of the kings of France. "Univer-
sity/' say MM.-Dubech and d'Espezel, "approved the treaty of
Troyes, paid honour to the remains of Henry v., hastened to renew
allegiance to Bedford, celebrated the French defeats, took every op-
portunity of manifesting fidelity to the English cause . . . and at
the lat proved ungrateful, turned completely round, and did not
even mention the death of her dear Bedford in the Registers," 14
The days are now long pat when Henry n. of England wished
the Doctors of Paris to arbitrate in his quarrel with St. Thomas of
Canterbury; when the Emperor Baldwin prayed the Pope to send
makers from Paris to reform the schools of the Eat, when Abelard,
and St. Thomas, and Peter Lombard, and Rudolf of Cologne,
Girard-la-Pucell'e, Guillaume de Champeaux, Maurice de Sully, and
a dozen other famous professors drew all the world to Paris, the
City (so it was called, as the historian Rigord relates) of Philoso-
phers, holding within her walls more learning than ever had Athens
or Alexandria; when the panegyric of University was sung by Guy
de Bazoches, by Philippe de Harvengt, by John of Salisbury (who
writes early from Paris to St. Thomas of Canterbury, praising the
abundance of all things of the intellect there), by Richard of Bury,
and a whole duller of poets and scholars. The end of glory is at
hand. In much less than a hundred years hence the Sorbonnical
Doctors will be assailed by the Renaissance, and the splitting of
northern Europe by the Protestant schism out of Germany, and the
printing-press, installed in their very bosom, and then by the huge
laughter of Rabelais, rumbling like thunder over the sorbonillans >
sorbonagresy $orbonisan$ y sorbomgenes, sorbonicoks. The expand-
ing reputation of the English, Italian, and German Universities, and
those of Montpellier, Orleans, and Toulouse, Prague and Vienna,
will have completed the robbing of Paris of its international char-
acter. The king will have stripped the doitors of their deareft
privilege, and the Jesuits a little later will rout them with the new
pedagogy. The poor duSty old men 1

I have seen it affirmed that venality as well as indifference had
crept into University by Villon's time, and that examiners were not
invariably offended when discreetly offered a present by a candidate

14 Histoire de Paris, 1926.

on the eve of examination. (G. Paris hints that our poet's own pro-
gress up the Schools might have been accelerated in this way. I
doubt this. When had Villon money to squander on such things?)
The buying of honour with gifts is a shocking thing for any man
of our own age to contemplate: but the later Middle Ages were,
alas! no less lax than they were superstitious. 15 Nevertheless, for all
its decadence the University which bred Villon still fulfilled its
chiefeft end. It was ftill the road along which the poorest ragged
Student of no birth, having kept his terms by begging, might ad-
vance at lat to honour in Church or State, and from rubbing shoul-
ders with crimps and toughs in underground dens come to sitting
equal with princes and rulers of the earth. This advantage the
Catholic Church has always held out to the poor, along all the ages.
But not all her children have accepted the Mother's gift. Villon,
reviewing in a sad lovely verse the roll of his gay companions of
the Schools, sees how some have advanced along the road to honour
and now wear the vair and the purple, while others, the careless and
the improvident, lick their sores in the gutter.

Ou sont les gracieux gallans

Que ft suivoye au temps jadis,

Si bien chantans, si bien parlans,

Si plaisans en faiz et en dis?

Les aucuns sont morts et roidis f

D'eulx n'esJ il plus riens maintenant:

Repos aient en paradis,

Et Dieu saulve le demourantl

Et les autres sont devenus,

Dieu mercy! grans seigneurs et maiflres;

Les autres mendient tous nus

Et pain ne voient quaux fenestres;

Les autres sont entrez en cloistres

De CelesJins et de Chartreux,

Botez, housez, com pescheurs d'oisJres.

Voyez I'eflat divers d'entre eux.

[[Where are the laughing gallants I ruffled with so long ago
the merry singers and talkers, so excellent in word and deed?
Some are Hff and dead, and nothing remains of them. May they
have rest in Paradise, and may God save those who remain!
w Sir Wm, Rubbage.

Others, praise God, are become great seigneurs and lords; and
others beg their bread naked, but never see it save in shop win-
dows. And others have entered religion among the Celestines and
the Carthusians, stoutly booted, like oyster-fishers. See how diverse
is their fate.]

Franf ois Villon himself might have had a benefice and died a
Bishop. The Council of Bale in 1438 ordered a certain number of
livings to be reserved to Paris and all the celebrated Universities in
Europe for those of their graduates whose learning, moral conduct,
and poverty fitted them for the favour. The Abbe Prompsault 16
believes that Villon was actually presented by the University of Paris
to the trustees, but that his character inevitably non-suited him.
Villon certainly speaks of

Item, ma nomination,
Que fay de I'Universite.

[Item, my nomination, which I hold o University.]

This was the Letter, sealed with the University seal, which con-
ferred on an approved graduate of any of the four Faculties the
right of submitting his name for an ecclesiastical benefice. And
again:

Item, a Chappelain je laisse

Ma chapelle a simple tonsure,

[Item, I leave to Chappelain my simple-tonsure benefice.]

from which one might conclude, if it were not for the incorrigible
blague of the man and the obvious joke on "Chappelain," that he
had been atually presented to a tiny benefice in the gift of Uni-
versity. I think he certainly had not. His reputation and his ap-
pearance would have had on any board of trustees the same ele<5lric
effect as Goldsmith's scarlet breeches had on the examining bishop.
I cannot indeed see this child of the Streets a country prieft;
nor, I think, would the alb have been to him anything but a Nessus
shirt. The Church would have gained a rascal and poetry would
have loft a prince. It is curious and agreeable to reflet how the circle
of Villon's being touches that of Dodx>r Johnson at two points.

18 (Euvres de maistre Francois Villon, corrigfas et completes* d'apres plusieurs manu-
scrits f etc., Paris, 1832.

Both loved the Town with a great passion and e&eemed the Country
death; and both might have had a country benefice,, but escaped
it, and so forebore to inflid: irreparable loss on letters.

But they have, I imagine, nothing else in common, 17 and the
Town awaits us, the roaring motley Town: I mean the whole area
of Paris, north, south, eaft, weft, and the suburbs; the inspiration
and the background o Villon's life and song.

" This is perhaps not entirely accurate, if we accept the evidence of Dr. Percy:
"I have heard from some of his [Johnson's] cotemporaries that he was generally seen
lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young students round him, whom he was
entertaining with wit, and keeping them from their studies, if not spiriting them up to
rebellion against the College discipline, which in his maturer years he so much ex-
tolled." Bos well's Johnson (Oxford edition), p. 50.

.3
THE TOWN

Paris four vray esJ la Maison royalle
Du dieu Phoebus en splendeur radiate,
Rozier mondain, baulme du firmament
Universel f de Sidon I'ornement.

G. BRAUN'S Map of Paris.

[Paris, in truth, is the House-Royal o the Sun-God in his
splendour arrayed; Rose-Garden of the world. Balm of the universal
firmament, Ornament of Sidon.]

He said it was a good Towne to live in, but not to die; for that the grave-
digging Rogues of St. Innocent used in frostie Nights to warme their breech
with dead mens Bones. Pantagmel, Bk. 11.

IN the year 1436, when Francois Villon was five years old, the
English quitted Paris for ever, after an occupation of sixteen years.
Their dominion had been harsh, but not so entirely diabolical as
some French historians make it. M. Auguste Longnon, who pub-
lished a collection of 176 letters of remission selected from the
archives of the Chancellery of France and covering the period of
the English occupation, records only three a<5tual cases of English
barbarity. 1 Sander Russell', drinking at the sign of the Escu de
Bretagne by the Porte Baudoyer, quarrels with the hostess over his
scot and stabs the Sergeant of the Chatelet called in to arreft him.
In September 1424 the child Henry vi., by God's grace King of

1 Paris pendant la Domination anglaise, 1420-1436: Documents extraits des Regifires
&c la Chancellerie de 'France, Paris, 1878.

I pass over the methodical enrichment and rewarding of the Anglo-Burgundian faction
in Paris with the property of the Dauphin's friends, since this was only normal.

France and England his uncle the Duke of Bedford ruling as
Regent at the Tournelles pardons Russell on the ground of his
ignorance of the officer's identity, letting him off with a Stiff term of
imprisonment on bread-and-water. More serious is the case, in Octo-
ber of the same year, of Richard Quatre and another Englishman
unnamed, who between midnight and one o'clock one night very
furiously bang and batter at the door of Jehannette la Bardine,
jemme amoureuse, living by the Pont St. Michel 1 . To the lady's
requests that they should go away Richard and his companion reply
by menaces and renewed assaults: die lady then, rising fretfully
from her bed, flings Stones at them from her window, and one of
the Stones, Striking Richard Quatre by accident fairly on the head,
sends him to bed for eight days, and thence out of this world alto-
gether. To Jehannette the King grants a pardon. Finally we per-
ceive, in July 1430, two hard-bitten English men-at-arms lying in
the Chatelet, Nicolas Say and Richard Geppes, under charges of
shoplifting and fraud. The two warriors have a curious weakness
for millinery: at the sign of the Cornet, by St. Merri, the said Nicolas
Say (far temptacion de Venncmi^ says his letter of remission) snaps
up a piece of cramoisie Stuff. At a shop by the Palais, while Richard
is amusing the mercer, Nicolas whips away with a quantity of silk;
but unsuccessfully, for the mercer discovers the trick and follows
them with a Sergeant, making a great howl, and so gets his money.
LaStly, after choosing certains tissuz de soye de plusieurs coulcurs
to the value of thirty livres at the shop of a woman mercer, our
hearts of oak pay her with a sealed purse purporting to contain
nobles, but actually containing disks of lead. They plead in defence
previous good condud and ten years' military service under Henry
v.

eu regard aussy a ce que continuelment depuis x ans en$a ou environ ilz
ont servy ou fait de guerres feu noflre tres chier seigneur et pere, que Dieu
absoille . . .

[Seeing also that they have continuously during the pasl: ten years, more
or less, served in his wars our late and very dear lord and father, whom God
assoil . . .]

and get off with a term of imprisonment. These crimes do not
seem very abominable; and considering that in the countryside

all round Paris Armagnacs and Burgundians were pillaging and
massacring at their sweet will it seems better to have been inside
the walls than without, in spite of crushing taxes, insolvency, lack
of food, and recurrent epidemics. Nevertheless between 1422 and
1434, as Vallet de Viriville computes, there were eight conspiracies
in Paris against the English rule, and two in Normandy: from
which figures a well-known firm of actuaries has deduced that the
English rule was unpopular. This impression would seem to be
confirmed by that very loud lament made for Olivier Basselin of
the Val de Vire, which goes to such a mournful jig of a little tune
in the Manuscript of Bayeux:

5^E3E

He - las, 01 - II - vier Vas - se - //#, N'or - ro

E3E

^0// de vos nou - ^7 - les? Vous ont les

En - gloys mys a fyn?

Vous soul - li -
Et les bons

A- gaye-ment chan
com - pay-gnons han

- ter Et de - me-ner yoy-

ter f Par le fa - ys de

Normen~dy - -

Jus-qu'a Sainct Lo en Co - ten - tin,

com-faygn

moult

ir^_l J
? *

1 ^

~-^=

l=d

&^^=E

= fl

- /<?.

Onc-ques ne

2 9

tel pel - le - rin.

[Alas, Olivier Basselin, shall we have no more news of thee?
Have the Engloys made an end of thee?

You were used to sing so gaily, to lead so joyous a life, to fre-
quent such good companions, throughout the whole Norman land!
Never was seen such a pilgrim, in such fair company, as far as St.
L6 in the Cotentin!]

"Engloys" in this threnody does not primarily mean the English
(for we had, God knows, no part in this poet's death) but griping
usurers, skinflints, and hard-faced creditors and squeezers of blood
from ftone, to whom the name was given in Paris and all over
Normandy, says P. L. Jacob in his edition of the Vaux de Vire of
Basselin, because of the crushing taxes laid on the French during
the English occupation. These were the enemy who deprived the
Vire and the Cotentin of this sweet singer, good ruby-nosed drinker,
and roaring companion.

Les Engloys ont jaifl desraison
Aux compaignons du Vau de Vire,
Vous norrez -plus dire chanson
A ceulx qui les soulloient bien dire.

Nous priron Dieu de ban cueur jyn,
Et la doulce Vierge Marie,
Qu'il doint aux Engloys male fyn.
Dieu le Pere si les mauldyel
Helas! Ollivier Basselin.

[The Engloys have Struck a foul blow at the companions of
the Val de Vire! Never more will you hear any songs from those
who were used so bravely to sing them. We pray God with all our
heart, and our sweet Lady, that He bring the Engloys to a bad end.
May God the Father curse them! Alas, Olivier Basselin!]

There is another song which the Normans and the men of the
Parisis were singing after the English withdrawal. It begins, de-
risively:

roy En - glois se fai - soit ap - pe - ler
a voul-lu hors du pa - ys me - ner

Le roy de Fran-ce par s'ap-pel-la - ti - on. Or eli - il mort a
Les bons Francois hors de leur na-ti - on.

irJjLfc^ N N p2|^

h~- -F-jMH

-nM 5 -- *=-(-

a-M=fz=^E^s=5

1 1 * *

" J 1 i

^-k-

&M;Z# - Fia-cre en Bri - - - e^ Du pa - ys de Fran-ce Us

=*s=^

sont tous de-bou- tez, II n'esJ plus mot de ces En-glois cou-ez.

^=M

Maul - die - te soit tres - tou - te la II - gny - - - el

[The King of England ordered himself to be called and saluted
King of France; his will was to drive good Frenchmen out of their
own country, away from their land. Well, he is dead, at St. Fiacre
in Brie! They are all booted out of the Kingdom of France, there's
no more news of these Englishmen with tails. May all their race be
damned!]

Us ont chargS Yartellene sur mer>

Force biscuit et chascun ung bidon f

Et par la rner jusqu'en Eisquaye alter

Pour couronner leur petit roy Godon.

[They loaded their ships with artillery, with great supplies of
biscuit, and a wine-bottle apiece, and are gone over the sea to
Biscay, to crown their little King Goddam; but all their effort is in
vain!]

(The little King Goddam is Henry vi.)

Mais leur effort n'esJ rien que moc query e!

And once more (for the songs of a people are precious, more
than fine gold and the glossy periods of pedants), this, from that
roaring rural song which has been called the Marseillaise of the
Normans:

3 A bitter jest. Henry v. died at Vincennes, in the Ile-de-France, of a hemorrhoidal
disease popularly called the mal de St. Fiacre.

3 1

ie voul-sis - se al -

- /<?r " En-gle-ter-re de mou-rer? Us ont u-ne Ion-gut

["What, do you think I am such a fool as to want to go into
England to lose my life? They've all got long tails!"]

Entre vous, gens de village,
Qui aymez le roy franfoys,
Prenez chascun bon courage
Pour combattre les Englois.
Prenez chascun une houe
Pour mieux les desraciner;
S'ils ne s'en veullent aller,
Au mains jaic~les leur la moue.
[Et cuidez vous . . .]

[Come, then, get together, good villagers who love the King of
France, raise up your courage to fight the English. Take each of
you his hoe, the better to root them out of the land. And if they
don't want to go, at leasl: make an ugly face at 'em!

(Chorus: What, do you think, etc., as above)

Ne craygnez point a les batre
Ces godons, panches a pois;
Car ung de nous en vault quatre,
Au moins en vault il bien troys.
Affin ju'on les esbaffoue,
Autant quen pourres trouver

3 2

Faiffies au gibet mener

Et quen nous les y encroue.

[Et cuidez vous . . .]

Have no fear o getting to grips with these pea-stuffed God-
dams! Any one of us is worth four of them, or at the least three.
Come, let's make game of them; find all you can of them and hoick
them up on the gallows!

(Chorus: What, do you think, etc.)]

I doubt very much, everything considered, if these sentiments,
taken for all in all 1 , can be said to echo that respedful aif edion which
the English have always been accustomed to demand from for-
eign persons and the conquered.

Worse was to happen in Paris immediately after the English
withdrawal in 1436. They still held Pontoise, Meaux, and the Chev-
reuse, and thus could, and did, cut off food supplies. In 1438 it
seemed as though all the long-drawn-out miseries of the Hundred
Years' War had culminated in a final onslaught on the unhappy
town. The winter was terrible: famine raged; a plague carried off
45,000 inhabitants. The sick lay starving in the Hoftel-Dieu, or
dropped in the grass-grown Streets to freeze to death; and the cry
"Helas, doux Dieu! je meaurs de faim et de froit!" * arose day and
night. 3 Bands of cutthroats prowled the suburbs. The wolves, raven-
ing in that dreadful cold, slunk freely across the frozen Seine and
in and out of the town, and more than once carried off infants alive.
In the suburbs between Montmartre and the Porte St. Antoine
during this winter they attacked and killed fourteen grown persons.
It was not until about 1445, when Francois Villon was a Student
of fourteen, that Paris began to raise her head again and to know
any security or comfort.

It is convenient here to pause and take a swift general survey
of events.

Charles v. ("the Wise") had died in 1380, leaving the throne

*["Alas, dear God! I am dying o hunger and cold!"]

8 Journal of the Bourgeois of Paris. This Slate of affairs lasled till 1443, in November
of which year Pope Eugenius iv. sent out an appeal to the Christian world on behalf
of the sick in the Hostel-Dieu, St. Lazare, and the other ruined hospitals of Paris.

to a child of twelve, over whose infant head four powerful and
ambitious uncles, the Dukes of Anjou, Bourbon , Burgundy, and
Berry, at once began to quarrel. In March 1382 a new tax placed
by the Regent Anjou on merchandise brought about the uprising
of the Maillotins, a mob of four thousand armed with the leaden
maillets or clubs which the ProvoSt Hugues Aubriot had Stored at
the Hotel de Ville againft an English attack. There were assassina-
tions: the rising was suppressed: the bourgeoisie had to pay the
enormous fine of four hundred thousand livres. Charles vi., attain-
ing the age to rule, did in f a6l begin very well, and would have con-
tinued so had he not become more or less insane in 1392, with rare
lucid intervals. There began then the furious and bloody struggling
of Burgundians and Armagnacs, which had by Villon's day sickened
and wearied Paris and brought it to a State of deathly lassitude.
After the King's final lapse into madness in 1393 the Duke of
Burgundy had become Regent. His son, Jean Sans-Peur, nourished
an enmity towards the King's brother, Louis, Duke of Orleans,
which grew before long into a fatal feud. Among the private mur-
ders of this period that of Orleans he was the father of Charles,
the poet, Villon's patron years afterwards by assassins in the pay
of Jean Sans-Peur is such a crude melodrama that I propose linger-
ing a moment to describe it. At eight o'clock on the night of
November 23, 1407, the Duke of Orleans, issuing from a house near
the Porte Barbette, where he had been to visit his mistress, the
Queen Ysabeau, called for his mule. The night was very dark, and
every house in the Street was closely barred. His two squires, with
five footmen carrying torches, came at his call. As Orleans, playing
with his fringed glove and humming a love-song, prepared to mount
his mule a group of seventeen armed men burSl suddenly from a
house near by and fell upon him. "I am the Duke of Orleans," he
shouted, "We want you," replied a voice. A woman at a window
screamed murder. The assassins, having hacked Orleans practically
in pieces, fired the house and vanished. The next day Jean Sans-
Peur went to the church of the Blancs-Manteaux to view the body
of his vidlirn, and shed tears of sensibility. He was, indeed, possessed
by a vague unreft concerning the consequences; and so, after a<5ling
as pall-bearer and shedding more tears at Orleans' funeral, being

expelled the Council immediately afterwards by the old Duke of
Berry, Jean Sans-Peur left Paris, and from a distance proved clearly
(by proxy) that Orleans had been removed for twelve good reasons,
political, theological, moral, social, economical, sociological, and
other. The pro-Burgundian University approved the thesis. Jean
Sans-Peur returned to Paris, with a victory at Hasbain behind him,
obtained a letter of remission, and resumed his ordinary occupa-
tions. He had by this murder unloosed civil war. The murdered
man's widow, Valentine Visconti of Milan, was dead by then of
grief and anger, but her son Charles took up the quarrel, and by
his marriage to the daughter of the Comte d'Armagnac was able
to bring in d'Armagnac's terrible Gascons on the Orleans side. We
shall meet Charles d'Orleans again in this history: a fine poet and a
gentleman.

So much, then, for private enterprise. In the matter of subse-
quent large-scale murder there was the affair of May 28, 1418, when
the Burgundians burSt into Paris and slaughtered the Armagnacs,
then in possession, en -masse,, so that the children in the Streets played
at dragging corpses up and down; and a second massacre of Ar-
magnacs, at the suggestion of Jean Sans-Peur, in the following
August. Meanwhile Henry v. of England was advancing, and had
already crushed the flower of Armagnac chivalry at Agincourt. It
was after the death of Jean Sans-Peur, this Strong and vivacious
character ("grand dans son caractere et dans ses aflions" writes a
certain M. de Clugny of him in a Hiflory of Costume, 1836, into
which I have been looking, "mais trop forte a croire que sa domina-
tion etait necessaire au bonheur de la France"), himself .hacked
to pieces at the bridge of Montereau in 1419 by Tanneguy du
ChaStel, that the weary citizens of Paris let the English in.

Henry v., with the treaty of Troyes behind him, rode into Paris
on December i, 1420, and was welcomed by the Parisians, who
would have welcomed the Devil at this period. He had on his side
the Burgundians, the University, and the Parliament. Eleven years
later, on December 16, 1431, the year of Villon's birth, Henry vi.
was crowned at Notre-Dame by the Cardinal of Winchester, the six
Great Companies of Paris, the Drapers, the Grocers, the Money-
changers, the Gbldsmiths, the Mercers, and the Furriers, bearing

his canopy. The largesse showered on the populace at the coronation
was remarkable for economy. "A bourgeois marrying off one of his
daughters would have done the thing better/' observes a contem-
porary critic. Before 1435, when the Regent Bedford died, the
Parisians were remembering themselves once more to be French-
men and recolleding the Martyr-Maid who had made France a
nation. "In the year fourteen-twenty-nine," says the rhyme in the
My Here du Siege d' Orleans, celebrating the deliverance of the city
by St. Joan,

L'an mil quatre cent vingt neuj

Reprint a luire le soleil.

[In the year fourteen hundred and twenty nine,
The sun began once more to shine.]

It was Still but watery sunshine, breaking with difficulty through
heavy clouds; but it was a promise and a sign. In September 1435
the Duke of Burgundy and Charles vn., St. Joan's Dauphin, were
reconciled at Arras. Early in 1436 Charles and his army lay at St.
Germain. In May of that year Willoughby was forced to withdraw
his garrison of 1500 men from the Baftille and fall back, sped by
the hoots of the populace, on Rouen, the King's men entered, and
Paris was free. The retaking of Pontoise in 1441 burft the iron ring
around the capital. The truce of 1444 ended the nightmare. Finally
in 1450 the vidory of Formigny wiped out for the French the bitter-
ness of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, and the English were at laft
(as St. Joan had prayed) boutez hors de France. 4 "

This, then, was the condition of Paris when Francois Villon ran
a child about its ftreets: a town bled dry, 6 ravaged by misery,
hunger, and disease. Yet flowers grew on the dunghill. The master-
piece of the French miniature school, the Breviary of Salisbury, with
its forty-five miracles of painting, was designed and executed for
Bedford towards 1430. All through the Hundred Years' War new
churches rose intermittently in Paris, new convents, new houses of
the high bourgeoisie, like the house of the banker Jacques Ducy in

* Calais cxccpted.

c Notre-Dame Chapter began to sell the Cathedral treasury in 1435. The number of
houses empty and abandoned in Paris by 1423 is given in a contemporary document as
exceeding 20,000.

the Rue des Prouvaires, which contained a courtyard with peacocks
and maints aultres oyseaulx, a chapel, an arsenal, a picture-gallery,
a music-gallery, an aviary, and rich carved doors. At the time the
war ended there was a fresh late flowering of Gothic Flamboyant,
a little Renaissance on the eve of the greater. Of this flowering the
painted and sculptured portail of St. Germain TAuxerrois (1439),
the lovely Hotel de Cluny (begun 1480), and the town house of
the Archbishops of Sens, are Still preserved. But it is not to Paris
that we should look in general during the fifteenth century if we
were concerned here exclusively with the arts, and activities of the
spirit, and government, and religious vitality, but rather to the Bur-
gundian court and lands of Philip the Bold, and the court of Jehan
Duke of Berry. In the miniatures of that noble Book of Hours called
Les Tres Riches Heures du Due de Berry (it can be seen to-day at
Chantilly: I rank it very near the Book of Kells) the splendour of
that great house rises up, flaming like a thousand jewels, and puts
to shame the dingy meanness of our time.

So filled is the spirit of Villon with the Town and the love
of what that other devout Parisian Baudelaire calls the paysage
de metal et de pierre, that his verse alone re-creates his Paris, with
its cries and its colours and its bulling life. To a Stranger of our age
who could ascend the centuries and Stand by the Petit-Pont on a
winter day about the year 1447, when roving bands of men-at-arms
without pay had ceased to prey on the citizens and the English no
longer cut off food-supplies before the gates, the asped of Paris
would seem Stunning, dazzling, bewildering as a dream: the grey
sky, the grey unseen river rushing under the bridges, with their
double line of tall sharp-gabled houses springing from the cobbles
and leaning crazily together, Storey thruSting out above Storey; the
narrow winding Streets of the Quarter, a pell-mell of ascending
gables and tinted roof-tiles, the lower Storeys of wood sculptured
with fantaStic shapes of warriors or joyous quaint animals, as in old
houses Still preserved at Chinon of Touraine, at Bourges, and else-
where, in every twiSt and turn of fancy revealing that love of beauty
in common and ordinary things which distinguishes the Middle
Ages from our advanced era; the gaily-scrolled and painted signs,

creaking in the wind; the &one fountain, with its canopy, at the
crossing; the arched shrine at the Street-corner, with the lamp
swinging and burning before it; the chain-sockets at the Street end,
whereby the streets were, till the English left, closed at night; the
various colours of the shifting crowd, changing and melting like
figures in a phantasmagoria; the cries. Of the Crimes de Paris a list
is given by Guillaume de la Villeneuve a century or so before Vil-
lon's day. Some of them, like the cries of old London, were in
rhyme; for example, the cry of the eHuveur, or hot-bath keeper:

Seignor, qu'or vous alez baingnier

Et eftuver sans delaier;

Li bain sont chaut: c'esJ sans mentir.

[Gentles, come to the baths, without delay. The baths are hot:
I tell no He.J

I seled this cry particularly because there is a modern impression
that the Medievals, being careless of public hygiene, were personally
unclean. This is erroneous. At the end of the thirteenth century
there were twenty-six public hot baths in Paris for a population of
less than 200,000; not counting baths of the Seine. London, I be-
lieve, was also reasonably well equipped. Villon himself has among
his minor pieces a little "Yah, yah!" rondeau urging one Jenin
FAvenu to take a hot bath:

Jenin I'Avenu,

Va fen aux eHuves,

Et toy la venu,

Jenin I'Avenu,

Si te lave nu,

Et te baigne es cuves.

Jenin I'Avenu,

Va t'en aux e&uves.

'[ Jenin lAvenu, away with you to the baths! And when you're
there, Jenin PAvenu, wash yourself all over and soak in the boiler.
Jenin I'Avenu, away with you to the baths!]

The real age of dirty men is the Age of Reason, which contained
Frederick the Great, who is known never to have washed himself

6 H, Lemoine, Archivie de la Seine, Manuel d'Histoire de Pans,

in any way for years. So much for that. 7 The e/iuveur was forbidden
to cry his hot baths before dawn, because of the perils awaiting
early bathers in traversing the Streets. Among other cries that of
the crieur dc vin 9 who announced arrivals of wine at the Greve,
the river-port of Paris, was justly esteemed, and in his funeral pro-
cession a cup of wine was handed round ceremonially every time
the bearers Stopped at a cross-road. Another good cry was the cry
of the seller of a cheese,

jf'ay bon fromaige, bon fromaige de Brie!
[I have good cheese, good cheese o Brie!]

which is till a glory and a comfort to mankind. I pass over a score
more, especially those of the Halles quarter, which arose and rent
the skies all day long. "They never finish braying in Paris," observes
Villeneuve, "till night."

Ja ne finiront de braire
Parmy Paris jusqua nuyt.

I pass over, too, the cries of the Royal criers, who had at one
time their own house, the Maison de la Crierie, by St. Jacques-la-
Boucherie, and went about the city like so many Gargantuas, crying
comme tous les dwblcs. Stentor n'eut oncques telle voix a la bataille
de Troye. They were chosen for their brazen lungs, and cried all
Royal, governmental, and municipal announcements at every cross-
road, laying money down for this concession. But there is one more
cry I muft not omit to mention, since it rings out for ever in Villon's
Ballade of the Women of Paris: die shrill yelping of the fishwives,
the harangieres of the Petit-Pont.

And so, proceeding, we may add finally to all this noise and
colour impinging on the dazed modern senses of our visitant
(though I doubt, after all, everything considered, if this racket was
a tenth part as devilish as the iron racket of Paris or London to-day:
it was of a different timbre, and human) the oaths of men-at-arms,
the drumming and bawling of cheap-jacks and mountebanks, the
clatter of hooves, the sudden jangle and flurry of a hundred bells;
and above all, louder than all, possessing and overflowing and em-

T I have not touched on the undoubted fac"l that knights in the Middle Ages took a
bath as part of the ceremony of initiation. I believe this is no longer insisted on.

bracing all, the smell, the famous smell! of Paris. The town ftank
more bitterly than any other large town of Europe. Its drainage
system had, it is true, been much bettered since the time of St. Louis,
when it could be summed up in four words: Tout a la rue. Since
then the authorities, alarmed by the pels which swept Paris at
intervals, and particularly by the bubonic plague of 1348, had at-
tempted to grapple with the problem. Jean 11. in 1350 drew up^a
general police regulation for cleaning the Streets Charles vi. in
1388 improved and extended its scope. Charles vn. divided Paris
into seven sedors for sanitation. But though the Parisians were no
longer wholly dependent on the periodical overflow of the Seine to
cleanse their Streets, the Stink of Paris remained, and was famous.
The Gauls and Latins have ever been indifferent alike to loud noises
and Strong smells. One should not forget, considering this, the
Stench of Chapel Lane which (according to Sir Sidney Lcc) de-
stroyed Shakespeare, or the evening Stinks of Edinburgh which so
offended the nose of Dr. Johnson. 8 Community Plumbing is one of
the very modern fine arts, like Criticism; but useful.

The town, then, smelt. The mud of Paris was proverbial for
its property of Sticking and fouling, though some of the principal
Streets had been paved with pierres grosses & fortes as far back as
the reign of Philippe-AuguSte. Years onward from the period we
are contemplating Montaigne will be complaining mildly of the
acrid Stench of it, and Boileau putting it into his verse. "A smell
as if sulphure were mingled with the mud,'' writes Evelyn in his
Parisian diary in 1643. It was mud viscous, mud evil, mud inevitable,
mud enduring, mud absolute. At the cry "A la matte tache!" the
wives of the bourgeois, disconsolately gazing at their skirts, turned
to buy a phial of Stain-eradicator from the grinning vendor: and
as they did so a brisk horseman spurring paSt would send up fresh
fountains of the gluey Stuff from the kennel to bespatter them.
Coaches, which were soon to make life a hell for die foot-passenger
in Paris and in London alike, were not yet. Catherine de Medicis
brought them from Italy in die Renaissance.

8 Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Aug. 14, 1773.

A manuscript of 1317 shows a dislind omnibus, drawn by two horses in line and
holding five travellers, crossing the Petit-Font. Whether these carriages still existed, I do
not know. I find them nowhere mentioned. Carts for merchandise were of course common.

4 o

It is not difficult to perceive, lingering on the Petit-Pont on a
winter day about this time, the slim figure of a saturnine young
Student of the University, cutting his lecture for the day. He sees
across the river, rising above the roofs, the tops of the twin towers
of Notre-Dame de Paris cutting the sky, and the birds crying and
circling round: Notre-Dame in its mingled majesty and grace as
we see it now; but in his day the Parvis is smaller, and to the base
of the Metropolitan cling the little churches of St. Jean-le-Rond and
St. Denis-du-Pas. To the north of Notre-Dame spread the CloiSters
and the Canons' Precin<t, where the Schools of Notre-Dame were,
a little town in itself: to the south a flight of thirteen Steps leads
down to the Seine. His quick eye glances over the massy walls of
the Petit-Chatelet by the bridge, and he looks away with a light
grimace, turning to argle-bargle with a Stout fishwife, tossing her
back as good as she gives in die matter of obscene repartee. He
contemplates the passers-by: the gowned, furred burgess, the Sor-
bonnical Doctor, the beggar whining and dragging, showing his
sores, the fiddler in the cross-lane, the quack gesticulating and
mouthing to the idle crowd, * 'sot far nature, far bequarre & bemol"
(the gibe is Rabelais'), on the bridge; the knot of truculent men-
at-arms, ragged and bearded; the Royal courier clattering by with
his white wand; the tight-waiSted, square-bodiced wives of the
bourgeois, with their heart-shaped headdress, the bourrelet\ the
prancing cavalcade escorting a lady of quality, her hair coiffured in
high atours\ the cloaked pair of elegants wearing soft boots of fawn
Cordova leather, fames botes^ falling lackadaisically over the in-
Step and proclaiming, like the carefully ill-arranged neckerchief of
the Werther period, their love-bondage. He sees a Dominican friar
pass, in his black-and-white habit; a couple of earth-coloured, rope-
girdled Franciscans; a tramping squad of foot-Sergeants; a juggler
leading a mule with cymbals; a file of pilgrims from the country
plodding to the tomb of St. Genevieve. The crowd on the bridge
falls back and divides at a clatter of trotting hooves and a barked
command: it is Messire Robert d!EStoutevill'e, ProvoSt of Paris, with
his body-guard of twelve Archers, riding home to his house in the
Rue de Jouy. A glint comes into the Student's eye, answering the
sidelong glance of a couple of town mopsies carrying on their sinful

4 1

heads a version of the high hennin which Friar Thomas Couette
and Friar Pierre des Gros some time before so roundly denounced
from the pulpit. 10 Friar Thomas was a man of action, as I perceive
from a Hiftory of Coftume, and would urge little derisive boys to
follow the wearers in the Street crying "Au hennin! au henninl"
and which has since gone out of fashion for the virtuous. . . . And
of a sudden the Sludent observes a ragged, hag-like figure shuffling
paft him, and turns his curious gaze on her. The old woman is
known throughout the Quarter as the Belle Heaulmiere. She was a
famous beauty and courtesan in the early part of the century
and the mistress of Messire Nicolas d'Orgemont, Master of the
Chambre des Comptes, who very scandalously installed her in his
house in the precinct of Notre-Datne, whence she was evicted by
the Canons. In Villon's day she is a mumbling witch of eighty;
her lover has died long ago, in 1416, in the prison of Meun-sur-
Loire, where Villon himself will be cat in due course. In the
Lament for her hot, sweet youth which Villon will write in a few
years, the figure of this poor old scarecrow is preserved like a
mummy for ever and ever.

But she is gone, shuffling round the corner, muttering, sucking
her withered gums, hugging the shadow. A troop of pack-asses
laden with corn from a farm outside the walls takes her place; a
grimacing showman leading a learned pig succeeds them; and a
leper rattling his tartarelle, or clackdish (unless it is a Monday, in
which case he is confined by a regulation of Charles v. to the Grand-
Font) ; and a scarlet judge riding to the Palais with his retinue; and
a pair of secular priefts; and a quartet of tumblers; and a file of
linked prisoners driven by Sergeants to the Chatelet; and after them
a wedding procession, two by two, like a parterre of flowers for
colour, preceded by the nodding minStrelsy scraping and blowing
music from rebeck and cithole, melle and flute and trompe,

. . . mirth and melody
With harp, gytron and sawtry,
With rote, ribible, and clokard,
With pipes, organs, and bombard, 11

l(> Compare Lydgate's diatribe on Horns,

11 Some of these instruments deserve a note. The rebeck and cithole, rote, ribible, and
clokard are all, I think, stringed, and variants of the lute, sawtry (psaltery), gytron, or

Stopping at the baker's to buy and scatter among the crowd the
flat cakes called flamiches and fouaces, and again at the open
window of the cervoisier to pass round the ceremonial flagon of
thin beer brewed from corn; and so, with a thousand quips and
burfts of laughter, to the parish church, where the long train of
promiscuous followers, loungers, beggars, ragamuffins, and idle
fellows drops off, since all the fun is over. All this the young Villon,
a child of the town and a parigot to the teeth, observes, sniffing up
the rich tumult and tabling it with zest; and waking at length from
his abstraction shivers in the nip of the late afternoon. Where now?,
TJhis side of the Pont Notre-Dame, in the Rue de la Juiverie, is the
Pomme de Pin, Robin Turgis' place, where there will be a blazing
log-fire and company he knows. 12 From there it is but a Step across
to the Trou Perrette for a throw with the dice; and thence one may
comfortably go on to the Grant Godct by the Greve, or the Plat
d'Eflain and the Trumelieres by the Holies, or the Homme Arme
by the church of the Blancs-Manteaux, or the Espee de Bois by
St. Merri. Nearer home, in "the Rue St. Jacques, opposite the
Mathurins, is the Mule; or across the two bridges, in a coy darkish
court behind the Precin<5t of Notre-Dame, is the house of Fat
Margot, where his quick tongue and readiness to sling a verse have
made him welcome more than once or twice.

The wind rises. The rushing of the river under the Petit-Pont
can be heard mingling more loudly with the perpetual scrape and
creak of swinging signs; for in that age houses and taverns alike
bear signs, 13 and in reading a liSt of the house and Street names

guitar. The vielle is a Stringed hurdygurdy: one o the gargoyles o Chartres Cathedral is
an ass playing a vielle. It has affinities with the Balkan guzla\> and I have seen it played
in Paris streets to-day. Villon refers to the vielle in the Great Te&ament. The bombard is
a bagpipe. The organs are portable, and are shown in many medieval manuscripts.

^The Pomme de Pin, most celebrated of Paris taverns (Guillebert de Metz, writing at
this period, says there were 4000 taverns, wineshops, and alehouses in the town), stood in
the Cite*, opposite the Madeleine Church, where the Rue de la Juiverie met the Rue de la
Lanterne, late into the seventeenth century, still flourishing and notable. Rabelais drank
there, and Moliere, and Racine, and La Fontaine. Rabelais knew the Mule as well.

18 The Streets generally took their names from a prominent house or tavern sign, but
also from the trades which they sheltered: for example, the Rues de la Tixanderie, de la
Draperie, de la Vieille-Poterie, des Lavandieres, de la Tonnellerie. Several groups of trades
had their own quarter: the Money-changers and Goldsmiths on the Grand -Pont, the Butch-
ers near the Chatelet, the Lombards off the Rue St. Denis, the literary trades around Uni-
versity, the Apothecaries in the City. The houses on the Pont Notre-Dame, celebrated
for their beauty, were numbered in 1463: the first experiment in Europe of this kind.

of fifteenth-century Paris one hears the noise of them all: the Stag,
the Tin Plate, the Nun-Shoeing-the-Goose, the Striped Ass, die
Harp, the Swallow, the Popinjay, the Helmet, the Bear, the Rose,
the Image-of-Our-Lady, the Two Red Apples, the Golden Lion, the
Three Kings of Cologne, the Spinning Sow, the Monkeys, the
Scarlet Hat, the Arquebusiers, the Fleur-de-Lys, the Goblets, the
Armed Man, the Wooden Sword, the Four Sons of Aymon, the
Three Chandeliers. . . .

The wind rises. At the corner of the Rue de la Huchette a
smoky cresset is already burning. A squad of the Guet Bourgeois,
the citizens' watch, going on night duty, tramps paft. The Student
shivers and makes up his mind, judging possibly, like Mr. Swiveller,
which Greets are passable to him on this date. He turns on his heel;
is elbowed roughly aside by a black-avised man-at-arms with a shade
over one eye; hurls after the warrior the appropriate comment; and
is loft in the gathering dark.

The town held other amusements than die tavern and the
brothel. There was the Fair of St. Germain, which in Villon's day
was held not near the Abbey but at the Halles; 14 the popular and
elegant fair of Paris. It opened in February and closed on Palm
Sunday, and combined pleasure with commerce in the most agree-
able manner; in its booths was born, a century after this time, the
Parisian theatre. There was Gingerbread Fair, the foire au Pain
d'Epices, that kind and honourable fair, ftill (by God's grace)
flourishing at Easier every year under a Third Republic. There was
the Fair of St. Laurent, opening on St. Laurence's Day, August 10,
and lasting a week. In all these a slim Student with a sharp eye
might find entertainment. But on any fine evening, summer or
winter, there was recreation and adventure to be had in the great
Charnel of St. Innocent, or the Innocents, by the Halles. In 1186
Philippe-Augufte had walled round this vast cemetery, with its
church, and given it four gates. By the thirteenth century a Gothic
arcade Stretched along the four inner sides of the wall, and its four
galleries were covered over. A high octagonal tower and lantern,
with a shrine of Notre-Dame du Bois, Stood among the tombs in

Louis XL restored it to the Abbey ground in 1482.

the centre of the square. Long before Villon's time the Innocents
had become the fashionable Parisian promenade, a Ranelagh, a ren-
dezvous of gallantry: the arcades were lines with shops and Stalls ;
above them, in the surrounding charniers, open charnel-vaults, each
with its trefoil arch, was massed a great jumble of human skulls and
bones, tumbled out of the way to make room for new arrivals in the
square below. At certain seasons sermons were preached there. In
1424, finally, a fresh attraction was added: the Dance of Death,
painted along the whole length of one wall. "Item" writes the
Bourgeois of Paris, from whose Journal I have already quoted,
'Tan mil CCCCXXIIIJ, fust faifle la Danse Macabre aux Innocent,
& fust commencee environ le mois d'aoufl & achevee au Karesme
ensuyvant" 15 In this long pageant, executed under Dominican
inspiration and soon popular all over Europe Holbein's series is
the moSt notable one saw that there is no escape from the hand
of Death. 16 He Stood Stiff and grinning behind the Lord Pope and
the Emperor on their thrones: he clutched the Abbess by the hand
as she leftthe convent chapel: he tapped the Canon on the shoulder
before the end of sermon: he poStured grimacing and mowing
before the Doctor at his books, the AStrol'oger among his alembics,
the Usurer fumbling his gold, the Drunkard swigging in the pot-
house. The tall Sergeant fighting in the field suddenly saw that his
antagonist was Death. The Blind Man, tapping with his Stick, felt
himself led away by a bony hand. The Judge looked up from
delivering sentence to be frozen by that awful grin. The PrieSt
carrying the Sacred Host through the Street perceived that it was
Death who tinkled the little warning bell before him. The Old
Woman painfully gathering Sticks in the wood felt an icy grasp
on her wriSt, and found Death's finger nudging her. The Merchant
loading his goods saw suddenly a hideous visage mopping at him
over his bales, a lank hand extended. Even the Imbecile, chuckling
to himself and Sticking Straws in his hair, discovered that he had

15 [Item, in the year 1424 the Danse MacabrS was made at the Innocents,
being begun about August and finished in the following Lent.]

M A Dance of 47 figures, with accompanying verses in Gothic letter, may Still be seen
at the chapel of Kermaria-an-Iscjuit in Brittany.

a companion in his gambols. In a fifteenth-century MS. at Valen-
ciennes the moral of the new pictures is thus explained:

Ainsy que les poissons sont prins par I'aine preflement, ainsy prent la
Mort les hommes, car la Mart ne espareigne nutty, roy ne empereur, riche
ne pouvre, noble ne villain, saige ne fol, medecin ne cyrurgien, jeune ne viel,
fort ne foible, homme ne femme. Yl n'esJ chose plus certaine, elle les fait
venir a la Danse.

[As fish are taken readily by the hook, so does Death take mankind, for
Death spares none, neither king nor emperor, rich nor poor, noble nor churl,
sage nor fool, doctor nor surgeon, young nor old, strong nor weak, man nor
woman. Nothing is more certain than that Death carries them all to the
Dance.]

The Parisian sinner, familiar with all the physical aspects of
death and corruption, shuddered and was amused at this new
pifture-gallery. Pacing the galleries of the Innocents, flagged with
tombstones, the gallant paused to contemplate the image of mor-
tality, and intercepting a glance from a passing girl renewed the
chase. On the mind of Villon, who frequented the place for his
own purposes, mainly undevotional, the Danse Macabre, and even
more the masses of piled-up bones and skulls carelessly heaved aside
to make room for more in three centuries, it is calculated, about a
million dead had been buried in the Innocents, mainly plague
victims made a profound impression. This same reality for once
sobered the rattling Muse of John Skelton also:

Your ugly token
My mind hath broken
From worldly lust.
I have well espied
No man may him hide
With sinews withered
From Death hollow-eyed . .
Our eyen sinking,
Our bodies linking,
Our gumrnys grinning
Our souls brynning,
To whom then shall we sue
For to have rescue
But to sweet Jhesu? 1T
17 The Gift of a Styll.

4 6

Nearly a century before Langland had cried:

At Church and in charnel-vault churls be hard to tell,

or whether one be Queen or quean, knight or knave.

So Villon:

Quant je considers ces tes~les
Entassees en ces charniers,
Tous furent maisJres des requeues,
Au moins de la Chambre aux Deniers,
Ou tous jurent portepanniers:
Autant puts rung que I'autre dire,
Car d'evesques ou lanterniers
Je n'y congnois rien a re dire.

"See how they lie/' he says, Standing at gaze, "all in a heap,
pell-mell, the powerful and the cringing together!"

Et icelles qui s* enclinoient
Unes contre autres en leurs vies,
Desquelles les unes regnoient
Des autres craintes et servies,
La les voy toutes assouvies,
Ensemble en ung tas peslemesle:
Seigneuries leur sont ravies,
Clerc ne maisJre ne s'y appelle.

[These ladies all, that in their day

Each against each did bend and bow,
Whereof did some the sceptre sway,

Of others feared and courted, now
Here are they sleeping all a-row,
Heaped up together anydele,
Their crowns and honours all laid low
Masters or clerks, there's no appeal.]

(Trans. , John Payne.)

Or sont ilz mors, Dieu ait leurs amesl
Quant ell des corps f ilz sont pourris.
Aient este seigneurs ou dames,
Souef et tendrement nourris
De cresme, fromentee ou riz.
Leurs os sont declinez en pouldre t
Auxquelz ne chault d'esbatz ne ris.
Plaise au doulx Jhesus les absouldre.

[When I consider the skulls piled pell-mell in these charnels,
that were all once Makers o Requests of the Chambre aux Deniers
[part o the King's household, equivalent to the Privy Purse] at
l eas t or else Street-porters, I cannot tell one from the other:
whether bishops or lamplighters I can tell no difference.

Well, they are dead; God have mercy on their souls. Their
bodies are rotted that were once those of great lords or ladies, so
delicate, so tenderly nourished on cream, and frumenty, and rice;
and their bones are wafted into powder merely. Little do they reck
now of frolic and laughter. Sweet Jesu, assoil them.]

It is this same melancholy fit which leads him at length to
compose his Epitaph, which I have transcribed later in this book:
a sad, exquisite chaunt.

The tale of the town's pleasures is not yet exhausted. Executions
were frequent sixty-two bandits were hanged in Paris, the Bour-
geois notes, in the five days April 30 to May 4, 1431 and besides
the gibbets Standing outside the Porte St. Denis, the Porte St.
Jacques, and the Porte Baudet, at the Place de Greve, the Place
Dauphine, the Croix du Trahoir, at Montigny, and elsewhere, there
were numerous private echdles belonging to the ProvoSt, the
Bishop, and to various abbots and chapters and other authorities
having the right of administering justice. The rnoSt superb and
ancient of all, the great gibbet of Montfaucon, is worth a passing
glimpse, since its shadow looms so heavy and permanent over
Villon's life and verse. Its base was a flat oblong mound fifteen feet
high, thirty feet wide, and forty feet long. In a colonnade around
three sides, on a raised platform, rose sixteen evenly-spaced square
pillars of unhewn Stone, each thirty-two feet high, linked together
at the top by heavy beams, with ropes and chains feStooned at short
intervals. In the centre of the platform gaped an immense pit cov-
ered by a grating, for the ultimate disposal of the hanged. Mont-
faucon, which never lacked fruit dangling from its black boughs,
Stood outside the walls where the Rue Louis-Blanc now cuts the
Quai de Jemmapes, a Stone Vthrow from the ESt railway Station,
and two secondary gibbets Stood near it in the plain to receive the
overflow. The condemned, setting forth from prison roped and tied
in their carts, accompanied by the ProvoSt and his bodyguard of
twelve mounted Sergeants and attended by MaSter Henry Cousin,

Executioner of Paris from 1460 onwards, 18 and his assistants, made
a brief Station at the convent of the Filles-Dieu by the Porte St.
Denis. Here the good sifters comforted them for their lat journey
with a manchet of bread and a cup of wine. The slow procession
then continued its way, through the St. Denis Gate and into the
country, preceded and followed by the spectators. The Sergeants
spurred a lane through the mob; the Provoft, magnificent in fur and
scarlet, reined in and took up his position near the gibbet, with the
birds swooping and crying around. The creaking carts reached the
platform and halted, while Master Henry and his men busied them-
selves with the ropes, and the friar in attendance recited in a loud
voice the lat prayers for the dying. An official of the Prevote un-
rolled a parchment and read the sentences, the nooses were fixed,
the carts moved on, the condemned swung briskly into space, and
the ceremony was over. They would hang there, twilling and
rotting, pecked by the crows and spun like tops by the winds, until
mot of the flesh was off their bones. On summer nights it was the
fashion for gallants of the kind since known as Apaches, or cheva-
liers of the jortijs, to bring their girls out from Paris for a midnight
frolic by the Montfaucon gibbet; and in the seventh and lal of the
Refues Franches ('Tree Feeds"), a collection of rascally adventures
in verse glorifying Villon and his band and published some years
after his disappearance from history, it is described how a couple
of hungry escholiers broke up such a pleasure-party. The revellers
having met to discuss the night's arrangements,

. . . Put condud f far leur facon,
Quilz yroyent ce soir-la coucher
Prcs le gibet de Montfaulcon,
Et auroyent pour provision
Ung pasJ6 de facon subtile,
Et meneroyent en conclusion
Avec eulx f chascun une fille.

[It was decided that they should go out to sleep that night by
the gibbet o Montfaucon, and that they should take for their repasl
a pa&y of quality, and also each one his doxy.]

18 The complete duties of this official are set forth in a contemporary document. He
must be able to "jaire son office par le feu, par I'espee, le jouet, I'ecartelage, la roue, la
fourche, le gibet, couper oreilles, desmembrer, flageller ou justiger, par le pilori ou cscha-

The party assembled, having at their heels, unobserved, the
two prowling escholiers, who had scented a meal from afar off and
had decided to be of the company.

Et allerent vers Montfaulcon,
Ou e&oit toute l f assembles.
Filles y avoit h joy son,
Faisant chere desmesuree.

[[And so to Montfaucon, where every one was assembled. There
were girls there in plenty, making great cheer and devilment.]

On the merry scene, late at night, the escholiers suddenly de-
scended like a thunderbolt, disguised horribly as devil's, flourishing
clubs and hooks and yelling "A mortl a mort, h mort!" and dis-
persed the Startled company in a rout, helter-skelter.

Se vous les eussiez veu fuyr,
Jamais ne vifles si beau jeu,
Uung amont f I'autre aval courir;
Chascun d'eulx ne pensoit quh Dieu,
Ilz s'enfuyrent de ce lieu
Et laisserent pain, vin f & viande,
Criant sainct Jean & sainct Mathieu,
A qui ilz feroyent leur offrande.

'[If you had seen them skedaddle it would have been the best
joke you ever saw. One dashed up, the other dashed down, thinking
of nothing now but their God; and so vanished from the spot, leav-
ing there the bread, the wine, and the meat, crying to St. John and
St. Matthew, vowing them offerings.]

The raiders then sat down to the feaft and finished everything
with considerable pleasure. It is clear from the whole of this adven-
ture that the essence of a Montfaucon picnic was a good provision
of bodies swinging overhead, preferably, I imagine, in full moon-
light. AD that a later Paris has had to offer the gobemouches of
Thomas Cook in place of this amusement is the dreary imbecility
of the Cabaret de TEnfer.

What is now called the "legitimate" theatre was, in Villon's
Paris, represented by three troops of adors, of which the mol

jaud, par le carcan, & par telles aultres peines semUalles selon la coustume, mosurs ou
usages du pays, lesquelz la hi ordonnte pour la crainte des malfaicteurs '."

important was the Confraternity of the Passion, whose perform-
ances took place at the Hospital of the Trinity, outside the St. Denis
Gate. In the years following the withdrawal of the English, and as
peace and order were gradually restored, the Confraternity's reper-
tory of Myfteries ("myStery," properly "misery/ ' from minifler-
ium, or so I have seen it derived), which had dwindled a great deal,
revived, became more splendid, and were more frequently per-
formed. In 1450 Arnoul Greban wrote for them a Passion it had
244 acting parts which became immensely successful and was
played all over France. Villon, who loved all the sights of the town,
mut have attended some of these performances. From a sentence of
Rabelais, indeed, it has been supposed (even by Gaton Paris) that
he wrote a Mystery himself:

Master Francis Villon, in his old Age, retir'd to St. Maixent in Poitou,
under the Patronage of a good honest Abbot of that Place. There to give
Pleasure to the People he undertook to have the Passion enacted in the Way
and Language of the Poitevin Country. 19

But this cannot possibly mean more than that the poet under-
took to "produce" (entreprit fairc jouer) the play, in the theatrical
term. His youthful tate probably led his feet more often to the
performances of the Basoche or the Enfans de Sans-Souci than to
the religious and dignified Mysteries of the Passion. The Basoche,
or commonalty of clerks of the Parliament and the law, formed
their own company as a rival attraction to the theatre outside the
St. Denis Gate, confining themselves to the allegorical drama. The
till more popular Enfans Sans-Souci played soties, satires mixed
with farce and horseplay. At Stated feals, again, some of the Gilds
and Confraternities performed their own Mysteries or Moralities,
and the University had its Feat of Fools, that Saturnalia, often
condemned and now declining, with its huge roaring procession of
ftudents disguised as grotesque animals, as women, as monks, as
devils, their elected bishop gambolling at their head, holding up all
Paris for the day, battling with the police and burghers, and invad-
ing even the cloifters and the churches, to the great scandal of
modern agnostics and twittering Nordics with their neat little

* Bk. iv., xiii.

minds like (as the Irish poet so admirably said) sewing-machines.
The MyStery was a different matter. The MyStery, as with our own
English cycles, was derived from the Mass, from which the whole
spiritual life of the Middle Ages all over Europe radiates.

Rabelais' full Story of Villon at St. Maixent in Poitou, with its
ruffianly ending, I shall discuss in its proper place. It is more likely,
if Villon ever wrote anything solid for the theatre, that it was the
admirable bit of buffoonery called the Monologue du Franc- -Archier
de Baignollet, which the more pontifical editors reject absolutely:
and indeed the evidence for attribution to Villon is slight, and
purely internal. But if this sharp and comic satire is not Villon's
then, as I perceive after long Study of it (we shall come to it in due
course), it is the work of one Steeped in his Style and mannerism,
some one who had lived very near the rose. That Villon mixed
freely with farce-players and Strolling mummers and occasionally
played himself there can be no doubt. In the firSt place this was a
habit of escholiers, as is shown in the case, quoted by P. Champion,
of a certain Poncelet de Monchauvet, Student, charged with murder
in 1416. His defence was:

Qu'il nefl buffo ne gouliart, ne jongleur ou basteleur, & s'il a esJS a jouer
a aucunes farces, comme ont acouSlume faire escolicrs & jeunes gens, ce a
eflS par esbatement & sans gain, & n'a point esJ maistre jongleur.

[He is neither buffoon nor mummer, minstrel nor showman, and if he
has played in any farces, as is the custom of Students and young persons, it
has been for a frolic and not for profit; and he has certainly not been a

It is to the mummers of his day that Villon directly and per-
sonally addresses himself in the Ballade of Good Counsel:

Farce, broulle, joue des fleusJes,
Fais, es miles et es citez,
Farces, jeux et moralitez . . .

[Rhyme, rail, wrestle, and cymbals play,
Flute and fool it in mummers* shows;

Along with the Strolling players tray

From town to city, without repose. . . .]

(Translated by John Payne)

5 2

And it is quite likely that lie on occasion would Siring together
burlesque verses or a sotie for them. His more or less contemporary
Eloy d'Amerval passes down the tradition in his Grant Deablerie:

Maiflre Franpoys Villon jadis,
Clerc expert en faictz & en diz,
Comme fort nouveau qu'il etfoit,
Et a farcer se delectoit.

[Ma&er Francois Villon was formerly a clerk expert in word
and deed, mot enterprising, delighting in farces.]

As does Philippe de Vigneulles also in his Memoirs, praising a
certain tailor of Metz, a playboy of his time: "Ce fut ung second
Franpoy Willon de bien rimer, de bien juer fairxe & de tout
ambaitement" *

But it must be remembered that Villon was a comic legend
within fifty years of his disappearance.

In this swift survey of Villon's Paris the general government of
the town needs nothing more than a reference. The Municipality,
ruled by the Prevot des Marchands and four Aldermen, sat in the
Parloir aux Bourgeois, or Maison aux Piliers, in the Place de
Greve. 20 Bedford had reformed it (as they say) during the English
occupation, and with his appointed Provost of Police, Simon
Morhier, had kept the citizens comparatively calm during St. Joan's
attack in 1429. The river traffic and commerce of Paris generally
were under the Municipality's control. Their jurisdiction occasion-
ally clashed with that of the Provoft, who had absolute power over
not only the police service but also all the prisons, pillories, gibbets,
town-criers, and barber-surgeons of Paris. And here we may resume
in more detail, since the barest sketch of the career of Francois
Villon could hardly afford to ignore the police of Paris, the Chorus
in his tragic comedy. The main body was the Guet Royal, the Royal
Watch, commanded by a Chevalier du Guet (Villon twice makes

*[ Truly he was a second Francois Villon for his excellence in rhyming,
playing farces and every kind of jollity.]

30 There was another "Parloir aux Bourgeois" against the ramparts by the Domini-
cans of the Rue St. Jacques, and incorporated into their house: but this had nothing to do
with the Municipality, as its position should sufficiently show. It was probably part of the
Clos aux Bourgeois given to Paris by Philippe-Augusle, think de Rochegude and Dumolin.

this officer a sardonic bequest) appointed by the King. Its cadre on
being reorganised a hundred years before by Provot Hughes
Aubroit in the reign of Charles v. was twenty mounted Sergeants
and forty foot-Sergeants, and remained so till 1559. The Watch was
assisted by the Sergeants of the Chatelet, who in Villon's time num-
bered 220, divided into two equal companies of horse and foot* as
Villon well knew.

Item, aux Unze Vings Sergens . . .
[Item, to tne Two Hundred and Twenty Sergeants.];

The Provost's bodyguard was twelve mounted Sergeants. The
Guet Royal was assisted also by the Guet des Metiers, a night watch
found by various corporations of tradesmen and artisans, and occu-
pying fixed pots. To this watch belonged the draper Guillaume
Bouin, whose case is included by Longnon in his papers illustrating
Parisian life during the English occupation. The draper Guillaume
Bouin had occasion to correct his wife Macee,.a scold, with the flat
of his bazelaire, the short sword which he was acoustume de porter
ou guet de nuyt a la Porte Saint-Jacques. In her fury Macee jumped
from an upper window into the street and died, and Guillaume had
need of a letter of remission.

There was finally a third body (often fused with the Guet des
Metiers), the Guet Bourgeois, supplied by the citizens when neces-
sary, and corresponding broadly to die Trained Bands of London. 2 1
A function often performed by the Guet Bourgeois, say MM.
Dubech and d'Espezel in their History of Paris, was to get in the
way of the Guet Royal.

Of the common prisons of Paris the three mot important were
the Grand Chatelet, the seat of the Prlvote royale, commanding the
Pont au Change; the Petit-Chatelet, commanding the Petit-Pont;
and the Conciergerie in the Palais, which was to have a bloody halo
three hundred years after Villon. The poet himself was probably
shoved in all three: certainly in two. He reserves for himself, in the
lesser Testament, tongue in cheek, the chamber in the Grand
Chatelet called the Troys Lis, or Three Beds. He was in this prison

a From which, as from the other irksome duty, the citizens naturally escaped when-
ever possible by paying substitutes.

positively at the end of 1462, when he received his second death-
sentence, and later in the Conciergerie, and his whooping Ballade
of joy at the remission is addressed to Etienne Gamier, Clerk of the
Guichct there. Whether Villon was ever in the prison of the Bishop
of Paris attached to the For-1'Evesque (Forum Episcopi} on the
quay near the Chatelet, is not known. The Petit-Chatelet, which
received the criminals and unruly characters of the Left Bank, no
doubt enfolded him occasionally to cool his heels after a night's
brawling. In a print of 1550 the piles of the Grand and Petit Chate-
lets Stand as they Stood when Villon knew them. The huge, tre-
mendously thick round towers with their pointed turrets, the yawn-
ing archways, the machicolations, the overwhelming mass of
masonry need no signpost.

Veflibulum ante ifsum primisque in jaucibus Orel
Luftus et ultrices posuere cubilia Cures.

[Jusl in the Gate, and in the Jaws of Hell,
Revengeful Cares, and sullen Sorrows dwell.]

(Dryden, Vergil, ^Eneid VI.)

Yet the prisoner of that age was relatively fortunate, for he
could share in human intercourse, and the humanitarians had no
power over him.

It was, I think, at the end of the Victorian period in England,
when Franf ois Villon was so extensively taken up by the lily-handed
("ces dmes singulieres" says Gaston Paris, "ouvertes h la fois aux
inspirations d'un myHicisme lilial et aux suggestions perverses d'une
depravation au moins intelletluelle ." * He means Rossetti and his
school. I can see from here Villon's expression in Purgatory on
learning of his adoption) it was then that the bluff Vi<5torian con-
tempt for the fount and mainspring of the life of the Middle Ages
became tinged with a sad, voluptuous guto, like that of Stiggins
shaking his head over a glass of Wanity. Certain defeats in the
human machinery of a Divine institution which are so obvious to
any observer of fifteenth-century life, the monastic ideals relaxed

* [These singular souls, susceptible alike to the inspirations of a lily-white
myilicism and the perverse suggestions of a pravity at leas! intelle&ual.]

and broken, relapsed prieSts swigging in a Paris tavern, the Abbess
Huguette du Hamel and her scandalous behaviour, Friar Baulde
de la Mare rioting with thieves and prostitutes, the companions of
Villon all this was Strangely attractive to minds a little dazed with
the fumes of lilies and languors, and in a cloudy sort of way
renewed their belief in Art-fabrics.

It is no intention of mine to glide over these defe<5ls, any more
than to gloat over them. All the poetry of medieval Europe is hot
with satire against unworthy servants of the Church: for it has been
observed that where the faith is Strong the laity Strongly resent
failures to preserve the clerical Standard. In an age when the Church
was the ruling factor in men's lives from the cradle to the grave,
and beyond it, when they derived from her not only consolation
and succour, both bodily and ghoStly, but also learning, music,
drama, painting, sculpture, and every work of the mind, when (as
before, and since, and ever) she was the fortress of the poor, and
then solely responsible for their relief, when she at every turn fed
the soul and glorified the understanding with beauty in such an
age the rascalities of those among her myriad children who forswore
their vows and disgraced their habits do not seem of overwhelming
account. But what! The Catholic Church needs no human praise.
Ego mater pulchrce dile&ionis, et agnitionis, et sanflcs spei* As for
human blame, she is indifferent to it; for her eyes are fixed else-
where. The debaucheries of such as Friar Baulde and his kind, who
mixed freely with the vagabond populace of thieves, crimps, gipsies,
beggars, and assassins thrown on the Paris Streets by the wars, will
occupy in these pages no more than their proportionate place. It is
necessary to consider that for every quartet of lapsed Carmelites
such as that quartet arreSted in a Paris tavern in 1488, dressed not
in the habit of their Order, but in gowns, hats, and shoes, with
daggers at their belt, there were all' over France, and all over the
reSt of Europe, other religious who lived, or attempted to live, by
the Rule. It would naturally be ridiculous on the other hand to
believe that the majority of religious houses at this period kept the
Standard of (for example) Citeaux under St. Stephen Harding of

*[I am the mother of fair love, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.]
(Ecclesia&icus, 24.)

Sherborne, in the fullest discipline of the Rule, when, except for
one frugal meal 1 , twelve hours' manual and intellectual labour and
the duties of the Liturgy filled each day from two in the morning
till Compline. In an age and in a country weakened and wearied by
a hundred years of war and continuously ravaged and oppressed by
a thousand evils, some slackening of human fibre is no matter for
surprise, even sincere.

The fifteenth century was the bitter and violent age of Jean
Sans-Peur, and Gilles de Rais (though research has greatly, I be-
lieve, shorn his gambols of their Satanic splendour), and the Comte
d'Armagnac, whose pleasures ranged from pederasty by way of
murder to coining, who had his confessor flogged for refusing him
absolution. The great feudal' lords and vassals, like Charles the Rash
of Burgundy, called the Grand Duke of the Weft, die Bourbons
and Nemours, were seditious and enemies to order. The great
captains passed their time normally in slaughter, pillage, and rapine,
treason, torture, and assassination, dividing the unhappy land; and
juftice was not always ftrong or courageous enough to ftand up to
them. Arbitrary judgments were not rare, nor the division of a
defendant's goods among his accusers, his judges, and ^t King's
favourites; nor did conditions improve until Louis XL, that silent,
shabby, pensive, admirable person, demonstrated, by executing
Charles de Melun and the Constable of St. Pol for treason, that
there was law in France and that it applied to the great. In such a
time, and considering the wafted lands, the deftroyed and aban-
doned churches and religious houses, 22 the ruined benefices left in
the track of civil wars, the general lassitude and misery which cries
out in that Ballade of Charles d'Orleans to Our Lady praying des-
perately for peace:

Pries: pour paix, doulce Vierge Marie,
Royne des cieulx, et du monde maiflresse,
Faites frier, par voflre courtoisie,
Saintts et sainttes, et prenez vo&re adresse
Vers voftre Filz, requerrant sa haultesse
Quil luy plaise son peuple regarder . . .

38 For one example, the great Abbey of St. Vidor, with its park and library, for which
the Redor of University was appealing in 1449.

[[Pray for peace, sweet Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and
Mi&ress of this world; and of thy courtesy call on all the saints for
prayers, and present our petition before thy Son, imploring His
high majesty that it would please Him to look down on His
people . . .]

and continues,, showing Her the misery of the land and calling for
more and more prayers:

Priez, prelatz et gens de sainc~le vie,
Rdigieux, ne dor me z en peresse,
Priez, maisJres et tous suivans clergie^
Car par guerre fault que I'eflude cesse:
Mounters desJruiz sont sans qu'on les redresse f
Le service de Dieu vous fault laissier . . .

[Pray, all ye prelates, and men of holy life. Monks, be not idle,
and sleep not. Pray, learned mailers, and all who pursue knowl-
edge; for because of war all learning muSl cease. See, the religious
houses are destroyed, and no man rebuilds them, and you have
perforce to desist from the service of God. . . .]

considering all this, the defection of the Bauldes of the age, Still
less of the r : secular clerks driven by hunger on the Streets of Paris
and tlie large towns to mix with the riffraff already there, becomes
not so monStrous inexplicable and horrible a thing as it seems (and
especially to some glad observers) detached from its background.
It is well observed by L. Thuasne that the attitude of the Middle
Ages towards misdemeanour and crime mut be Strictly remem-
bered. At this time the civil and the religious ethos were one and the
same; that is, men generally, even high officials, believed in the
infinite mercy of God and in the Church's assurance, then as now,
that a sin, however enormous, may be forgiven and effaced by God's
pity after sincere remorse, repentance, and reparation. "Lord!" cries
Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to St. Louis, in one of his Propos, "how-
ever great the sinner who has come to me, I have always loved him
a hundred times more after confessing him than before." Remem-
bering this, and considering the principle of a Letter of Remission
accorded by the King to the criminal awarding him forgiveness, on
confessing his crime and making satisfaction to the civil party, it

28 Clergie: scholars, doctors, Students. Moufliers, monasteries.

becomes clear that the Royal power a<ted in pradically the same
manner as the Church; but with more bureaucratic obligations
attached to the form (for these Letters were not by any means
scattered broadcast, and certain conditions had to be complied with
before they could be confirmed) and with less universal! clemency;
and also without the power to grant such spiritual aids as the
Church could afford the weak and the backsliding. 24 Therefore in
contemplating a fifteenth-century criminal this attitude of his age
must be taken into account, however odd it may seem to Bentha-
mites in Bloomsbury.

The people, moreover, held to the Faith. M. Longnon's docu-
ments record the foundation of a clufter of new confraternities
among the gilds and trades of Paris. The Gild of Glovers in 1426
begged permission and were allowed to re-eStablish in St. Innocent
the Confraternity of St. Anne, founded long before by the Iron-
mongers and ruined by the wars. In 1427 the Money-changers of
the Pont Notre-Dame were authorised to establish a confraternity
in St. Barthelemy. In 1428 the parishioners of St. Laurent, four le
singulier refuge & affecdon qu-ilz out aux benois sains monsei-
gneur saint Michiel V angle, monseigneur saint Ildevert, monsei-
gneur saint Lubin, & madame sainfte Katherine* established an-
other in their parish church. In 1430 the MaSler Cordwainers of
Paris had the privileges of their Confraternity of SS. Crispin and
Crispian in Notre-Dame confirmed by Henry vi. The lat document
of the Longnon colledion is a letter of Henry VL authorising the es-
tablishment in February 1435, on the eve of the English withdrawal,
of a new confraternity in the Dominicans 5 church in the Rue St.
Jacques, en I'onneur & a la louenge & gloire de Dieu noHre createur,
de la benoiHe glorieuse Vierge Marie sa mere, et dudit benoift
martir monseigneur sainft Pierre le martir, a I' occasion de laquele

*[On account o the succour they owe and the affection they bear to the
blessed saints, Monseigneur St. Michael the Archangel, Monseigneur St.
Ildebert, Monseigneur St. Lubin, and Madame St. Katherine.j

384 E.g. Indulgences: which are not tickets enabling the holder to sneak into Paradise,
nor pardons for the guilt of sin, nor licenses to commit it, but simply remissions of the
temporal punishment remaining to be worked off after a sin has been forgiven; such pun-
ishment as was exacted publicly in primitive times. Compare Nathan's sentence on David
the King.

confrairic & fraternite le divin service pourra eSlre augments a la
louenge de Dieu & de toute la court de Paradis*

The object of these works of devotion was practical: the cele-
bration every week in the year of Masses for the good estate of the
members, body and soul, their families, friends, and benefactors;
for the souls of their dead; for the good estate of the King and the
Royal family and their relatives, living and dead; for the peace and
welfare of the City of Paris; and for other intentions. 25 Nor were
the corporal works of mercy excluded.

I have quoted these instances because they illustrate the devo-
tion of the mass of the Parisian populace in Villon's age, during the
wort years of the town's history; and because it is necessary to
remember that this devotion flourished at precisely the same time
that the rascal Carmelite Baulde de la Mare was tippling and roar-
ing at the sign of the Wooden Sword.

[*To the honour and praise and glory of God our Creator, the blessed
and glorious Virgin Mary His Mother, and the aforesaid blessed martyr Mon-
seigneur St. Peter the martyr, by the occasion of which confraternity and
brotherhood the Divine service may be increased, to the praise of God and
all the Court of Paradise. ] t
23 See Appendix F.

THE LIFE

If my dark heart has any sweet thing it is turned away from me,
and then farther off I see the great winds where I must be sailing.
I see my good luck far away in the harbour, but my steersman
is tired out, and the masts and the ropes on them are broken, and
the beautiful lights where I would be always looking are quenched.

SYNGE, from Petrarch.

THE LIFE

Un des plus bizarres personnages de ce pays oh Dieu nen a pas laisse man~
quer. C'esJ un compose de hauteur et de bassesse, de bon sens et de deraison:
il jaut que les notions de I'honnete et du deshonnete soient bien etrangement
brouillees dans sa tte, car il montre ce que la nature lui a donne de bonnes
qualitSs sans ostentation f et ce qu f il en a regu de mauvaises sans pudeur.

DIDEROT, Le Neveu de Rameau.

[One of the oddest characters in this country which the Almighty has
not deprived of such. He is a mixture of elevated sentiment and baseness, o
good sense and folly; and it would seem that notions of honesty and dis-
honesty are most strangely confused in his head, for he displays those good
qualities with which Nature has endowed him without ostentation, and the
bad ones without shame.]

As one who se^ out on foot to trace a Roman road finds after faint
beginnings a Stretch of plain going, loses the track in pasture, or
ploughland, or bog, picks it up again, driving ahead like an arrow,
and again loses it in forthrights and meanders, so in surveying
the turbulent life of Francois Villon vagueness alternates with cer-
titude, marshland with hard ground, and leagues of regular Striding
with sudden Stumblings clogged with doubt. Finally the road
ends abruptly at the edge of a precipice and the traveller finds him-
self Staring into Space, with only Echo,

parlant quant bruyt on maine,
[answering when one calls aloud \
(a tedious wench) to answer his holloas.

Before the laSt quarter of the nineteenth century the map of
Villon's life was, for the moSt part, like Africa in a Mappa Mundi.
His two Testaments gave die year of his birth, the year of his
imprisonment at Meun, some evidence that he was at leaSt once in
danger of hanging, the names of some of his companions, and a
few indications, direcft and oblique, of a criminal career. Beyond
that there was nothing but conjecture. Hie anthropophagi. Hie
dmcones. In 1873 AuguSte Vitu suddenly burSt into this silent
country, returning with his Notice sur Francois Villon, d'apres de$
documents nouveam et inedits tires des depots publiques (May
1873), r i c h s Pil which included, from the registers of the Chan-
cellery of France, the two Letters of Remission which throw such
light on the killing of Chermoye on Corpus ChriSti, 1455. Four
years later AuguSte Longnon, having rifled the University archives
and discovered the whole Story of the burglary at the College of
Navarre, incorporated this document, together with a full dossier
embracing Villon's principal companions and legatees, into his
monumental Etude biographique sur Francois Villon, on which
Robert Louis Stevenson, fired with enthusiasm, composed the
decorative, uncomprehending, and celebrated essay in Men and
Booths. In 1884 AuguSte Vitu began his Struggles with the Jargon,
followed by Lucien Schone. In 1890 Marcel Schwob published the
Inquiry on the Coquillards, which a modest archivist of Dijon
had unearthed as far back as 1842. In 1892 Longnon brought out
his great edition of the (Euvres completes, which is Still Standard,
enriching it with new-found documents concerning the University
riots of the Pet-au-Deable and the Street brawl of November 1462
in which Villon was concerned with Robin Dogis. Finally the
archives of Parliament and the University yielded Marcel Schwob
the ultimate precious drops of information concerning Villon's fol-
lowing mishaps of 1462, the death-sentence, the reprieve, and the
banishment. 1

Henceforth, though fog Still hangs over many Stages of the
road, and though there are large gaps and patches of impassable
land, the main part is clear enough. It seems unlikely that any-
thing more can be discovered. The national treasuries have been

1 See Appendix G: Bibliography.

6 4

thoroughly ransacked, and Time and the bonfires of the Revolu-
tion have no doubt accounted for the reft of the documents, whether
preserved in Paris, in the Orleanais, in the Bourbonnais, or else-
where, which could have solved all remaining problems.

The road ends, as I have said, in the air. There is nothing be-
yond the gulf but silence. But the journey, I promise you, is a good
one.

About the year 1430 a prieft originally from the diocese of
Auxerre was given a residential chaplaincy in the University church
of St. Benoit-le-Bientourne in the Rue St. Jacques, in the shadow
of Sorbonne. 2 His name was Guillaume: he took a surname, in the
medieval fashion, from the village of his origin, the ftill-existing
village of Villon, a Burgundian fief five leagues from Tonnerre
in the Chablis country, on the frontier of the Slope of Gold. Guil-
laume de Villon was a man of parts and honour, a Master of Arts
and a Bachelor in Canon Law: he had come to Paris young, had
practised for a time a professor in the Law Schools of the Rue St.
Jean-de-Beauvais, and had held a small benefice at Chantilly. He
was allotted, with his chaplaincy in St. Benoit, a house in the
cloister, a house called the Porte Rouge, on account, so it has been
conjectured by leading archaeologies, of its having a red door. Here
Master Guillaume de Villon, attached to the chapel and altar of
monseigneur sainft Jehan I'Evangdifte in St. Benoit, lived the reft
of his life, worthily and (except for a brush in 1434 and again in
1450 with the Chapter of Notre-Dame, suzerain of St. Benoit 3 )
peacefully. He moved, moreover, in honourable Parisian society,

2 The history of this church, so bound up with Villon's, is interesting. It was built
with its cloister on the site of a Merovingian shrine in the twelfth century, and having its
high altar at the west end and its main door in the Rue St. Jacques, liturgically an error,
was called St. Benoist-le-Bestourn6, "St. Bennet Askew." By 1349 the high altar had been
moved to the east end, and the church thence was called St. Benoist-le-Bientourne", ecclesia
S. Benedict bt-neversi. It was partly reconstructed in the fifteenth century, suppressed in
1790, and sold in 1797. In 1800 Mass was said in it once more; in 1812 it was sold for a
warehouse; in 1832 it became the Theatre du Pantheon; in 1854 it succumbed at length
and was pulled down. The north block of the new Sorbonne covers its site, where the
Rue des Ecoles crosses the Rue St. Jacques.

St. Benoit was served by one cure; six canons (without canons' privileges) nominated
by the Chapter o Notre-Dame, and twelve chaplains elected by the Chapter of St. Benoit.
It had eight chapels.

11 This terrible Metropolitan Chapter thrust Guillaume de Villon into their private prison
for a short space in 1450. One did not stand up to them with impunity.

and was a frequent gueft at the table of Dom Jacques Seguin, Prior
of St Martin-des-Champs. "Et disna avec mondifl Seigneur," notes
the Prior's secretary in October 14385 "maiflre Guillaume de Villon,
demourant au cloiHre saint EenoiH! 3 * And again, in November,
"Et y disna maiflre Michid Piedefer, maiftre Jehan Turquant,
maiflre Guillaume de Villon, & ung ou deux autres." ^ At the table
of Dorn Seguin there met many of the higher clergy, lawyers, and
notable officials of Parliament, even during the worSt years; he was
a hospitable man and one of Strong personality, grand seigneur
ecclesiaflique, and his guests no doubt keenly regretted his depriva-
tion and excommunication for f lures & rnultas rebelliones & in-
obediencias quamplurimas J by his superior, the Abbot of Cluny, in
1452. His successor, Prior Jacques Jouvenel des Ursins, was an aus-
tere person who did not number hospitality among his Sterling
virtues.

Guillaume de Villon was closely linked in friendship, as it
appears from various documents respecting heritages, with several
good Parisian families, the Hemons, the Barons, the Bonnarts, the
Drouarts. In his own Burgundian country, no less than in Paris, he
was a man of substance and esteem, and at one time was seigneur
of a little domain in the Bailliage of Sens called Malay-le-Roy; a
domain carrying with it (by a singular irony, considering the career
of his adopted son) the right to ere<5t a gibbet to deal with malefac-
tors in that countryside. He possessed a slender private income (on
which he was to draw pretty heavily in behalf of his ward in years
to come) derived from a vine-preserve in the Clos Bourgeois at
Vaugirard and the rent of three houses in the neighbourhood of
St. Benoit; and it is characteristic of him that from one of his tenants
he had not collected any rent for eight years, at the date of an entry
in a register pertaining.

To the house called the Red Door in the cloister of St. Benoit-le-

*[And there dined with my aforesaid Lord, Master Guillaume de Villon,
living in the Cloifter of St. Benoit.]

t[And there also dined here Ma&er Michiel Piedefer, Ma^lejc Jehan
Turquant, Ma&er Guillaume de Villon, and one or two others.]

J[ Repeated rebelliousness and innumerable adls of disobedience.]

*Arch. nat., LL 1383, fol. 108.

Bientourne there was brought, probably about the year 1438, on
Master de Villon's return to Paris from a long journey, a fatherless
child, . a distant relative. The kind chaplain (the fixed epithet will
recur in this history, as in Homer, as in Vergil, as in the Song
of Roland, as in Aucassin, time and again) adopted this sharp-
faced Starveling, fed, clothed, sheltered, and educated him, saw him
through University, forgave him the villainies of his early manhood,
comforted him in his despair, reprimanded him, gave him san<5luary
when hard pressed, ransomed him with influence and money, and
was repaid with a life of constant anxiety and the enduring love
and gratitude of the reprobate, glowing for all time in his verse
towards

mon plus que fere,

Maitlre Guillaume de Villon,

Qui esJe ma plus doulx que mere

A enfant leve de maillon.

[My more than father, Mailer Guillaume de Villon, who has
been to me more tender than a mother, and raised me from
swaddling-clothes. ]

Mailer Guillaume died in his house in the quiet enclosure of St.
Benoit, among its little gardens, in 1468, at the age of seventy, and
was buried in his church. It has been reasonably supposed that he
was carried off by a great epidemic which swept Paris early in that
year, particularly the St. Benoit quarter, and carried off also the
Lady Ambroise de Lore, wife of Francois Villon's protestor Robert
d'Estouteville, ProvoSl of Paris. It is even possible to fix the date of
Guillaume de Villon's death, since in 1480 his fellow-prieft and old
pupil Jehan le Due caused to be increased Master Guillaume's obit,
the modeft foundation for requiem Masses left by him with the
Grande Confrerie aux Bourgeois, of which he was a member. 5 The
entry, written by an official of the Confraternity in indifferent
Latin, Stands in their Martirologe or anniversary-book:

EPIPHANIA DOMINI. In vigilia Regum, in ecclesia beate Marie Magda-
lene, obitus jundatus per venerabilem virum magistmm Guillermum
Villon. Pro cujus fundacione habemus vingiti \viginti\ libras cum

B This Confraternity was distinguished: Kings and Queens of France were members of
it through the ages. It was established in the Htde church of the Madeleine in the Cite.

octo solidis parisiensibus annul redditus. Et fro augmentaclone ipsius
vir venerabilis dominus Johannes Leduc, quondam -f rater iflius Con-
jratrie, et antea discipulus prefati magisJri Guilklmi Villon, dedit
nobis duodecim libras ad emendum redditus: xii 1. f. Q

[Epiphany of Our Lord. On the eve before the Twelfth Night, in the
church of blessed Mary Magdalen, the obit founded by the venerable Master
Guillaume de Villon: for this foundation we have twenty livres eight sols
Parisis annually. To increase this obit the venerable Master Jehan le Due,
formerly a member of this Confraternity and one time a pupil of the afore-
said Master Guillaume de Villon, has paid us twelve livres to amend the
same: xii livres Tournois. 6 ]

Twelfth Night falls on January 6, and therefore (since obits are
observed generally on the anniversary of death) it would seem clear
that Guillaume de Villon died on that feat in 1468. His will, exe-
cuted by Jehan le Due, has never been discovered., but the principal
legatee has been found to be his nephew, the barber-surgeon Jehan
Flaftrier. It is permissible to conclude from this that the haggard
rogue whom the chaplain of St. Benoit had so long protected had
left behind no trace or token on his flight into the outer dark five
years before; or was dead.

In 1481 the barber-surgeon Fla&rier founded in St. Benoit a
chantry for the recital at Guillaume de Villon's tomb on the firft
of each month, immediately after High Mass, of the Seven Peni-
tential Psalms, the Libera me, Domine, and other prescribed prayers
au remede & salut de Fame dudifl de Vyllon, oncle dudifl testa-
teur*

This is the laSt news of Mailer Guillaume de Villon. The hon-
ourable chaplain of St. Benoit had a heart of pure gold. I do not
doubt that he has sat these many score of years in Paradise.

The baptismal name of the child Master Guillaume de Villon
received into his house, who was to grow into such a great black-
guard and poet, was Francois; his surname, or rather surnames,
those of his father (to whom we shall come within a few words),
de Montcorbier and des Loges. At this moment it is only necessary

* [For the good eslate and salvation of the soul of the aforesaid Master
de Villon, uncle o the aforesaid te&ator.]
6 Arch, nat., LL 437, foL 2.

to observe that Stevenson, making play in his beSt Adelphi manner
with "Francois de Montcorbier, alias des Loges, alias Villon, alias
Michel Mouton," creates a romantic but therefore false impression.
Except in University, where his name is entered as de Montcorbier,
Villon used no other name throughout his life but that of his guard-
ian. He is named des Loges once, in a Royal pardon, and nowhere
else. The "Michel Mouton" was an extempore lie told in a tight
place to save his skin, and never used again: as we shall see.

There was no official fuss in Paris at the time about a poet's
being born, and there exists no register fixing the date of Franf ois
Villon's birth. From his own clear mention in his verse, however,
the year is known the year 1431, in the laSt phase of the English
occupation. The house in which he uttered his firSt yell of dismay
on entering this world was probably swept away centuries ago, with
the dark and narrow Street which held it. There can rarely have
been a more execrable world for an infant to be born into: a world
of famine, plague, and oppression, the tyrant English inside and the
Burgundians and Armagnacs ravaging the country without, pale
misery Stalking the Streets, and murder all round. For the poor of
Paris, who in those years lived mainly on turnip-tops and miscel-
laneous refuse, life muSt have been a grinding torment: and the
father of Francois Villon was poor, as his son has said.

Pot/re je suis de ma jeunesse,
De fovre et de petite extrace;
Mon fere not oncq grant richesse,
Ne son ayeul, nomme Grace;
Povrete tous nous suit et trace.

[Poor I am, from my childhood, of poor and obscure extraction.
My father had never great riches, nor his grandfather, whose name
was Grace. Poverty follows and dogs us all.]

I see the poet's father, a gaunt, silent figure, prematurely old
and worn with troubles. His Christian name (the Middle Ages
cared chiefly about Christian names, and were careless of patro-
nymics) is unknown. He took from the village of his origin, a little
village long since vanished, on the edge of Burgundy and the Bour-
bonnais, a surname: de Montcorbier. This was a custom of his time
(as we have seen, Guillaume de Villon had done the same), and

implied no relationship to the seigneur who owned the village, or
to his family: certainly Francois Villon never at any time claimed
kin with the noble and wealthy family o de Montcorbier, whose
reigning head at this time was Girard de Montcorbier, "noble
homme, escuyer!' As for the name of des Loges, in which a Letter
of Remission was awarded Francois Villon after the killing of
Chermoye in 1455 ("maifire Francois des Loges, autrement dit de
Villon"), his father had borne it in the Bourbonnais. 7 It was the
name of a little metairie dependent on the fief and village of Mont-
corbier, and no doubt it was after an unsuccessful Struggle to live
on this Steading, ruined by the wars, that the elder des Loges came
to Paris in the hope of bettering his fortunes; possibly at the time
of the wedding of Charles v. to Jehanne de Bourbon, when many
of his countrymen came up to the capital If he indeed nourished
hope, he was deceived. I see him, I say, a gaunt, anxious, haggard
figure, bowed with disappointment and harsh fate. He died early,
leaving his poverty behind him; probably in the poet's childhood
in any case before 1461, when his son wrote in the Grant Te&ament,

Man fere efl mort, Dzeu en ait I'ame!
[My father is dead, God receive his soul!]

and is numbered with the forgotten dead. His wife, presumably
a native of Anjou, her brother, Francois' uncle, being a religious
at Angers, survived him for many years. She was Still alive in 1461,
when her son (who loved her) wrote for her the Ballade to Our
Lady: a bent and shrivelled old woman living in poverty, as he
explains on her behalf.

Femme je suis povrette et ancienne,

Qui riens ne spay; oncques lettre ne leus.

[A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,
I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.]

(RossettL)

Nothing more is known of her life or death. From the same
glorious Ballade,

7 It had no connection with the Parisian family of des Loges, to which belonged a cer-
tain Jehan des Loges, Procurator at the Ch^telet between 1447 and 1461.

Au mouflier voy dont suis faroissienne
Paradis faint, ou sont harpes et lus,

[Within my parish-cloifter I behold
A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore.]

(Rossetti.)

the Abbe Valentin Dufour (with him Marcel Schwob) has con-
jectured very plausibly that the mouttier, minfter, or conventual
church o her parish was the Church of the Celeftines near the
Baftille, one of the wonders of old Paris, and particularly celebrated
for its wall-paintings of Heaven and Hell. "Am Celcftins" writes
Guillebere de Metz about 1434, "eSi paradis & enfer en painlture,
avec autres portraitures de noble euvre. . . . Item, devant le cuer
de I'eglise a ung autel eft painfl Vymage de NoHre-Dame" * The
Cel'eftines was dedicated to the Annunciation: this affords one more
reason for connecting it with the Ballade to Our Lady. The old
woman, therefore, may have lived in this quarter of Paris, in which
Rabelais died. On the other hand, since mol medieval churches
glowed with colour, her mouflier might equally have been of the
Left Bank little St. Julien-le-Pauvre, then declining, 8 or the
Dominicans' great church in the Rue St. Jacques, which held at the
Revolution the bodies or hearts of twenty-two kings and princes
of the blood, and had been loaded with treasure by every French
king since St. Louis; or the Franciscans, hardly less splendid, by
the south-wet rampart; or further north, on the river-quay, the
Grands- Auguftins; or even fortified St. Germain-des-Pres outside
the walls, with its vaft enclosure, its bourg, its three fteeples, its
rich reliquaries from Toledo and Cordova, and its Merovingian
pride. In any of these churches there would be paintings, lights,
warmth, and consolation for the poor.

The old woman shared with Master Guillaume de Villon his
anxieties and sorrowings over the prodigal, but her journey to the

*[At the Cele&ins there is Heaven and Hell painted, and other paint-
ings of noble handiwork. . . . Item, in the heart o the church at an altar
there is painted a picture o Our Lady.]

s The abbey of Longpont, of which St. Julien was a dependency, was itself ruined by
the Hundred Years' War, and in 1449 was served by a Cluniac prior and three monks
only.

grave was not all misery, for maternal love and a humble devotion
to God's Mother sweetened and alleviated it. She had no other
children or if she had, the poet does not speak of them. He who
remembered in his verse with such affection his mother and his pro-
teftor would, I think, have remembered his brothers and sifters,
had he had any. His other kinships are shadowy. His grandfather,
or great-grandfather, whom he names Grace, may be a myth. Noth-
ing is known of him. M. Longnon, whose research gives him au-
thority for saying that the name Grace, or Horace, was extremely
rare in fifteenth-century France, hesitatingly puts forward the only
Horace he has discovered during his immense labours on this
period. This was a sort of patriotic buffoon who incensed the Eng-
lish, during Henry v.'s siege of Meaux in 1421-22, by braying loudly
on the ramparts through a trumpet by the side of a crowned ass
which the besieged had hoisted there in derision, thumping it to
make it give tongue and crying to the English that Henry their
King was calling to them: a pleasantry, observes Longnon with jus-
tice, assez depourvue de finesse. (Henry at this period was the com-
mon name for an ass in France, as Martin was a little later.) The
patriot Horace suffered eventually for his share in this piece of
artless fun, being handed over on May 2, 1422, with a batch of other
defenders of Meaux, in accordance with the terms of the surrender :
it is doubtful whether he exited many days after that date. If in-
deed Villon had an ancestor of the name, this Horace would be
exactly the sort of ancestor Villon should have had. But the poet
may have invented him for the sake of rhyme, or, alternatively, may
have sprung from the loins, twice or thrice removed, of some ob-
scurer hero of the name.

To MaSter Guillaume de Villon he was undoubtedly related;
It is presumed, on his mother's side. It is clear that the prieSt of
St. Benoit mut have had relatives in a much more comfortable class
than the one into which Francois was born: solid burgesses at the
leat, hurriedly disclaiming in a few years any connection with
their distant blackguard kinsman and drawing round them their
furred gowns. Villon refers to them, with a sort of patient scorn,
early in the Grant Teflament:

Des miens le mendre, je dis voir,
De me desavouer s'avance,
Oubliant naturel devoir
Par faulte d'ung peu de chevance.

[I see, I say, the mol distant of my kin hasten to disavow me, for-
getful of natural ties and all on account of a little lack of fortune.].

It is not always possible to feel sympathy with the fatted bour-
geoisie, but one is forced to find that this time it had some reason.
Gallon Paris scents an equivocation in the bequeft to Master Guil-
laume, in the Petit Teflament, of mes tentes et mon pavilion. For
tentes, he thinks, read alternatively tantes. He deduces the presence,
either in Paris or the country, of two or more old ladies, Villon's
putative aunts, living like himself at the charge of the kind prieft
of St. Benoit. But this is conjecture.

Amid aching misery, then, the infant Francois lived his earliest
days. He escaped the plague of 1438, which carried off 50,000 per-
sons; he escaped the wolves which in that terrible winter carried
oft more than one baby in the Streets of Paris; he escaped being
frozen to death, as so many of the poor were at that time; and he
escaped the prowling bands of ecorcheurs, the Flayers, the bands
of unpaid men-at-arms and miscellaneous desperadoes who terror-
ised Paris at intervals between 1431 and 1444, and would cut any
throat for a brass halfpenny. One may comprehend what the poet's
mother suffered during these years. On the mind and body of a
child of six or seven, too, this existence must have left an inefface-
able mark. Yet malnutrition and adversity had probably sharpened
his wits and given the spur to his imagination. He had already also,
it is safe to believe, discovered his firft tafte of delight in the Greets
and their bright adventure. His mother, rejoicing in his early quick-
ness, took him, then, to MaSter Guillaume de Villon; and the priel>
having questioned the child (and I see him, kindly and spedlacled,
putting the shabby, sharp-featured gamin through his ABC, his
Pater, Ave, and Credo), found him intelligent and eager for letters,
and when the examination was over announced his decision to take
the boy into his house and to make him a clerk. 9 This was, it seems,

3 The child may have attended for a time one of the free parish primary schools of
the Right Bank. These were dependencies of the Schools of Notre-Dame, and existed long
after the transference of learning to the Left Bank.

a custom at St. Benoit The chaplains received children of tender
years, gave them their preliminary education, and launched them
into University; and in return one or other of these children, be-
coming in due time a prieft, would enter the community there.
Such a one was Jehan le Due, whom Guillaume de Villon was
tutoring in 1430, and who became in his turn a chaplain of St.
Benoit and his old master's executor. The elementary education of
this period, of its kind, was good. I have seen a lift of schoolbooks
belonging to the child Charles, Duke of Berry, at the age of eight,
in the year 1454. They were five an A B C, a rhymed Priscian, a
book of the Seven Penitential Psalms, a Donatus, 10 and a translation
of Gate's moral diftichs. This lift, as one perceives, might be varied
with the Elucidarium of Honorius, a sort of elementary general
catechism much in vogue, translated and adapted; or the naive and
charming Opus Tripartitum of Gerson, another catechism, abridged
and translated for very young children; or the didactic Ars memo-
rativa, at which Villon pokes fun in the Petit TeHament; or the Doc-*
trinalj the Latin grammar of Alexandre de Villedieu. 11 This ground-
ing in the humanities Mafter Guillaume would of course accom-
pany with religious inftruction: the Creed and the Penitential
Psalms, the reading and interpretation of Scripture; the meaning of
the Mass and its ceremonies; the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious
Myfteries; the lives of popular saints. In this he would be assifted
by the great picture-books in gold and colour which were the
churches of that day, repeating endlessly the ftory and myftery of
the Faith in jewelled windows, in carved and gilded ftatues, in
sculpture, in wall-paintings, in veftments, in lights, in the very
voice of bells and (see Durandus for this) in the very twifting of
the ftrands of the bell-ropes and the linking of the censer-chains.

Mafter Guillaume announces his decision, sneezes, and wipes
his spectacles. I see sudden joy lighting up the worn face of Fran-
fois Villon's mother, and the clasping of hands rough with toil;
and I hear the stammered gratitude, the blessing of God and Our

10 ^EHus Donatus, De olo partibus Orationis, the Standard grammar of the Middle
Ages. Villon mentions it in verse cxviii of the Grant Te&ament as being trop rude, too
difficult for his three young orphans.

11 L. Thuasne. Donatus and the Doftrinal are included in the schoolbooks of Gar-
gantua.

Lady and a dozen different saints invoked on MaSter Guillaume's
head. A clerk! Escoute, mon petit! In time a prieSt, perhaps! After
that, if God is good (the old woman's eyes are miSty at the thought
of it) a canon, perhaps, a prior a Bishop, even, purple-gloved and
amethySt-ringed, blessing the people in his first procession, with
organs thundering and bells clashing and singing-men chanting
loudly Tu es sacerdosl I warrant in that moment the dim eyes saw,
through tears, Franciscus, Servant of the Servants of God, riding
on his milk-white mule among the trumpets and the cavaliers.
There was no folly in such a vision. Among our English hierarchy,
up to the looting of the Monasteries, St. Richard of Wych, Bishop
of Winchester, was in his youth a farm-labourer, Chichele a shep-
herd boy, St. Edmund Rich of Abingdon (he is not forgotten, the
blessed Edmund: his relics are at Pontigny in the Yonne, in the
abbey there, and are Still visited once every year by pilgrims, both
French and English) a small merchant's son, Archbishop Robert
Kilwardby of Canterbury a Dominican friar, Reynolds a baker's
son, the great GrosseteSte the younger son of a poor Suff oik family.
Chaucer's poor Parson, "rich of hooly thoght and werk," was
brother to a ploughman. And how long is it since the bells of Rome
ceased tolling for the gentle saint, the peasant Sarto ?.

Guillaume de Villon kept his word. About the year 1443 the
boy Franf ois was entered of the Faculty of Arts in the University of
Paris, at a bourse of two sols Parisis: he was twelve years old, the age
at which children became eligible for University. His name, Fran-
jois de Montcorbier, Stands in the Register of the Nation of France,
with the amount of his bourse againSt it; and it is probably at this
moment that he joined to his surname the name of his protector,
by which he later became exclusively known. This would both dis-
play his gratitude and ensure him an honourable Start in University.
Henceforward nothing Stood between him and the higheSt offices
in Church or State but his own negligence or folly; and for the
next few years at leaSt willing hands were urging him along the
high road to Learning, hands equipped with good Stout switches
heartily applied to his infant breech. Years later, establishing the
future of three "poor children of the University," Villon remembers
his whippings:

Et vueil qu'ilz soient informez
En meurs, quoy que coutte bature;
Chapperons auront enformez,
Et les poulces sur la sainture;
Humbles a touts creature;
Disans: Han? Quoy? II n'en est rien!
Si diront gens, par adventure;
"Vecy en fans de lieu de bienl"

[I will that they be well grounded in good manners, whatever
floggings it cost them; wearing their hoods well over the eyes,
thumbs in the belt, and behaving politely to every one; saying "Eh?
What? Don't mention it!" In this way it may be said of them,
"Lord! Here are well-bred children."]

I do not suppose these ritual floggings were actually any worse
than those enjoyed at any English Public School during the Vic-
torian era. They were certainly not regarded as anything but normal
and part of the curriculum. On bitter winter mornings in the
Schools, with nothing on the lone floors but ftraw, they may even
have been welcome. The age at which the birch began to be applied
was then, according to the Livre dcs Proprietez des choses, seven
years.

Flogging was not the firl ceremony on admission to the Fac-
ulty. Within a day or two of the entering of the new Student's name
in the University registers he was summoned, after a preliminary
"simple" tonsuring, to one of the University churches, or his col-
lege chapel, and there received minor orders. This custom lafted
well over the Renaissance, and was essential 1 . Orders up to the rank
of sub-deacon have no sacerdotal significance, and the clerc who
received them could marry if he went no further in the Church:
in the meantime he was qualified to perform the duties of acolyte,
doorkeeper, sacriftan, or leftor; and what was important in Uni-
versity became answerable for disciplinary purposes only to the
ecclesiastical power. In noble and wealthy families there was a more
definite privilege attaching to the clerc' 's tonsure: it made its wearer
eligible, by birth and royal favour, to hold the nominal governor-
ship of a religious house held in fief or endowed by his family.
The divine Ronsard (as you remember) was by virtue of this cus-
tom honorary Prior of Sti Cosme-lez-Tours, in the Loire, where,

after a life so full of beauty, letters, and high passion, he was carried
to die in November 1585. To Villon the tonsure meant merely that
if he were seized by the civil police anywhere in France the Bishop
within whose jurisdiction the accident occurred could claim him
and deal summarily with his case. If one thinks this was any
advantage, one will' think so only until we come, in the course of
this history, to Thibault d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans, into whose
hands the poet fell in the summer of 1461.

After admission to University Villon continued to live with
Mailer Guillaume in his house in the cloister of St. Benoit. In every
way this was advantageous. It relieved an old woman of the burden
of supporting him (though it is likely that the chaplain had been
assisting her for some years the excellent man), it shielded the
boy from contafts which the Paris Streets were now beginning to
afford him, it gave him a good home convenient to the School's, and
a governor, tutor, and footer-father in one. It is permissible to sur-
mise that with the Stirrings of adolescence came a desire to escape,
when opportunity served, from the too watchful care of Master
Guillaume: and since the escholiers familiar friend, a hardened
young blackguard named Colin des Cayeulx, whose history we shall
review directly, was the son of a locksmith of the quarter, it is not
unlawful to assume that a skeleton key for the outer door sooner or
later became one of young Villon's greater treasures.

The University curriculum I have already set forth. The escho-
licr Villon may be regarded for the time being as attending vigor-
ously, if more and more intermittently, to his books. By his eight-
eenth year, in March 1449, ^ c ^ad absorbed enough letters to be
admitted a Bachelor. The Registers of the Faculty of Arts 12 give
his name and bourse in that month and that year, under the rubric
NOMINA BACCALARIANDORVM:

Frandscus de Moultcorbier farisius . . ij s.p.

I propose, before entering on the next phase, to turn aside for
a moment to contemplate the sinister features and career of two of
his dear friends, Arcades ambo, a couple of MephiStopheles to this

31 Archives of University; Regiftre des Procureurs de la Nation de France, MS. I, fol.
97 V.

eager Fauft. To their influence may be attributed in a large degree
the life led, at firt no doubt secretly, but afterwards openly, by
Francois Villon. Their names are Colin des Cayeulx and Regnier or
Rene de Montigny.

Des Cayeulx was, as I have said, the son of a locksmith in the
St. Benoit quarter. He seems to have been a friend of Villon since
childhood, and probably sat with him in the early Schools. His
father's choice of a craft Colin mut have regarded as a direct inter-
position of Heaven on his behalf, and the elder des Cayeulx, look-
ing up from his locks and keys, no doubt often perceived in the
schoolboy's eyes a glint of something more than polite intereft.
Colin in truth Studied the business thoroughly: it was to become
invaluable to him, and a little light pilfering of church alms-boxes
and such elementary exercises showed him very early that he had
a vocation. I would willingly compare him with the child Chopin,
of whom M. Guy de Pourtales wrote recently: "On Vavait mis de
tres bonne heure devant le clavier et il y retournait tout seul, attirS
far les touches. La musique lui arrachait des larmes, des cris. Elle
devint tout de suite un mal necessaire!' So I imagine the young des
Cayeulx fingering the keys, Studying the intricacies of locks, prac-
tising with a kind of holy rage on all that fell! under his notice, feel-
ing, surely and slowly, his technique becoming daily more perfect,
his fingers more supple. Judging himself at length qualified, in spite
of his youth, to mix in the larger world with professional artists, he
joined himself to the Brotherhood of the Coquille, whose corpora-
tion will come up for notice in due course. His department was bur-
glary, sacred and secular. "Larron, crocheteur, pilleur et sacrilege,
etre incorrigible" said the King's Procurator, describing him a
little later. "Thief, picklock, pillager, guilty of sacrilege, incor-
rigible." In 1450, and again in 1452, the Bishop of Paris ia claimed
him from the secular arm for theft. In 1456 the Watch arrested him
for another theft. In the same year he was concerned in the matter
of robbing an Auguftinian and took a principal part with Villon
in the burglary at the College of Navarre that Christmas. He fled
to Normandy then, was captured, escaped from the Bishop's prison

18 Paris had no Archbishop till 1622.

at Bayeux, and picked the locks of the Archbishop's prison
at Rouen. In the summer of 1460, operating in the neighbourhood
of Senlis, he was caught red-handed by the officers of the Provost
of Senlis in the church of St. Leu d'Esserent, in the Oise valley,
handed over to the Bishop, and later conveyed under guard to the
Conciergerie at Paris. In September two bishops, their lordships of
Beauvais and of Senlis, contended for the pleasure of dealing with
this hardened ruffian. The King's Procurator, Barbin, declared him,
as we have seen, an incorrigible rogue, and claimed that he had
thereby forfeited the privileges of a clerk and mut be handled by
the secular authority. 14 Sentence of death by hanging, "a estre
pendu et efirangle" was passed on him, not, it seems, for the
breaking into the church of St. Leu d'Esserent, but for a "frolic"
(from the context robbery with violence on the highway, and
also rape), at Rueil, between Paris and St. Germain, and another
of the same sort at Montpipeau, three leagues from Meun-sur-Loire.
It is to this double frolic, for which Colin was hanged in Paris on
September 26, 1460, that Villon refers twice; fir& in his sombre
Ballade of warning to the enfans perduz:

Se vous allez a Montpipeau

Ou a Rueil , gardez la peau:

Car, pour s'esbatre en ces deux lieux,

Cuidant que vaulsift le rappeau,

La perdit Colin de Cayeulx;

[If you go to Montpipeau, or to Rueil, take care of your skin;
for Colin des Cayeulx loft his through frolicking in both places,
thinking an appeal [Le. to the ecclesiastical power if caught] was
worth it.]

and once more in the second Ballade of the Jargon:

Coquillars t arvans a Ruel
Men ys vous chante que gardez
Que n'y laissez & corps & pel t
Com fin Colin de I'Escattler.

'[Coquillards, if you go to Rueil, 15 Men to this song take care
you don't leave your skins there, as did Colin des Cayeulx.]

"Archives of Parliament (X 2a 28, Sept. 23, 1460).

15 The phrase "to go to Rueil" seems also to have had a figurative meaning: to go on
the highway, to rob with violence. Similarly "to go to Montpipeau" = to steal fry
sharping.

And that was the end o this expert, to whose skill such tribute
was paid during the interrogatory by the Officiality o Paris of
MaSter Guy Tabarie in July 1458, following the College of Navarre
affair. The unfortunate Tabarie, pressed on the que&ion of how
the College was entered, whether the locks were picked or removed
bodily, answered that he heard and saw nothing,

"dicit tamen quod ipse audivit quod difius des Cahyeus eH fortis operator
crochetomrn"

[He says nevertheless that he has heard that the said des Cayeulx is a
powerful operator of picklocks.]

CC A powerful operator of picklocks." It may tand for the
epitaph of Colin des Cayeulx.

His friend, and Villon's, Regnier de Montigny, was a better
born, more versatile, more reckless blackguard. His family was
honourable, holding fiefs in the neighbourhood of Paris. He was
born at Bourges in 1429. His father, Jehan de Montigny, followed
the Dauphin's fortunes and entered Paris with him in 1437, re-
ceiving for his service the pot of Royal Pantler. Regnier's firt
brush with the police occurred on a night in August 1452, when
he attacked and thrashed, in company with two presumed Coquil-
lards, a couple of Sergeants outside the "oflel de la Grosse Mar-
got." 16 The Provoft had him banished from Paris, and within a
brief space he had been clapped into prison firft at Rouen, then
at Tours, then at Bordeaux. He joined the Coquille during these
wanderings. At Poitiers he cheated a draper out of twenty crowns,
and returning to Paris, took up as a profession the game of Mardlc
a cross between hopscotch and halma, I believe, rich with oppor-
tunities of trickery and was soon pursued for swindling. He was
next implicated in a murder committed in a tavern by the church-
yard of St. Jean-en-Greve: meutre commis en la fersonne de Thev-
enin Pensete en I'oftel de Moton ou Cimitiere Saint Jehan en Greve*
This is the incident which gave Stevenson the central idea for the
story called "A Lodging for the Night." The oftel de Mouton, the

10 Not necessarily the same house as that celebrated by Villon in the Ballade. The sign
of la Grosse Margot seems to have been common to one type of house in Paris,

Sheep tavern, is moSt likely the one to which Villon pleasantly
alludes in the Petit Testament:

Item, a Jehan Trouve, bouchier,
Laisse le Mouton franc et tendre,

{Item, I leave to Jehan Trouve, butcher, the fresh and tender
Sheep.]

and was no doubt the headquarters of a criminal gang. Montigny's
luck was good, and he got off with a letter of remission. 17 In 1455
he sold what was probably the laft remaining fief belonging to
his family his father had died long ago, leaving a widow and
three young children in what amounted to poverty and got
through the money within a short time. In 1457 he took up sacrilege,
operating with a gang in Paris: the booty included a pair of silver
cruets from the hospital church of the Quinze-Vingts, near the
Louvre, and a chalice and a Book of Hours from St. Jean-en-Greve.
For this series he was fairly soon arrefted, shoved once more into
the Chatelet, and once more formally claimed, in Auguft 1457,
by the Bishop: but this time his lordship's claim, proffered no
doubt languidly, was challenged. Montigny's record was too black,
and the civil power had decided to finish with him. He was con-
demned to death. He appealed at once to Parliament, and secured,
but only through the intercession of his mother and his family's
honourable name, another letter of remission. Nevertheless Justice
was determined that Regnier de Montigny should not slide through
its fingers again. On a technical flaw in his dossier the King's proc-
urator, after much long-drawn argument, succeeded in getting the
remission annulled. Regnier (or Rene) de Montigny was hanged
on the pth of September in the same year at Montigny, the gibbet
near St. Laurent. 18

His epitaph is written by his friend Villon, with a whoop, in
the second Ballade of the Jargon, following des Cayeul'x's:

Montigny y jut, par exemple,
Bien attache au halle-grup,

17 Chancellery Register, JJ 189 (199, fol. 96 v).

18 Archives of Parliament (X 2a 25, Aug. 21, 1452; and 28, Aug. 24, Sept. 10 and 12,

Et y jargonna-t-il le tremple,
Dont I'ambourcux luy rompt le sue.

[Montigny, for example, was well attached to the Wooden
Widow, and thereby had an end soon put to his song by Jack
Ketch.]

"The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat
not the bones of the buried: when he breathed, he was a man."
Had he lived in our time he might have been a Prince of Inter-
national Finance, for he had all the qualities.

Two other companions of Villon's youth perhaps deserve a
moment's notice. They are mentioned by him in both Testaments
and were therefore (though of a humbler rank in the hierarchy
of truands) his intimates: Jehan le Loup and Casin Cholet.

Jehan, surnamed the Wolf, was a bargee and waterman em-
ployed by the Municipality of Paris towards 1456 to dredge and
weed the moats and ditches of the city: an occupation affording
him almost mechanically and as a perquisite the snapping up by
night of odd ducks and geese from the flocks which swam around
the moats and belonged for the mot part to small farmers outside
the walls and certain corporate bodies. The Wolf's dexterity at
snitching ducks as he paddled to and fro in his dredging-boat was
the admiration of all the riverside taverns. Late in 1456 he was
ordered to pay a fine to the Municipality: it is not known for what
misdemeanour. Later flill he became a sergeant of the Chatelet

His companion and assistant in duck-ftealing, Casin Cholet,
had a more mouvemente career. By profession he was a wine-
cooper. He is believed to have been somehow implicated in the
College of Navarre burglary, but this is not clear. Guy Tabarie, in
his examination by the Bishop's officers, to which we shall come
in due course, mentions an obscure quarrel with Cholet in which
blows were struck, and this may have proceeded from the affair.
Cholet, nevertheless, was apparently not called to account for any
share in the burglary, and a few years later became, like his friend,
a sergent a verge of the Chatelet not a rare metamorphosis at that
time, nor one involving much change of character. Notoriety came
to him at laft on Auguft 14, 1465, when he was thruft into prison,

despoiled of his office, and ordered to be whipped at all the cross-
roads of Paris on the sufficiently grave charge of raising a false
alarm and spreading disorder among the populace by announcing
the entry into Paris of the Burgundians, who then lay before the
walls under Charles the Rash. Cholet was no doubt in Burgundian
pay, and had also private plunder in his eye. The fads are pre-
served in the Chronique scandakuse of Jehan de Roye, notary of
the Chatelet, .together with the words of his moft severe Majefty
Louis xi., who observed to the tormentor as Cholet was led forth
to be whipped: "Battez fort et n'espargnez pas ce paillart, car il a
bicn pis desservy!' * With these discomfortable words to speed him
Casin Cholet disappears from history.

Villon, who had often accompanied the Wolf and Cholet on
night expeditions around the moats, bequeaths them in the Petit
Tettament a duck, "taken late, as we used, by the walls," together
with a long tabard to conceal the spoil from the eyes of the Watch.
In the Grant Teflament he bequeaths them a setter-dog for the
same purpose, and again "ung long tabart & bicn cachant" Neither
was professionally of the class of de Montigny and des Cayeulx.
They were merely routine sneak-thieves of no ditin<5tion, though
well-meaning and no doubt respedful to their betters. The ranks
of Paris night-birds and truands contained many such characters,
induftrious but unskilled, flitting nightly to and fro between their
manor of Pickt-hatch the ruined manor of Bicestre, or Nijon, or
the Tower of Billy, 19 the riverside, and the suburbs. Let not Am-
bition mock their useful toil, their homely joys, their deftiny
obscure.

With the greater part of these, the rank and file, Villon can
hardly have been on any but nodding terms. His friends were
the silks.

*[Flog this scoundrel soundly, and "do not spare him. He has deserved

a great deal more.]

Notorious rookeries. Bicestre, Vicestre, or Bicetre is the French equivalent for Win-
che&er. The manor of Bice&re, near Gentilly, occupied in the thirteenth century by John
Bishop of Winchester, burned and left in ruins during the civil wars of Charles vx.'s reign,
was now a retreat for rascals of every kind. The Tower o Billy bordered the river on
the right bank, between the Rue du Fauconnier and the Rue St. Paul, on the present Quai
des Celeftins. Nijon or Nygeon was a disTricT: outside the walls between Chaillot and Passy,
near the site of the Trocadero to-day. Its manor, presumably ruined at this period, had
belonged to the Dukes of Brittany.

Louons noslre hotel,

Bibimus satis,
Et Thoste lequel

Nos pavit gratis,
Et sans reschigner,
Qnerans mensas
De mets delicats.

II nous ayme bien,
Hoc patet nobis,
Car son meilleur vin
Deprompsit cadis:
Et nous en a faict
Usque ad oras

Remplir nos hanaps!

From the Songs of Olivier Basselin
of the Val de Vire.

[Praise we our tavern, where we drank our fill, and our host,
who fed us for nothing, loading his table, without a cross look, with
delicate dishes!

Fie loves us greatly, as we perceive; for he poured the best of
his wine from the jugs, and made us fill our tankards with it, even
to the brim!]

IF I have set a couple of Staves of a sardonic tavern-song at the head
of this section it is because we are now upon the threshold of the
period in Villon's life in which hot blood, and the tavern, and
the kisses of harlots possess his careless youth, before Melancholy
and old Remorse claim him for their own, while ginger is Still
sweet and fiery in the mouth.

Between the conjectural year 1443, when he entered the Uni-
versity a child, and the summer of 1452, when it is known that
he was admitted a Master of Arts during the procuratorship of
Master Jehan de Conflans, whose pupil he had been, Villon has
no history. Revolving in his sad mind nine years later this part of
his life, he himself sums it up in one verse:

He! Dieu> se j'eusse esJudie*
Ou temps de ma jeunesse folle,

Et a bonnes meurs dediS
J'eusse maison et couche molle.
Mais quoy? je fuyoie I'escolle,
Comme fait le mauvais enfant . . .
En escripvant ceste parolle,
A feu que le cuer ne me fent.

[Dear God! had I but heeded my books In the days o my
flaming youth, and given some thought to good conduct, I might
have had my own house, and a soft bed to lie in! But Lord! I
fled the Schools like a naughty child. ... As I write this my heart
is like to break.]

Good Mafter de Villon's anxieties had obviously begun some
time before his charge obtained his Maker's licence. It is permissible
to surmise that the decline in the boy's characfter was fairly rapid.
A more accuftomed ease of manipulation of the skeleton key; a
growing skill in treading softly in the dead of night over creaking
floorboards; a keener, more careless zeft in lying; a developing
tendency to take risks in exit and entrance; a new shiftiness, pos-
sibly, in the eye; an increasing impatience of reprimand; a Cockney
impudence of carriage and manner these, I should say, illustrated
a change in the youth Franf ois Villon which in due time became
per.ceptible even to the old prieft his guardian. Obviously, long
winter evenings in the house of the cloifter of St. Benoit muft
have become in time intolerable to a youth of Villon's temperament.
I see him sitting by the hearth, yawning over Jilius Donatus or
Aristotle's Rhetoric, watching Mafter Guillaume under his eye-
brows as the old man chuckles and drones over his cup of hot wine
with Jehan Flaftrier the barber-surgeon: before the manuscript
page, with its crabbed chara&ers and cumbrous initials, rises a girPs
flushed and laughing face, and a spasm of desire shakes the youth's
spare body. God! Will the old man never go to bed? At length
Mafter Guillaume rises, and takes his candle, and lights Mafter
Flaftrier to the door, and coughing a little in the nip of the night
air, laboriously closes, locks, and bars the oak door behind him; and
returns, recommending sleep to the pale ftudent by the fire; and
at laft, at laft, laying his kind hand a moment on the boy's head,
takes his candle from the table and slowly ascends the Stairs. Villon
liftens The door of Mafter Guillaume's room creaks to. Give him

half an hour to go to sleep, say: an extra ten minutes to make sure.
In three-quarters Guillemette will be laughing on his knee: he
shivers again at the sudden Sting and leap of his blood. He goes up
slowly to his room, closing his door with careful ostentation. He
sits on his bed, counting the minutes. An occasional sigh, a wheeze
from the adjoining chamber. The house is Still. He lingers behind
his door, likening, and going to his bed again, rumples the cover-
ing expertly and ftrews a book or two on the floor by the bed-head.
Then, slipping off his shoes, he goes, treading like a cat, down the
Stairs again, noiselessly unbars the door, deftly inserts his maSter-
key in the well-oiled lock, and has slipped across the road to the
Mule, where Montigny and Cayeulx are waiting, before the old
man upstairs has been asleep ten minutes,

Hahay! Those nights at the Mule, and the Pomme de Pin, and
the Grant Godet, and the Homrne Arme, and the Espee de Bois\
They resembled in some degree the Mermaid nights, for there would
be a dash of University and lettered company there, both drunk
and sober, and a thick voice heard suddenly bawling and banging
out with a tankard the cadence of Namque, fatebor enim, dum me
Galatea tenebat, or choking under the table in the middle of a line
from the Metamorphoses y would be no more uncommon there than
sudden exchanges

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jeft.

But in the main, I think, the assembly at the taverns of Villon's
choice would be well leavened by the kind of company by whom
Glutton in our great English poem is made so welcome,

Sisse the sempstress sat on the bench,

Watte the warrener and his wife, drunk,

Tom the tinker and two of his knaves,

Hick the hackneyman, and Hugh the needier,

Clarice of Cock's Lane, the clerk of the church,

Sir Pierce of Pridie, and Purnel of Flaunders,

An hayward and an heremyte, the hangman of Tyburn,

Darew the Dyker with a dozen hirelots,

Of porters and pickpurses and pylede tooth-drawers,

A rybibour and a ratoner, a raker and his knave,

A reaper and a redingking, and Rose the disher,

Godfrey the garlic-monger, and Griffyn the Welchman,

Gave Glutton with glad cheer gd ale to hansel.

A ribald., roaring company, Stoically endured by the furred
burgesses in their corner, sipping their mulled wine and deploring
the new river-dues and the decadence of the Parloir aux Bourgeois.
Dawn, making livid the panes of thick glass or oiled linen, would
find the survivors still boozily at it, among guttering rushlights and
overturned cups and joint-ftools, the drowsy fropos des beuvcurs
mingling sweetly with the rhythmic snoring of the conquered,
asleep where they fell. A tavern was a tavern then.

Such escapades became for Villon in course of time, it is evident,
a matter of routine. Then there mut have come inevitably the
day when, slipping into the house in the dawn after a night of
debauchery and riot, he found himself face to face with Master
Guillaume de Villon, about to leave to say his early Mass in St.
Benoit. As plainly as if the scene were before me I see the atonish-
ment on the face of Master Guillaume, changing swiftly to anger.
I hear the sharp questions, and see the hangdog face of Villon
pale, and then flush again. I hear his answers, firt sheepish, then
impudent. I see him slink up to his room as Master Guillaume
passes out, a set grimness masking the alarm, and bewilderment,
and pain of the old man's heart. He will pause and fumble more
than once in saying his Mass this morning, and the thick black
words in the missal will betray a surprising tendency to dance. 1

But in time, as the night Sittings of the prodigal became regular
and unashamed, I think Master Guillaume sighed and returned to
his books, realising the uselessness of remonstrance, pleading, or
even fury. He prayed for the lad, no doubt, in the quaint medieval
fashion. He gave him shelter, and care when he returned, slinking
back to hide while some danger blew over. He paid good money
out of his modeft means to bail and ransom him, and probably
killed a modeSt fatted calf when the wanderer knocked at the Red
Door in the homing intervals of his hunted life.

1 M. Francis Carco, in a recent novel written around Villon, has imagined this scene
with effect.

I think Mafter Guillaume de Villon very much resembled what
(in the superstitious ages) was called a saint.

We are now on hard level ground, with plain going before us.
Between the second of May and the twenty-sixth of August 1452,
in the Procuratorship of Jehan de Conflans, Francois de Mont-
corbier was admitted successively Licentiate and Mafter of Arts, in
the twenty-firft year of his age. His entry, in the same Register of
the Faculty as before, runs, under the rubric Sequitur nomen cujus-
dam licendati: *

Dominus Franciscus de Montcorbier de Parisiis,
cujus bursa ij s.p.^

And beneath, under the larger rubric SEQUUNTUR NOMINA

ILLORUM QUI INCEPERUNT SUB PRESENTI PROCURATORIA : $

Dominus Franciscus de Montcorbier de Parisiis incepturus
sub magi&ro de Con-flans r tune procurator e . . . ij s,^

The scholarship of Dom. Frangois de Montcorbier, such as it
was, is reflected for the moft part in his two Testaments. He is
familiar with Ovid and on terms with the Organon of AriStotle
(and Averroes' Commentaries), Vergil (especially the Bucolics},
Cato, Macrobius, Valerius, Maximus, Priscian, Porphyry's Intro-
ductions, and ^Elius Donatus the grammarian; in a greater or less
degree with Juvenal, Martial, and Boetius. From ancient history he
cites the names of Hector, Troilus, Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal,
Pompey, Scipio, and Lucretia. He knew too, it seems, the Policra-
ticus of John of Salisbury, from which he took the name of the
pirate Diomedes in the anecdote of verses xvii-xx of the Grant
Testament. He also had read in divers Latin chronicles, notably in
the Gefla Pontificum Cenomannensium, whence he quarried the

*[Here follows the name of a certain licentiate,]

f[Dom. Francois de Montcorbier, of Paris, whose burse is two sols
Parisis.]

i[Here follow the names of those who began in the present Procura-
torship:]

^[[Dom. Francois de Montcorbier, of Paris, began under the rule of
Master de Conflans, then Procurator: 2 sols Parisis.]

splendid name of Haremburgis, heiress of the Maine, for insertion
in the Ballade of Dead Ladies: Aremburgis filia comitis Helice,
quam paterno jure comitatus Cenomannensis contingebat. The
Chansons de Geste he knew also, at least in part; probably the
Song of Roland in particular, for he refers (in a lewd jest) to Ogier
le Danois, one of the outstanding figures of the Song. But he may
equally have got Ogier out of one of the other epics of the Carolin-
gian cycle, for the hero appears in many of them. He certainly knew
intimately Jehan Clopinel de Meung's continuation of Guillaume
de Lorris' vaft Roman de la Rose, and the thirteenth-century Liber
Lamentationum of Matheolus, whether in the original or in its
translation by Jehan le Fevre, which he quotes. He takes from the
Bible (then very much read) many Old Testament names: Noe,
Mathusalem, Job, David, Ammon, Lot, Absalom, Holophernes,
Judith, Jacob, Samson, Nabuchadonosor, and more; citing also
Psalms xci. and cviii., the Book of Ecclesiaftes, and the Book of
Job. From the New Testament he cites St. John the Baptist, St. Mary
Magdalene, Lazarus, Judas, Herod, Malchus, and the governor
(architriclinui) of the marriage-feast at Cana. The saints he men-
tions by name are few: St. Dominic, St. Christopher, St. George,
St. Stephen, St. Antony, St. Vicftor, St. Martial, and St. Mary of
Egypt. In the matter of contemporary history he knew something
of the dispute between the Mendicant Orders and the seculars over
a question of parochial privilege which a Bull of Calixtus in. settled
about 1456; the Hussite heresy, which he mentions in the minor
Ballade des Menus Propos,

Je congnois la jaulte des Boesmes,
[I know the error o the Bohemians.]

and which had brought about civil war in Bohemia between 1415
and 1434; the ruin of the great banker Jacques Coeur, silversmith
to Charles vn., in 1453; the miracle of St. Joan; and the passing
of the dozen princes, at home and abroad, whom he celebrates in
the Ballade of Dead Lords. Beyond all this he had sufficient of
arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy to satisfy the exam-
iners in Arts. The entry concerning the Maker's degree is there to
show it Exhibit A*

Exhibit B will be put in (as the legal jargon goes) immediately.
It is the official report of the aftion brought by the University of
Paris againSt the ProvoSt, following the riots over the Pet*u-Deable
and occupying the fourth, fifth, seventh, and fourteenth of June
J453- There is one more exhibit to follow, rounding off the whole
and giving a compa<5t, coloured, and veritable picture of Villon's
life at this period. This, Exhibit C, is the collection of raffish poems
called the Repues branches, of which (though they appeared long
after his disappearance) Villon is the hero.

On Monday, the fourth of June 1453, an adion 2 was begun
before the Court of Parliament (Marie, President), as between
the Redor and the University of Paris, complainants, and Messire
Robert d'EStouteville, chevalier, ProvoSt of Paris, his Criminal Lieu-
tenant MaSter Jehan Bezon, the Chatelet-Procurator MaSter Jehan
Catin, and eleven Sergeants and officials of the ProvoSt, all de-
fendants. For University, MaSter Jehan Luillier. For the defence,
MaSter EStienne le Fevre and MaSter de Poupaincourt. For the
King's Procurator, MaSter Simon. Since the evidence turns on events
which took place between 1451 and 1452, but had their root in
troubles of 1444, and even earlier, I judge it convenient to compile
from the documents a consecutive narrative.

It requires no great imagination to believe that the relations
between the brawling, turbulent State of University, arrogant in
privilege and free of the civil authority, and the ProvoSts of Paris,
had always been drained. In this very case the King's Procurator,
judiciously reviewing the paSt, will refer as far back as the reign
of monseigneur Saint Loys, when University was in its infancy.
There had been rich trouble in 1229 between the Students and the
taverners of the Bourg St. Marcel In 1281 the Picard Students and
the English had bloody disagreements. In 1304, as we have already
seen, a ProvoSl hanged a Student after the sketchieSt of trials, and
was forced to grovel. In 1407, again, the ProvoSt Guillaume de
Tignonville, having hanged two Students charged with a murder
once more after a quick trial was compelled by the outcry of
University, the lay power bowing before the Storm, to take down

2 Archives of Parliament, X 3 * 25 (June 4-14, 1453) .

their bodies from the gibbet, kiss their dead mouths, and have them
solemnly interred in the church of the Mathurins in the Rue St.
Jacques. The inscription on their tomb recounted all this, and was
of course familiar to Villon and his friends. It was in 1444, however,
that the aitual present troubles began. In that year the Redor,
having refused on principle to pay a tax, alleged that he (and
University in his person) had been grossly insulted by the tax
authorities. He retaliated by putting into operation the powers
given him by Statutes of 1228 and 1244 and a Papal Bull of 1231,
and suspended all I'e6tures in University and all sermons in the
churches of Paris from the fourth of September till Passion Sunday,
the fourth of March 1445. The lay power replied with vigour by
seizing and imprisoning a MaSter of Arts and certain Students who
had made a demonstration. University demanded that they should
be handed over. The lay power, backed by Charles vn., refused,
and the King had the prisoners brought before Parliament and
punished, at the same time threatening University (as he will do
again in 1454) with severe measures if the ban on lectures and
sermons were not lifted. The situation became serious, the irre-
siStible force having apparently met the immovable body. Some
adjustment was obviously necessary, and the Papal Legate, Cardinal
Guillaume d'EStouteville, of the same great Norman family as the
ProvoSt Robert, Stepped into the breach at the order of Nicolas v.
The difficulties took some time to adjuSt, and it was not till the firSt
of June 1452, at the moment when Villon was finishing his Studies
at the Faculty of Arts, that the arbitration and University reforms
drawn up by the Legate were accepted by both parties.

University, it is interesting to observe, by no means emerges
unscathed from the Legate's handling. The Doctors of Theology
were ordered to look with more care to their dress and behaviour,
and to diminish the expense of the ceremonial dinners with which
new graduates were expected to honour them. The MaSters of Col-
leges were severely scourged for overcharging, for exacting too high
examination fees, and for otherwise taking advantage of their
charge. Some of the reforms in pedagogy I have already indicated.

University accepted this treaty, but the Students did not; and
a little time before the adual signing of the document by both

9 1

parties the intermittent skirmishing with the lay authorities, which
had gone on more or less lackadaisically, flamed suddenly into a
joyous campaign. There Stood outside the house of the rich widow
of a notary of Charles vi., Mademoiselle de Bruyeres, 3 by the church
of St. Jean-en-Greve, a fixed stone of immense size, called popularly
the Pet-au-D cable. It had Stood there from time immemorial as a
boundary mark, and may have been prehistoric. On a day late in
1451 the Students, contemplating this Stone, were visited with the
admirable idea of uprooting it, dragging it in a triumphal pro-
cession across the bridges to the University quarter, and setting it
up again on the Mont St. Hilaire, behind the Place Maubert, in the
heart of their own territory. This they accordingly did, in an up-
roarious ceremonial. Mademoiselle de Bruyeres, perceiving next day
that the Stone which was the glory of her house had been ravished,
raised a shrill cry and waddled at once across to the authorities with
a complaint. Accordingly, within a day or two the King's officers
appeared on the Mont St. Hilaire, scattered the dancing crowd of
Students round the Pet-au-Deable, and laboriously carted the great
Stone for security's sake to the Palais Royal, where it was placed in
the courtyard. Within the week a surging mob of escholiers, rein-
forced by a battalion of the law-clerks of the Basoche, as reckless
featherheads as they, invaded the Royal precin<5t, lugged the Pet-
au-Deable away, and dragged it back to the Mont St. Hilaire.

I continue with part of the evidence of the Criminal Lieu-
tenant Jehan Bezon, at the second day's hearing. He had on the
fifteenth of November 1451 been ordered by Parliament to inquire
into this affair.

Derechief ont efle querir a I'ostel de ladite damoiselle une autre pierre
quelle avoit fait mettre, I* ont nommee la Vesse, ont atachie a grosses bandes
de fer & par piastre ladite grosse pierre au mont Sainte Geneviesve & toutes
les nuytz y ont fait danses a fleutes & a bedons. U autre pierre ont atachS au
mont Saint-Hilaire 6* sur elle ont apporte & mis une autre pierre longue &
aux passans, & potissime aux offiders du Roy, ont fait sermens de garder les
privileges de la Vesse, & a la grosse pierre ont baillie ung chapeau tous les
dimenches & autres fesJes. Et quant le prevosJ & lui y alerent pour Y avoir,
avoit ung chapeau de romarin.

8 At this time Madamoytelle was used for single and married women of status indif-
ferently.

[They then went in search of another stone that the said lady had placed
by her house, named it the Vesse, and fixed it by means of thick bands of
iron and plaster to the Mont St. Gene vie ve, and danced round it every night
to the sound of flutes and drums. The other stone they fixed on the Mont St.
Hilaire and placed upon it another long stone, and forced all passers-by (and
especially the King's officers) to swear to preserve the privileges of the Vesse.
And for the big stone they provided every Sunday and feast-day a hat: and
when the witness and the Provost went to take possession of the stone it had
on it a wreath of rosemary.]

It seems a harmless sort of rag, and except for Mademoiselle de
Bruyeres, twice bereft of her ftone, nobody seems a penny the
worse. The nightly ceremonial dance to the music of flutes and
drums and the crown of rosemary are, in addition, in rather grace-
ful contract to the egg-and-flour rusticities of our own day. But this
was not the only charge againft the Students. I resume with MaSler
Jehan Bezon. We are now in the year 1452.

Dit que plusieurs escholiers ont fait plusiers grans exces, comme ont prins
& rompu de nuyt en grant tumulte les enseignes pendant es ho/ielz de cesJe
mile, en criant en ce faisant: "Tuez, tuez" pour ce que gens ouvroient leurs
fenesJres pour veoir que c'elioit. Ont aussi osJe les crochez des bouchiers de
Sainte Geneviesve, ont embU poules a Saint-Germain-des-Pres, ont prins par
force une jeune femme a Vanves. . . . Ont esJe es Hales pour avoir la Truie
qui file, 5* pour ce comme on dit que I'eschele esJoit trop courte, I'escholier qui
montoit en icelle pour avoir ladite Truie cheut a terre t dont il esJ mort, ainsi
que on dit.

[Deposes, that a large number of students have created great disturbances,
for example by stealing and breaking up at nights with great noise the signs
hanging outside houses of this town, at the same time crying "Kill, kill!" in
order that citizens should open their windows to see what was happening.
They have also stolen hooks from the butchers of St. Genevieve and abstracted
fowls from St. Germain-des-Pres, and have taken away by force a young
woman at Vanves. . . . Also, they proceeded to the Halles to take the sign
of the Spinning Sow, but as the ladder, they say, was too short the &udent
who climbed it to take the aforesaid Sow fell to the ground and was killed,
as it appears.]

Here we perceive the escholiers joining hands with the Mohocks
and Tityre Tus of AuguSlan nights in London; though it may be
observed in passing that where the medieval was content with noisy
howling and Stealing of tavern signs, butcher's hooks, and fowls

from the Abbey I pass over the alleged carrying off of the young
woman of Vanves, who, it appears later, put up no very virginal
resistance to her ravishers the night bully of the Age of Reason
practised more sadistic sports.

We begin now to perceive where Villon gets some of his jokes
for fat Petit Teftament. Mafter Jehan Bezon is Still speaking:

Pour lesqudles choses [the Lieutenant is referring particularly to the
forcible swearing ceremony of the Vesse] qui sont detestable s , & la clameur
du peuple qui en efioit grandes, & que les escholiers y pululolent, & aussi
pour ce quilz s'e&oient ventez d'avoir le Serf pour faire le manage de la
Truie & de 1'Ours, aussi le Papegault pour le donner a la Truie quant elle
seroit mariee, le prevott, lui qui park, 6- autres examinateurs & sergens
alerent au mont Sainfle Geneviesve pour avoir lesdites pierre & enseignes.

[For which a6ts, which are detectable, and on account of the outcry of the
public^ because also the Students were swarming and were heard to boast that
they had taken the Stag to marry the Sow to the Bear, with the Popinjay to
give to the Sow when she was married, the Provost, the witness, and divers
officials and sergeants proceeded to the Mont St. Genevieve to take possession
of the said Stone and signs.]

The fun, theref ore, consisted in tearing down house and tavern
signs at night with howls and roars, and making a fantastic mar-
riage between the Spinning Sow of the Halles and the Bear, who
lived at an important house near the Porte Baudoyer; the ceremony
being performed by the Stag, with the Popinjay assisting. There is a
very popular facetious prose piece of this period called the Manage
des >uatre Filz Aymon,* in which a number of Paris tavern signs
figured among the wedding guests of the four bridegrooms: it is
obvious that the Students took their inspiration from this. In all
these scenes, it is incontestable, Francois Villon took a part. Even
if he had not left a mocking bequeSl to Mile, de Bruyeres and writ-
ten the Rommant du Pet-au-Deable to glorify himself and his com-
rades and the whole affair, there is enough evidence in the TeSta-
ments alone.

It was this laSt pleasantry of the tavern signs which decided
Robert d'Eftouteville. After the months of nightly roaring and
rioting, the thefts, the complaints of fat burghers trembling at their

* Its full title is: L'Esbatement du manaige des llll Filz Hemon ou les enseignes de
plusieurs hosJels de la ville de Paris sont nommez.

windows, the open defiance of the Pet-au-D cable affair, the brawl-
ing and insolence of the escholiers, it Strained too far his hitherto
admirable lenience. He resolved to a<5t. The Criminal Lieutenant,
whose evidence is so painstaking, States that on the morning before
the ProvoSt's officers proceeded to remove the trophies of the Mont
St. Genevieve certain Students by the church of St. Laurent in the
Rue St. Denis advised them not to go, saying they would only get
their heads bashed. The ProvoSt nevertheless sent his men next
day. The great Stone of the Pet-au~Deable was loaded on a cart and
taken away. The Criminal Lieutenant, after taking a morning cup
near by, then went to the oHel de St. Etienne^ where behind barred
doors were certain defiant persons with the Stolen signs and butch-
ers' hooks, and also with a little cannon, cum maxirnis gladiis.
But these laSt two items are doubtful.

From this inStant trouble begins. It was the feaSt of St. Nicolas,
the sixth of December 1452. The ProvoSt seems to have let his men
get completely out of hand, and they lost their heads, as the police
often do; and there is naturally conflict between the University and
the police evidence. Counsel for University, beginning with that
solemn rehearsal of the dignities and privileges of University which
I have quoted elsewhere, and passing on to remind the ProvoSt of
his oath, regularly renewed, to guard the same, and to ensure their
being guarded by his police and by the citizens of Paris, proceeds
to pile up a fairly heavy indictment. The Sergeants began by
huStling some numbers of Students roughly and indifferenter: they
then broke into a house at the sign of St. EStienne, belonging to a
prieSt named Andry Bresquier (then away saying Mass for his
Nation in St. Julien-le-Pauvre), and wrecked and looted it at the
Lieutenant's orders: "Rompez tout, prenez tout, & se aucun rebelle,
tuez tout!' * Having sacked this house and carried off beds, bed-
apparel, books, money, clothing, plate, and other valuables, they
broke immediately into another house at the sign of St. Nicolas,
smashing windows and doors and drinking all the wine they could
find there: they next entered the hoStel of the College du Coquerel,
by St. Hilaire, and finding a barred door, behind which a professor,

*[ Smash down everything, take everything, and if anyone resists, kill
them all.]

MaSter Darian, notable homme, was presumably delivering a lec-
ture, battered it in, threatened the maSter, and carried of? forty of
his pupils, deriding, menacing, and roughly handling them, and
openly insulting the University in its own Streets, one Sergeant far
derision wearing a Student's gown.

It is not to be thought that University would take this lying
down. After long and mature deliberation in full Sorbonne a pro-
cession issued on the ninth of May 1453 from University, headed
by the Redior, composed of the Doctors and maSters of colleges and
eight hundred Students, walking unarmed and orderly eight by
eight, and proceeded across the river to wait on the ProvoSt in his
great beautiful house, with the court and gardens round it, in the
Rue de Jouy, near the CeleStines. The spokesman for University,
MaSter Jehan Hue, Doctor in Theology, here addressed the ProvoSt
soberly and at some length from the text Omnia fiant ordinata in
vobis, placing before him the demand of University that its forty
prisoners should be handed over to the proper tribunal. The ProvoSt
could not but accede to this juSt requeSt. The academic procession,
returning from the ProvoSt's house along the narrow Rue de Jouy,
met the head of an advancing body of Sergeants under one Henry
le Fevre: 5 all these no doubt flushed with insolence and ripe for
blood. There was some inevitable joStling. Henry le Fevre cried out
suddenly in a passion, "Help, in the King's name, help ! Kill them !"
and at once (says University counsel) his men whipped out their
swords, daggers, and axes. The unarmed escholiers fled in terror in
every direction, hiding where they might. One of them, Raymond
de Mauregart, a youthful MaSter of Arts, was Struck down and
killed, and another wounded to death. The Sergeants hotly pursued
the flying Students, throwing chains across the Streets to prevent
their escape, tabbing and beating them, and hunting them from
their temporary hiding-places. The citizens prudently banged and
barred their doors againSt the fugitives. The police had, in fad,
gone completely mad, and the Reitor himself twice by the mereSt
chance escaped being murdered.

Charpentier [this is the presumed slayer o Raymond de Mauregart] non
content mit la main au retteur, tenant la dague en la main, en regniant Dieu

* One of the principal defendants.

9 6

quil le menrroit vers Ic prevoft, & avec luy efloient bien xxx autres. Le
retteur luy dill qu'il avoit eflS vers le prevofl & eftoit content de luy, 6- le
seigneur du Heaulme qui survint, deHourna le reclteur & le convoy a & ainsy
quil aloit en la rue de la Vennerie, ung nomme Colet venoit de la Cloueterie
aiaint son arc, qui disoit que les escholiers s'efforcoient rompre I'uis du prevoft,
& eufk frape le recJeur se ung homme ne Yeufl deBourne.

[Charpentier, not content with this, laid his hand on the Re<ftor, holding
his dagger in the other, and swearing by God that he would drag him to the
Provost; and with him were quite thirty others. The Rector said to him that
he had seen the Provost and was content, and the Seigneur du Heaulme, in-
tervening, turned the Rector aside and set him on his way: and as he went
along the Rue de la Vennerie one named Colet came from the Cloueterie
holding his arbalest and saying the students had tried to break in the Provost's
door; and he would have struck the Rector had not some one turned the
blow.]

Another a<5l of the police for which University called for
salutary punishment was the beating and Slabbing of Mafter Pierre
Quoque, canon of St. Jean-le-Rond, who, having the misfortune
to find himself abroad in the Sergeant's path that day, was chased,
trampled on, Slabbed, and flung into the kennel. On taking refuge
in a harness-maker's shop he was driven out again by a number of
the lower bourgeoisie, who are always on the side of the big bat-
talions. Reeling into a barber's shop, MaSler Pierre found other fugi-
tives hiding in corn-bins and under beds: but the barber could not
dress his wounds, and the unhappy prieft, after fainting away under
a Slall, at laft dragged himself into another barber's shop and was
bandaged.

I have given all this evidence at length for its vividness. Uni-
versity demanded in reparation the following sentences again^l all
the defendants except the Provoft, who did not appear, being con-
fined to his house with a fever. They were firftly to proceed to a
place appointed and there, kneeling with bare feet, beltless and
hatless, each holding a lighted wax torch of four livres, humbly and
in a loud voice to confess and cry mercy and pardon of the King,
his justice, and University. The defendant Sergeants, and especially
those proved guilty of complicity in murder, were then to be
assembled, each with a halter round his neck, and taken in a cart
to make this same amende in the presence of the people before the

Chatelet, the Port Baudoyer, and St. Bernard's church: the Criminal
Lieutenant to make his apology alone before the Chatelet and also,
seeing his responsibility, in the centre of University. The reft
of the sentences contained the provision of a cross and a lighted
lamp at the Port Baudoyer, the foundation of four chantry chapels,
each of twenty livres, and finally the payment to University of six
thousand livres damages, and to the Re<5tor two thousand. To the
parents of the murdered boy Raymond de Mauregart there was to
be made a public amende, with the foundation of a chantry of a
hundred livres, and two thousand crowns damages. The whole
under pain of prinse & imprisonnement de leurs corps.*

We need not dwell at length on the defense, for it rings
familiar: the mild and gentle police were provoked by the Students
and in some cases harshly used; and those Sergeants charged with
the more serious brutalities of the day were naturally nowhere near
the spot at all 1 , but in another part of Paris. One of their more
reasonable points was that several of their prisoners were not clercs
at all, and therefore no affair of University's.

To the lesser charges raised by the Criminal Lieutenant Uni-
versity replied: primo, touching the alleged theft of fowls from St.
Germain-des-Pres, it was an affair six years old, and the offending
Students had long ago been punished by the Bishop's Court:
secundo, touching the theft of hooks from the butchers of St. Gene-
vieve, the said Lieutenant had summoned the butchers, who had
declared that their relations with the Students were most friendly
and that they knew nothing of the said thefts, but the Lieutenant
had suppressed this: tertio, as to the young woman of Vanves, she
herself had asked two or three Students, who had gone to Vanves
on a holiday expedition, where they lived, had suggested that she
might visit them, and had done so, mais apres ilz ne la pouvoient
bouter hors de I'ostel but afterwards they could not hoick the lady
out of the place. All this, in any case, added counsel quite reason-
ably, was beside the point,

Toutes ces choses ne sont ad propositum, mais settlement les propose ledit
lieutenant four injurier I'Universite.

*[ Arrest and imprisonment of their persons.]

9 8

[All of which things are beside the point, and the said Lieutenant brings
them forward solely to injure the University.]

With regard to the Pct-au-D cable riots, University agreed that
the malefactors had qualified for punishment, but not for blood-
shed; pointing out also that two of the accused Students had come
to terms with the Lieutenant and his brother over ung bon diner
at the Pomme de Pin: a slightly damaging point for that official 1 .
As to the night-thefts of tavern signs, finally, University agreed that
those taken in the a6t were to be punished by the proper authority.

On the sixteenth of June the firft order of the Court was made.
The Sergeant Charpentier, the presumed slayer of Raymond de
Mauregart and the one who had so menaced the Retor, was taken
in a cart, with a rope round his neck, and forced to make the
amende University had demanded, being also fined four hundred
livres Parisis: and at the Port Baudoyer his right hand was Struck
off at the writ, which taught him a proper respe<5t for Letters. 6
The other Sergeants were banished from Paris.

But the case was not yet over: University was aiming at the
Provost d'Eftouteville, who, as seems evident, had hitherto been
very much shielded and kept in the background by his loyal Crim-
inal Lieutenant. In January 1454 the Court had already promised
the Re<5tor that the process againft the ProvoSt personally should be
undertaken, on condition that the ban on lectures and sermons was
lifted. This was not enough for University, and the ban dragged on*
In June, following the sentence on Charpentier and the other de-
fendant Sergeants, the Criminal Lieutenant was declared incapable
of holding his office, and deprived: his master, it would appear, was
able to ignore the academic lightning. Everything considered, Uni-
versity had won its cause handsomely, but it was till in no hate
to relax its grip of the situation. There is a decision of the Court
of Parliament 7 dated August 21, 1454, which shows that the public
power was at length becoming rebellious under the continual brow-
beating of this cosmopolitan and turbulent State. The Court, "pour
obmer a I'esdande & inconvenient qui se sont ensuiz & pourroient

MS. Dupuy 250, Arch. nat. X 3 * 26, fol. 236, X 2a 27.
* MS. Dupuy 250, fol. 31 v; r. 5908, fol. 79 r et v.

ensuivre four le temps advenir, a I' occasion dcs cessations des ser-
mons esquelles VUniversite de Paris a persiste jusques a present," *
orders its ushers Guillaume Taiche and Jehan du Ruit, in the name
of the King and the said Court of Parliament, to summon Univer-
sity, in the person of the Retor, to resume sermons in the churches
within one week from that date; intimating at the same time to
the said University that if this order is ignored the said Court, obe-
dient to the King's command, will take such fteps to ensure the
resumption "quelle vena ettre a faire par raison!'\ . . . But it
was not till twenty-eight years after, as we have seen, that Louis xi.
routed the Dodors with a Papal Bull, and not till 1499 that they
were deprived of this huge weapon for ever.

The name of Francois de Montcorbier, dit Villon, Master of
Arts, nowhere occurs in this trouble, I conclude that he had been
able to take to his heel's when the fuss began. Had not his great
heroic-comic Romance,

le Rommant du Pet au Deable,
Lequel maiBre Guy Tabarie
Grossa, qui efl horns veritable,

[The Romance of the Pet-au-Deable, which Mailer Guy
Tabarie a man of truth copied out.]

been irrevocably loft, one might have learned what he was doing
in the tumult. If I judge his character aright he was prudent in
difficulties, and like Panurge s'enfuyoit le grand pas de peur des
coups, lesquels il craignoit naturellement. It seems certain that the
benevolence of the Provoft d'Etouteville, to whom Villon makes
two oblique respedf ul references in the Testaments, and for whose
bride he wrote a Ballade, was valuable to him on this occasion.

This odd bond between a disreputable Student and the Provoft
may have sprung from common University acquaintance, for that
was a broad age and all ranks might mingle alike in the Schools

*[To put an end to the scandal and inconvenience which have been
occasioned, and which may &ill be occasioned in the future, by the cessation
of sermons, in which the University of Paris has persi&ed up to the present.]

t [As will seem reasonable to the Court to be taken.]

100

and in the taverns; but more likely (thinks Longnon) it had some-
thing to do with Villon's connexion, through Mailer Guillaume
or through his own mother, with Anjou. In 1446 there had been a
tourney held at Saumur by the good King Rene d'Anjou, King of
Sicily, that moft excellent dilettante, minor poet, musician, critic-
after, painter, and patron of Arts and Letters. At this tourney
Robert d'Eftouteville, splendidly horsed, had "won" his bride,
Ambroise de Lore, daughter of the Baron d'lvry, in single combat
with the Sire de Beauvau; as Marot's title to the dull but sufficiently
intimate Ballade presented by Villon to the Provoft recalls: Ballade
que Villon donna a un Gentilhomme nouvellement marie, four
I'envoyer h son Epouse, par luy conquise a Espee. 8 It seems pos-
sible, therefore, that Villon, visiting his relatives in Anjou during
his boyhood, had been present at this tourney and had there made
the acquaintance, however distant, of Robert d'Eftouteville. At the
Provoft's grant & noble house in Paris, ornee de marmousetes, fre-
quent receptions were given, and a wide hospitality; and Villon,
either with or without Master Guillaume, very probably appeared
there in Society once or twice, though his taste was ftrongly for
other company. It is very evident that there was a friendship be-
tween him and Robert d'Eftoutevill'e which may be assumed to
have helped him in many a minor brush with the police. But in
his greatest need, as we shall see, the ProvoSt will no longer be there
to aid him.

We now come on less obviously sure ground, though it has a
firm enough subftratum. The suspension of all ledures by Uni-
versity between 1453 and 1454 left numbers of indigent clercs and
Masters of Arts without means of support: or at leaft those of them
who were not fanatical on the question of earning an honourable
living. Though tutorship of private pupils had necessarily to cease
during the period of ban, honeft graduates had a source of live-

*[ Ballade which Villon gave to a Gentleman newly-married to present
to his Bride, whom he had won by the Sword,]

8 It is also called, in some early texts, Ballade pour Robert d'EHouteville. The verse
introducing it refers to this tourney held by "Regnier, roy de Cecille." To King Rene's
procurator in Paris, Master Andry Courault, Villon bequeaths in the Great Testament his
Ballade des Contrediftz de Franc Gontier.

IOI

lihood in writing for the scriveners of Paris, whose Stalls were
numerous: but from the Repues Franches, which are believed to be
the work of Friar Baulde de la Mare, it is clear that Villon and his
particular friends knew an easier way of living than by sweating
day and night over greasy parchments. The author of the Repues
illustrates the method in seven lessons.

Lesson I. shows forth the method of obtaining, free and for
nothing, fish, tripe, bread, wine, and roaft meat. Firft, the prelude:

"Sgaurions nous trouver la maniere
"De tromper quelqu'ung four repai&re?
Qui le fera sera bon maiilre!'

Alnsy parloyent les compaignons
Du bon maiflre Fran^oys Villon,
Qui navoient vaillant deux ongnons,
Tentes, tapis, ne pavilion.

["How can we find a way of doing somebody for a good meal?
Whoever can do that will be a master." Thus spoke the companions
of good Master Francois Villon, none of them worth a couple of
onions, and lacking equally tents, carpets, and standard.]

The method of obtaining fish is then expounded. Mafter Fran-
f ois, parting from his band, proceeds to the fish-market near the
Petit-Font, where he selects a panier-fulli of the beft, saying that
the bearer will be paid on delivery. He accompanies the fish-porter
with his burden over the bridges and across the Parvis to Notre-
Dame, where he finds, as expeded, a confessor in the Cloister re-
ceiving penitents. Stepping softly aside and telling the fish-porter to
wait a moment, Mafter Francois approaches the confessor, who is
at the moment disengaged, and pulling a pious face explains that
he has with great difficulty brought his nephew with him, a moody,
negligent youth, too fond of money, whom he desires the father
to confess and shrive forthwith. "Certainly," answers the confessor;
and Master Francois, Pepping out, seizes the panier of fish from
the porter, at the same time telling him there is one inside who
will settle with him. The simple porter enters, and Mafter Franf ois
evaporates into thin air with his fish. The narrative trots in artless
rhyme:

102

Et passerent par Nostre-Dame,

La oil il vit le Penancier,

Qui confessoit homme ou bien jemmc*

Quant il le vit, a feu de plait,

II luy dill: "Monsieur, je vous prie

Que vous despeschez, s'il vous plaisJ,

Mon nepveu t car je vous affie

Quil esJ en telle resverie:

Vers Dieu il esJ fort negligent;

II esJ en tel mercencolie

Quil ne parle rien que d'argent.

Vrayement, ce dit le Penancier,
Tres-voulentiers on le fera."
MaisJre Francois print le panier,
Et disJ: "Mon amy, venez pa;
Vela qui vous despeschera,
Incontinent qu'il aura faicJ/'
Adonc maisJre Francois s 9 en va f
Atout le panier f en effect,

[So they went by Notre Dame, where he saw a confessor re-
ceiving penitents, both men and women; and on seeing him he said
without preface, "Sir, I beg you, if you please, to confess my
nephew, for I do assure you he is in a strange mood, and most neg-
ligent of his duties towards God. He is in such a melancholy fit
that he will talk of nothing but money/'

"Certainly," replied the confessor, "I will do so willingly."
Master Francois took hold of the panier and said, "My friend, go
over there; there is one who will attend to you, and at once." So
saying Master Francois disappeared, and the panier with him, in
fact.]

The ftory ends in a loud guffaw at the mutual bewilderment
of the confessor and his penitent. "What!" cries the porter, "con-
fess? Why, sir, begging your pardon, wasn't I shriven only this
Easier? What I want is fifty sols/' "Come, my son," answers the
confessor severely, "your uncle has told me about you. A little less
love of money, if you please, and a little more penitence and love
of God." At length comes illumination: but the fish has vanished
for ever.

Le povre homme, je vous affie,

Ne prisa pas bien la fagon,

103

Car il neut, je vous certifte,
Or ne argent de son poysson.

[The poor fellow, I assure you, did not esteem the process
highly, for on my oath, he got neither gold nor silver for his fish.]

The way of getting tripe for nothing is not gentlemanly, and
I will not linger over it. The way of getting bread is as easy as
selling a rubber plantation situated in Iceland to a smart Financier
of Capel Court. Mafter Francois, representing himself to be the
grave major-domo of a family, made up for the purpose, no doubt,
by a frifier in touch with the band, goes to the baker and orders
five or six dozen rolls. When half the number have been placed
in a basket he Stops the baker abruptly, saying that the bread is
required at once and that the porter mul deliver what he has and
return for the remainder. The porter sets off with his basket, ac-
companied by Mafter Francois, and they come presently to the gate
of a great house, where Mailer Francois orders the man to set
down his load and hurry back for the reft. It is not necessary to
conclude this obvious repue.

The method of getting free wine has for a background the fa-
mous tavern of the Pomme de Pin, whose landlord, Robin Turgis,
is a conSlant butt of Villon's, and a large creditor also. Villon takes
two large brocs or pitchers, fills one of them with fair water, and
proceeds to the Pomme de Pin, where he orders at great length a
jug of white wine. The impatient drawer, to put an end to Master
Francois' flow of bons propos, fills one of the pitchers with Bai-
gneux; which done, Master Francois inquires leisurely, "What wine
is that?" "Baigneux," replies the drawer. Mafter Francois imme-
diately waves it aside. "Take it away! Take it away! I won't have
it. Are you a jolthead? Empty my pitcher at once, I say! I want a
good Beaune, and nothing else."

L'ung fill emflir de belle eaue dere,
Et vlnt a la Pomme de Pin,
Atout ses deux brocs, sans rencherc,
Demandant s'ilz avoient bon vin,
Et qu'on luy emplisJ du plus fin,
Mais qu'il fusJ Blanc & amoureux.
On luy emplist, four faire fin,
D'ung tres-bon vin blanc de Baigneux.
104

Maittre Francois print les deux brocs,

Uun empres I'autre les bouta;

Incontinent, par bons propos,

Sans se hafler, il demanda

Au varlet: "Quel vin ett-ce la?"

II luy di/l: "Vin blanc de Baigneux.

Ostez cela, ostez cela,

Car, far ma foy f point je n'en veulx.

"Qu'esse-cy? Efles-vous bejaulne?
Vuydez-moy mon broc viflement.
Je demande du vin de Beaulne,
Qui soit bon, & non aultrement"

As he speaks, and subtly, Mafter Francois hands back the
pitcher containing the water, and thus gets away without the leaft
trouble with a free pitcher of Baigneux.

Et, en parlant, subtillement,
Le broc qui efloit d'eaue plain
Centre Vaultre legierement
Luy changea, a pur et a plain.

Par ce point, Hz eurent du vin,
Par f,ne force de tromper;
Sans atter parler au devin,
Ilz repeurent f per ou non per.

It is evident that this trick had to be played in the semi-darkness
of the cellar, or at night.

The method of getting a roat for nothing is also simplicity
itself, once rehearsed. Master Francois, stopping haphazard by a
cookshop, begins cheapening a fine piece of roaft meat. To him
presently appears a surly ftranger, demanding of the rostisseur:
"What is this haggling swab playing at?" A loud quarrel breaks
out immediately. The Granger aims a blow at Mafter Francois and
takes to his heels, and Mafter Francois, snapping up the meat un-
perceived amid the hullabaloo, utters an indignant roar and runs
after him at top speed. Round the fir& convenient corner the chase
comes to an end, and Master Francois and his aggressor slink ofi
together,

Celuy qui bailla le soufflet
Fuyt bien tost & a motz expres.

105

MaisJre Francois, sans plus de plet,
Atout son rost, courut apres.
Ainsi, sans faire long proces,
llz repeurent, de cueur devot,
Et eurent, far leur grant exces,
Pain, vin, chair, & poisson, & rost,

[The one who had given the blow ran off at great speed, with-
out wafting words; and Master Francois, without more ceremony,
grabbed the roast and ran after him. And thus, without making a
long business of it, they feasted devoutly and had by their out-
rageous operations bread, wine, flesh, fish, and roast]

to where the reft of the comrades are awaiting their dinner: a
choice company of hungry escholiers and mixed rapscallions,

Les hoirs du deffuncJ Pathelin,
Qui sgavez jargon jobelin,
Capttains du Pont-a-Bitton,
Tous les subjetz Franfoys Villon.

[Heirs of the late Pathelin [hero of the famous cheating farce],
learned in the Jargon and Jobelin, captains of the Pont-a-Billon [the
Petit-Pont, headquarters of rogues and beggars]; all subjects of
Francois Villon.]

The high reputation of the poet is obvious. "He was a nursing
mother to us," cries the delighted companion who composed the
Repues:

MaisJre Franfoys par son Mason
Trouva la fa^on & maniere
D'avoir maree a grant foyson,
Pour gaudir & faire grant chere.
C'efloit la mere nourriciere
De ceulx qui navoyent point d f argent;
A from per devant 6- dernier e
Estoit ung homme diligent.

[Master Francois by his skill found a way to provide fresh fish
galore, making joy and good cheer. He was a nursing mother to
those without coin, indefatigable in cheats, before and behind.]

It has been pointed out that at leaft four of these cheats are de-
scribed in the adventures of Tyl Eulenspiegel, that roaring farce
of the Low Countries, which appeared about this time. The fish

106

trick, in addition, was already nearly three centuries old, having
appeared in the fabliau of the Three Blind Men of Compiegne. All
of them are adually as old as civilisation, and ever new in Business
circles. Considering the whole, it may be judiciously said that al-
though Villon's rascalities had become a legend in Paris within a
few years of his disappearance they had a specific name: villon-
neries there are obviously more than a few grains of fa<5t in the
mass of fantasy.

The pidure is complete. By the year 1454 the feet of Frangois
Villon, A.M., are already well advanced on the Sleep flowery slope.
His dear companions are rakes, players, and wantons, bullies, sneak-
thieves, and criminals,

Ambubaiarum collegia phartnacopolte,
Mendici, mimte, balatrones, hoc genus omne.

[The community of doxies, quacks, beggars, mummers, rascals, and all
their kind.] (Horace, Satires I, 2.)

Rioting and sharp practice, lechery and quarrelling, drink and
neat thieving pleasantly fill his day. I see his meagre form slipping
through dark narrow alleys, his side-glancing eyes, his shabby
gown. He is as yet but a Bachelor in the criminal arts. In a very
short time, having passed honourably in Elementary Bloodshed
'and Advanced Burglary, he will be admitted a MaSter.

THE fifth of June, 1455. The Feast of Corpus Christi; La Feste-
Dieu. From an early hour Paris had been bedecked with green
branches, and from every window hung rich cloths and tapeftries
to welcome the passage of the Body of God. Along the Streets at
intervals Stood the reposoirs, the temporary altars lovingly decked
with flowers, and lighted tapers, and silks. Since dawn Masses had
been said and sung, and the beautiful sequence of the beautiful
Office of the FeaSt, composed by St. Thomas Aquinas in such an
ecstasy of devotion, sung in Notre-Dame, in the abbeys of Paris,
and in all the two hundred churches and convents of the city.

107

Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem,
Lauda ducem et pafiorem

In hymnis et canticis.
Quantum potes tantum aude,
Quia major omni laude,

Nee laudare sufficis. . . .

fSion, lift thy voice and sing;
Praise thy Saviour and thy King;
Praise with hymns thy Shepherd true.
Strive thy best to praise Him well,
Yet doth He all praise excel,
None can ever reach His due.]

And so at length to that mighty finale, like the surge and beat of
Atlantic combers:

Bone PasJor, panis vere,
Jesu, noslri miserere,
Tu nos pasce, nos tuere,
Tu nos bona jac videre

In terra viventium.
Tu qui cuncta sets et vales,
Qui nos pasds hie mortales,
Tuos ibi commensales
Coheredes et so dales

Fac sancJorum civium!

[Jesu, Shepherd of the sheep,
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living Bread! Thy life supply;
Strengthen us, or else we die;
Fill us with celestial grace.
Thou who feedesl us below,
Source of all we have or know,
Grant that with Thy saints above
Sitting at the feasl: of love,
We may see Thee face to face.]

Then in every quarter of Paris had proceeded the many-col-
oured processions of Corpus Chrifti through the Streets; the chil-
dren Strewing flowers; the white-robed singing-men raising a loud
song; the Confraternities with their banners; servers bearing lighted
candles and flaming wax torches; the long line of seculars, monks,
friars, wardens, and beadles, the municipal and Court dignitaries,

108

crowned with roses and marjoram and white violets; then the thuri-
fers with silver censers tossing clouds of white fragrant smoke
into the summer air; then more lights; and then the Sacred Hoft
in its precious monftrance, borne by the celebrating prieft under a
canopy rich with cloth of gold and tassels, feftooned with roses,
upheld by four burgesses in holiday dress; then more priefts, and
more religious, more singers, more Confraternities with banners,
and the populace joining in and following, the warm air vibrating
to the clamour of bells and the chanting, and heavy with the smell
of flowers and incense and hot wax, and the duft Stirred up by so
many slow-moving feet. So the processions passed, and the long
summer afternoon waned, and the tapers in the Streets expired in
a wisp of smoke, and the flowers nodded in the heat, and the Body
of God in a blaze of light returned to the tabernacles, and the
organs ceased their thundering, and the altar candles were extin-
guished, and the holiday crowd Streamed out to the Streets and the
noisy taverns.

Venit Hesperus. The evening came, grateful after the heat and
duSl of the day; and Francois Villon, issuing forth after supper
from the house called the Porte Rouge in the cloiSter of St. Benoit
(for he Still made his home there), sniffed the cool air approvingly.
What happened towards nine o'clock on this night is precisely de-
scribed in a Letter of Remission accorded by Charles vn. in January
1456 to MaSter Francois des Loges, otherwise called de Villon. The
Letter * opens with the usual preface:

CHARLES, par la grace de Dieu, roy de France. Sfavoir jaisons a tous
presens & avenir, nous avoir receu I'umble supplicacion de maisJre Francois
des Loges, autrement dit de Villon, aagie de mngt-iix ans ou environ, con-
tenant que:

[Charles, by the grace of God, King of France. We make known to all
present and to come, that we have received the humble supplication of Master
Francois des Loges, otherwise called de Villon, showing that:]

and plunges thence ftraight into the matter.

Le jour de la FesJe Noflre Seigneur derrenierement passee } au soir apres
soupper, il estoit assis pour soy esbasJre sur une pierre situee soubz le cadram

a Registers of the Chancellery of France, JJ 187 (149, fol. 76 v).

109

de Voreloge Saint Benoifl le Bientourne, en la grant rue Saint Jacques en
nosJre mile de Paris, ou doisJre duqud Saint Benoitt esJoit demourant ledit
suppliant, 6- esJoient avecques luy ung nomme Gilles, prebflre, &> une
nommSe Ysabeau, 6- eftoit environ Veure de neuf eures ou environ.

[On the day of the feast of Corpus Chrisli last, in the evening after
supper, he seated himself for refreshment on a slone situate under the dial
of the clock of St. Benoit-le-Bientourne in the Rue St. Jacques in Our town
of Paris, the said petitioner being resident in the cloister of the said church of
St. Benoit; and there were with him one Gilles, a priest, and a woman named
Ysabeau; and the time was about nine o'clock, or thereabout.

M. Lacroix identifies Ysabeau tentatively with Mlle.,.de Bruyeres, the rich
widow of the Pet-au-Deable affair; a monstrous assumption.]

The scene is vivid as if it were being enacted now before our
eyes. It is nearly night, and here and there among the piled gables
of the Rue St. Jacques a window glows in the dusk. From the Mule
tavern across the road comes the sound of careless voices talking
togedier, and now and then a tave of raucous song. The tinted air
is very ftill and clear. A bat skims round the tower of St. Benoit.
On the ftone bench under the clock Villon and his companions sit,
talking drowsily. Of the prieft Gilles nothing is known, nor of the
lady Ysabeau either. They assift a moment mutely in this scene and
vanish for ever.

The peace of the June evening is suddenly broken, and rudely.

Ouquel lieu survindrent Phelippes Chermoye, prebflre, & maiftre Jehan
le Mardi, lequel Chermoye incontinent quil avisa ledit suppliant luy difl: tf jfe
regnie Dieul je vous ay trouve'; & incontinent ledit suppliant se leva pour luy
donner lieu, en luy disant: "Beau frere, de quoy vous coursez-vous?" Lequel
Chermoye, ainsi que ledit suppliant se levoit pour luy faire place, le rebouta
tres rigour eusement a ce qu'il luy convint se rasseoir. Voyans ce t les des-
susditz Mardi, Gilles f & Ysabeau, & supposans que ledit Chermoye, & la
maniere de sa venue considerans, n'eHoit venu que pour jaire noise & des-
plaisir audit suppliant, se absenterent, & demourerent seulement ledit sup'
pliant & Chermoye.

[In which place arrived Philip Chermoye, priest, and Masler Jehan le
Mardi; and the said Chermoye perceiving the said petitioner immediately said
to him: "By God! I have found you!" and immediately the said petitioner
rose to make room for him, saying: * 'Sweet sir, what angers you?" On which
the said Chermoye, as the said petitioner was rising to make room, pushed
him backwards so strongly that he was forced to sit down again. Seeing which

the aforesaid Mardi, Gilles, and Ysabeau, observing the said Chermoye and
considering from the manner of his approach that he had come for no other
purpose than to pick a quarrel and make strife with the said petitioner, with-
drew, leaving only the said petitioner and Chermoye.]

Nothing is more evident than that this was the culmination of
a landing feud between Francois Villon and the prieft Philip
Chermoye. Admire the prudence of Gilles, of Ysabeau, and of
Mafter Jehan le Mardi, who, smelling thunder in the air, slipped
so quietly away and left the principals to themselves. Mafter Cher-
moye was a man of adion, and came at once to the point

Lequel Chermoye tantosJ apres, voulant sa mauvaise 6- dempnable
voulente en propos delibert acomplir & mettre a execution, traifl une grande
dague de dessoubz sa robbe & en frappa ledit suppliant par le visaige sur le
bolievre & jusque a grant effusion de sang, comme il apparut 6- appert de
present. Et ce voyant ledit suppliant, lequel pour le serain esJoit vestu d'un
mantel & a sa sainture avoit pendant une dague soubz icelluy, pour eviter la
jureur & mauvaise voulente dudit Chermoye, doubtant quil ne le pressafl &
mllenast plus fort en sa personne, traift ladite dague 6- frappa, comme luy
semble, en I'ayne ou environ, ne cuidant point lors V avoir frappe.

[The said Chermoye a moment after, determining to accomplish and put
into execution his wicked and damnable will, drew a large dagger from be-
neath his gown and Struck the said petitioner in the face with it, on the upper
lip, causing thereby a great flow of blood, as it appeared and appears now.
Seeing this the said petitioner, who on account of die evening air was wear-
ing a cloak, having beneath it a dagger hanging at his belt, in order to avoid
the fury and wicked will of the said Chermoye, and fearing that he would
be more bitterly pressed and attacked in his person, drew the said dagger, as
it seems, and Struck him in the groin or thereabout, not thinking at that time
that he had so Struck him.]

The fight has begun. The firft blow, a downward slash, has left
Villon's upper lip gashed and bleeding profusely. Villon recoils,
and groping under his cloak whips out the dagger at his belt and
returns the slash, wounding the priest in the groin, "or thereabout"
It mut be remembered that the ftory of the encounter has been
rehearsed in the plea for the King's clemency so as to show the
petitioner in the most favourable light possible. 2 In any case Cher-

2 On the other hand, a petitioner or those petitioning in his behalf dared not adually
depart from the truth, for fear of consequences. See Appendix C: The Double Remission.

Ill

move is the aggressor, and Villon finds himself (as the French
law-phrase now goes) in a Sate of legitimate defence. As to the
prieft's carrying a dagger at all, it was not a habit out of the ordi-
nary. Daggers or knives were commonly worn by medieval priefts,
as by the laity; not necessarily for defence, even, but for carving
meat, hunting, and other ordinary purposes. Thus in England John
Wyndhill, redor of Arnecliffe, bequeaths in 1431 his green, san-
guine, and murrey gowns, his copy of Piers Plowman, and his
baselard, or knife, with the silver and ivory haft. 3
The fight continues, and suddenly ends.

Et persistant ledit Chermoye % vouloir dejaire ledit suppliant, le poursuy-
vant & improperant de plusleurs injures & menasses, trouva ledit suppliant
a ses pies: une pierre laquelle il print & gecta au visaige dudit Chermoye, &
incontinent le lama & se departit ledit suppliant & se retraia sur ung barbier
nomme Fouquet pour soy fairs habiller.

[Whereupon, the said Chermoye persisting in his attempt to do mischief
to the said petitioner, pursuing him and hurling several threats and menaces,
the said petitioner finding at his feet a one took it and flung it in the face
of the said Chermoye, and at once the said petitioner left him and departed
and retired to the shop of a barber named Fouquet to have his wound
dressed.]

The barber-surgeon Fouquet, having attended to Villon's bleed-
ing lip, had a duty to perform. He demanded, for the purpose of
making his report to the Watch, the names of the parties in the
quarrel: to which Villon answered that his assailant was a prieft
named Philippe Chermoye, and that his own name was Michel
Mouton. Then, issuing from the barber's, he took prudently to
his heels and vanished. Chermoye, after lying for a time where he
had fallen, was picked up he had chased Villon into the clbifter
of St. Benoit and taken into a house in the cloifter, where his
wounds were washed and dressed: and next day he was removed
to the Hotel-Dieu for treatment, where within the week,

a ^occasion desdiz coups, par faults de bon gouvernement ou autrement, II
ell ale de vie a trespassement. A I' occasion duquel cas, ledit suppliant doubtant
rigueur de ju&ice s'esJ absente du pais & ny oseroit jamais retourner se Noftre
grace & misericorde ne luy eBoit sur ce impartie.

*Cutts.

112

[On account of the said wounds, for lack of proper treatment or other
causes, he departed this life and died. On account of which the said petitioner
fearing the rigour of the law withdrew from the district, and would not dare
ever return unless Our grace and pardon were extended to him.]

So Mafter Chermoye passes from this life, and his adversary
flies from justice. The remainder of the Letter, after Dressing the
fad that the said petitioner has heretofore governed himself well
and honestly, without ever being accused before the laft five
words may be called the Operative Clause, and have the advantage
of being at that time true 4 proceeds to the Royal warrant remit-
ting, pardoning, and holding the said Mafter Francois des Loges,
autremcnt dit dc Villon, quit of all pains and forfeits, civil or crim-
inal, of all bans, pursuits, or appeals, and restored to enjoyment of
his former good fame and renown, goods, and chattels; at the same
time commanding and enjoining on the ProvoSt of Paris, his lieu-
tenants, and all officers of justice whatsoever, that they are in no
way to deprive, moleft, or forbid the said Master Francois des
Loges, autremcnt dit dc Villon, in the exercise of these rights, any of
which, having been attached or sequestrated by them, are instantly
to be restored. Given at Saint Pourcain, in the month of January
in the year of grace 1455. (New Style 1456.)

Thus the fir& Letter of Remission. The second, 5 awarded by
the King to Mafter Francois de Montcorbier, maittre cs ars, guilty
of the death of Philippe Sermoise, prieft, differs from it in one or
two details. In this second account Sermoise, or Chermoye, advances
cursing and blaspheming, crying, "Hafter Francois, I have found
you, and I think I will heat your ears for you (jc vous courrou-
ccray} I" To which Villon replies as sweetly as any lamb: "What,
Ma&er Philip, are you angry? Have I wronged you? What do you
want with me? I do not think I have ever harmed you." The fight
then begins, as before, but Master Jehan le Mardi, who in the fir
account slipped away with Gilles and Ysabeau, returns, and per-
ceiving Villon with a dagger in his left hand and a ftone in his right
tries to disarm him, but cannot prevent the hurling of the ftone
which lays Chermoye on the pavement. A moft important para-

4 This, observes P. Champion, is the one and only certificate of good condud ever
obtained by Francois Villon.

6 Chancellery Registers, JJ 183 (67, fol. 49 r).

graph follows, explaining almoft completely the Royal clem-
ency:

Lequel Phdippe jut leve de la place & port en I'ostel des prisons dudit
Samt-Benoit & illec examine par certain NosJre examinateur ou Chaflelet de
Paris; lequel Phelippe interroguS par ledit examinateur que s'il advenoit que t
de cedit coup, il alasJ de vie a trespassement, il voulut que poursuite en fusJ
faicle par ses amis ou autres centre ledit suppliant, lequel luy respondit que
non, mais, en ce cas, pardonnoit & pardonna sa mort audit suppliant pour
certaines causes qul a ce le mouvoient.

[The said Philippe was raised from that place and carried into the
prison-house o the said St. Benoit, and there examined by one o Our ex-
aminers o the Chatelet o Paris. To whom the said Philippe, being asked
by the said examiner whether in the event o his dying of the said blow he
would wish a hue and cry raised against the said petitioner by his friends or
others, answered no, that in that case he pardoned and forgave the said
petitioner for his death, on account of certain reasons which moved him so
to do.]

The raging quarrelsome prieft, then, for all his dempnable
voulente, died a Christian man, forgiving his enemy in extremis.
The second Letter, drawing to a conclusion, reveals also that a
decree of banishment had been issued againft the assassin in his
absence:

Pour lequel cas advenu par la maniere que dit eft, ledit supliant a
appele a noz drois f & contre luy procede par bannissement de Noflre royaume,
ouquel il noseroit plus frequenter, reperer ne converser, se nosJre grace &
misericorde ne luy esJoient sur ce imparties, si comme il dit en nous umble-
ment requerant que, attendu, que ledit Phelippe durant sa maladie avoit voulu
& ordonne que aucune poursuite en fusJ faite contre ledit supliant, ainz, en
tant que a luy efloit, il avoit pardonne & pardonnoit audit supliant, etc.:

[On account o which act, carried out in the manner Stated, the said
petitioner has been summoned by Our laws, and an order of banishment
from Our Kingdom made against him; which Kingdom he would not dare
to inhabit, frequent, or return to, if Our grace and mercy were not imparted
to him in this matter; as he says and humbly begs of us, seeing that the said
Philip during his sickness desired and ordered that no hue and cry should
be made after the said petitioner, since, as far as he himself was concerned,
he had forgiven and pardoned the said petitioner, etc.]

and ends in the same formula of remission as the firft Letter. Given
at Paris, in the month of January, etc.

114

The cause of the fight remains unknown. It has been conjec-
tured that the girl Ysabeau, who slid away when the trouble
began, may have known something about it. I am inclined to believe
that she is the Ysabeau of verse cxlix. of the Grant TcHament:

Et Ysabeau qui dit: "Enne!"
[And Ysabeau who says "Redly." ]

This was an affirmative interjection, according to Foulet, fash-
ionable among finicking young women of the period, equivalent
to "Reelly!" or "On my honour!" Was Ysabeau at the bottom of
this trouble? Or, as is more likely, was it the perennial Katherine
de Vausselles, whom we shall meet very shortly?

The affair is noteworthy as being Villon's firft recorded brush
with Justice, and very nearly his lal. Had the prieft Chermoye as
he lay dying not deliberately placed on record his entire forgive-
ness in the Chatelet examiner's presence, it is highly likely that
Villon would have been forthwith pursued, tried, and hanged for
manslaughter out of hand; for the only witness of the fatal blow
seems to have been Jehan le Mardi, a friend of the dead man,
Villon's enemy.

We should have loft thereby a considerable quantity of great
verse.

Ford. One that is as slanderous as Satan?

Page. And as poor as Job?

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Evans. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine,
and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings,
pribbles and prabbles? The Merry Wives of Windsor.

QutE virtus et quanta, boni, sit vivere parvo
Nee meus hie sermo esJ, sed qucc pr&cepit Ofellus
Rusticus f abnormis sapiens erassaque Minerva
Discite* . . . HOR., Sat., iL 2.

WE left Francois Villon slipping discreetly out of the shop of the
barber-surgeon Fouquet, some time between nine and half-paft on

the night of Corpus Chrifti, June 5, 1455. It seemed advisable to
get out of reach of Justice as speedily as possible, and there is no
reason to believe he lingered in Paris a moment. The cloister of St.
Benoit, where he had laft seen Chermoye dagger and fall, was
closed to him. It is permissible to suppose, therefore, that before
making for the Porte St. Jacques, or its near neighbour the Porte
St. Michel, and the safe country, he appeared before his old mother
in her humble room, breathing a little hard and making the briefest
possible explanation; and then, with what scanty lore she could
spare him, vanished swiftly by devious ways into the dark.

I do not fancy the killing of Chermoye weighed on his con-
science particularly. Whatever had gone before it, the regrettable
business had been forced on him, and resolved into homicide in
self-defence: though to be sure he had no single sympathetic wit-
ness to support this defence, and to be hanged by milake is pecu-
liarly offensive to a thinking man. Before the bells of Paris had
begun ringing Prime, therefore, I see him well beyond the walls
and in the open country, going Strongly in the fresh dawn wind
and making for the south: for there is a verse in the Grant TeHa-
ment (1461) which shows where he spent at leaft a week of this
voluntary exile at the village of Bourg-la-Reine, on the Orleans
road, about two leagues * outside the walls of Paris.

Item, donne a Perrot Girart,
Barbier jure du Bourg la Royne,
Deux bacins et ung coquemart,
Puis qua gaignier met telle fame.
Des ans y a demy douzaine
Quen son hofiel de cochons gras .
M'apatella une sepmaine,
Tesmoing I'abesse de Pourras.

[Item, I leave to Perrot Girart, barber o Bourg-la-Reine, two
basins and a pipkin, since he works so hard for his living. It is just
half a dozen years ago since he boarded me in his house a whole
week on fat pork witness the Abbess of Pourras.]

The fifth line fixes it. He is referring to the year 1455, when
he took the road. The fooling of the barber Perrot Girart is an un-
published repue franche, and the poet's chuckle at remembering it

a One league <= four kilometres.

116

is audible. The kind of company he fell upon in this rural with-
drawal one may judge from his calling to witness, in connection
with this feat, the lady known as the Abbess of Pourras. She was
Huguette du Hamel, a notorious character. She had taken the re-
ligious habit in 1439, had become Abbess of Port-Royal (popularly
Pourrais or Pourras), in the Chevreuse valley near Paris, about
1454, and then, by swift degrees, had gone completely to the bad.
In this year 1455, when Villon knew her, or pretended to, her con-
duit was not the subject of more than local gossip; but by 1463
the scandal had become such that the Abbot of Chaalis, her su-
perior, who had had her placed under observation, degraded her
from her office and thruft her into the prison of the abbey of Pont-
aux-Dames, in the diocese of Meaux, to cool her hot blood and bring
her to penitence and obedience. Among the charges brought against
her were that she attended f eats and revels, disguising herself, with
gallants, and behaved in such a manner that the men-at-arms put
her into a ballad: for which she had one of them thrashed so se-
verely that he died. 2 It is by no means to be assumed that Villon
is romancing when he connects her with himself in the affair of
the barber of Bourg-la-Reine, over which he so pleasantly smacks his
lips.

We see Villon now, therefore, dodging about the countryside
just beyond Paris to the south, living on his wits. There is every
reason to assume that it was during this period that he definitely
joined himself to the Company of the Coquille, that freemasonry
of bandits and blackguards which infected Paris and a large part
of France, and especially Burgundy, Champagne, the Orleanais,
Languedoc, part of Anjou, and the Ile-de-France. For them he was
later to write the Ballades in the Jargon; of their brotherhood his
friends Cayeulx and Montigny were already members. Were there
not the seven Ballades, one bearing his acrostic, to show Villon a
Coquillard, there would still be his frank admission in a minor
Ballade:

2 Archives of Parliament, X 1 * 8311, fols. 190 r and ss.

There seems to have been another lady known popularly as the "Abbess o Poilras/'
or Shaven-Poll: a maquerelle publique who was shaved on the head, whipped, pilloried,
and expelled from the district:. Villon may mean this one, and the mention of the barber
may hence conceal a further jest; unless they are identical.

117

Je congnols quant pipeur jargonne.
[I know when a sharper patters the jargon.]

Thanks to the labours of Marcel Schwob, who published in
1890 the documents of the process of the Coquillards instituted at
Dijon in 1455? it is possible to recall from the shadows a company
of this redoubtable militia. 3 The report of the proceedings by Master
Jehan Rabuftel, Procurator-Syndic and Clerk of the Tribunal of
Dijon, deals with the Coquillards of Burgundy only; but they oper-
ated generally in much the same manner as modern Chinese armies,
each having its own defined sphere of loot, brigandage, and murder.
It is not clear whether the King of the Coquille, to whom reference
is made, exercised a general suzerainty or whether he was simply
primus inter fares: he muft in any case be distinguished from the
King of the Gueux, or Beggars, the Grant Coesre, whose writ ran
from the Cours des Miracles in Paris, the resort and den of all pro-
fessional beggars, mumpers, and masquerading cripples, and whose
subjeds paid him a tax and spoke their own jargon, the langue
matoise^ The different bands of the Coquille co-operated frater-
nally in matters of boundary and discipline, and they had in com-
mon their own Statutes, police, and the Jargon which Villon has
written, which linked and assisted them in their operations. As for
the composition of the Coquille, its cadre was that large body of
prowling men-at-arms, Ecorcheurs, foreign mercenaries, and mis-
cellaneous brigands who, after forming part of the Royal forces
againSl the Anglo-Burgundians, had been thrown out of employ-
ment at the end of the wars and had taken to the road. To these,
the PiSlols, Nyms, and Bardolphs, there naturally adhered a Strong
body of the vicious, the idle, and fugitives from juStice, forming
one mass of armed ruffianism, representing every phase of villainy,
the sweepings of the criminal population of Europe, organised and

8 Archives of the Justiciary of Dijon (Departmental Archives of the Cote d'Qr, B 360,
vi.). These documents were first brought to light in 1842 by M. Gamier, archivist of Dijon.

4 The quarter of the Grande- and Petite-Truanderie was their headquarters, particu-
larly in the fourteenth century. Their different categories, Sabouleux, Drilles, Francs-Mi-
toux, Culs-de-Jatte, Capons, Courtauds-de-Boutanche, Callots, Polissons, Riflfode's, Hubins,
Malingreux, and others cannot be dealt with here, but are worth inquiring into in various
contemporary documents. Victor Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris gives a general description
of the Cour des Miracles and its inhabitants. The moft famous Cour des Miracles was in
the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, near the Temple.

118

having a pseudo-military discipline. (Coquille, Shell, or, deriva-
tively, Sword-Hilt. Some authorities derive the sign of the Shell
from the badge of pilgrims to St. James's shrine at Compostela.)
At this period the Burgundian countryside had suffered greatly
from the Coquillards, and the town of Dijon in particular, in which
the citizens were held up day and night and robbed with violence.
The exemplary vigour and Strategy of Jehan Rabuftel was to put
an end to these esbatemens.

The headquarters of the Dijon band was a brothel kept by one
Jacquot de la Mer, againft whom the charge runs:

Item, the said Jacquot de la Mer, keeper of the said brothel, is familiar
with them all, or the greater part of them, and moreover, well knowing their
procedure and government, receives them into concealment and assists them
in the disposal of horses and other property &olen by them, as much for the
profit he makes out of them as for his share in the booty: and it is moreover
notorious that for a long time before the arrest of the said companions the
said Jacquot de la Mer was wont to appear in their company at all hours about
this town, familiarly, knowing their procedure and government: the which is
greatly to the prejudice of the said Jacquot.

This net of ruffians Master Jehan Rabuftel raided in the manner
in which the London police to-day raid a dubious night-club on a
night when no important personage is present. Having carefully
made his plans, he placed around the brothel of Jacquot de la Mer
at one o'clock in the morning a Strong cordon of the Dijon Watch;
and then, taking with him a guard, approached the house and
knocked loudly on the door in the name of the King. Instantly the
lights within were extinguished (so it is described in his report)
and there was a frantic scuffling; and then silence. Eventually
Jacquot de la Mer himself opened the door cautiously, evidently
expecting nothing more than a visit of the ordinary watch. Jehan
Rabustel and his men at once yanked him out and swept through
the house, finding not only a considerable amount of Stolen goods
everywhere but also, coyly concealed in cupboards, under beds, and
behind doors, a number of villainous heads, cat-a-mountain looks,
true gallows visages. These inmates were all arrested on the spot
and conveyed to the prison in the Rue des Singes.

119

So much for the coup, and the fence himself. Now for the
Companions:

Le cas eft tel: Depuis deux ans en $a ont repairie & repairent en cesJe Ville
de Dijon plusieurs compaignons oizeux & vaccabundes qui, lors qu'ilz sont
arrlvez & durant le temps qu'ilz se tienent en cefie dicte Ville, ne font rlens,
se non boire, mengier, & mener grant despense, jouer aux dez, aux quartes,
aux marelles & aultres jeux. Continuelement se tienent le plus common & par
especial de nuyt au bordeaul, la ou Us mainnent orde, ville, & dissolue vie de
ruffiens & hauliers, perdent aulcunes fois, & despensent tout leur argent &
tant font qu'ilz ne ont denier ne maille.

Et, lors apres, ce qu'ilz ont prins & ost6 a leurs pot/res files communes
qu'ilz maintiennent audit bordeaul, tout ce qu'ilz peuvent avoir d'elles se
partent les aulcuns & s'en font Yen ne sait ou, & demeurent aulcunes fois xv
jours, aultre fois i mois ou vi sepmaines. Et retournent les aulcunes a cheval,
les aultres a pied r bien ve&uz & habtlliez, bien garniz d f or & d 1 argent, &
recommencent a mener avec aulcuns aultres qui les ont attenduz, ou aultres
qui sont venuz de nouvel, leurs jeux 6" dissolutions accousJumez.

[The case is thus: For two years past there has infesled, and Still infests,
this Town of Dijon, a number of idle and vagabond companions who, on
their entry and during their stay in the said town, do nothing except drink,
eat, and squander money at dice, at cards, at marelle, and other games.
Most usually, and specially at night, they hold their assembly at a brothel,
where they lead the filthy, vile, and dissolute life of ruffians and scoundrels,
often losing and squandering all their money till they have left not a single
denier. And then, when they have taken all they can from the poor common
prostitutes they frequent in the said brothel, some of them disappear in
directions unknown, and are absent some for fifteen days, some for a month,
some for six weeks. And they then return, some on horseback and some afoot,
well clothed and harnessed, with plenty of gold and silver, and once more
begin, with those who await them, or with new arrivals, their accustomed
games and debaucheries.]

a aebaucnenes.]

language and government of the Companions are briefly

The_
dismissed:

EsJ vray que lesditz compaignons ont entr'eulx certain langaige de jargon
& aultres signes a quoy ilz s f entre con gnois sent, & s'apellent iceulx galans les
Coquillars, qui esJ a entendre les compaignons de la Coquille, lesquelz,
comme Ven dit, ont ung roy qui se nomme le roy de la Coquille.

[It is a fact that the said companions use among themselves a certain
jargon and other signs by which they know each other, and that the said

120

gallants call themselves the Coquillards, that is, the Companions o the Co-
quille; and that they have, as it is said, a king, called the King of the
Coquille.]

Elsewhere in the report the Jargon is described again as un
langaige exquiz que aultrcs gens ne scevent entendre. The name of
the King of the Coquille is not given, nor is he mentioned in any
of Villon's Ballades in the Jargon; but I am tempted to smell out
a reference to him in the sixth line of the third Stanza of the Firft
Ballade, which has such a gallows ring:

Plantez aux hurmes vox p neons
De paour des bisans si tres durs,
Et aussi d'eftre sur les joncz,
Enmahez en coffres en gros murs.
Escharicez, ne soiez point durs,
Que le Grant Can ne vous face essorez.
Songears ne soiez pour dorer,
Et babignez tousjours aux ys,
Des sires, pour les desbouser.
Eschec, eschec, pour le fardisl 5

Is the Grant Can or Khan, a hidden allusion to the King of the
Coquille, or to the Provol, or merely to the sun, as he is named in
the language of the gypsies of Spain? I leave the matter there and
return to Dijon.

There follows a detailed description of the methods of operation.

Et esJ vray, comme Ven dit, que les aulcuns desditz Coquillars sont
crocheteurs d'usseries, arches, & coffres. Les aultres sont tresgenteurs & des-
robent les gens en changeant or a monnoye ou monnoye a or, ou en acheptant
aulcunes marchandises. Les aultres font, portent, & vendent faulz lingoz &
faulses chainnes en fagon d'or: les aultres portent & vendent ou engaigent
faulses pierreries en lieu de dyamanz rubiz & aultres pierres precieuses. Les
aultres se couchent en quelque hoflellerie avec aulcun mar chant & se desro-
bent eulx meismes & ledit marchant; 6* ont hornme propre auquel ilz baillent
le larrecin, & puis se complaignent avec le marchant desrobey. Les aultres
jouent de jaulx dez d'advantaige 6- chargiez, & y gaignent tout I 'argent de
ceulx a qui ilz jouent. Les aultres s$aivent subtilitez telles au jeu de quartes
& de marelles que Ven ne pourroit guaigner contre eulx. Et, qui pis etf, les

3 An attempt at elucidating some of the Jargon is made latei in this book.

121

plusieurs sont espieurs & aggresseurs de bois 6- de chemins, larrons & mul-
driers, & ell a presumer que ainsy soit la ou ilz mainnent idle vie dissolve*

[It is also a fact, as is affirmed, that some of the said Coquillards are
picklocks of coffers, chefts, and treasuries. Others work with their fingers
in cheating over the changing of gold to small money and back again, or
in the buying of goods. Others make, carry, and sell false ingots of gold, and
chains resembling gold: others carry and sell false jewels in place of diamonds,
rubies, and other precious stones. Others lie at an inn with some merchant
and rob themselves and him alike, passing the booty to a member of their
gang; and then they lodge a complaint in company with the said merchant.
Others play with loaded dice and win all the money of those who play with
them. Others practise such skilful tricks at cards and marelle that no one can
win money of them. And what is worse, mosT: of them are footpads and
bandits in the woods and on the highroads, robbers and assassins, and it is
to be presumed that it is thus that they are able to lead such a dissolute life.]

It is not difficult to hear, behind the dry intoning of Mafter
Jehan Rabuftel, Procurator-Syndic and Clerk to the Tribunal of
Dijon, the creaking of the rack and the yells of a score of sinister
fellows as they are manipulated, none too soon, by the firm hand of
Justice: and it is to be gathered that fairly full confessions were
obtained. I see enigmatic forms slipping through the night in every
direction from Dijon, croaking curt messages in the Jargon, warn-
ing the brotherhood that So-and-so has squealed and that the hunt
is up in Burgundy and the leaders held; and vanishing into the dark
again. No concerted swoop on the Coquille all over France was
possible, for there was no centralised authority, and every diocese
had its independent jurisdidion, but the tribunal of Dijon Struck a
shrewd blow and muft have considerably perturbed the diftant
King of the Coquille amid his harem. The leaders were hanged or
boiled, the reft banished. In the lift of seventy-seven Coquillards of
the Burgundian contingent published by the Procurator-Syndic ap-
pear many Gascons, a Spaniard, an Italian, a Savoyard, and (haud
us and safe us!) a Scotsman, one Jehan d'Escosse; and also one
name we know well, that of Regnier de Montigny: but Montigny
was not then caught, as we have seen, and did not hang till Sep-
tember 1457.

Another game mentioned in the Dijon evidence is the gourd, which was still known
in Shakespeare's time, on the evidence of Piftol in The Merry Wives: "Let vultures gripe
thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds.*' Fullam is cogged dice.

122

There is another companion in the Dijon lift whose name rings
familiar, one Chriftophe Turgis, described as a taverner, of Paris,
who may conceivably have been a relative of Robin Turgis of the
Pomme de Pin. Chriftophe, convi&ed of being a coiner, suffered the
extreme sentence reserved for pradlitioners of that art, being boiled
in oil in December 1456. The name of Colin des Cayeulx is not in
the lift: evidently he belonged to a different battalion of the Com-
pany the Parisian or Ile-de-France band, no doubt. But even if he
had not been officially described as a Coquillard at his trial a few
years later, his name in the Jargon, "Colin de FEscailler," set by his
friend Villon in the Second Ballade, proves it.

I return to Francois Villon, and pause to consider a curious
coincidence, discovered in a document of the Tresor des Chartes
by Vitu and printed again for the firft time in fifty years by Thuasne,
which should not be passed over. It is a Letter of Remission for a
crime of October 1455, four months after the killing of Chermoye.
The accused is a certain Jehan des Loges, clerk, a native of Anjou,
aged nineteen "or thereabouts" (an elaftic term), calling himself
a travelling packman, merrier, or mercerot. Now Villon, in a line
of the Grant Telament y calls himself

Moy, fovre mercerot de Renes,
[I, a poor packman of Rennes.j

Villon was a clerk. Villon's mother was an Angevine. One of
Villon's patronymics was des Loges. Villon had given an alias to the
barber Fouquet. Villon, in O<5tober 1455, was wandering in the
provinces. The temptation to conne<5l him with this Jehan des Loges
is very ftrong: for travelling packmen, who had an extremely bad
reputation and were affiliated very often to the Coquille, were not
usually clerks. But as the clown says to Perdita, "You have of these
pedlars, that have more in them than you Id think, sifter.'"*

The charge againft Jehan des Loges was one of breaking into
the house of one Guillaume des Pres in the small Angevin town of
Parse, or Parce, sixteen leagues from Angers, and ftealing goods
valued at twenty-six gold crowns: also of ftealing from the house
of Jehan le Gay, in the same town, goods valued at two hundred

123

gold crowns. He was caught some time later, and escaped from
the prison of the Bishop of Angers, where he had been carried on
his own reque, and again from a chamber in the house of the
Seigneur de Champagne, where he had been shoved on being re-
captured; and by the hand of one of the Seigneur's servants he
restored to des Pres and to le Gay part of the booty, promising to
restore the reSt and getting out of that country meanwhile as quickly
as possible. Now a travelling packman (I echo the reasoning of M.
Thuasne) who can undertake to restore, having no doubt squan-
dered a great part of it, some 226 gold crowns, equal to about 16,000
francs in modern currency, muSt have respectable sureties, friends
or relations, at call. Villon had an uncle, his mother's brother, a
monk at Angers. Was he (if this Jehan des Loges were indeed
Villon) the surety ? There can be no certain answer. My own theory
is that Villon did not go as far afield as Anjou at this time, whereas
he certainly did in his next exile, between 1456 and 1460; therefore
the line about the mercerot de Rents concerns his wanderings during
that greater, more far-flung, and more miserable period: to which pe-
riod, in the absence of any sound reason to the contrary, I assign it.

Into such frantic chasings of wild geese through bogs and fogs
is the Student of Villon's life led: not without pleasure.

We may take him, therefore, to be Still lurking in the country-
side between Sceaux and Paris, living from hand to mouth, asso-
ciating at intervals with Coquillards, snapping up an occasional
duck or hen from outlying farmyards, sometimes falling soft and
lucky, as at Bourg4a-Reine, sometimes grubbing turnips from the
fields and taking swiftly to his heels from the vengeance of an in-
dignant farmer or from barking dogs, and always awaiting news
from Paris. For evidently MaSter Guillaume de Villon was exerting
all his influence and efforts in behalf of the prodigal: the kind,
anxious man. At length, after eight months of exile, the royal Letter
of Remission was granted (twice over, as we know: which argues
desperate activity on some one's part), and Villon found himself
able to return to his darling Paris. There were, it is true, certain
formalities Still to be complied with. All Letters of Remission, to be
efficacious, had to be confirmed by a Court of Inquiry, which
examined the written documents and teSted the veracity of every

124

Statement made by the accused. If they were found true, the judge
confirmed the Letter and the accused was a free man. If any flaws
were discovered, the Letter was cancelled arid the accused became
automatically eligible for fresh trouble. For mark you that at this
time there was (notwithstanding the laxity of the age) a belief that
a lie told on oath carried with it not only temporal punishment but
what was then considered a much worse one. We have since altered
all that, happily.

And lastly, the law was that the accused had to present himself
in person before the Court of enterinement or ratification, carrying
his Letter of Remission: he could not employ a solicitor or a proc-
urator. But it is safe to assume that in Villon's case this formality
might, given Master Guillaume's honourable reputation and inti-
mate acquaintance among the notables of the Law and of the Par-
liament, have been tacitly waived. Certainly there is no evidence of
Francois Villon's having appeared personally in this instance. 7

He secured his pardon, then, and had it confirmed for him, and
returned wing-footed to Paris. His Slay was to be not long, but
profitable.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack,

Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack,

Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;

Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag,
Rattle the tats or mark the spot:

You cannot bag a single tag,
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

W. E. HENLEY.

Si videbas furem, currebas cum eo; ct cum adulteris portionem
tuam ponebas. Ps. xlix.

HE came home to Paris.

For the next ten months there is no news of him, beyond an
echo in the Petit Testament of a ravaging and unrequited love, and

T See Appendix C; The Double Remission.

125

also what might appear, on the face of it, to be a hint at one piece of
honeSt work, the tutoring of

trois petis enfans tous nus>
Nommez en ce present trai&ie,
Povres orphdins zmpourveas,

[Three little naked shivering children, named in this present
document, poor defenceless orphans.]

whose names are

Colin Laurens,

Girart Gossouyn & Jehan Marceau,
Despouveus de biens, de parens,
Qui nont vaillant Vance d'ung seau.

[Colin Laurens, Girart Gossouyn, and Jehan Marceau; all with-
out goods or parents, and not worth the handle of a bucket,]

This indeed was for a long time assumed, until it was discovered
that these three poor children, Laurens, Gossouyn, and Marceau,
to whom Villon recurs again in the Great Testament with such rare
and ostensible affecStion, are actually three rich and aged Parisian
financiers, usurers, and speculators in salt, a byword for griping and
sharp practice: in which light Villon's apparent tenderness resolves
into biting irony and hate. 1 He might, perhaps, have done a little
desultory tutoring at this time; there is no reason for or against
believing it: but it may be gathered from the Petit Testament that
he began before many weeks to console his aching heart with the
old company of the taverns and the Slews, the girls and the roaring
companions, Master Rash, and Master Caper, and young Dizy, and
young Master Deep-vow, and Mafter Starve-lackey the rapier and
dagger man, and young Drop-heir that killed luly Pudding, and
Master Forthlight the tilter, and wild Half-can, that ^tabbed Pots.
From time to time, no doubt, as the need for money became press-
ing, he did a little light copying for scriveners, or worked among
the notaries with references to whom his verse is so Stuffed. Marcel
Schwob thinks he may have been a clerk for a time to Pierre St.
Amant of the Treasury, to whom he leaves a jocular bequeft early

1 Marceau 's huge speculations, in particular, ruined many of the nobility. He was im-
prisoned under Charles vii. and Louis xi.

126

in the Petit Teflament, and to whom he may have been introduced
by the family of his friend Regnier de Montigny. His "simple-
tonsure" benefice, which he leaves to one Chappelain, I have already
mentioned. It is obviously nothing but a jet.

He may have tried honeft living and failed. Towards the end
of the year (1456), in any case, his position had become desperate:
his heart and his purse were both wounded to death. For this
reason, more especially, as he himself says, to escape from the toils
of one

Qui ma eHe jelonne et dure,

[Who has been so faithless and harsh to me.]

he made up his mind to leave Paris and travel to Angers, where
his mother had a brother, a religious of that town.

The enigmatic figure of this love of Villon's, his life's torment,
his rigorous miftress, his obsession, mut here be considered.

It would appear from the evidence of the Testaments that her
name was Katherine de Vausselles. He mentions her once by name,
in the Double Ballade; again, as ma damoysdle au nez tortu^ my
lady of the twifted nose; again, as ma chiere rose; and many times
indirectly. Her estate, as is to be deduced from the tide damoysdle^
was of the bourgeoisie. She may even have been a married woman.
Research has brought to light the existence of a Pierre de Vaucel, or
du Vaucel, one of the Canons of St. Benoit-le-Bientourne, a col-
league of Guillaume de Villon, and Master of the College de
Navarre during the years 1450 and 1456. I identify him confidently
with one "Petru de Vaucello," whose neat, firm signature, under-
lined, with an ornament fallowing and underneath, I have encoun-
tered at regular intervals, in examining the Registers of the Faculty
of Theology, in juxtaposition with those of other members of the
Faculty deputed to sign accounts and witness receipts. It might be,
vaguely, that Katherine was a relative of Pierre de Vaucel ; a niece,
possibly. 2 Villon's acquaintance with her in this case would be long,
since her putative uncle lived in the cloister of St. Benoit. If her

2 P. Champion reje&s the hypothesis. The name Vausselles, tie finds, was not uncom-
mon in Paris at this time, and there was a Vausselles family living in the St. Benoit quar-
ter. Katherine may have belonged to this. On the other hand . . .

127

condud does not seem, by Barchefter Standards, that becoming a
Canon's niece, it mut be remembered that she lived in (as Mrs.
Barlow so well puts it in her Utilitarian History of Europe for the
Young) a less enlightened age: though to be sure a rake in a modern
English comedy has observed that given charm of manner a great
deal of amusement may be obtained in an English cathedral town.
Villon's passion for Katherine de Vausselles is undoubtedly the
nearest thing to a pure and fteadfaft love, free from commercial
preoccupations, that he ever experienced. Gathering together the
threads of his complaints all through the Testament, it is clear that
Katherine treated him with a high hand. She was felonne et dure.
She led him on with dissimulation and sugared lies:

Et ainsi m'aloit amusant,

Et me souffroit tout raconter,

Mais ce n-eHoit qu'en m'abusant.

Abuse ma et fait entendre

Tousjours d'ung que ce fufl ung aultre. . . .

'[Thus she went fooling me for her amusement, and let me open
my heart to her, but only to make mock of me. . . . She fooled
me, making me believe always one thing to be another.]

So his complaint continues, grotesque and lamentable. She could
make him believe anything, such was her power over him, poor
ninny: he would take a brazen warming-pan to be Heaven and the
clouds thereof to be made of calfskin; morning to be evening, small
beer new wine, a sow a windmill, a flout prieft a pursuivant.

Du del une paelle d'arain,
Des nues une peau de veau,
Du matin qu'e&oit le serain t
D'ung trognon de chou ung naveau,
D'orde cervoise vin nouveau,
D'une truie ung molin a vent,
Et d'une hart ung escheveau,
D'ung gros abbe ung poursuyvant.

He revolted, and came cringing back. She at laft tired of the
game, and ordered him away, and took another lover from the

128

context one Noe or Noel Joliz, who, as is seen in the Double Ballade,
in due course thrashed the poet, presumably in the presence of the
miftress. 3

J'en jus batu comme a ru toiles,

Tout mu, ja ne le quiers celer.

Qui me feisJ maschier ces groselles

Fors Katherine de Vaussdles?

Noel le tiers eft, qui jut la.

r [I was thrashed like linen in a Stream, ftark naked; I have no
wish to conceal it. Who made me swallow such humiliations but
Katherine de Vausselles? Noel was the third person present.]

There had thus fallen to him the double indignity promised to
Panurge on his marriage: he had been cocu et battu. Noel, M.
Longnon conje<5tures, was the brother of Marguerite Joliz, who
married Robin Turgis, of the Pomme de Pin. The thrashing, the
humiliation, did not kill Villon's passion. It runs and recurs a
leit-motif through both Testaments. He is sore, he is longing,
he is desperate, he is vicious, he is furious, he is insulting, but he
cannot get the image of Katherine out of his heart, and the troop
of Jehannetons and Margots and Guillemettes and Macees and
Blanches and Perrettes and Ysabeaus who flit through his verse are
only temporary lenitives. He realises this, with a shrug of resig-
nation.

Ainsi m'ont amours abuse
Et pourmene de I'uys au pesle.
Je croy qu'omme n'esJ si ruse,
FusJ fin comme argent de coepelle,
Qui ny laissast linge, drappelle;
Mais qu'il full ainsi manye
Comme moy, qui partout m'appette
L'amant remys et regnye.

[Thus has Love made a gull of me, bandying me from pillar to
post. I swear there is no man, however cunning, were he as fine
as assayed silver, who would not be Gripped by Love of every shred
and handled even as I, who am everywhere called "The lover
flouted and cast off."]

8 There is an alternative hypothesis. Villon may have put his love into a public ballad
and, on her complaint, have been whipped by Juslice, as was customary in such cases.
But the other seems more likely.

129

From this it is plain that his fate was well known, and the
common tavern talk of his circle. He is the melancholy Don of the
old comedies, a furnace of sighs; and though he mitigates his suffer-
ing with the kisses of other women, he will carry Love's wounds to
his grave and die a martyr, among those (as he says in his Epitaph)

Qu Amours occist de son raillon.
[Whom Love slew with his bolt.]

I pause here to consider a problem which mut not be ignored,
glided over without comment, or not perceived at all. This is the
plain exigence, in the Ballade called Ballade de Villon h s'Amye y
of the name "Mar the" in acroftic, with his own:

Faulse beaulte qui tant me cousle chier,
Rude en effect, ypocrite doulceur,
Amour dure plus que fer a rnaschier,
Notnmer que puis, de ma desfacon seur,
Cher me felon, la mort d f ung povre cuer,
Orgueil mussie qui gens met au mourir,
Yeulx sans pitie, ne veult droit de rigueur f
Sans empirer, ung povre secourir?

Mieulx m'eusJ valu avoir efte serchier
Ailleurs secours: c'eusJ esJe mon onneur;
Riens ne m'eusJ sceu lors de ce fait hachier.
Trotter m'en fault f en fuyte et deshonneur.
Haro, haro, le grant et le mineurl
Et qu'esJ ce cy? Mourray sans coup ferir? . . .

[False lovely one, that hath cost me so dear; ruthless one,
false sweeting, love harder in the mouth than Steel, harder than I
can say, to my destruction kin; O traitorous charms, death of my
poor heart! O scornful pride, driving men to their doom! O
pitiless eyes, will rigour not allow her, ere worse betide, to succour
one forlorn?

Better were it for me to have sought help elsewhere, better for
my own pride: nothing would then have wrung this pain from me.
But I must fly, in -shame and dishonour! Haro! haro! both great
and small! But what is this? Shall I, then, die, without a blow?
Or will pity move her, ere worse betide, to succour one forlorn?]

This Ballade, Catullus-like in its dragging pain, is preceded by
a verse of plain direction. Villon sends it, by the hand of Fernet

130

de la Barre, to his damoysdle au nez tortu; and in the laft line of
the huitain his pain bursts forth into a sudden spitting fury.

CesJe ballade luy envoy e
Qui se termine tout par R.
Qui luy portera? Que je voye:
Ce sera Fernet de la Barre,
Pourveu, s'il rencontre en son erre t
Ma damoyselle au nez tortu,
II luy dira sans plus enquerre:
"Orde paillarde, dont viens tu?"

[This Ballade, all ending in R, I send her. By whose hand?
Let me see. ... It shall be by Fernet de la Barre: provided that
if on his way he meets my lady of the twisted nose he shall say to
her, without further ceremony: "Dirty trull, where have you
been?"]

Now if this woman who has so tortured him, this girl with the
twilled nose, the cause of all his griefs, is Katherine de Vausselles,
whom he has mentioned by name juft before, why does he thus
couple his name, in a Ballade ostensibly addressed to her, with the
name of a mysterious Marthe, who is nowhere mentioned by him
before or afterwards? Immediately half a dozen hypotheses, all
equally plausible, or seemingly, will occur. One need not make a
Star Chamber matter of them. My own theory, which seems sup-
ported alike by the meagre evidence, by probability, and our poor
frailty, is that Villon, retreating from the scornful' one, desperately
offered the remains of his heart to the shadowy Marthe. Whether
Marthe was one of the procession of light-of-loves or a more serious
rival to Katherine I cannot judge. She consoled him, possibly, for
the time, playing Eliante to his Alcefte.

ELIANTE
Moy, vous vengerl comment?

ALCESTE

En recevant mon coeur.
Acceptez-le, Madame, au lieu de I'infidelle,
C'est par la que je puts prendre vengeance d'elle.

ELIANTE.
[I avenge you? How?

ALCESTE.

By accepting my heart.

Take it, Madam, instead of the unfaithful one;
It is by this that I can revenge myself on her.]

It is, as I see it, an air from the noble comical tragedy and moSt
tragical comedy of the Misanthrofe ', played in a coarser key and on
a thinner pipe. The poet Strives to suffocate in another's woman's
embraces the passion that is tearing at his bowels; and fails, as such
poor devils do. He writes Katherine his Ballade, setting down with
voluptuous misery all his pain; and since he is himself writhing he
muSt needs try to get in a swift Stab at the creature's pride by blazon-
ing abroad his new mistress. This he does, and sets Marthe oStenta-
tiously in his second stanza for all the world to see: so far as he is
concerned, for one pair of eyes to see only.

So much for this problem, which it was necessary to examine
here. And so much for Katherine de Vausselles also. She was plainly
nothing more than a cold-hearted enjoleuse, attracted for a time by
the moping poet, amused and flattered by his salt wit and his skill
at Stringing verses. It is evident that Villon, with his scarecrow
figure and dark hangdog face, had no more hope of the creature's
love than the Cyclops had of Galatea; and even as the Sicilian sang,
preluding the idyll of that pathetic monSter ("Against Love there
is no remedy, Nifyas . . . "), so Villon found no antidote, un-
guent, philtre, nor potion, except in the commerce of the Pierides.
Katherine used him, grew tired, and threw him away. Her only
love, if we can believe her lover, was money, for which (on the thin
evidence of a Ballade only vaguely attributed to Villon) she in the
end sold her body to a rich, old, dirty, and horrible buyer. She is
a perennial type. As I write her name I see her clearly, with her
twifted nose and her red lips and her hard dark eyes. Some sort
of perverse beauty she muSt have had. I see the fur-edged gown
closely sheathing her slim body, the heart-shaped velvet headdress,
the finicking airs. I see also a narrow Street in the dusk, and hear
a slammed door and a light laugh from the open casement above,
and see again a poor fool Stumbling blindly along the cobbles, drunk
with pain and rage. We need not mention Katherine de Vausselles
again until we come to the Testaments, but she is there, perpetual,

132

pervasive, the background of Villon's life and his enduring sick-

ness.

The time was nearing Christmas,

Sur le Noel, morte sals on f
Que les loups se vivent de vent,
Et qu'on se tient en sa maison,
Pour le jrimas, pres du tison.

[At this time, as I have said, near Christmas, in the dead of the
year, when the wolves feed on wind and men stay indoors, hugging
the hearth, on account of the cold, there came to me a desire to
break my prison, where Love has held my heart in such duress.]

Villon's decision to leave Paris was made; and from it sprang
the idea of making a burlesque will on his departure which blos-
somed into the Lais, otherwise the Petit Tettament. Gafton Paris
thinks it impossible that Villon can have read the "Farewells" of
the three poets of Arras his predecessors, Jehan Bodel, Baulde
Faftoul, and above all Adam de la Halle, each of whom on
quitting Arras had bidden adieu to his fellow-citizens in satiric
verses, Jehan and Baulde retiring to a lazar-house and Adam
travelling to Paris: but Villon may easily have come upon these
verses in a library, or have heard them quoted. The Petit Telia-
ment was written, then: rapidly, I should say, for there is no body
in it, and a poet of any metal at all could reel off half the verses
between drinks. But it is clear that the end of it was composed in
Mailer Guillaume's house in the cloifter of St, Benoit, where the
ringing of the nine o'clock Angelus from Sorbonne, jut above,
would mot loudly be heard.

The date of the departure for Angers is fixed by the Petit
Teftament. It was on the edge of Chriftmas 1456. Villon, it may
be presumed, had everything arranged, his farewells said, his final
pot drunk, his laft leave taken of the cruel one whose eyes were so
false and killing

Ces doulx re gars et beaulx semblans

De tres decevante saveur,

Me tresfersant jusques aux flans . . .

133

[If I succumbed to her dear looks and lovely deceits, of such
sweet treachery that they pierce my very heart, they have now left
me well in the lurch, forlorn in my greatest need I am fain to
carry my plaint elsewhere and to &rike out afresh.]

He says good-bye to her, and to his mother, no doubt, and to
Master Guillaume, accepting from both a little journey-money. And
then, it may have been on Christmas Eve, Villon abruptly changes
his plans.

The Mule tavern ftood in the Rue St. Jacques, facing the Hos-
pice of the Mathurins, or Religious of the Sacred Trinity: that is to
say, on the opposite side of the road from the Sorbonne and St.
Benoit, lower down, nearer the river, facing what is now the Rue
du Sommerard. 4 Here, on the night when Villon changed his mind,
which we will take to have been Christmas Eve, 1456 in the In-
terrogatory of 1458 the phrase is circa fe/ium Nativitatis Domini,
which may mean any night in the week preceding ChriSlmas five
men met for supper. I give their names and descriptions as they
appear in the examination of Mafter Guy Tabarie before the Of-
ficiality of Paris, on July 22, 1458. One of them was Master Franf ois
Villon; the second, Colin des Cayeulx, whom we have already met;
the third, Guy Tabarie, clerk, Master of Arts, the horns veritable
who copied out the Romance of the Pet-au-Deable; the fourth, a
lapsed Picard monk called Dom Nicolas, quidam monachus nuncu-
patus domfnus Nicolaus, de fartibus Picardie; the fifth, one Petit-
Jehan, a ftumpy personage with a black beard, wearing a short
cloak, of whom it is written;

. . . difius des Cahyeus efi fortis operator crochetorum, sed diffius Petit*
Jehan, ejus socius, eft jorcius operator.

[The said des Cayeulx is a powerful operator of picklocks, but the said
Petit-Jehan, his companion, still more skilful.]

He was cleverer at picking locks even than his associate Colin des
Cayeulx: the tribute is official.

These five supped at the Mule: after which (I quote from Guy
Tabarie's evidence before the OfEciality) the said Mafter Francois

4 The Order of the Mathurins was founded in the twelfth century for the ransom of
captives. The hostel in the Rue St. Jacques was early thirteenth century.

134

Villon, the said Colin des Cayeulx, and the said Dom Nicolas took
Mafter Tabarie aside and made him swear to reveal nothing of what
he was about to see and hear. This done, and the account for wine
settled, or otherwise, the five issued from the Mule and proceeded
in the direction of the College of Navarre. 5 The Mule has vanished,
but the site off the College of Navarre is Still permanent It is to-day
the Ecole Polytechnique, which was built over the cloister and the
College in 1738. I have walked from the approximate site of the
Mule to the site of the College easily in ten minutes. In I456> when
a rabbit-warren of short cuts made going easier, it probably took
half that time. The five companions, then, had but a brief journey.
Their plans had been completed earlier. Guy Tabarie knew nothing
of them. He was obviously a simple fool, and the right man for his
part in the night's work.

They came, slinking cautiously through narrow byways, to the
College of Navarre, dark and silent at this late hour it was jut
on ten o'clock and on the eve of the Feast. The exact account of
the night's operations is contained in the report of .the examination
of Tabarie on July 5, 1458, when he was persuaded by irresistible
arguments, a month after being caught, to reveal what he knew. e
I will continue with the smooth colloquial Latin of the clerk to the
Official or Diocesan Judge of the Mot Reverend Father in God
Guillelmus, by Divine grace Bishop of Paris, by whom Tabarie was
claimed and dealt with. The document begins, after the preliminary
formal salutations to all those to whom these presents shall come:

Magifler Guido Tabary, clericus, adducJus de CaHelleto Parisiensi, anno
Domini millesimo quadringentesimo quinquagesimo oc~lavo, die xxvi lunii
ultimate lapsa, ubi detinebatur proffer hoc quod sibi imponitur quod ipse &
sui complices furati juerunt & male ceperunt in Collegia <$ veHiario Collegii
'Navarre Parisiensis, quingenta scuta auri eidem Facultati spedancia.

[Master Guy Tabarie, clerk, brought hither from the Chatelet of Paris,
in the year of our Lord 1458, in which prison he has been detained since the
twenty-sixth day of June on a charge that he and his accomplices did burglari-
ously break and enter the College and the sacrisliy of the College of Navarre,

ff The College de Navarre was Armagnac and loyalist, whereas the rest of University
was Burgundian and pro-English. It had been pillaged in 1418, and its fine library
wrecked.

* University of Paris. Arch, nat., M 180, no. 9 (Fonds du College de Navarre).

'35

of Paris, and take therefrom 500 gold crowns belonging to the said Faculty
[of Theology].

And proceeds:

Die vero Mercurii quintet mensis lulu, dicJus clericus super hoc iuratus,
tacJis per cum sacris etvangeliis, dicere & confiteri veritatem sponte confessus
juit, & recognovit quod verum esJ: quod fuit unus annus circa fesJum
Nativitatis Domini ultimate lapsum, quod quadam die ipse obviavit magisJro
Francisco Villon, Coltno des Cahyeux quern nunquam viderat ut dicit f nisi
semel quod ipsum viderat cum diclo magisJro Francisco, qui ipsum loquen-
tem onaverit de emend o preparatum ad cenandum pro ipsis in taberna ad in-
tersignum Mule ante Sanclum Mathurinum, quod & fecit ipse loquens. Et
simul ibidem cenaverunt & cum ipsis quidam monachus nuncupatus domp-
nus Nicolaus, de partibus Picardie, & quidem nuncupatus Petit lehan, quern
ipse loquens non novit* Et dicit quod, post cenam f prenominati magifler
Franciscus, Colinus des Cahyeux, dompnus Nicolaus ipsum loquentem adiura-
verunt nichil dicere de his que videret & audiret, & quod ipse cum eis iret t
sine aliud tune sibi declarando. Et, hoc facJo, ipsi simul iverunt in dome in
qua morari solebat magifler Robertus de Saint Symon, in qua ipsi omnes unus
posJ alium intraverunt per supra unum parvum murum &, ipsis in eadem
existentibus , prenominati se spoliaverunt in suis gipponibus, & iverunt versus
diftum Collegium Navarre in quo ipsi intraverunt per supra unum magnum
murum respondentem in curte dic~li Collegii cum adiutorio cuiusdam ratelarii
quern ipsi, in dicJa domo in qua se spoliaverunt, ceperant. Ipse vero loquens
non intravit dictum Collegium, sed stetit & rnansit in eadem domo usque ad
eorum regressum.

Et dicit quod quando ipsi dictum Collegium intraverunt erat decima hora
de nocJe vel eocirca & quando redierunt erat quasi duodecima, & ipsi loquenti
dixerunt quod ipsi lucrati fuerunt centum scuta auri & sibi monstraverunt
unum parvum sacum de grossa tela in quo erat aurum, sed nescit quantum,
sibi dicendo quod si ipse aliquid diceret quod ipsi eum occiderent; & ut hoc
secretius teneret sibi dederunt decem scuta auri que ipse loquens cepit &
retinuit. Residuum vero inter se butinaverunt & ipsum loquentem recedere
fecerunt, ipsumque conduxerunt & sibi dixerunt quod erant duo scuta bona
que essent pro prandendo in crastinum. Dixit tamen quos postmodum audivit
quod maiorem summam inter se butinaverunt. Et dicit quod, quadam die
sequenti, ipse prenominatus dixit quod ipsi maiorem summam habuerant
quam sibi declaraverunt; qui responderunt quod ipse verum dicebat, & quod
quilibet eorum habuerat centum scuta.

O the lovely Latin ! A vivid, flexible, easy, dressing-gown-and-
slippers tongue, fit for pedants to gnash their gums over ! Let us see
what the wretched Tabarie, on his own showing a notorious geek

and gull and the butt of the party, had to reveal on this Wednesday
the fifth of July 1458, being firft sworn on the Holy Gospels.

He deposed that on a day immediately before Chriftmas 1456
he met Mafter Franjois Villon in company with Colin des Cayeulx,
whom (i.c. des Cayeulx) he had never seen before but once, in
Mafter Villon's society. He deposed that he was charged by these
two to provide supper for them at the Mule tavern that night, which
he did. He said that there were present at supper Master Villon,
Colin des Cayeulx, himself, a monk of Picardy called Dom Nicolas,
and a person named Petit- Jehan, whom he did not know; that after
supper the said Mailer Francois, Colin des Cayeulx, and Dom
Nicolas took him aside and made him swear to hold his tongue
over what he was about to see and hear, at the same time omitting
to specify what that might be; that all five then issued from the
Mule and came to a house formerly occupied by Mafter Robert de
Saint-Simon, into which they all, one after the other, entered by
climbing a low wall; that the above-mentioned four (excluding
Tabarie) there diverted themselves of their cloaks, climbed a high
wall giving on to the court of the College of Navarre with the
help of a ladder which they found in Master de Saint-Simon's house,
and broke into the College; but that he, the said Tabarie, speaking,
did not accompany them over the wall, but Stayed to guard the
cloaks until they reappeared. He deposed further that when his
companions broke into the College of Navarre the time was about
ten o'clock, and when they returned it was nearly midnight; that
they told him that they had secured a hundred crowns, showing
him a small bag of coarse tuff containing booty, but he did not
know how much; that they warned him that if he breathed a word
they would murder him, and that they then gave him, to keep his
mouth shut, the sum of ten crowns, which he took and retained.
That they divided the remainder between them, firl ordering the
said Tabarie to tep aside; that they then approached him, saying
that there were two good crowns to spend on the morrow's dinner.
He deposed further that afterwards he heard that the sum they had
divided was much larger than they had said, and that the next day
he charged them with it, and that they admitted it, saying that each
of them had received for his share a hundred crowns.

Here the major part of Master Guy Tabarie's evidence ends.
Is anything easier than to summon up from this Statement, yanked
out of Mailer Tabarie by the sweating fear of what lay before him,
a living pi<ture of the scene? The night muSl have been for the
mo& part silent, for the bells (if it was Christmas Eve, as we may
not too violently decide, for lack of any evidence to the contrary)
would not begin clashing for the Midnight Mass of Christmas until
after eleven. Was there snow on the ground ? It is highly possible.
Was the night sky overcaSt, or was there a moon, greeted with oaths
by Mafter Francois, Colin, the dissolute Picard monk Dom Nicolas,
and furtive Petit-Jehan, with his beard and his short cloak and his
clever fingers, itching to be at the work ? They dropped easily over
the low wall into MaSter Robert's garden: he was away, and the
house was empty. The ladder they found so easily had, no doubt,
been placed beforehand in readiness for the getting over the high
wall into the College courtyard, and the outer College door of
oak gave little difficulty unless indeed they forced a window, which
was much easier. Observe that the Staff work was perfect and the
position of the coffer exactly known. There was no fumbling. It
may be assumed that, once inside, the work was apportioned as
follows: Petit-Jehan, the principal expert, to the coffer, assisted by
Colin des Cayeulx, and Villon and Dom Nicolas ported to give the
alarm if need arose; had need arisen there would moSl probably
have been a murder added to the burglary. The sacriSty of course
opened into the College chapel, where there would be a veilleuse,
a hanging lamp, before the altar: from this, no douHt, a shaded
lantern was lighted and placed on the floor by the coffer for the
experts to work by. O admirable medieval locksmiths! Single-
minded craftsmen! It took Petit-Jehan, a notable artificer, and his
assistant nearly two whole hours to get at the money. The coffer,
indeed, was no child's-play. It is described exactly in the report of
the preliminary CMtelet inquiry, and consisted of a Strong outer
shell, quadruple-locked and bound with iron, having inside, securely
fastened and joined, a smaller coffer with three locks, equally iron-
bound. 7 I see the sweat pouring off Petit-Jehan, the ftutnpy, excel-
lent fellow, as he toils, grunting and calling on his Maker in a

* It cost the Faculty, as we shall see later, sixteen deniers Parisis for repairs.

138

hoarse whisper. I see the four &art suddenly as a bell gives tongue
somewhere near, the echoes booming and reverberating under the
arches. I hear the ftifled yelp of relief and exultation as Petit-Jehan
and des Cayeulx finally wrench open the inner coffer-lid, prise up
or smash any interior fastening, and dive deep among the money-
bags. What were the Faculty of Theology about, to leave their gold
unguarded, with never a watchman going his rounds ?

The four thieves, having tried other doors and an aumbry with-
out success, slip out again into the night, clutching their loot, shin
over the high wall into MaSler Robert's garden, snap up their
cloaks from Tabarie and scramble helter-skelter over the low
wall into the safety of the Street. We may continue now with the
inqueft:

Interrogatus ubi dicJas peccunias ceperunt, dicit quod nescit nisi in dicJo
Collegia, sed in quo loco dixit quod nescit, nee etiam scire dicere.

Super hoc interrogates, si seras levaverunt aut cum crochetis aperuerunt,
nee ab eis aliquid audivit, nee eis vidit aliquos crochetos, dicit tamen quod ipse
audivit quod diftus des Cahyeus esJ fortis operator crocheiorum, sed dicJtus
Petit lehan, ems socius, eH forcius operator, quamvis, ut dicit, ipse nunquam
scivit quod ipsi aliquod aliud furtum commisserint quam supradicJum.

[Questioned as to where they took the said money, he answers that he
does not know, unless it was in the said College; but he does not know in
what place there, even by hearsay.

Questioned as to whether they removed the locks or opened them with
picklocks, whether he heard anything, or saw any picklocks, he deposes that
he has heard that the said des Cayeulx is a powerful operator of picklocks,
but Petit-Jehan, his companion, more so; although, he says, he has never
known them to commit any burglary other than the aforesaid.]

The miserable Tabarie is quite evidently torn between two
terrors: the terror of the Official's rack and the terror of what awaits
him if his comrades, whom he is giving away, get hold of him. And
here his tormentors switch off suddenly and question him concern-
ing another robbery in which this same band has been concerned,
but of which nothing is known except from this inquiry.

Item, interrogates super jurto per ipsum & suos complices perpetrato in
mona/ierio AugusJiniensium Partsiensium, in camera alicuius religiosorum
eiusdem, dicit quod nichil sdt nee fuit in diclo furto. Ymo dicit quod, tempore

139

di&i furti commissi, ifse prisionarius detentus erat mancipatus in carceribus
noftris, propter hoc quod ipse & Casinus Cholet 8 sese ver her aver ant.

[Item, questioned concerning the burglary committed by him and his ac-
complices in the monastery of the Augustinians at Paris, in the chamber of
a religious of that house, he says that he knows nothing and was not con-
cerned in the said burglary. He says, indeed, that at the time of the said
Burglary he was a prisoner in our dungeons, on account of his quarrel with
Casin Cholet and their thrashing of each other.]

If Tabarie spoke the truth, the burglary at the Auguftinians
muft have taken place (the Official is careless of exat dates) some
little time before the affair of the College of Navarre. The remain-
ing questions of this, the firft day of Tabarie's examination, I will
summarise briefly.

Asked if he ever spoke to a certain Master Pierre Marchant about the
burglary at the College of Navarre, he replied No.

Asked if he had ever told the said Master Pierre that certain moneys
Stolen from Friar Guillaume Coiffier [the AuguUnian, the vidtim in the
minor charge] had got him out of prison, he replied No.

Asked if he had ever heard it said by his companions, or had ever said
himself, that they had tried to break into the church of St. Mathurin but
had been driven away by the barking of dogs, he replied No.

Asked if he had ever said that Master Francois Villon was about to set
out for Angers, to visit a certain churchman who was comfortably well off,
and that the companions were to set out there later in order to rob him, he
replied No.

Asked how long he had known his accomplices, he replied that he had
known Master Francois Villon a long time, but had never before seen the
said Petit-Jehan; and that he knew des Cayeulx only a little through seeing
him with the said Master Villon.

Proffer quod, says the report, fuit remissus in carcerem nos-
trum: following which he was placed once more in our prison;
the officials present being Mafter Guillaume Sohyer, Master Jehan
Rebours, Mailer Denys Commitis, Mailer Francois de Vaccarie,
Mafter Jehan Laurens, Mafter Jehan le Fourbeur, and me, the
notary subscribed.

An important character now arrives on the scene, the Mailer
Pierre Marchant of whom a passing mention has been made. Since

8 Casin Cholet is the expert duck-thief of the two Tettamcnti,

140

this shrewd personage was responsible for the ultimate capture of
Tabarie and the bringing to light of the whole Story of the bur-
glary, we will take his evidence next, leaving Tabarie, very glum
and apprehensive, sitting for the moment in his cell. The evi-
dence of Mafter Pierre Marchant, set down not in Latin but in
French, opens a wide window on the Alsatia of old Paris and its
citizens.

On the eve of the Sunday called (from its Introit) Quasimodo,
or Low Sunday, 1457, there arrived in Paris from the diocese of
Chartres the venerable & discrete personne (I quote from the Of-
ficial's report) messire Pierre Marchant, prestre, prieur cure de
Paraiz*

[The venerable and discreet person Mailer Pierre Marchant, prieft, Prior
and Cure of Paray.]

His age was about forty, his reputation irreproachable. He put
up at the sign of the Three Chandeliers in the Rue de la Huchette,
The Street Still Stands, with the same name: it runs off the Rue St.
Jacques, close to and parallel with the quays. The venerable and
discreet Prior of Paray, 9 having washed off the duSl of his journey,
slept, and duly said his Mass on Sunday morning, issued from the
Three Chandeliers towards noon (or it may have been the following
day he w iU not swear to it) and walked over to the tavern called
the C hay ere, or Pulpit, which stood on the Petit-Font: and here,
having ordered breakfaft, he found himself in casual conversation
with a certain MaSter Guy, whose surname he did not know, and
one calling himself (pretty doubtfully) a prieSt, whose name the
Prior did not catch at all. MaSter Guy seems to have been garrulous
drunk. He began, after salutations, by asking the Prior "What
news?" and immediately, without apparently awaiting for any
reply, continued

a compter de ces adventures & a dire audit deposant qu'il avoit esJe long
temps prisonnier es prisons de monseigneur I'evesque de Paris, & que on luy
avoit impose & mis sus qu'il eHoit crocheteur.

Paray-le-Moniau, near Chartres: not to be confused with the famous shrine of Paray-
le-Monial, near Macon.

141

[ . . .to tell tales of his adventures, and to inform the said witness
[Master Pierre] that he had been a long time held in the prisons of my Lord
the Bishop of Paris, on the charge of being a picker of locks.]

He is in an expansive mood. I see the Prior gravely beginning
his breakfaft, while the idiot Tabarie sprawls over a table near by,
flushed and pot-valiant, seeing in his hearer, no doubt, a simple
bumpkin, and being not averse to displaying himself, the Parisian
Tabarie, a devil of a fellow. And I see the Prior suddenly prick up
his ears at the word crocheteur, picklock.

Et adonc ledit deposant, oyant ce^ que dit eft, saichant que puis nagaires
on avoit desrobe v ou vi c escus d'or en la chambre de frere Guittaurne Coiffier t
rdigieux des Augustins a Paris, a cesJe cause print h interroguer ledit
maiflre Guy sur le fait desditz crochetz & de la maniere d'en ouvrer, pour
sentir s'il porroit aucune chose sgavoir de la larrecin faicte en la chambre
dudit Coiffier. Et a cesJe cause ledit deposant se print a faindre qu'il vouloit
bien eflre de ces complices pour avoir de I 'argent.

[At which the said witness, hearing this and knowing that a little time
before there had been 500 or 600 gold crowns &olen from the chamber of
Friar Guillaume Coiffier, of the Auguslinians of Paris, for this reason began
to interrogate the said Ma&er Guy concerning the said picklocks and their
use, in order to see if he could discover anything touching the burglary in the
chamber of the said Coiffier. And for this reason the said witness set himself
to pretend that he would like to join this band and make some money,]

The venerable and discreet person inSlantly felt within him, it
is clear, alii the glow of the amateur detedive who has Stumbled by
pure chance on a hot clue. Tabarie, gesticulating and reckless, was
completely disarmed by his frankness and simplicity, and at once
patronisingly offered to procure and show Master Pierre one day
soon some good picklocks used by himself and his companions. "A
little time ago" (Tabarie speaking) "he had had some in his pos-
session, but had thrown them into the Seine for fear of their being
found on him." He added that a certain Thibault of his acquain-
tance, a goldsmith by trade, was a fine fashioner of picklocks of
all shapes and sizes, and a good man to know when you had gold
or silver plate to melt down, a friend to the band. All this the
Prior of Paray received with well-simulated envy and admiration,
and departed, promising to meet MaSter Guy next day.

142

The next day the Prior met Mafter Guy and took him to the
famous Pomme de Pin, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where he treated
him handsomely to wine, at the same time repeating his wish to
become a member of the gang. Later the same day, Mafter Guy
being no doubt reeling ripe, but the Prior abstemious and keenly
perceptive, Mafter Guy took his new friend and aspirant to Notre-
Dame, where he showed him, in the Precin<5l, four or five com-
panions lounging there, being lately escaped from the prisons of
the Bishop of Paris; 10 and among them one especially of whom
the Prior made a careful note, so that this companion rises before
our eyes a fulMength sketch:

ung qui efiolt petit homme & ]eune de xxvl ans ou environ> lequel avoit longs
cheveux par derrlere, & luy dls~l que c'efloit le plus soutll de toute la com-
paignie & le plus habllle a crocheter, & que riens ne luy esJolt impossible en
tel cas.

[One who was a small young man, of about twenty-six years old or
thereabouts, with long hair behind; and [Master Guy] told him [the witness]
that this was the most skilful of all the company, and the cleverest at picking
locks, and that nothing was ever impossible to him.]

Mafter Guy approached several of the companions, informing
them of the arrival of his new friend, who so greatly desired to be
of their society. They received the Prior with fair words, bonne
chiere & beau langaige y but Studiously forebore in his presence to
say anything of their plans, pat, present, or future: and so after
a short space Master Guy and the Prior left them and went out
of the Cathedral. They walked together thence very amicably, and
Master Guy was moved to a fresh outburst of confidences. He told
the Prior of several schemes ripe for execution as soon as the com-
panions could safely get clear of the freedom of Notre-Dame; and
particularly he outlined with loving pride a coming burglary at the
house of a certain Master Robert de la Porte, for which Thibault
had all the tools ready, and for which a cousin of Thibaulfs had
promised to lend them monastic disguises. In passing, Mailer Guy
(I assume that more and more wine had filled his skin) mentioned
that he himself had only recently got out of the Bishop's prison,

10 They had taken sandtuary in the Cloi&ers, within the freedom of the Metropolitan: and
no doubt were watching for the favourable moment to get away.

*43

and that some of the money tolen from Friar Guillaume Coiffier
of the Augutinians had been responsible for getting him out.

The Prior at this (I see him doing it) retrained a whoop of
satisfaction* and refilled Mafter Guy's cup. He was, as children say,
getting warm. He began to question Mafter Guy guardedly about
this business of the burglary at the Auguftinian house. Observe that
this amateur police work might at any moment, had Tabarie's
suspicions been aroused, have led the Prior of Paray into an under-
ground den, and thence swiftly, with a cut throat, into the river:
but it was written that Juftice should be served. Tabarie opened out
like an oyter:

Lequel maiHre Guy luy dill que puts nagalres ledit Coiffier avoit esle
desbource de v ou vi c escus & qu'U en avoit eu four sa fart environ viii escus,
lesquelz ledit Thibault luy avoit apportez es prisons de la court de I'evesque
de Paris pour paier le geaulier en disant, oultre, par ledit maiftre Guy, que
c'esJoit peu de chose & que luy & ces compaignons avoient entencion d f en
avoir mieulx.

[The said Master Guy told him [the Prior] that a little time ago the said
CoifBer had been relieved of 500 or 600 crowns and that he [Taharie] had
had for his share about 8 crowns, which the said Thibault had brought into
the court of the prisons of the Bishop of Paris to bribe the gaoler with; at
the same time saying, according to the said Master Guy, that this was nothing,
and that he and his companions could do better than that.]

This was good, but better was to follow immediately.

Et, encore, ledit mailire disJ audit deposant que, puts de tempts en $a, luy
et ces complices avoient esJS au colliege de Navarre a ung coffre ouquel ilz
avoient prins v ou vi escus, & que Vung d'eulx les avoit deslournez & empes-
chez de crocheter unes aulmoires qui eftoient audit lieu de Navarre pres dudit
coffre, lesquelles aulmoires avoient bien plus grant chevance comme iiii ou
v m escus, & disoit ledit maislre Guy que les autres compaignons maudisoient
leur compaignon qui les avoit desJournez de crocheter lesdicJes aulmoires.

[And, continuing, the said Master Guy told the witness that a short time
ago he and his companions had been at the College of Navarre after a chest
there, from which they had taken 500 or 600 crowns, and that one of them
had hindered and prevented the others from picking certain aumbries which
were in that place, which held much greater treasure, to the probable amount
of 4000 or 5000 crowns; and the said Master Guy added that the companions
cursed the one who so prevented them from picking the said aumbries.]

144

Mailer Tabarie, babbling artlessly on, drunk equally with vain-
glory and wine, has by now run his head well into the noose* But
he has by no means finished yet. He rambles on with a story of how
he and his companions had tried to break into the Mathurins'
church in the Rue St. Jacques, but were driven away by the bark-
ing of watchdogs; how, on the morning of the burglary at the
Auguftinians, one of the band had called on Friar Guillaume
Coiffier, their vidlim, and requested the friar to say a Mass for his
intention in St. Mathurin, and how, while the friar was duly saying
his Mass, the other companions had broken into his chamber and
carried off a small coffer containing 500 or 600 crowns, and also some
silver plate. Mafiler Pierre Marchant noted all this, and took his
leave. One day following Tabarie brought with him one of the
companions, aged between twenty-eight and thirty, a little man
called Mafter Jehan, very clever, with a black beard and a short
cloak. It was arranged to meet together at St. Germain-des-Pres
the following Monday, where they would be joined by Thibault
with a selection of picklocks. But the Prior evaded the meeting, and
Tabarie, calling later that day at the Three Chandeliers in the Rue
de la Huchette to inquire, was fobbed off with the explanation that
he had had urgent business elsewhere. The Prior nevertheless carried
Tabarie to dine and extracted from him the information that the
proje&ed burglary at the house of Master Robert de la Porte, for
which this meeting had been called to discuss final ways and means,
was postponed for a little time because certain persons had got wind
of it. There is one more piece of illumination for the Prior, and for
us, and then his evidence is finished.

Qultre, ledit maisJre Guy dill audit deposant que ih avoient ung aultre
complice nomme maisJre Francois Villon, lequel esJoit alle a Anglers en une
abbaye en laquelle il avoit ung sien oncle qui esJoit religieulx en ladite abbaye t
& quil y e&oit ale pour scavoir Feflat d'ung ancien religieulx dudit lieu,
lequel eHoit renomme d'etre riche de v ou vi c escus, & que f luy retoume,
selon ce quit rapporteroit par de fa aux autres compaignons, ilz yroient tous
par dela pour le desbourcer, & que f a quelque matin , ilz auroient tout le sien
nettement.

[Moreover, the said Master Guy told the witness that they had another
accomplice named Master Francois Villon, who had gone to Angers, to an

abbey where he had an uncle, a religious in the said abbey; that he had gone
there to discover the circumstances of an aged monk of the said place, reputed
to possess some 500 or 600 crowns; and that on his return and according to
his report to the companions they would all make their way there to rob this
monk, and that one fine day they would clean him out.]

Et -plus n'en 3cet, The Prior's testimony ends here, abruptly. He
had squeezed Tabarie dry, and now held in his hands enough evi-
dence to hang him and the principals of the band twice over. Early
one morning soon after his lat talk with Tabarie or rather, after
listening patiently to Tabarie's lat monologue the Prior issued
discreetly from the Three Chandeliers and made his way to the
Provoft's house in the Rue de Jouy, bearing with him notes of all
his conversations with that blabber and windbag.

He was too late. The alarm had been given, the birds had flown.
Tabarie, no doubt, awaking sober a morning or two before and
remembering with a Start of apprehension some scraps of the things
he had been pouring so continuously into the sympathetic Stranger's
ear, suddenly sniffed danger. When the Provost's men came search-
ing for him and his friends they had vanished. It was thirteen
months before the police laid hands on Tabarie. The slowness of
the Faculty of Theology in this matter seems rather extraordinary.
The burglary was not discovered for three months; it was by pure
luck that Master Jehan Mautaint, Examiner at the Chatelet, and
Master Jehan du Four, who were in charge of the inquiry then set
up, were furnished on* May 17, 1457, with the names of the thieves
by the Prior of Paray; it was not till June 25 in the next year that
Tabarie was arrested; and as we shall see later, it was apparently
not till some time between February and March 1459 that the
Faculty collaborated with the King's Procurator in pursuing the
inquiry.

We may finish with Tabarie, this thickhead, for the time being*
He was the poire, in modem slang, of the band: the booby and
hanger-on, who did the rough work and got ten crowns for his
night's work where the booty ran into hundreds. We left him
awaiting his second day's examination, with the Prior's evidence
Still 1 to come. Having heard this, and admitted it to be true, broadly
speaking, he proved slightly Stubborn under cross-examination. They

146

therefore applied to him the Question Ordinary. 11 Greatly dis-
liking it, as anybody would, for under the pressure of water the
heart and bowels felt like to burft, Tabarie was in the grip of a
greater fear, and uttered no intelligible word. The ministers of
Ju&ice therefore removed him into another chamber for the applica-
tion of the Question Extraordinary; and having been bound on the
rack, applicato magno tretello, he was further treated, and after a
brief but painful interval broke down and promised to confess the
whole truth. This he did, and was removed once more to his dun-
geon, the officials present being the venerable Makers Eftienne de
Montigny, Robert Tuleu, Doctor in Canon Law, Simon Chappi-
tault, Denys Commitis, Franjois Ferrebouc, and Francois de
Vaccarie.

This is the end, so far as we are concerned, of Mailer Guy
Tabarie, horns veritable (observe the irony), a man of parts, but
bufHe-headed and unable to carry his drink. M. Longnon assumes
that his confessions in this business led him dire<5l from his cell
in the Bishop's prison to the gibbet; but, as will appear later, he was
eventually released (on the civil charge) on a bond by which he
undertook to pay back to the Faculty fifty gold crowns. It is more
than likely that he ended soon or late on the gibbet. Nothing more
is heard of him. As for the Prior, the quite legitimate satisfaction
of that venerable and discreet personage probably lasted till death.

We return to the Chri&mas of 1456. The day after the burglary,
as we gather from Tabarie's examination, there was a dinner to

31 The Question Ordinary, or Question by Water, was applied as part of the routine
procedure of Justice to recalcitrant or to taciturn prisoners. The Stubborn one was bound,
hand and foot, to Staples in such a manner as to Stretch his body as far as possible: a rack
or treStle two feet high was placed under him, supporting his middle. The Questioner,
with his assistant, then proceeded, the one to hold the prisoner's nose and thus compel
him to swallow, the other to place over his mouth a horn funnel. Into this water was
poured, generally four coqutmars or pipkins-full, about nine litres altogether, by degrees,
sometimes through a linen cloth. The patient was then unbound and allowed to recuper-
ate before the treatment was (if adjudged necessary) repeated. See Evelyn's Diary. March

'The Question Extraordinary employed a higher rack. The punishment of the Boot,
the favourite pastime of James i. of England and Scotland, was occasionally substituted.
There is no evidence o the existence at this period of the torture of disembowelling the
hanged alive, which flourished in the spacious days of Great Elizabeth and accounted tor
so many aged prieSts. Coiners at this time were boiled in oil; thieves for a firSt offence
had an ear cut ofi; blasphemers had a lip slit, and if hardened might have their tongues
removed. And so forth.

147

celebrate the affair: a feaft, as one may imagine, of roaring spirits
and congratulation, with lashings of the good wine of Arbois,
scented of raspberries, and Aunis flowing, and the table loaded with
roaft goose and tarts, and the girls in fine feather, and red gold
clinking in the purse, and laughter, and song, and kisses, and
toafts. Whether Villon pursued his journey to Angers immediately
is very doubtful. More likely he gorged himself for a space on the
pleasures of the town, never so richly at his command as now: the
luscious food, savoureux morceaulx et frians, of which his verse is
mindful, over which he so often, in writing it down, smacked his
hungry lips. Flawns, and larded capons, and fowl: golden-crufted
pafties; the roaming partridges and plover which filled with their
fragrance the roHisserie of Mother Machecoue at the sign of the
Golden Lion, by the Chatelet; crackling pork, on which he had
battened so joyously a year before at the barber's at Bourg-la-Reine;
grasses souppes jacoppines, rich with eggs, sugar, and milk,

Saulces, brouetz, et gros poissons,
Tartes, fiaons, osfs fritz et pochez,

'[Sauces, broths, plump fish, tarts, flawns, eggs fried anH
poached.]

cheese-tarts, goyers\ the cream, and frumenty, and rice which he
remembered in gazing on the piled human bones in the Innocents
channel: all washed down with fine wines, Hypocras, spiced with
cinnamon and ginger, and Beaune,

Vinum Belnense super omnia vina recense
j[The wine of Beaune, excelling all others.]'

(so a devout and lettered Pantagruelift saluted this noble vintage a
century before him), and Morillon, pressed from the black grapes
of Auvergne. 12 And for dessert, women, with their red laughing lips
and enigmatic eyes. "Tenez" says the shameless Nephew of Rameau
three hundred years later, "vive la philosophic, vive la sagesse de
Salomon: boire de bon mn, se gorger de mets delicats, se rouler sur
de jolies jemmes, se reposer dans des lits bien mottets! excepte cela,

** Some think Morillon was a black Burgundy,

148

k reHe n'efl que vamte" * In the cravings of one ftrong side of his
nature Villon is own blood-brother to the Nephew, that reduflio
ad absurdum (as somebody or other has well said) of the whole
Sensualist philosophy of the eighteenth century.

There were plenty of sharp noses to sniff gold in the air, and
plenty of joyous companions to drink his health. The girls naturally
got their share of the windfall. Obviously Villon is thinking diredly
of his hundred-odd gold crowns from the College of Navarre when,
years later, he composes the rueful Ballade of Good Counsel to those
of Naughty Life:

Car ou soles porteur de bulks,
Pipeur ou hasardeur de dez,
Tailleur de faulx coings, tu te brusles,
Comme ceulx qui sont eschaudez,
Trai&res parjurs, de foy vuydez;
Soies larron, ravis ou pilles:
Ou en va I'acqueft, que cuidez?
Tout aux tav ernes et aux filks.

At length, awaking one morning, I gather, to the a<ft that his
purse was rapidly bleeding to death, and spurred by some dis-
quieting hint dropped in a tavern, he packed his bundle and pru-
dently got clear of Paris and on the road to Angers. Whether
Tabarie's allegation concerning Villon's designs on the old religious,
his uncle's friend, was true or a bit of gasconade with which to
dazzle the Prior of Paray, is not patent. He had to begin with, at
any rate, a comfortable feeling that when the money of the Faculty
was finally dissipated another source lay at hand when he reached
his journey's end, and would be well worth looking into. For the
time being it was healthier to get out of Paris, where any day now
the police might be on his track: adually we know that it was in
May of this year, 1457, that the fateful meeting of Tabarie with
Mafter Pierre Marchant at the sign of the Pulpit took place, two
months after Jehan Mautaint, Examiner of the Chatelet, assisted by
Jehan du Four, took up the case. Villon was by then well out of

* [Come, three cheers for the philosophy and wisdom of Solomon: to drink
good wine, to gorge yourself on delicate meats; to lie and toy with pretty
women, and to sleep in good soft beds except for this, all is but vanity!]

149

danger. The other companions, once the alarm was given, had
scattered to the four winds. Colin des Cayeulx, as we have seen,
fled to Normandy, and was later captured. The hiding-place of
Dom Nicolas the Picard monk, of Petit-Jehan, and of Tabarie him-
self is not known, nor have the dossiers of the monk and the
expert picklock been discovered, nor any trace of their being caught
and dealt with for their share in the adventure: as they doubtless
were in due course.

We see Villon, therefore, making his way into Anjou in the rain
and cold of early spring, in the sunshine, sniffing the clean air and
(though he had no luSt for the country) observing with a poet's
eye the little white clouds bowling overhead before a shouting April
wind, the primroses and violets in the hedges, the rufHing brooks,
the spreading fields: taking the road by day, putting up at night in
hedge-taverns and barns, or in deserted shepherd's huts on the out-
skirts of villages, and at intervals exchanging the sign of the Coquille
with some dubious slouching figure at a cross-road, who could
inform him if it were safe to enter the town away on the horizon.

It would reasonably appear from a line of the Grant Teflament
to which I have already referred, in which he calls himself

Moy, povre mercer ot de Renes,

that he had taken the precaution of getting himself a pedlar's pack,
partly to avoid awkward questionings on his journey, and partly to
eke out his failing Stock of money: a pack Stuffed with the things
Charles d'Orleans recites in a laughing verse writing-tablets, lute'
brings, glass rosary-beads, pocket-knives, amber signets; and also,
undoubtedly, coloured ribands, laces, tags, lengths of silk and Stuff,
"pins and poking-Sticks of Steel," imitation jewellery, and other
women's gauds, with perhaps a sheaf of manuscript ballads and a
few crudely coloured pictures of popular saints St. Louis the King,
St. Christopher protestor againSt sudden death, St. Laurence patron
of cookshop-keepers, St. Julian patron of innkeepers, St. Victor
protestor againSt epilepsy, St. Eloy protestor againSt throat-com-
plaints; and with these, possibly, some representing the Maid of
Orleans, and St. Denis, and the Four Sons of Aymon, and the LaSt
Judgment, In a Diftz du Merrier I have seen there is set forth, with

a breath of The Winter's Tale, a long lift of the gauds the medieval
mercer sold:

J'ay les mignotes ceinturetes,

J'ay beax ganz a damoyseletes,

J'ay ganz forrez, doubles & sangles,

J'ay de bonnes boucles a cengles,

J'ay chainetes de jer beles,

J'ay bonnes cordes a vieles,

J'ay les guimples ensaj ranees,

J'ay ayguilles encharnelees ,

J'ay escrins a mettre joiax,

J'ai horses de cuir a noiax,

belts, gloves, buckles, chains, needles, jewel-cases, leather purses,
Strings for viols, and a hundred toys. Villon, who was not in the
trade for the trade's sake but for his health's, would have made no
very careful sele&ion, I imagine, but would have taken indifferently
what the mercer supplying him suggested. I am now assuming
boldly that he did for a time carry a travelling pedlar's pack, for it
seems on consideration more and more likely.

I find the theory all the more tenable because the mercerots^
itinerant hawkers and pedlars, were more often than not affiliated
with the Gueux and the Coquillards, spoke a jargon, carried about
the cards for playing glic (which our fathers called Gleek), and
sets of loaded dice, used their profession to cloak more secret and
dubious traffic, and had generally the worft possible reputation.
Vitu alleges that the Gild of the Mercers, one of the six Great Com-
panies of Paris, winked at the doings of the mercerots and very
equably collected dues from them, but I find no support for this.
There was honour in the land.

Why Villon mentions Rennes, otherwise than for the sake of a
rhyme, is not clear, except that it was a headquarters for mercerots,
according to Le Duchat. He may have attached himself to this pro-
vincial branch. Certainly the life, till he grew tired of it, would be
congenial. "Ha, ha! what a fool Honefty is! and Truft, his sworn
brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery . . .
'twas nothing to geld the codpiece of a purse; I would have filed
keys off that hung in chains. ... So that in this time of lethargy
I picked and cut moft of their festival purses, and had not the old

man come in with a whoobub against his daughter and the king's
son and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse
alive in the whole army." This tramping pedlar, with his sharp
eyes, glib tongue, quick fingers, and salted and outrageous Parisian
wit, could have Stood in any village market-square for the picture
of Autolycus. Re-reading The Winter's Tale I see and hear him in
every line of his successor's patter. No doubt the round-eyed inhabi-
tants of Fouilly-lcs-Oics, and Ste. Chouette-en-Bobigny, and Buzan-
jay-le-Fangeux, and St. Nigaud-sur-Marais, and a dozen more vil-
lages (and especially the girls in them) remembered his passing
years afterwards.

As the highroad runs direct from Paris he would find in his
way only two towns, Chartres and Le Mans. Whether he made a
sweep to avoid them, for fear of embarrassing encounters, or
whether he plunged into them by night and went to ground at some
selected tavern or house of entertainment made known to him
through the Coquille, one may pleasantly conjecture. I fancy such
a town-bird would have had his bellyful of the open road long
before the incomparable great shrine of Chartres rose before him,
like a tall ship riding at anchor, from the plain of the Beauce.
Entering the cathedral: city discreetly he would be given a sign by a
brother of the Coquille, and would know where to direil his Steps.
Once there, snug and cosy, with a pot of wine before him and a
girl or two at hand, he could very comfortably get rid of one or
two more pieces from his faSl-thinning supply of crowns. It was
his misfortune, recollect, not to be able to live without women.
Next day, or the next, or a week later, in a mood of weariness, or
disguSt, or apprehension, he would rise and take the road for Anjou
again.

There is no evidence that he ever reached chiming Angers,
with its clustered Sleeples, a University town of which it says in
the ancient abusive jingle,

Angers, basse villc & haults dockers,
Riches putains, povres esch oilers,

[Angers, low town and high Steeples, rich whores and poor
scholars.]

152

though it is permissible to believe that he at leaft paid a call on his
uncle for the purpose of spying out the land for future operations.
I cannot think that the apparition of , a dufty vagabond from Paris,
bearing in his face and figure the traces of recent debauch and in
his glancing eye a sinister promise, awoke any vehement pleasure
in the breaft of his hoSt. Possibly, also, the little hoard of the old
monk his uncle's colleague was too obviously closely guarded to
permit of a flying shot. I think Villon sighed, and after a brief ftay
(but not at the mona&ery) shook off the Angers duft and took the
road again. The year is now a little riper, and the days more pleas-
ant. As he trudges out of the town of Angers and a blackbird pipes
above his head I see him involuntarily brighten, as scraps of poetry
bud and flower in his mind. Perhaps he bursts into a verse of a
bawdy song, frightening the birds and scattering the sheep in the
meadow: for with a face and figure like his the accompanying
voice, sauf voftre grace, muft needs have been as melodious as a
corncrake or an ungreased cart-wheel.

He came at length we can trace him now into Poitou, and
lingered for a time in the village of St. Generoux, near Parthenay,
on the Vendee border, where there were two girls,

tres Belles et gentes,
Demourans a Saint-Generou,
Pres Saint- Julien de Voventes,
Marcke de Bretaigne ou Poictou.
Mais i nc di proprement ou
Ycelles f assent tous les jours,
M'arme! i ne seu mie si foul
Car i vueil celer mes amours.

[Very beautiful and charming, dwelling at St. Generoux, near
St. Julien 3e Voventes by the Marches of Brittany in Poitou. But
I woant rightly zaay whurr they paass their tattne. Gorm me! I'm
not such a vule! I lai'ke to haide my gooingson.]

He liked his two Arcadians, and they liked him, and he muft
have spent some time in their village. They taught him a little of
the dialel of Poitou, which he mimics in the verse above, and also
in introducing it:

Sff i parle ung feu poiftevin,
Yce m'ont deux dames appris.

[If I do speak a liddle urrin, 'tes two purty girls larnt me.]

The character of these ladies seems not to difficult to judge:
gay, I should call them,, laughing, hospitable country creatures,
easy, eupeptic, apple-cheeked, exchanging smacks and repartee with
this queer dark, dry, sharp-tongued scarecrow from Paris, so dif-
ferent from the ruck of country louts. To Villon, who took his fun
where he found it, this interlude was an extremely pleasant one,
and Stored long in his memory. It is a trifle surprising to find Gas-
ton Paris taking this pastoral adventure au serieux and weaving out
of it a little sentimental romance, sweet and idyllic. "Villon avait
fu rencontrer h Saint-Generoux un accueil gracieux qui lui avait
laisse un honncte et flaisant souvenir." Lacroix, going to the other
extreme, reads "Saint-Genou" for "Saint-Generoux," deliberately
evoking a rude popular jet, quoted by Rabelais, which makes a lady
from "St. Genoa" nothing better than a common ftrumpet. 13 I
fancy the girls Villon met were not so loose as all that. Ruftic man-
ners are ever free.

Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella f
Et fugit salices, et se cupit ante videri.

[My Phyllis me with pelted Apples plies,
Then tripping to the Woods the Wanton hies,
And wishes to be seen before she flies.]

(Dryden, Vergil, Bucolic III.)

How long he loitered with Galatea and Delia in the meadows
of Poitou I do not know. 14 The next trace of him, towards the end
of 1457, is discovered leagues away in the country of the Loire.
Here, under a ducal roof, there lived for a brief time the two great-
eft European poets of their age.

33 The joke is "from Brisepaille, near St. Genou"; referring to the ftraw of the lady's
mattress and the knees of her gallants.

14 Not far from St. Generoux (Deux-Sevres) is St. Maixent, where, according to the
legend preserved in the Fourth Book of Pantagruel, Villon retired in his old age and pro-
duced a Passion in the Poitevin language. It may be that he went on there now, before
leaving the country altogether.

154

Enguirlandes de fleurs les printemps passeront,
Puis les etes ardents, puts les automnes graves:
Mais, sans charmer mon ame, Us se succederont.

Abandonne, lie de toutes farts d'entraves,

Sur le rivage mart ou je suis exiU,

Je napercevrai plus, partout, que mes epaves.

Louis LE CARDONNEL, UAttente Mystique.

There mark what ills the Scholar's life assail:
Toil, envy, want, the Patron, and the Jail.
DR SAMUEL JOHNSON, The Vanity of Human Wishes,

HE said good-bye to the filles tres belles et gentes, reluctantly, and
perhaps with relief, and came wandering out o Poitou, through
the vineyards of Touraine, by Chatellerault, probably by little
Chinon clustered under its amber cliff overhanging the sleepy
Vienne, by Tours, lately with spires, along the Loire, the noble
Loire, smooth-sliding among her golden sands and tufted islands,
on the road to Blois.

There met his moody eyes as he wandered none of the palaces
which now evoke such cries of delight and admiration from pil-
grims of the New World as they are whirled swiftly paft in power-
ful machines; for the Renaissance was Still under the horizon, and
of those sonnets in ftone and glass which are now Strung along the
Loire country, Amboise, Blois, and Chenonceau, Chambord, Usse,
Valenf ay, Montresor, Luynes, St. Aignan, Cheverny, little Azay-
le-Rideau on the Indre, the greater number were ftill feudal; but
"the thick piles of Villandry, or Coulombiers, Loches, and Langeais,
and Chaumont were even now, I think, beginning their interior
transition, although it was nearly forty years later that Charles
vin/s army, forming over the Alps and getting their firft glimpse
of the Paradise beyond the snows, returned with wonder in their
eyes. In the pile of Chaumont is U11 mingled the lal of the Middle
Ages and the firt of the new glories breaking on Europe. The ftout
triple mass of Chinon Catle, with its memories of St. Louis and his

mother, and Richard Lion-Heart, and St. Joan, Villon must have
seen, for it commands the valley of the Vienne and the road to
Tours. I should like to think that he loitered in this tiny beautiful
town, and perhaps drank in the Painted Cellar there, where the
Father of Laughter was to drink years afterwards, maints verres
de vin frais. 1

He was now suffering bitterly from what the medieval facetious
called Saint Francis' Distemper, referring to Holy Poverty; but
aggravated, malignant, and amounting to sheer beggary. The lat
of the gold pieces of the Faculty of Theology had doubtless long
since gone spinning down the wind. "And where are they?" asks
Epiftemon, listening to Panurge's Slory of the Turkish Bashaw and
his gift of a braguctte-iuML of seraphs, and diamonds, and moft ex-
cellent rubies. "By Saint John/' returns Panurge, "they are a good
Way hence, if they alwayes keep going. But where is the lat yeare's
Snow? This was the greatest Care that Villon the Parisian Poet
took." The business of finding something mettre sous la dent was
now imperative. He reached Blois at length, and made dire<5lly for
the Caftl'e, a little later to become, with its rich carven woods and
windows, its tall lantern, its splendid court, its massy fireplaces,
wide delicate Staircases, shining floors, its air and light and space and
proportion, the perfect Renaissance type of the House Royal and
the mirror of that superb age. In Villon's time it was still a fortress.
Here, in this year 1457, Charles Duke of Orleans, the King's cousin,
held his retired ftate.

The Duke had returned to Blois on a November day seventeen
years before from his long exile, where the disaster of Agincourt
had sent him at the age of twenty-four, having been taken in that
gallant smash by Richard Waller of Groomsbridge in Kent. Under
our skies he had lived the bel of his manhood, a high prisoner,
and in twenty-five dragging years had written much verse full of
longing and melancholy. A frigid train of personages out of the
Roman de la Rose parades through much of it, a faded tapeftry of
Amours and Venus, with Beaulte their minister, Bonne-Foy their
secretary, Courtoisie, Bel-Accueil, and Plaisance the intendants of

1 "I know, return'd Pantagruel, where Chinon lies, and the Painted Cellar also, having
my self drunk there many a Glass of cool Wine." Bk. v., xxxv.

156

the palace, Bonne-Nouvelle and Loyal-Rapport their messengers;
their subjects Desir, Comfort, Bon-Conseil, Dangier, Trahison,
Desespoir, Deftresse, and Soussy; in their demesne the Ermitage
de Pensee, the Bois de Merencolie, and the Foreft de Tritesse. But
with all these dufty conceits the Valois could mingle lovely, quick,
fresh lyrics, poised and perf eft. I have lingered a moment over one
or two of them elsewhere in this book.

When Villon came to the cattle of Blois the Duke Charles, now
in his sixty-fourth year, grey, long-necked, hard of hearing, but
patient, courteous, and kind, wearing perpetually a long furred
gown of black velvet, held open house for men of letters, in that
magnificent fashion in which great men once behaved, and espe-
cially in Italy and the Duke's mother was a princess of Milan.
Poets of all degrees especially were welcome in his household, and
received a Stipend from their patron; and in his library the scribes
toiled at engrossing anthologies of his and their verse. The preser-
vation of a volume of this kind containing two pieces composed
by Villon has helped to fix the time of his arriving. It was in the
winter of I457- 2 Soon or late after his arrival Villon found a tourney
of the antique kind in progress, perhaps in the thirteenth-century
Salle des Etats; one of those competitions, the sport of lettered men,
in which the academy of assembled poets embroidered from their
fancy a given theme. Charles, whose melancholy had been soothed
by years of repose in the patriot longo foH temfore fines, though
gathering age and the King's enmity weighed permanently on him,
had amused himself by setting the firft line. It was

jfe meurs de soif aupres de la fontaine.
[I die of thirSl by the fountain's edge.]

The shabby Parisian, considering the assembly, felt within him
the awaking of his wits. The Ballade he composed on this theme,
called later Ballade du Concours de Blois, is not one of his third-
bel even, and yet it is Stamped with his unmistakable personality,

2 De Maulde, in his History of Louis xn., fixes the date of this volume at 1456: if
this is so, then Villon took no part in the tourney, but contributed his Ballade on arrival,
and had it accepted by the Duke and bound up with chosen pieces of the previous year.
I can find no support for de Maulde. The volume, the Orleans MS., is Fr. 1104 in the
Bibliotheque nationale.

157

narguant Ic dettin, sharp with his mingled gaiety and despair. The
firft ftanza gives the quality of it.

Je meurs de seuf aupres de la fontaine,
Chault comme feu, et tremble dent a dent;
En mon pals suis en terre loingtaine;
Lez ung brasier frissonne tout ardent;
Nu comme ung ver, vestu en president,
Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir;
Confort reprens en triste desespoir;
Je m'esjouys et nay plaisir aucun;
Puissant je suis sans force et sans povoir,
Bien recueully, deboute de chascun.

[I die of thirst by the fountain's edge; I am hot as fire, and
my teeth are a-chatter; in my own country I am afar off; by a
brazier I shiver, all aflame; naked as a worm, yet clothed richly;
I laugh, in tears, and hope without a hope; I take comfort in harsh
despair, I rejoice, and have no pleasure; I am Strong, without
strength or power; eagerly welcomed, and rebuffed by all.]

See how the laboured conceit is informed by something vital.
The Envoi descends jerkily to a begging appeal.

Prince clement, or vous plaise sc^avoir
Que j'entens moult et nay sens ne sqavoir:
Parcial suis, a toutes loys commun.
Que sais je plus? Quoy? Les gaiges ravoir,
Bien recueully , deboute de chascun.

[My clement Prince, may it please you to know that I under-
hand much, yet have neither sense nor knowledge. I have prefer-
ences, yet am subject to every law. What more can I want? What?
To receive a wage once more; eagerly welcomed, and rebuffed by

all.]

The rhyme is the image of his own life, and, it has been often
observed, contains his life's device:

Je ris en pleurs.

Charles of Orleans welcomed and subsidised this tramping poet
of such different genius from his own, and Villon Stayed on at
Blois for a time: how long it is not possible to say, but at any rate,
I should think, over the period of fea&s and rejoicings which wel-

158

corned the birth, on December 19., of a daughter to Charles of
Orleans and his wife Marie of Cleves, the child Princess Marie,
who was a little later to save Villon's life. One may imagine that
fairly soon afterwards the vagabond in his blood began to Stir.
The ordered, spacious life of the household at Blois, and especially
the cluster of smug poetasters and criticasters there, their petty in-
triguing this is moSt certain, as any one may decide who has ever
mixed, by Heaven, with the children of the Muse their jealousies,
their backbiting, their flattery of their patron, irked this frondeur of
Paris. I see his glittering, contemptuous eye taking them in. MoSt
of all, I think, he would hate the conventions of a ducal house, the
obligatory attention to behaviour and dress and clean linen, the
ceremonial entrances and exits, the ritual of food and drink (in his
own world, recoiled:, you. brought your own food to the tavern
and gobbled it on a sloppy table, amid oaths and brawling), the
necessity for polite conversation, the watchful, disapproving eyes of
seneschals, majordomos, and all the cynical flunkeys of the great.
Beyond this there is undoubted evidence in the Ballade 3e Blois, if
it is examined again with attention, of a coolness between Villon
and his hoSt: the whole Envoi becomes a humble and apologetic
plea for pardon for some offence, and in the line

Que sais je plus? Quoy? Les gaiges r avoir,

there is a cryStal-clear showing that Villon had had his wage
Stopped for some solecism or misdemeanour. Had he broken out
suddenly at table with an oath or a too ripe Story from the Trou
Perrette^ Had he burSl at length into the mincing, exclusive circle
of little literary men and blackened a poetic eye? Had he had
trouble with the seneschals, or created a scandal in the servants'
hall, or attempted gallantry with my Lady's maids? He had of-
fended the Duke, it is obvious, and the Duke had cut off his stipend*
But whether or not Charles relented and gave him more money,
the growing longing for the pothouse and the riffraff became
Stronger, and the regrets for the old unbuttoned freedom for which
a Duke's hospitality, with its obligations, could not make up: and
fairly soon, certainly within the beginning of the year 1458, and
leaving his noble hoSl not heartbroken, he is off again, turning his

159

back on the tall lighted windows of Blois and plugging joyfully
down the long road into the rain and the darkness.

From now the thread of his wandering becomes tangled, and
not even his diredion in Starting from Blois is certain. From the
faint echoes in his verse of these weary years it is nevertheless pos-
sible to construct an approximate plan of this next phase of vaga-
bondage. From Blois, I think, he followed the Loire by easy Stages
to Orleans, where he certainly refted, and had trouble with a girl
The evidence I take from the Grant Teflament, verse cxii.:

Mais qua la petite Macee
D* Orleans, qui ot ma sainture,
U amende soit bien hault taxee:
"Elle efi une mauvaise ordure?

[But in the matter of little Macee of Orleans, who had my belt
[i.e. purse], let her fine be made pretty heavy: she is a dirty trull.]

This points obviously to a row in a brothel. Proftitutes of
Macee's class who were found wearing a belt of any value were fined
under the sumptuary laws, and their belt confiscated. 4 She had
presumably snatched Villon's, to which his purse was attached. The
sequel to the incident remains unknown. It is permissible to believe
that the poet clipped her over the ear in the morning on discovering
his loss, that there was screaming and a fight, and trouble with the
brothel-keeper, and that the poet, unanxious to have explanations
with the Orleans watch, slunk away spitting insults.

He quitted Orleans, and loitering southwards along the wide
bend of the Loire halted at length at the village of Sancerre, where
in the churchyard he came upon an epitaph that tickled his raffish
humour. I see him lounging moodily among the tombs, meditating
the next Step; and then bursting into a hoot of laughter as his eyes
left on the lone of one Michault, whose physical virtues were (or
so Villon seems to suggest, and I should not be surprised) set forth
above his mortal clay. Villon made a note of Michault, and repro-
duced him in the Grant Teflament.

3 L, Thuasne, alone among commentators, claims that this is a stroke at Master Mace
d 'Orleans, lieutenant to the Bailli of Berry.

* In Paris they were also confined to certain quarters, and ordered off the streets at
6 p.m.

160

Michault t

Qui jut nomme le Bon Fouterre.
Priez pour luy, f aides ung sault:
A Saint-Satur gisJ, soubz Sancerre. 5

[Michault, surnamed the Good . Pray for him, with a

leap! He lies at Saint-Satur, under Sancerre.]

Saint-Satur ($anlus Satyrus) is the same place as Sancerre, in
the Cher. The late Michault I doubt, on reconsideration, whether
even the frank and unembarrassed Middle Ages, so entirely free
from prudery, would celebrate his prowess on his tombftone: Vil-
lon probably, inspired by the name of the village, attached the
legend to the tombftone of some other Michault, a less distinguished
forefather of the hamlet, while taking a swig in the village tavern
lightened the poet's gloom, I think, for many a day.

From Sancerre he wandered south-weft a few miles to the cathe-
dral city of Bourges: and here again Fate was to deal him a whack.
A furious verse (cxxx.) of the Grant Tettament makes this clear.

Item, a sire Jehan Per drier,
Riens, n'a Franpoys, son secont frere.
Cilz rnont tousjours voulu aider,
Et de leurs biens faire confrere;
Combien que Francoys, mon compere,
Langues cuisans, flam bans et rouges,
My commandement my priere
Me recommanda fort a Bourges.

[Item, to the sire Jehan Perdrier, nothing; and to his second
brother Francois the same. They have always wanted to help me
and place their goods at my disposal, like good comrades: instead
of which my gossip Francois, setting red and flaming tongues
a-frying without command or prayer, gave me a good recommenda-
tion at Bourges!]

The precise nature of the trouble remains a myStery, and Villon
is extremely guarded over it, veiling his language and aiming it at
only the eyes and ears it is meant for. From the significant recom-
manda it has been deduced that sacrilege or heresy was in the air;

6 The amorous feats of this personage are celebrated in the poem of Rcnart Iff Contrefait
of the fourteenth century.

161

that Villon, either drunk and blaspheming in a tavern or caught
rifling an almsbox or prowling inexplicably in some church, was
brought before the Archbishop of Bourges, Jehan Coeur; that he
discovered his old comfere Francois Perdrier and possibly his
brother Jehan), and hailed Francois confidently, counting on his
assistance; and that the saake Francois turned round and denounced
him. This verse and one following serve in the Grant Teftament
to introduce the raving Ballade invoking thirty-five different kinds
of damnation on envious tongues. It is clear that the mess was, while
it lasted, a fairly serious one: but it would seem (in the absence
of any document concerning it) that Villon was able to satisfy his
questioners after more or less tafte of the Archbishop's prison, and
was allowed to get away from Bourges. This he would do with
the greater alacrity because in May 1458, as the registers of the
Chapter of the Sainte-Chapelle of Bourges reveal, a severe epidemic
was sweeping the city. It is also noteworthy that the Coquillards had
been in the diStrid, and at their favourite occupation I mean the
thieving branch of the Company of Stealing chalices. It is by no
means improbable, therefore, that Villon's trouble was in some way
connected with the Coquille. M. Louis Thuasne quotes the case,
in this year, of a miserable goldsmith of Bourges, who, having
buried three children of the plague and being near Starvation, suc-
cumbed to temptation and received from two companions Strongly
suspeded to be Coquillards a couple of golden chalices, Stolen by
them from St. Jean de Bourges, to melt down. In consideration of
his desperate condition the goldsmith received a letter of remis-
sion. There can be no harm in conjeduring, with M. Thuasne, that
there might have been some connection between this business and
Villon's recommendation and presumable appearance before the
Archbishop.

This escapade seems to have sickened him of the unfriendly
country into which he had wandered. He remembered the Bour-
bonnais, his father's country, and the little village of Montcorbier, 6
and the poverty-stricken mctairie of des Loges. Some ties undoubt-
edly bound him to the Bourbons and their lands. On leaving

e The hamlet of Rue-Neuve now occupies the place of the village of Monteorbier. It has
Still within its bounds a meadow called the Pre Corkier, a relic of the ancient fief.

162

Bourges, therefore, lie turned south, following the Loire once more,
and then the Allier, passing the town of Nevers on his right and
coming at length to Moulins in the Bourbonnais,

Combien quau plus fort de mes maulx,

En cheminant sans croix ni pille,

Dieu, qui les pelerins d'Esmaus

Conforta, ce dit I'Evangille,

Me monstra une bonne ville

Et paurveut du don d'espemnce,

\ Yet at the worst of my trials, and trudging the roads without a
brass farthing in my poke, God, who comforted the pilgrims of
Emmaus, as the Gospel says, showed me a fine town and gave me
the gift of hope.]

entered the town penniless, footsore, and dufty, and, limping into
the great Bourbon house there, found Jean n., Duke of Bourbon,
in residence. To the Duke, his seigneur, whose motto "Esper-
ance" he quotes in this verse, he may have been known; or at leaft
Charles d'Orleans, in whose nature there was nothing but a fine
generosity and courtliness, may have given his raffish and turbulent
guet, on parting, a letter to him. Jean n. was a young man, only
three years older than Villon, and a dabbler in poetry. He was more-
over a friend and a frequent guet of Charles d'Orleans, and would
be in every way disposed to treat Villon kindly. One may presume
that Villon soon found among the servants of the ducal house a
friendly soul who introduced him into the presence. From the
Ballade called La Requeue que Villon bailla a Mgr. de Bourbon
we know that he approached the Duke, borrowed six crowns of
him, and coolly asked for more; which he probably got as well,
for his dunning Ballade is a charming, graceful thing, sparkling
and humble, gay and mock-desperate, from its opening lines:

Le mien Seigneur et Prince redoubte
Fleuron de Lys, royalle geniture f
Franpoys Villon, que Travail a dompte
A coups orbes, par force de bature,
Vous supplie par cefle humble escripture
Que lui faciez quelque gracieux preh . . .

[See page 323 for translation.]
163

(in which, observe, he subtly Strikes the tribal note, as of one call-
ing to his chieftain), down to the skipping postscript to his Envoi,

Allez, lettres, faiftes ung saultl

I have reproduced moSt of this Ballade in another place. It is
moSt evident that it gave pleasure to Jean n., a dilettante, and could
not help giving it: and without doubt it had .its effect

Here is Villon once more under the roof of a great seigneur,
his feudal lord, enjoying high protection but also subject once more
to the irksome discipline of ducal houses which so galled his kibe
at Blois. Did he Stay long after making his second loan of the Duke?
Did he repeat the experiment too often, and weary his hoSt, and
was he eventually shown the door? Or perhaps, as has been sur-
mised, did the proximity of the Sire Girard de Montcorbier, his
hereditary overlord, a frequent gueSt, no doubt, at the Bourbon
house, make him uneasy? To bear a great man's name and have
no blood-right to it, to have a reputation as an all-round blackguard,
and to be brought into contadt with him, to see displeasure and fury
dawning in the severe eyes, cannot be pleasant. I fancy Villon
slipped away from Moulins at the firSt convenient moment, when
there seemed finally to be no more money coming from the Duke,
and resumed the road,

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,

but a free agent nevertheless and at no man's beck.

The next echo of him is very faint, and from a long distance
away, though Still on Bourbon land : the village of Roussillon 7
nearly fifty leagues to the south-eaSt in Dauphiny, below Lyons and
Vienne, on the left bank of the yellow, turbulent Rhone. Villon
came to Roussillon possibly by degrees across country by Roanne,
Striking the Rhone above Lyons; or perhaps he came at it by Cha-
rolles and Macon, going thence up the river. Or (finally) he may
never have reached Roussillon at all, and may simply have Stuck
it Into his sad Ballade pour servir de conclusion for the sake of
the rhyme.

T Roussillon (Isere) . Not to be confused with other Roussillons in France, and above
all with the Pyrenean province of the Roussillon, then held by the King of Aragoa,

164

Car chassis jut commc ung souillon
De ses amours hayneusement,
Tant que, d'icy a Roussillon,
Brosse ny a ne brossillon,
Qui neust, ce dit il sans mentir,
Ung lambeau de son cotillon.

[For he was driven from his love with humiliation, like a
scullion; so that from here to Roussillon there is not a bush or shrub
on which there does not hang some tatter of his shirt: this is no lie.]

"From here to Roussillon" may be merely a vague poetic sweep,
like "from here to Babylon" in another Ballade of his. But one may
equally assume that the lank, dark, enigmatic figure in its Stained
and ragged hose was seen spitting misanthropically into the Rhone
at Roussillon on a fine summer evening. How long he Stayed there,
whether six hours, six days, or six months, where he wandered
from Roussillon and in what direction, what villages and towns
he passed through or avoided in his dreary, lackadaisical mouching,
tattered and homeless and penniless, I cannot tell, nor any one else
either. The next news of him is out of one of his own poems, and
fixes him at a place distant from Roussillon, Straight across country
as the crow limps, to the north-weft, about a hundred leagues: in
English miles, about two hundred and fifty. Of all his five years*
wandering this muSt be the wearieSt Stretch; and the long road, so
loathsome by now to this child of the Town, ends in a dungeon
of Orleans Prison, under the shadow of the gibbet. 8

Let us look back.

He had wandered about half France for four whole years, lying
at night now under a Duke's roof and now in a filthy doss-house,
now under a hedge, now in a wench's chamber, now in prison,
awaiting the morning's questioning, now again in a Duke's house.
His chance companions had been thieves, trulls, poets, drunken
men-at-arms without pay turned off from the English wars, Coquil-
lards, tramping minStrels, quacks, an unfrocked monk or two, gyp-
sies, Students going to the Medicine Schools at Montpellier or the
Law Schools at Orleans, beggars true and false, Strolling mumpers,
siflant six a six, farm labourers, idle fellows, fortune-tellers, dice-

* See Appendix D: The Road to Orleans.

165

coggers, coiners, criminals hiding from juStice, pardoned and peni-
tent criminals tramping to St. James's Tomb at CompoStela, y the
bateleurs traynant marmotes, bear-leaders, dancing-ape trainers, jug-
glers, and miscellaneous showmen and mountebanks of whom he
sarcastically cries pardon in the laSt Ballade but one of the Great
TeStament. He had seen the life of the Road and (what interested
him not at all) the life of the fields, waking in five hundred weary
dawns to damn the birds and their infernal clatter. Pah! Not a word
of it shall ever get into his verse, except in hatred. He had trudged
white with duSt, burned by summer suns, drenched with rain,
chattering and blue in the nip of winter mornings, sludging
through mushy seas of leaves in autumn woods and coppices,
through icy mud, fording Streams, lying idle through endless after-
noons of June, on his back in wheatfields, Staring at the sky; he
had hidden in leafy glades while mounted Archers trotted by,
searching the roads for him, or, if not for him, for some of his
tribe; he had held his frozen hands to the fire in country alehouses,
listening dully to the broad singing country speech, pricking up his
ears suddenly at a name and sidling out of the door to take swiftly
to his heels. He had lain, sullen and bored and heart-sick, in bed in
the purlieus of obscure towns, cursing the Streaming sunlight, deaf
to the prattle or the scolding of his partner of the night. Omne
animal trifle. ... He had exchanged rude jokes with swarthy
farm-girls wielding pitchforks in the hay, and had dismally yawned
away the night in hedge taverns among boozy clowns, Blinking of
Paris and Katherine and the Pomme de Pin. He had whipped out
his knife in a fight more than once, probably, and had more than
once run for his life with an enemy pounding behind, spitting oaths
and swearing to cut his liver out He had slunk into brothels in
dreary provincial towns and unloosed his bitter tongue among the
women, screaming and blowsy there: and had again waked in the
morning with a leaden heart, an aching head, and an overwhelm-
ing disguSt at his fate, his body, his driving passions; feeling in his
soul the apathy and despair which a later Parisian poet was to
express so terribly:

9 Thus working off their sentence. They carried a candle and were bound to recite

prayers for the King.

166

Dans ton ile, 6 Venus, je n'ai trouve debout
Quun gibet symbolique ou pendoit man image.

He liad Stolen on either hand everything he could lay his fingers
on to satisfy his craving belly: roots from the fields, apples in
orchards, Stray rolls from bakers' windows, eggs from hen-rooSts,
and, if lucky, the hens themselves. He had begged in towns and
been prodded off the Street by Archers. He had picked occasional
pockets, snapped up a purse or two in taverns, odd coppers from
the Stockings of prostitutes, taper-scraps out of churches, farthings,
possibly, from the very dishes of blind beggars. And the spring, and
the summer, and the autumn, and the winter had found him mov-
ing on, reStless and dogged and predatory, trudging with head up
or down, whistling, or cursing, or even singing a defiant Stave in his
harsh voice, always knowing himself a hunted man, always dodg-
ing the police, always on the alert for the moment to dash for cover.
He had long fallen, by the circumstances of his fate (as he said
later, blaming Saturn), by his own folly, in frofundum malorum,
as the King's Procurator observed of his friend Regnier de Mon-
tigny: and there was no way out save one. Now he has come to the
end of his road, in this early summer of 1460, and lies shackled in
the prison of Orleans, awaiting death.

What brought him there, why the final sentence and the shadow
of the rope, the common jeSt of his circle over their wine, had
come upon him, there is nothing to show. Only the year, and the
circumstance that he was condemned to die but was released in
time by what in France in the Middle Ages was called a joyeulx
advenement, the providential passage of a royal or semi-royal per-
sonage ceremonially through a countryside, whether after corona-
tion or making a firSt entry into a domain, freeing prisoners and
captives after a cuStom once common to Christendom and even now,
I think, lingering here and there only these two things we know.
The personage whose progress through Orleans delivered Villon
was he Princess Marie d'Orleans, daughter of Charles the Duke,
the child at whose birth in December 1457 Villon had moSt likely
got rolling drunk in the servants' hall at Blois. The Princess, now
nearly three years old, was making her first entry on the seven-
teenth of July 1460 into the capital of her father's duchy; and the

167

prisons were flung open, disgorging their contents half-blinded
into the sunlit Greets, amid the ftrewn flowers, the tapeftries and
flags, the clashing of all the bells of Orleans, the populace crying
"Nocll", the prancing of gaily-caparisoned troops, and the Stately
procession, like a flower-bed for bright colours, of the Princess and
her father, their suite, the town dignitaries, the Bishop and Chap-
ter, the religious communities, the notable burgesses, gay in their

feftal habits.

Villon, peering half-dazed behind the press of the mob, saw the
little Princess go by, and her father, his late hoft and patron:
and full of gratitude (which he never lacked) at his deliverance,
found a lodging and in hafte wrote the long dithyrambic Epiftrc a
Mark d'Orleans, Staffed with quotations from the Psalmift and
Cato and the Fourth Bucolic, crammed with joy and incoherence.
"O blessed birth!" he burfts out, harking back to the December
day in Blois when he drank the new-born Princess's health:

louee Conception!
Envoiee $a jus des cieulx,
Du noble Lis digne Syon,
Don de Jhesus tres precieulx,
MARIE, nom tres gracieulx,
Fans de pitie, source de grace f
La joye, confort de mes yeulx,
Qui noslrc paix batisJ et brasse!

'[O blessed birth, sent hither from the skies I O worthy Scion
of the noble Lily, most precious gift of Jesus, Marie, of the most
gracious name, fount of pity, source of forgiveness, joy and comfort
of my eyes, who dost build and confirm our peace!]

And so continues, half-religiously, praising God and swearing
fealty to the little Princess, celebrating her grace and pity, soaring
into an edtasy of gratitude, glorifying the child in the Vergilian

ftrain.

Nova progenies celo,
Car ceB du poete le dlt,
Jamjam demittitur alto.
Saige Cassandre, belle Echo

^Wrongly adjudged by G. Paris a poem simply celebrating the Princess's birth. In-
ternal evidence for the later event is sufficiently strong.

168

Digne Judith , cafle Lucresse,
Je vous congnois, noble Dido,
A ma seule dame et maiflresse.

[Now (as the Poet has said) "a golden progeny from Heaven
descends." O, wise as Cassandra, lovely as Echo, worthy as Judith,
chaste as Lucretia, I salute thee, noble Dido, as my only Lady and
Mispress!]

It is but middling poetry, but it holds as in a shell all the shout-
ing and colour and exultation of that day of July in Orleans. Bells
and the Te Deum clamour in it, and censers swing, and the Steeples
rock*

Du Psalmifle je prens les dls:

Deledasti me, Domine,

In fadhira tua, si dis:

Noble enfant, de bonne heure ne f

A toute doulceur destine,

Manne du del, celefle don* . . .

'[I take the Psalmist's words: "Thou hast given me delight,
Lord, in thy way." O noble child, born in a happy hour, defined
to all sweetness, manna from Heaven, celestial gift. . . .]

So his eager pen rushes on.

Nom recourvre, joye de peuple t
Confort des bons, de maulx retraifte,
Du doulx seigneur premiere et seule
Fille, de son cler sang extraiffie,
Du dextre coste Clovis traifte,
Glorieuse ymage en tous fais. . .

r [O recovered Name, joy of thy people, comfort of the good,
shielded from evil, first and only daughter of thy sweet Lord,
sprung from his clear blood, and from the right side of Clovis,
glorious image in every feature.]

The salute to Charles of Orleans, doulx seigneur, is ju& and
courteous, and brushed away, I should think, the laft lingering
shred of displeasure againft the ruffian poet held in that gentle
heart. And Villon proceeds, saluting the child a lovely work of
God, endowed with all gifts and all virtues, more precious than a
balas ruby,

Plus que rubis noble ou balais,
169

and ending finally in a prayer at her baby feet, in which he begs
God to preserve her and to allow him to serve her always:

J'espoir de vous servir aincoys,
Certes, se Dieu plaifl, que devie
Voflre povre escolier FRANCO YS.

Of the hundred and thirty-two of this dithyramb there are
eight precious lines which give the reason for his outburst of thank-
fulness:

Cy, devant Dieu, fais congnoissance

Que creature feusse morte,

Ne jeusl vofire doulce naissance

En charite puissant et forte,

Qui ressuscite et reconforte

Ce que Mort avoit prins pour sien;

Voflre presence me conforte:

On doit dire du bien le bien.

[For here, before God, I acknowledge that I was a creature as
good as dead, were it not for Your sweet birth, Your Strong and
compassionate charity, raising up and comforting one whom Death
had already marked his own. Your presence revives me. One should
return praise for good.]

This is as plain as it could be. The poet, lying under his dread-
ful sentence, awaiting the end, already (he says) the property of
Death, is raised to life and comfort again by the Heaven-sent pas-
sage of the Princess Marie. No other interpretation seems possible,
coupling this poem with the hi&orical f a<5l of the entry into Orleans,
with the general release of prisoners, and the date. Whether Villon
caused his panegyric to be conveyed at this time to the little Princess
and her father I do not know. I think some lingering feeling of
decency would keep him away from those Streets in which the
Duke's processions were likely to pass, and in which he might have
met his hot face to face.

He is now, in July 1460, delivered miraculously from the gibbet
and free to go where he will. It is not known where he spent his
time for the next nine or ten months. It seems evident that he hung
about the Orleanais, living from hand to mouth in his now accus-
tomed manner. The countryside was one of the areas operated by

170

the Coquille, and not improbably Villon existed in their company
for some time, thieving here and there and living among the woods.
There is a complete blank in his hiftory for nearly a year; and then,
in the beginning of the summer of 1461, we find him again, ftill in
this neighbourhood.

The MoSt Reverend Father and Lord, Monseigneur Thibault
d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans, had worn the amethyft ring nine
years when there was brought before him, one morning in the early
summer of 1461, a criminal clerk, a bird with a gallows look and a
gashed lip. There is no authentic portrait extant of the Bishop or his
prisoner, yet we may pause here very profitably and presume to
make one of each. For myself, I see the face and figure of Francois
Villon as clearly as if he Stood before me, for he has described him-
self almo& entire in his works. 11 He is of medium height, dark, hag-
gard, dried-up, famished,

Trifle, failly, plus noir que meure,

meagre as a hunted cat, prematurely bald, sharp-featured, pin-
shanked, with a long predatory nose and the loose mouth of the
sensual; his eyes close-set and roving, his upper lip deeply scarred
from the slash of Chermoye's dagger five years before. His academic
gown has long been worn to rags and flung over a hedge. A short
cloak no doubt replaces it, Stained, patched, and faded. His hose
are duSty, particoloured with mud and sun, and in holes, here and
there partially darned by some kind-hearted drab for the price of a
drink; his shoes bulge and flap, and gape to Heaven. At his belt
hangs a shabby purse of leather, full of cobwebs, like Catullus's, and
a knife in its sheath. His air is hangdog, yet dashed with a kind of
jauntiness, Huysmans' vision of him would fit this moment: "Je me
figure, 6 vieux maitre, ton visage exsangue y coiffe d'un galeux
bicoquet; je me figure ton ventre vague, tes longs bras osseux, tes

31 There Is only one ancient drawing of Villon, a conventional one adorning the edition
of 1489 and an early edition of the Repues branches; in one case holding a scroll inscribed
**F. Villon." But since this was a stock figure used also by printers for Martial d'Auvergne
and Vergil, it is unlikely to be a true limning of the Parisian. There is a fake of 1830,
said to be from an edition of Marot, but untraceable: it is by Rulemann, and makes the
haggard poet a fat and jovial fellow,

171

jambes heronnieres enroulees de bas d'un rose louche, etoiles de
dechimres, papelonncs d'ecailles de boue!' * 12

The portrait of Monseigneur Thibault d'Aussigny is more diffi-
cult to reconstruct, though his character may be clearly reviewed,
and in common justice requires so to be. The rancorous and un-
dying hatred vowed him by Villon, and bursting out so frequently
in the Grant Testament, gives a completely false view. Thibault
d'Aussigny was, apart from a notorious avarice and a devouring
passion for lawsuits, rather an admirable personality than other-
wise; admirable, but not lovable. He had been a Canon of Orleans
Cathedral and Archdeacon of the Sologne, and in May 1452 was
raised to the See of Orleans by Nicolas v. Before his enthronement
there had been considerable difficulties, for the other candidate for
the see, Pierre Bureau, a relative of the Grand Master of Artillery,
had the determined backing of Charles vn. In this delicate position,
with heavy odds againft him, Thibault d'Aussigny had behaved,
as is amply shown in the records of his election, in a manner at
once firm, dignified, and based equally on right and good sense,
and after election his modesty and entire correctness of bearing alike
as a subject towards his King and a prieft towards his Pope Stamp
him a man of considerable quality. As a Bishop he proved himself
a Strong administrator, a reformer, a founder, an honeSt diplomat
yet not unskilful, and an exemplary father of the faithful. 13 For
Villon's flaming piture of the purple tyrant and monSter whose
delight was to grind the face of downtrodden poets it is necessary,
therefore, to substitute that of a severe, single-minded prelate, a
juSt man, fixed in purpose and accustomed to pursue a moral 1
obligation to the end, having in his nature no sentimentality, carry-
ing himself in the eye of God and man with an inclement and
profound devotion to duty: a type called in England (and God
alone knows why) the Puritan type. The Bishop's reputation,

*[I see before me, O venerable maSler, your bloodless visage, crowned
with its mangy bicoquet; I see your hollow Stomach, your long bony arms,
your heron-like legs, encased in hose of a dirty pink, Starred with rents,
covered, as with scales, by mud-splashes.]

K Le Drageoir aux Epices.

** Gallia Chriftiana, 1744: qu. Thusnae. F. de Villaret, Memoires de I'QrUanais. Lot-
tain, Rechcrches hiftoriques sur la Ville d'OrUans.

172

avarice apart si iniquitates observavens, Domine, Domine, quit
suflincbit? mut be acknowledged entirely honourable, and he
plainly has other claims to fame than that of having shoved into
prison the greatest poet of his age. He died in September 1473,
having governed the diocese of Orleans well for twenty years, and
was buried in the Franciscan church at Meun-sur-Loire, which he
had founded. He appears to me a portly, imposing figure, clean-
shaven, with a heavy jowl 1 , a compressed firm mouth, and severe
eyes under twin pent-houses of bushy brow, the whole completed
by the episcopal purple. As he enters his Court chamber this sunny
morning and curtly acknowledges the reverences of his officers, a
perceptible chill comes into the atmosphere; and with reason.

The charge againft Francois Villon, clerk, MaSler of Arts, is
not known, but it has been supplied. There was a vague tradition
in the Orleanais, founded on some document now loft, that Villon
was arrefted by the local Archers .for the theft of a votive lamp from
the church at Baccon-sur-Loire, a village close to Meun. 14 The
severity of his punishment, indeed, points to at leaft attempted
sacrilege. It is evident, if we agree to accept this fairly legitimate
assumption, that his fortunes were now at a feverishly low ebb;
for what could be sneaked from a village church save an ornament
of no great value and the poor contents of an almsbox or two? I
perceive the lean figure skulking in the dusk, slipping into the
church of Baccon, slinking apologetically pat Our Lady's altar
(cherishing a vague certitude meanwhile that She in her clemency
will not be too hard on a poor devil driven to extremity), and finally,
after a quick glance round, beginning his operations. He slid out
again, was gathered in by the police, declared himself a clerk, and
was taken to Orleans and brought before Thibault d'Aussigny; and
after a preliminary examination by the Bishop and his official was
conducted to the prison of Meun, which belonged to the See of
Orleans, and thrust into a fosse, one of the lower dungeons, dark,
airless, dripping with water (since it was on or under moat4evel),
rat-ridden, and infefted with toads. Here, chained by the ankles
to a Staple all this Villon chews over again and remembers in
his verse, spitting hatred he was left to his meditations.

** The story is hinted at by Prosper Marchand in his Diftionnaire hi&orique, 1758.

173

It is only equitable to pause for a moment and consider the
position of Thibault d'Aussigny in this matter: of Villon's point
of view, God knows, we have enough and to spare. The Bishop
of Orleans found before him a ruffian clerk of the worft chara<5ler,
whom he had probably had before him on a serious charge not a
year before, whom he knew to have been held in Orleans Prison
under sentence of death and released only by the general amnefty.
If by any chance the Bishop had not seen Villon at Orleans, if his
official had dealt with the case in his absence, then at any rate it
is certain that there lay on the Bishop's table the full dossier con-
cerning Villon's activities at Orleans, and probably much more.
His clear duty, then, was to punish this relapsed clerk with severity.
I have seen it suggested that the Bishop's known devotion to
Saint Francis should have inclined him a little to indulgence towards
a criminal bearing his patron's name: but this reasoning is, I think,
bad psychology. The coincidence, if it affefted the Bishop's judg-
ment at all (which is doubtful), would make him the more de-
termined to cha&ise this backslider memorably. Villon's treatment
at Meun bears out this view.

He had plenty on which to meditate in his dungeon under the
moat, for his position was in general extremely discomfortable. The
Paris police were Still on the lookout for him in the eternal matter
of the College of Navarre, and he could not be certain that the
Orleans authorities were unaware of it. Add to this his present
charge, moft probably of sacrilege, with the affair of Orleans (and
possibly the mysterious trouble at Bourges also) swelling his dossier,
and his black record generally, and it may be judged that his lean
body Stood once more in some peril, if not of the gibbet, at any
rate of prolonged imprisonment. Montpipeau, where Colin des
Cayeulx, now dangling from a Paris gibbet, had presumably par-
taken of his lat frolic, was only two and a half leagues away to
the north of Meun. It seems not possible that Villon can yet have
heard this depressing news, since he was in the Bishop's power
earlier in the summer, and Colin was hanged in September; but
he had undoubtedly heard of Montigny's end by this time from
one or other of the Companions, and it was an untimely thing to
remember. The future was dark indeed, and sitting in his damp

174

Straw, distastefully nibbling at hard bread and sipping from Ms
water-pitcher he who loved rich food so he brooded over his
position from every angle, as the Ballade called the Debate between
the Heart and Body of Villon shows.

His days and nights in the dungeon of Meun were not all
devoted to reflection. Presumably the Bishop was not satisfied with
his prisoner's answers, and desired more information: and so there
came a day when Villon, looking up at the grating of a flung-open
door, was summoned and taken up to where the examiners awaited
him with the apparatus of the Question Ordinary. He says, remem-
bering it ruefully in his lovely, graceful Efiflre en forme de Ballade,
a ses Amys:

Apres fain sec, non fas apres gafteaux,
En ses boyaulx verse eaue a gros bouillon.

[After dry bread, and no cake, he washes down his guts with
lashings of water.]

These "lashings of water" were not his ordinary prison diet,
but water forcibly absorbed through the funnel, which ceremony
was part of the normal judicial procedure when a prisoner was
reluctant to supply information, the equivalent of what is now
called in America and England the Third Degree. Villon suffered
it at Meun, I think, more than once, as I gather from the growls
and snarls of rage with which he remembers the hospitality of his
Lordship of Orleans:

Non obslant malntes peines cues

Lesquelles fay toutes receues

Soubz la mam Thibault d'Aussigny . . , 15

'[Notwithstanding my many miseries, which I have aU received
at the hands of Thibault d'Aussigny.]

And again:

Peu ma d'une petite miche
Et de froide eaue tout ung esJe

'[A summer long he nourished me
Upon cold water and dry bread.]

(Payne)
M See Part III: The Worfc.

(though this may be the prison diet); and again,

Ef s'esle ma dur et cruel
Trap plus que cy nc le raconte;

[And was harsher and crueller to me than I can tell here.]

and again,,

Or eH vray quapres plainz et pleurs

Et angoisseux gemis semens,

[True it is that after so many plaints and tears, and groans of
anguish. . . .]

groans, tears, cries, and griefs on the rack, obviously: whether
the lesser rack of the Question Ordinary or the more painful rack
of the Question Extraordinary. And again, much later in the Grant
Testament,

Dieu mercy et Tacque Thibault,
Qui tant d'eaue jroide ma fait boire,
Mis en has lieu, non fas en hault,
Mengier d'angoisse mainte poire. . . , 16

[Thank God and Tacque Thibault, who made me swallow so
much cold water, who shoved me into a low place, not a high one,
and made me chew so many fruits of pain. . . .]

The poire d'angoisse was in one of its meanings the gag used
during the process of the Question. And finally, a significant and
bitter piece of sarcasm in the next following verse:

Toutesfois, je n'y pense mat
Pour luy, ne pour son lieutenant,
Aussi pour son official,
Qui esJ plaisant et advenant;
Que faire nay du remenant,
Mais du petit maisJre Robert.
Je les ayme, tout d'ung tenant,
Ainsi que fait Dieu le Lombart.

'[Nevertheless, I think no evil of him, nor of his Lieutenant,
nor even for his Official, who is so pleasant and engaging. With the
rest I have nothing to do, save with little Master Robert. Lord I I
love them, all of them, as much as God loves a Lombard!]

18 Tacque Thibauh: the hated creature of a fourteenth-century Duke of Berry. Villon
is insulting the Bishop. Poire d'angoisse: a double jes~L The pears of Angoisse, in the
Dordogne, were celebrated since the twelfth century.

176

The iron hand of the Bishop of Orleans, descending heavily
and smiting this ruffian with the rods of the righteous,, is here
manifest. "Little Mafter Robert/' whom Villon couples with the
Bishop, is the hangman of Orleans, whose horny fils were without
doubt a memory for the shuddering poet.

This cheerless existence dragged on, as Villon shows, tout ung
efle, all the long summer of 1461, and might possibly at laft have
left him drying in the sun, with Rene and Colin his friends, had
not Heaven seen fit that Charles vn., St. Joan's Dauphin, should
pass from this life on July 22, 1461, thirty years after the martyrdom
of the saint who had secured him his throne, and that his successor,
Louis XL, after coronation at Reims and a solemn entry into Paris
on Auguft 31, should make a progress through France down to
Bordeaux, passing through Touraine and the Orleanais and freeing
prisoners (according to the merciful custom) at all the Nations of
his journey. The King made his joyeulse entree into the town of
Orleans on the nineteenth of O<tober, and leaving next day, came
to Meun within a few hours. The anguish and suspense of Villon
in his darkness on hearing (as he would hear) from his gaoler of
the old King's death, then of the new King's progress, the near
proximity of Louis, the thought of freedom almost within his grasp,
muft have been unendurable. It is permissible to believe that Master
Guillaume and his other friends in Paris, who may or may not have
received the Ballade crying to them for help, 17 had certainly re-
ceived by devious means other message from him, describing his
condition and its urgency, and that they had laid his case at once
before powerful influences possibly before Louis himself, praying
his Majesty to make a Nation at Meun. And with success: for this
King, if he was hard, cunning, and ruthless (when fortune favoured
him) towards the rich, was easy for the poor, the intelligent, and
the Bohemian, and had, beyond his skill in kingship, a ta&e for
letters. 18 There is a half-consecrated legend that he observed,
whether on this occasion or not I do not know, that he could not

17 Did he actually write this lovely thing in prison? It was a general regulation that
prisoners could not have pen and ink without special permission "Item, que nul prisonnier
ne fase fairs nc escripre lettres doses ne autres en la geole, se ce n'est par congie" (Ordi-
nances royaulx du Chastellet, 1425). But his gaoler may have been good-natured, or at leat
open to bribts; and Villon certainly had friends.

18 He is the titular author of the Cent Nout^lles nouvelles.

177

afford to hang this fellow, because although his kingdom held a
hundred thousand other rascals of equal rascality it held only one
poet, Francois Villon, so excelling in gentilz diftz & ingenieux
sgavoir. The ftory is no doubt apocryphal; and yet one should not
forget, in considering it, that in that age a Prince and a poet might
have met in a tavern or held talk together in a public Street.

It is unlikely, I think, that Charles d'Orleans could, as some
have suggested, have had any part in helping Villon now: for
Charles was no more in the favour of Louis xi. than in that of his
predecessor. The papers concerning all this matter are presumably
loft for ever, and we shall never know the exad crime for which
Villon was held by the Bishop, nor review those missing links in
his pat which would have been included in the dossier.

Louis xi., wearing his old shabby hat with the row of blessed
leaden images round its greasy brim, fingering a medal of the True
Cross of Saint L6, to which he had a notable devotion, blinking
with his sardonic eyes, signed Villon's remission. The date of the
pardon the second issued to this poet, up to date, a cause d'un
joyeulx advenementi high* Heaven was certainly moving its royal 1
pawns on his behalf is October 20, as is fixed by the date of other
papers signed by Louis at Meun. The King passed on, leaving the
poet, as we perceive from his verse, incoherent with joy and patri-
otism and dancing a grotesque fandango in his ftraw. The letter
of remission was received. Monseigneur Thibault d'Aussigny's
severe mouth drooped in a pout, and his observations to his secre-
tary were brief, dry, and cold: but he was a juft man, and had no
malignity nor pettiness in his nature. He might easily, at the firt
rumour of the forthcoming passage of the King through that
country, have had his captive whisked away to some prison well
out of the Royal path and the showers of clemency watering it.
This had been done before in the hiftory of Europe, and might
easily have been done again: the King might possibly have asked
after the poet, or again, he might have completely forgotten him.
But the Bishop behaved in his own manner, which was that of
a Christian and a bleak, but not malicious, and whole-hearted paftor
of souls. He would willingly, no doubt, have brought his prisoner
to a ftate of wholesome penitence by scourging his wicked flesh a

trifle more, by admonishing him and by purging him with the bread
and water of affliction: as was his duty. But the King had come,
and signed, and gone. Monseigneur relinquished his prey, and
Villon, winking owlishly at the unaccustomed sky, was conduced
to the gates of the episcopal prison, under the glowering mass of
the Tower of Manasses, and booted into freedom.

I that in heill was and gladness
Am trubiit now with great sickness
And feblit with infirmitie:
Timor Mortis conturbat me.

DUNBAR, Lament for the Ma\ars.

BUT though he had succeeded in pulling a long snook at the gallows
once more, and had the King's pardon behind him, Villon could
not at once return openly to the Paris for which his soul craved.
His mind was now big with his greatest work, which bears in its
opening the date of this year 1461,

Escript I' ay Van soixante et ung,
Que le bon roy me delivra
De la dure prison de Mehun,

'[Written by me in the year *6i 3 when the good King "delivered
me from the harsh prison o Meung.]

and he was itching, no doubt, to begin it, but it was prudent to
avoid for a time the Streets of Paris in broad day. He may or may
not have suppressed, in his desperation at Meun, something vital
possibly, even, the affair of the College of Navarre. In any case
his letter of remission was not yet confirmed. He may also have
had more recent reasons for not desiring to attrad the attention
of the Provo&'s men. Though (as we may believe) repentant,
sobered, and wishful to make a fresh Start, he can have had no
immediate lull for further arre&s and inquiries.

179

Three extrads from the Grant Tettament show that even if,
entering one of the southern gates of Paris cautiously from the
Orleans road, he paid by night a swift call on Mafter Guillaume
and his mother, he did not linger, but slipped out of the town again
to some safe place which remains unknown. The firft of these
clues is the fad that he did not know that Robert d'Eftouteville,
his protedor, had ceased, at the new King's order, to be Provoft
of Paris on the fir of September, being replaced by the Seigneur
Jacques Villiers de FIsle-Adam. 1 In the Grant Tcflament Villon
assumes that d'Eftouteville is Still in office: ergo, Villon neither
wrote his work in Paris nor ftayed in Paris, if he visited it, long
enough to learn what everybody knew.

The second clue is contained in verse xcii. of the Grant Tefla-

mcnti

Item, quant efl de Merebeuf
Et de Nicolas de Louviers,
Vache ne leur donne ne beuf,
Car uachiers ne sont, ne bouviers,
Mais gens a porter esperviers,
Afe cuidez pas que je me joue,
Et pour prendre perdis, plouviers,
Sans faillir, sur la Machecoue.

\ltem, in the matter of Merebeuf and Nicolas 'de Louviers, I
give them neither cow nor bull, for they are neither cowkeepers
nor cattlemen, but persons skilled in falconry (don't think I am
fooling), permission to bag partridges and plovers, without fail,
at Mother Machecoue*s.]

These two highly fatted burgesses Pierre Merebeuf was a
wealthy draper and Nicolas de Louviers an alderman of Paris to
whom Villon jocularly gives leave to bag partridges and plovers in
the shop of Mother Machecoue, would have been unable to do so
in 1461 : the widow of Arnoul Machecoue, who Still kept a renowned
cookshop, the Golden Lion., near the Chatelet, when Villon left
Paris early in 1457, was now dead, and her rottisserie to let.

The third clue is contained in verse cxvii, where Villon turns
hatefully to speak of his three "orphans."

2 Robert d'E&outeville resumed office in 1465; too late to help Villon any more, it
icons.

180

Item, fay sceu, en ce voyage,
Que mes trois fovres orphelins
Sont creuz et deviennent en aage.

[Item, I have heard, during this journey, that my three poor
orphans are grown up and nearly of age.]

TMs voyage may be his journey back from Meun, or it may,
of course, mean any part of his travels during the four years of exile;
or more likely, a brief and inconspicuous irruption into Paris and
out again some time after his arrival from Meun. The clue is in any
case weak, but worthy of mention. I find a much Stronger one in
verse ciiL: a passing gibe at Robin Turgis of the Pomme de Pin,
Villon's creditor and Standing butt.

Item, viengne Robin Turgis
A moy, je luy paieray son vin;
Combien, s'il treuve mon logis,
Plus fort sera que devin.

This seems daylight-clear. "If Robin Turgis comes to me III
pay him for his wine; but if he finds out my lodging he'll be
something cleverer than a wizard." Ergo y the poet is in hiding, and
in a haunt where no client of the Pomme de Pin is likely to dis-
cover him and betray him to the foaming landlord. Ergo, he is
outside Paris altogether, somewhere in the suburbs, and laughing
up his sleeve. It is here, in retreat, then, that the greater part of the
Grant Teflament is compiled.

Mot probably this hiding-place was one of his old haunts of
1456 in the quiet neighbourhood between Sceaux and Paris, the
country where he had so richly fooled the barber of Bourg-la-Reine.
He was wiser now, and melancholy, and more philosophical, and
prematurely ageing, and haggard with miseries and vice, yet
possessing at this time, as Longnon justly observes, "quatre senti-
ments dont sans doutc le Juge Eternd lui aura tenu comfte: la foi
religieuse, le patriotisme, I'amour filial, et la reconnaissance" His
faith he pours out in the Ballade to Our Lady and elsewhere; his
patriotism shines in his salute, as with a sword, to St. Joan, la bonne
Lorraine, in the Ballade of Dead Ladies, and in the minor but I'ufty
Ballade roaring for judgment on the enemies of France; his filial
love appears in his tender thought for his aged mother, expressed

181

before he writes his Ballade for her to the Mother of God; and
his gratitude to Master Guillaume de Villon, "my more than
father," and to the King for rescuing him at Meun, appears very
early in the Testament.

These four things muft be placed to his credit or, as we
should say to-day, to his debit. He is now to be regarded, in
BoswelTs phrase, as tugging at his oar for some little time in this
secret place, secure from surprises and alarms. It is hardly possible
that he composed the whole of the Grant Testament at once and
in this place. Much of it muft have been singing in his mind for
years, as he wandered and loafed away his exile. Probably he had
some of the Ballades finished already, and it was necessary only to
polish them and decide their place in the plan of the Testament.
As 1 have shown in another place, the arrangement of the Grant
Teftament betrays no haphazard planning. Such a piece of high
song as the Dead Ladies may have been meditated and re-meditated,
and set down on paper, and again meditated and completed after
the firSt lovely gush of his inspiration; and often, I imagine, he
would at this period dismay his chance companion of the suburban
tavern by suddenly falling into a fit of abstraction, seizing his
tablets, scribbling on them, on the corner of a sloppy wooden table
(or elsewhere, beside a trull's untidy bed-head in the small hours,
to the accompaniment of shrill curses), a memorandum for the
next day.

He is therefore Readily at work on what he mut know to be
a masterpiece: but his mind is perturbed and hag-ridden for the
mot part, and apprehension hangs over him. Of the bubbles of this
unease which rise here and there in the Testament one of the
more obvious is the Rondeau (or more Stridiy Chanson, or Ber-
geronnette) which chimes the sad deepening note announcing the
end:

Au retour de dure prison,
Ou j'ai Iaissi6 presque la vie,
Se Fortune a sur moy envie,
Jugiez s'elle fait mesprison!
II me semble que, par raison,
"Elle deuft bien eflre assouvie
Au retour.

182

Cecy plain eft de desraison
Qui vueille que du tout devie,
Plaise a Dieu que I'ame ravie
En soit, lassus, en sa maison,
Au re tour I

[If Fortune, on my return from the harsh prison where I almost
left behind my life, has still designs on me, judge whether she be
not vindicative! It would reasonably seem to me that she should
have had her fill of me, on my return.

Altogether unjust it is that she should require my destruction:
please God, my soul at least, released from this flesh, may find
rest above ... on its return.]

His anxiety is plain in this bitter, weary complaint againft
persecuting Fortune. So, too, his bequeft to Guillaume de Villon
refers directly to present fears.

Item, et a man plus que fere
Maiflre Guillaume de Villon,
Qui me fie a plus doulx que mere
A enfant leve de maillon:
Degete m'a de maint bouillon,
Et de cestuy pas ne s'esjoye,
Si luy requier a genouillon
Quil m'en laisse toute sa joye,

[[Item, to Guillaume de Villon,
My more than father, who indeed
To me more tenderness hath shown
Than mothers to the babes they feed,
Who me from many a scrape hath freed
And now of me hath scant Hesse
I do entreat him, bended-kneed,
He leave me to my present &ress.]

(Payne.)

Ceftuy is his present overhanging trouble, the non-confirmation
of his letter of remission from Meun, his being forced ftill to hide;
and I read into it also a certain quite natural despondency on the
part of the chaplain of St. Benoit, whom his criminal ward begs
desperately on his knees, since this present trouble after so many
others can give the kind man less than joy, to leave him to his fate.

In this Slate of disquietude and dejeftion, relieved no doubt by
careless and roaring moods, for he was moody, Villon composed at
any rate a great part of the Grant Teflament, which had been sim-
mering in his brain for so many years. How long his work took
him, how soon he was able to leave his hole and enter Paris openly
again, is not known, but it muSt have been In the early part of
1462. It is not too much to assume that Guillaume de Villon, coming
out of his abstraction with a long sigh, had set himself very soon
to get the letter of remission confirmed, and either with or with-
out his friends' support had issued once more from the Red Door
and (sighing deeply again) resolutely bearded the powers and
wrung from them the needful signatures. The application, by
whomsoever made, was successful, and the letter enterine by the
competent authority. Before the summer of 1462 Franjois Villon
had once more taken up his quarters in Master Guillaume's house,
the Red Door in St. Bennet's cloiSter. Be sure that MaSter Guillaume
welcomed him back with all his old kindness, and summoned his
mother to dinner, and opened a precious bottle of Beaune, and had
a fatted goose Stuffed and roaSled, and later that night saw the
repentant sinner mount the Stairs to his old room with a huge
sigh of relief. I see MaSter Jehan FlaStrier the barber-surgeon
shrugging and turning up his eyes to Heaven on his next visit,
when the news was told him. He thought MaSter Guillaume an old
fool, and already in his dotage.

The next few months pass in comparative placidity. There are
many worse things, after one has endured so many years of foot-
slogging, hunger, prison, and Stripes, than a roof, a warm bed, and
the certainty of a dinner. Moreover, one returns exhausted and more
wary, and less inclined to seek out trouble. Therefore, I think, for
some time Villon's old room in the Porte Rouge was regularly
occupied, and the chaplain, beaming with pleasure, was able to
assure his friends that Francois had made up his mind to begin a
fresh life. . . . I see the dark emaciated figure, hard-bitten, enig-
matic, ill and worn with privations and debaucheries, sitting silent
by the fire, brooding for hours on end.

His literary work in this year, 1462, consisted, highly probably,

184

in the final' arrangement and polishing of the Grant Teflament;
and also, almoft certainly, in the composing of the seven Ballades
of the Jargon. It is permissible to assume this lal because Colin des
Cayeulx, whose end is so genially touched in the firft verse of
the second Ballade, was (as we have seen) hanged in 1461. It is
hence equally permissible to assume that the penitent, within a
few weeks, had begun to feel his nature and the old life tugging
at him once more, and had unostentatiously renewed acquaintance
with some of his old comrades of the Coquille. Guillaume de Villon,
seeing the nightly candle burning in the wanderer's chamber, little
guessed what kind of work was being turned out there, with such

I use the word gut. It is evident in every graceless line of the
Ballades of the Jargon, though they are for the great part obscure
as if they were written in Etruscan or the language of the Cocqci-
grues. The words whose meaning has since been painfully de-
ciphered give their keynote: truculent gaiety, the chuckling of thugs
and assassins toasting the gallows where they will presently hang.
The swing of these Ballades is irresistible, and the vigour of the
Jargon superb. I have elsewhere transcribed the whole of the Third. 2
Here is the opening verse of the FirSL

A Parouart, la grant Mathe Gaudle,
Ou accollez sont duppes & noirtiz,
Et par angelz suivans la paillardie,

Sont graffiz & prins cinq ou six.
La sont beffleurs, au plus hault bout assiz
Pour le hevaige, & bien hault mis au vent.
Eschequez moy toft ces coffres massiz,
Car vendengeurs des ances circoncis

S'en brouent du tout a neant.
Eschec, eschec, pour le fardis!

Parouart is Paris. The grant Mathe Gaudie is either Paris or the
gibbet. Angelz are Archers of the Watch. Eschequez and eschec
have affinity with "check" in the game of chess "Look out!"
Fardis is the rope by which dufpes (fools, dupes) are accolkz, or
hanged by the neck.

3 For this, and a general survey of the Jargon, see p. 368: A Ballade from the Jargon.

185

The Ballade continues:

Brouez moy sur gours pas sans,

Advisez moy bien tosJ le blanc,
Et pietonnez au large sus les champs.
Quau manage ne soiez sur le bane

Plus quun sac n'esJ de piastre blanc;

Si gruppez esJes des carieux,

Rebignez to/I ces enterveux

Et leur montrez des trots le bris

Quendavez ne soiez deux a deux.

Esckec, eschec r pour le fardisl

Plantez aux hurmes voz picons,
De paour des bisans si tres durs f
Et aussi s'esJre sur les joncz
Enmahez en coffres en gros murs
Escharicez, ne soiez point durs,
Que le Grant Can ne vous face essorez t
Songears ne soiez pour dorer,
Et babignez tousjours aux ys
Des sires, pour les desbouser.
Eschec, eschec, four le fardisl

ENVOY

Prince Froart, dit des Arques Petis f
L'un des sires si ne soit endormis,
Levez au bee, que ne soiez greffiz,

Et que voz empz nen ayent du pis,

Eschec, eschec, pour le fardis!

Manage is hanging, a facetious word of the Paris ropemakers
for the rope supplied by them to the ProvoSt The sense of the
ret is more or less plain. Prince Froart, Prince of Sharpers. Arques
fetis> the little dice. Levcz au bee, "Look, pipe, cat your optics
on . . ." Greffiz, seized. Empz, bodies.

The Second Ballade also I have already quoted. There is the
same ruffian laughter in the Fourth, which begins:

Saupicquez frouans des gours arques,
Pour desbouser beaulx sires dieux
Allez ailleurs planter vos marques!
Eenardz, vous efles rouges gueux.

186

Berart s'en va chez les joncheux
Et babigne qu'il a plongis.
Mes freres, soiez embraieux
Et gardez les coffres massis.

Saupicquez are the subde and wideawake. Frouer des gours
arques is to manipulate cogged dice. The lai two lines mean, "Have
a care, my lads, of the yawning clink." In the second stanza the
whittle o warning againft the angdz> the Archers, is heard again,
and more clearly.

Si gruppez esJes desgrappez
De ces angelz si grav elites,
Incontinent manteaulx chappez
Pour I'emboue serez eclipses;
De vos farges serez besifles,
Tout deb out & non pas assis;
Pour ce, gardez vous d'e&re grifies
Dedens ces gros coffres massisl

He has jollied his rhymes, being careless, no doubt, or drunk.
One sees the flying cloaks, and hears hoarse guffaws, oaths,
the pounding of feet, the clink of teel. I will quote one more burl
of this jollity, like a grotesque jig around the gallows: the fir&
verse, with the Envoi, of the Seventh Ballade, which Villon has
Stamped with his acroftic:

Brouez, benardz r eschecquez a la saulve,
Car escornez vous esJes a la roue:
Fourbe, joncheur, chascun de vous se saulve.
Eschec, eschec, coquttle si s'en brouel
Cornette court nul planteur ne s'i joue,
Qui ell en plant en ce coffre joyeulx;
Pour ces raisons il a, ains quil s'escroue,
Jonc verdoiant, havre du marieux.

"Brouez, benardz" "Look out, fools." This, again, is a sar-
donic warning against the officers of Justice, la Roue: a possible
conne<5lion with the wheel of the Place de Greve. The Envoi goes
off into a yell:

Vive Davidl saint archequin la babouel
lehan mon amy, qui les -fueilles desnoue.

187

Le vendengeur, beffleur comme une choue,
LOing de son flam, de ses floz curieulx,
Noe beaucop, dont il re$oit fressoue,
Jonc verdoiant, havre du marieuxl

David, or King David, is a picklock, a thieves' jeft for daviet
or darner^ the ordinary word o the period for that indispensable
tooL Saint archequin, according to Lucien Schone, is a continuation
of the joke, meaning "he who dances before the Ark" archc, a
cheft or coffer. Fueilles are coin, and desnouer is to bag them. A
vendengeur is a cut-purse. Beffleur comme une choue is "as secret
(or tricky) as a barn-owl." Marieux is the hangman. Fonc verdoiant
is not explained in the Lexicons of the Jargon I have con-
sulted; but it seems possible that it is the gibbet, the "verdant
pole.*' Compare our fathers' name for Tyburn Tree Deadly
Nevergreen.

In such gambollings did Villon encourage his patch-eyed Muse
in this year 1462, beguiling the tedium of a life outwardly, and
during the daytime, respectable. Whether he did anything else with
his day is problematical. Doubtless he found it difficult to get pupils
again, if he ever had any before, since he was the ideal tutor ("C.
of E. ... ? Games?" one can imagine the tete, as the French
say, of a modern scholastic agent faced suddenly with this appari-
tion) neither in appearance nor in reputation. Well, indeed, might
he cry with Friar John of the Funnels when Gargantua offered him
the Abbey of Bourgeuil: ''Comment pourrois-je gouverner autruy,
qui moy-mesme gouverner ne sgaurois?"

There was one other source of honet employment open to him.
I have mentioned it before. He could become a copyist to one of
the gild of scriveners, whose escriftoires were numerous in Paris,
and especially in his own quarter, or he might work for their
humbler brethren the public letter-writers. 3 The Rue des Parchemi-
niers, which till runs along the side of St. Severin, that Gothic
jewel, between the Rue St. Jacques and the Rue de la Harpe, was
full of the open windows of the scriveners, behind which their
clerks and copyists could be seen at work. They shared the Street

3 They had booths in the Innocents cemetery. "Here divers Clarks get their iivelyhood
by inditing letters for poor mayds." (Evelyn's Diary, 1644).

188

with the parchment-merchants and binders. Across the Pont Notre-
Dame, in the shadow of St. Jacques-la-Boucherie, of which the
splendid south tower only remains to-day, there was another Street
devoted to the preparing, writing, engrossing, and illuminating of
manuscripts the Rue des Ecrivains, swept away a hundred years
ago. Villon, who in the Petit Teftament bequeaths to Mafter Robert
Vallee, clerk of the Parl'ement, the proceeds of the sale of his shirt
of mail

A acheter a ce poupart

Une feneflre empres Saint- Jacques,

[To buy this poor fish a window near St. Jacques.]

evidently had employment at odd times in the Rue des Ecrivains,
for both Te&aments are thickly sprinkled with allusions to writ-
ing and the law, to notaries and Procurators, clerks of the Treasury,
and clerks of the Officially. As for the Rue des Parcheminiers, 4
he was presently doomed to fall into vile trouble by supping
there.

His manner of life at this period, therefore, may be taken to
oscillate irresolutely between the cloifter of St. Benoit, where he
Hill kept his room, and his old haunts, which he frequented now
more cynically and more gloomily than before he was a tired man,
recollect: at the same time (I imagine) keeping a cautious eye on
the door and dexterously flitting away when a brawl arose and the
women began screaming for the Watch. He mingled with the
comrades of the Coquille now as a non-a<5tive member, and doubt-
less was respected by them as their official poet. Husky laughter
and approval from half a dozen ugly mouths gratified him when,
warmed with wine, he recited a new Ballade in the Jargon. Gnarled
hands worn with every kind of professional job clapped him on the
back and refilled his cup. Hairy visages, with a black patch over
one eye and old scars zigzagging across the cheek, loomed out of
the shadows and split across in hideous smiles. Even those Brethren,
the Plain Men, who would have spat with disguft at the Ballade
of the Dead Ladies ("I know what I like") could beat time with
their knife-hafts on the table to the attradive rhythm of

4 Now, for some reason, the Rue de la Parcherninerie.

l8q

Spelicans,

Qui en tous temps
Avancez dedens le pogois,

Gourde piarde,

Et sur la tarde
Desbousez les povres nyois . , .

In the firft week of November he is lying in the Chatelet on
a small charge of theft. A thick fog hangs around this circumstance,
and nothing can be gleaned of its nature. This minor afHiftion,
nevertheless, is important for its consequences. Villon is in. the
Chatelet, possibly in the chamber called the Troys Lis he had so
joked about in the Little Testament. The unimportant charge
againft him is not fully proved, and he is juft about to be released
when his Fortune Steps in once more and claps her iron fi& on
the poor devil's shoulder. The Faculty of Theology, which has been
licking its wounds for nearly six years, is to get a little vengeance of
him at laL

Let us return and review the situation. The burglary at the
College of Navarre took place on a night between ten and mid-
night, on the threshold of Christmas, 1456. The sacriSty of the
College was broken into by Villon and three companions: Petit
Jehan, the expert picklock; Colin des Cayeulx, now hanged and
rotting, his capable assistant; and the lapsed monk of Picardy called
Dom Nicolas, with Guy Tabarie keeping watch and guarding the
cloaks outside. A treasure-cheft had been forced and five hundred
gold crowns abftrailed, of which Tabarie received ten as hush-
money and the principals the reft, equally divided. In March 1457
the burglary had been discovered. In May the fool Tabarie blabbed
away the whole Story to the Prior of Paray-le-Moniau and the
names of all concerned were given by the Prior to the police, thus
enriching the information at the disposal of the court of inquiry
set up in the previous March under Jehan Mautaint, Examiner at
the Chatelet, and Jehan du Four his colleague. Tabarie, arrested in
June 1458, and put to the Question in July, made a full confession,
Strongly involving his friend Villon. Between February 15 and
March 15, 1459, finally, there is an entry in the Register of the

190

Faculty of Theology recording the payment of a fee of five sols
Parisis for "deux commissions scellees ou Chastelet adressant a tons
juges & sergens royauh afin de prendre les malfaiteurs du larcin jait
dans le coffre de la Faculte . . . a la requeue du procureur du
Roy": which shows that the Faculty was till on the lookout for
Tabarie's accomplices. But there seems to have been no great re-
sult. The dossier of Colin des Cayeulx does not appear to have
contained any sentence relative to the affair of the College de
Navarre, though he was certainly implicated in it on his arrest
He is, at any rate, well out of it by this year 1462, high and dry
and twirling. We can now proceed.

The Faculty of Theology had been put to great trouble and
expense. Their treasure had been Stolen, and they had spent money
in trying to trace it; and in addition it had cot them sixteen good
deniers Parisis to make good the results of Petit Jehan's handiwork,
as appears from an entry in their Register, signed by their Grand
Beadle Maler Laurent Poutrel, prieft and notary:

Item, pro reparando seraturam et davem Facultatis in archa Universi-
tails xvj d.p. 5

[Item, to repairing the lock and key of the Faculty's coffer . . . xvi
deniers Parisis.]

Mark well the grant bedeau Laurent Poutrel. It is he who is
to have the handling of Mailer Francois Villon shortly. He had
already, on the Faculty's behalf, sharing the map with other com-
missaries, made journeys as far afield as Caen, Montlhery, and
Lyons in an endeavour to trace some of the money, in prosecucione
recuperaclonis pecuniarum Facultatis. From the inquiry of Mautaint
and du Four in 1457 it appears that of the five hundred crowns
Stolen three hundred and forty belonged to the Faculty, a hundred
to one of their members, Master Roger de Gaillon, since dead,
and sixty to the Grand Beadle Poutrel It does not seem that the
detedive work of Poutrel and his fellow-commissaries had much
effe<5l beyond increasing the Faculty's expenses; but the Faculty at
any rate held Guy Tabarie firmly in their grasp in July 1458, and
he was made to disgorge. Tabarie's mother, poor woman, went

6 Univ. Archiv. Lat. 5657 C, fol. 35 v.

191

surety for him, and an agreement was drawn up with the Faculty
by which he was to pay back fifty gold crowns in two annual
instalments. This is duly set forth in the Faculty's Register in a
fairdy, angular, beautiful hand, written with a broad quill, on
ftout paper, Still almoft white, in ink which remains black after
four hundred years. The greater part of the Register, which is a
record of Masses said for deceased members and others as well as
a receipt-book for moneys paid and received on behalf of the
Faculty, is written in this hand. The entry concerning Tabarie fol-
lows an entry of a Mass offering, and reads:

Alia recepta extraordinaria:

Item a matre magislri Guidonis Tabary cum qua Facultas fecit compo-
sitionem ad sommam L ta scutorum auri solvendorum duobus terminis pro
a&ione incarceradonis dicJi Tabary, sui filii, alterius depredatorum pecuni-
arum predicJamm Pacultatis. Recepit dominus Poutrelli medietatem dicJe
somme asccndentem ad xxv scuta, de quibus xxv scutis ordinavit dicJa
Facultas quod executores deffuncJi mag. Rogeri de Gaillon et dominus
Poutrelli haberent decem scuta in recompensam suarum pecuniarum per-
ditarum. Et sic dominus Poutrelli facit receptam de xv scutis vallentibus
xv j L x s.p.

[Other Extraordinary Receipts:

Item, received of the mother of Mailer Guy Tabarie, with whom the
Faculty made a composition for the sum of fifty gold crowns to be restored
in two instalments, in consideration of the release of the said Tabarie her
son, another person concerned in the theft of the said Faculty's treasure.
Master Poutrel received half the said sum, amounting to twenty-five crowns,
of which sum the said Faculty ordered ten to be awarded between the execu-
tors of the late Master Roger de Gaillon and Master Poutrel, on account of
their stolen money. And thus Master Poutrel gives a receipt [on the Faculty's
behalf] for fifteen crowns, valued at sixteen livres and ten sols Parisis.]
(MS. Lat. 5657 c, foL 46 v.)

Thus the imbecile Tabarie, having made ten crowns out of
the affair, is forced to pay back fivefold. How his mother was able
to raise this money is not known. The Faculty, observe, was merci-
ful, and did not press the criminal charge, and Tabarie was re-
leased on this bond. There is another receipt in the Regi&er for
money received on Tabarie's account by the Grand Beadle: and
then, after an interval of a score of pages recording Masses and

192

accounts, we come upon our own friend, who appears suddenly in
an entry made by Mailer Poutrel in November 1462, recording a
payment to the criminal greffier at the Chatelet. 6

Item, tradidit diftus Poutrelli grafario criminali Curie Ca&elleti fro
regiflrando opposicionem faflam per Johannem Collet procuratorem Facul-
tatis expedition! magiHri Francisci Villon alterius depredatorum pecuniarum
Facultatis in carceribus difti CaHelleti audoritate juflicie tune detenti pro
certo latrocinio quod tune sibi imponebatur .... xvi d.

[Item, the said Poutrel paid to the criminal greffier of the Court of the
Chatelet for registering the opposition made by Jehan Collet, Procurator of
the Faculty, to the release of Master Frai^ois Villon, another person con-
cerned in the theft of the Faculty's treasure, then lying in the said Chatelet
and detained there by the order of justice on account of a certain theft laid
to his charge . . xvi deniers.j (MS. Lat. 5657 c, fol. 79 v.)

What happened is plain. Master Jehan Collet, Procurator of the
Faculty, having juft relaxed his grip on Tabarie, learned of the
providential presence of one of the mafter-thieves, Franf ois Villon,
in the Chatelet and of his imminent discharge, and at once (I can
hear his grunt of surprise and pleasure) applied to the Court of the
Chatelet for a writ of Ne exeat. The application was, of course,
granted immediately, and Villon, as appears from PoutrePs next
entry, was brought before the Court again, examined whether
with or without the Question is not Stated: without, I conclude
and made a full confession. For the copy of this confession,

... pro dupplo confessionis ]ale per dic~lum magiftrum Franciscum
Villon . . .

the Grand Beadle paid the greffier another eleven sols Parisis, Well
might MagiSter Franciscus feel ("Domine, quid multiplicati sunt
. . . /") that his enemies were round about him, digging a pit for
his bones. Master Laurent Poutrel knew the Faculty's prisoner well,
his record, his haunts, his friends, his relatives, and more especially
his resources. Mafter Poutrel was a Canon of St. Benoit-le-Bien-
tourne and lived round the corner from the Rue St. Jacques, in the

6 He is the Pierre Basenier, notary, to whom Villon facetiously bequeaths, in the Petit
Te&ament, the good will o the Provost, and again, in the Grand Teftament, a basketful
of cloves; this lasl concealing some private gibe.

193

Rue des Noyers, 7 at the sign of the Magdalen: his nephew Henry
Alexandra, like himself a prieft, an ecclesiastical lawyer, and an
official of the Faculty of Theology, was also attached to St. Benoit. 8
The honourable name of his colleague Guillaume de Villon, there-
fore, rang instantly and very pleasantly in the ears of Mafter
Laurent PoutreL Behold, accordingly, the Grand Beadle setting
forth from the Faculty a day or so after Villon's confession and
appearing at the Porte Rouge in the cloister of St. Benoit, requeft-
ing an interview with Master Guillaume. He got his interview, and
a melancholy one for the chaplain it mut have been. The Grand
Beadle, issuing from the Porte Rouge, leaving behind him no
doubt a weary, unhappy old man rolling dazed eyes around him
and appealing mutely to Heaven, was able to return to the Faculty
and announce that he could come to an agreement with certain
sureties in the matter of the prisoner Villon. The Faculty accepted,
and Stated their conditions. The prisoner would undertake to repay
to the Faculty the sum of one hundred and twenty gold crowns
in yearly instalments, forty crowns a year for three years, and on
that undertaking could be released. The penalty for breaking the
agreement was to be immediate re-imprisonment in the ChateleL
The bond was drawn up, and the Grand Beadle noted it in his
register.

Item fro littera condempnacionis passate per di&um Villon de somma
sexviginti scutorum auri quam promisit solvere Facultati et execucioni de-
juntti magiflri Rogeri de Gaillon ac ditto Poutrelli infra tres annos proxime
venturos usque ad quod tempus elargitus efl a diftis carceribus . . v s.p.

[Item, for the letter binding the said Villon in the sum of one hundred
and twenty gold crowns, which he has bound himself to repay to the Faculty,
the executor of the late Master Roger de Gaillon, and the said Poutrel within
the next three years to come from the time of his release from the said
prison . . . v sols Parisis.] (MS. Lat. 5657 c, fol. 79.)

The date is between the third and seventh of November 1462,
when Villon, on signing the bond, was at once released. The bar-
gain was not a severe one, considering the extent of the burglary;

* Now incorporated In the ea&ern portion of the Boulevard St. Germain.

8 They were both buried in St. Benoit, Poutrel in 1470, his nephew in 1496. The stone
covering their bodies, with its inscription Priez Dieu pour I'ame d'eux, exited until the
church was demolished in 1854.

194

and the Faculty, as in Tabarie's case, waived the criminal charge.
It is true that as far as Villon was concerned the Royal letter of
remission at Meun was plenary, covering all anterior criminal
offences, and that technically he could not, therefore, be proceeded
againft criminally in the matter: but it is also probable that the
Faculty could, if they had cared to take the trouble, fairly soon have
discovered a gaping loophole in the very rickety ftatus of their
prisoner. They did not, however; probably, I should imagine, to
spare Mailer Guillaume de Villon more pain; contenting them-
selves with the civil proceedings, which letters of remission did not
cover. 9

The homing of the prodigal this time cannot have been so
cordially celebrated, and the atmosphere mut have been Strained,
until very soon, no doubt, the tears and self-reproaches of Francois
once more melted the old man's resentment. Master Guillaume's
face mut have become, since his interview with the Grand Beadle,
a little grave. To find a hundred and twenty gold crowns, eight
thousand five hundred modern French francs at par, equal nor-
mally to three hundred and forty English pounds, one does not
go and pick them up in the kennel in the Rue St. Jacques. It is
curious to observe that the available Register of the Faculty, which
continues till March 1465, three years afterwards, contains no
evidence of any repayment whatsoever by Villon or his sureties:
one muft therefore assume that the entries pertaining were made
in some other register now loft, 10 for though Villon himself could
not (as we shall soon see) be clapped back into the Chatelet in
the following year for non-payment, the chaplain of St. Benoit was
accountable, and would have been summoned at once before the
courts. But I think there can be no doubt that the Grand Beadle
Poutrel got the money back. Guillaume de Villon was a man of
integrity. It is possible that the Htde vine enclosure in the Clos
Bourgeois at Vaugirard had to go, and with it one, or even two,
of the houses from which the chaplain derived mot of his private

9 Villon's letters of remission of 1456, after the Chermoye affair, contained this clause:
''Item, que le -prince ne donnc jamais drois d'autruy, ne pardonne le cas, si non sattsfac-
don faille a partie dvilement," This may or may not have been repeated in the letter of
Meun, but the principle was axiomatic.

m It must be remembered that this was, by God's mercy, before the age of Efficiency.

income; and for the next few months, I imagine, the days of
abstinence from flesh-meat observed in the Porte Rouge were in
excess of those ordered by the Church. Were there recriminations?
Did the archangelic patience of Master Guillaume break down at
laSt under this heavy trial? Did bitter words pass between him
and the reprobate he loved, and did Francois fling out, cursing, to
return and fall 1 , crying and imploring, at his benefactor's feet? At
any rate the old man's affection very quickly resumed its accustomed
place, and Francois Villon once more took up his old quarters in
the Porte Rouge.

It is the month of November 1462, the firSt or second week.
Before the end of the month he is in trouble again, and one of
the sorest troubles of his turbulent life. It is part of his character
that a little after his repentances he drifted back automatically to
his old companions; for he was weak, and sinful, and in every
way dissimilar from a Quarterly Reviewer; and like Falstaff, leav-
ing the fear of God on the left hand and hiding honour in neces-
sity, was fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch. His resolutions
were good, and he had a conscience, and Struggled intermittently to
obey it.

Laisser les folz! Bien j'y adviseray . . .

But that was the resolution of a year ago, in the prison of Meun.
Deteriora sequor the tag is eternal. His apologies, his reparation,
his prayers, his promises to MaSter Guillaume were Still being
poured out, his eyes were hardly dry, when he met three jovial
folz and spent an evening with them, eating and drinking, and so
was drawn into a Stupid brawl which was to leave him for the
second time (at 1'eaSt) lying under sentence of death, condemned
to be hanged and Strangled, and at the laSt for his luck, what
was left of it, Still held banished from Paris and from history.

196

The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee:

Timor Mortis conturbat me. _

DUNBAR.

OF this, the laft and one of the moft big with disaster of Villon's
known adventures, there is a solid account in a letter of remission
accorded by Louis xi. to one Robin Dogis, dated November 1463. ll
The Rue des Parcheminiers, where the affair began, runs Still,
as I have said, from the Rue St. Jacques to the Rue de la Harpe,
along the south side of St. Severin, and is full of ghosts.
The letter States that Robin Dogis,

esJant en sa maison oh fend pour enseigne le Chariot, situee & assise en
noflre ville de Paris en la rue des Parcheminiers, vint vers lui maiflre
Francois Villon & lui demanda si lui donneroit a souper, lequel suppliant lui
respondit que ouy, & avec eulx tindrent souper Rogier Pichart & Hutin du
MousJier.

[Being in his house at the sign of the Chariot, situate in Our town of
Paris in the Rue des Parcheminiers, there came to him Master Francois
Villon asking i he would give him supper: to which the said petitioner
[Dogis] replied in the affirmative. And with them there came to supper
Roger Pichart and Hutin du Mouilier.]

Of this supper-party three at leaSl were rank bad hats. Robin
Dogis' profession is not known, nor his record. Hutin du Mouftier,
a sergent a verge of the Chatelet some of the Sergeants, observes
GaSlon Paris, were scarcely better than the criminals they arreSted
is believed to have been hanged later. Roger Pichart, the instigator
of the affray of this night, is known to have ended on the gibbet ill
February 1465. The third we know.

They went to supper at the Chariot, Robin's lodgings, and the
wine, it is evident from the subsequent happenings, flowed freely.

Apres lequel souper t environ sept ou huit heures, ledit suppliant & les
autres dessusdits partirent ensemble de ladite maison d'icelluy suppliant pour
aler en la chambre dudit maisJre Francois Villon.

21 Archives of Parliament (X 311 30, fol. 294 r) .

197

[After which supper, towards seven or eight o'clock, the said petitioner
with the others foresaid left the said house together to go to the room of
the said Master Francois Villon.]

The four, flushed and ripe for a row, issue unreadily from the
sign of the Chariot and turn into the Rue St. Jacques on their way
to the cloister of St. Benoit. No doubt Mailer Guillaume de Villon,
much enduring, had long become accustomed to passing gallows
faces on the flairs in his own house and to hearing oaths and
Staves of raucous song and the clink of bottles from the room above.
He mut have loved Francois Villon a great deal. . . . But to-night
there was to be no assembly of jovial companions in Francois' room.

En passant four y aler par la rue St. Jacques de nosJre dite mile de Paris,
ledit Rogier Pichan s'arrefla a la fenesJre de I' escriptoire de maisJre Francois
Ferrebourg, ralllant les dercs d'icelluy maiflre Francois Ferrebourg &
crachant dedans ladite escriptoire f pourquoy incontinent les clercs dudit
maisJre Francois Ferrebourg saillirent d'icelle escriptoire avec la chandelle
allumee, disans par telz mots: "Quels paillars sont ce la?" Auxqueh ledit
Rogier Pichart respondit s'ilz vouloient aceter des flushes, &, en ce disant, les
volut fraper. Pour laquelle cause se meut noyse tant que ledit Hutin du
MousJier jut pris des clercs dudit mais~lre Francois Ferrebourg & mis en
l f 'ostel d'icelluy Ferrebourg, en criant par telz mots ou semblables: "Au
meutre! On me tuel Je suis mort!"

[On the way there, by way of the Rue St. Jacques in Our said town of
Paris, the said Roger Pichart halted by the window of the escriptoire of
Master Francois Ferrebourg, taunting the clerks of the said Master Francois
Ferrebourg and spitting into the window: on account of which the clerks of
the said Master Francois Ferrebourg issued from the said escriptoire with the
lighted candle, saying: "What ruffians are these?" To whom the said Roger
Pichart answered, demanding if they wished to buy any flutes [i.e. if they
wanted a fight]; and with these words tried to Strike them. On account of
which there arose a brawl, in the course of which the said Hutin du Moustier
was captured by the clerks of the said Master Francois Ferrebourg and taken
into the house of the said Ferrebourg, crying "Murder! They are killing me!
I am dead!"]

Master Francois Ferrebourg, or Ferrebouc, is a grave personage
of some importance, a prie&, Bachelor of Arts, Licenciate in Canon
Law, Pontifical Notary, and Writer to the Officiality of the Bishop
of Paris: he was one of the notaries concerned in the f races de

108

rehabilitation of St. Joan in 1458, and one of the examining magis-
trates at Tabarie's trial. The exa6l position of his escriptoire is given
in a rent-roll of the grant rue Saint-Jacques of 1452: he occupied
a house at the sign of the Barillet y or Keg, next door to the Mule
tavern and facing the convent, church, and enclosure of the Order
of the Sacred Trinity, or Mathurins; with whose General, Robert
Gaguin, the humanist and traveller, he was on terms of intimate
friendship. Thus the four companions, having turned to the right
out of the R*ie des Parcheminiers, had crossed the road and pro-
ceeded only a matter of forty or fifty yards when they flopped to
jeer in at the lighted window of Mailer Ferrebourg^s escriptoire.' 12

The scene is illuminated for us as in a camera-obscura. The
black Ibreet, with its high overhanging eaves and gables: the broad
splash of light poured across the cobbles from Master Francois
Ferrebourg's open window, where his clerks sit toiling into the
night over some urgent piece of law-writing: the loud voices, grow-
ing nearer, and caterwauling of four half-tipsy ruffians Stumbling
along the kennel; the thick voice of Roger Pichart as they halt by
the window^ taunting the clerks; the spitting through the window;
the quick uprising of the outraged clerks and the dashing into the
Street; the blows; the scuffling; the oaths; the capture of Hutin du
Mou&ier, who is huUed indoors, bawling murder.

The uproar brought from his inner room, where he sat poring
over a roll of parchments, Master Francois Ferrebourg himself.
Master Ferrebourg was a man of adion, and wafted no time in
asking questions.

Auquel cry saitty incontinent ledit maisJre Francois Ferrebourg hors de
sondit hosJel & bouta si rudement ledit suppliant qu'il le fir ckeoir & terre.

[At which cry there issued incontinent from his aforesaid house Mailer
Francois Ferrebourg, and gave the aforesaid petitioner such a strong shove
that he made him fall to the ground.]

The vigorous shove sent Robin Dogis sprawling. He picked
himself up, whipped out his dagger, aimed a flying tab at Master
Ferrebourg, wounding that personage, and took to his heels, re-

12 He was by his office exempt from the ordinary curfew of Paris, which was rung from
Notre-Dame at eight p.m. for the Right Bank, and from Sorbonne at nine, the hour of
Angelus.

199

joining Roger Pichart by St. Benoit~le-Bientourne. Here lie ad-
dressed Pichart (or so he is reported in his letter of remission)
severely, saying qu'il efloit ung tres rnauvais paillart, and forthwith
retired to his own house, the Chariot in the Rue des Parcheminiers,
to bed. But notwithstanding his virtuous chiding of Pichart, Dogis
was "presently hoicked out of bed by the police and cat into the
Chatelet, en grant dangler de sa personne, and being presumably a
Savoyard, since the letter mentions expressly

en javeur & contemplation de la nouvdle venue & entree en no fire dite
ville de "Paris de noflre tres cher & tres ame pere le due de Savoye, & de la
priere & requeue qui de par luy a ette sur ce jaicT-e, etc.,

[Viewing and contemplating the recent arrival and entry into Our said
Town of Paris of Our mosT: dear and mosl: beloved father, the Duke of Savoy,
and the prayer and request made on his behalf in this matter,] etc.

eventually got a pardon, after nearly a year of prison. Meanwhile
Roger Pichart, whom we left outside St. Benoit, had taken to his
heels again, and dodging skilfully among the turnings weft of the
Rue St. Jacques had reached the Cordeliers' cloisters and church
and claimed san<Suary: and an hour or two later was traced there
and dislodged by a couple of Sergeants, and sent to join his friend
Robin Dogis in the Chatelet. The Friars Minor, whose right of
sanctuary had thus been defied, conspue^ and set at naught, brought
an a<5tion againl the Provot on this account, and judgment was
given in the following year, as appears from an entry in the Crim-
inal RegiSler of the Court of Parliament, dated May 16, 1464.

Entre les gardien & convent des Freres mineurs a Paris demandeurs &
requerant I'immunite de leur eglise esJre reintegree & f en ce jaisant, leur
remenre ung nomine Pichart, a present prisonnier en la Conciergerie, en
ladicJe eglise dont il a elle extraicJ, d'une part. Et le procureur general
opposantj d'autre. Sur le plaidoye desdites parties du vii 6 jour de ce present
moys dit a efle que ladite eglise sera reintegree & reHituee & joyra ledit
Pichart de ladite immunite. Et en ce faisant sera remis en ladite eglise en
I'eslat qu'il eftoit a Veure qu'il pris par le prevoH de

[Between the superior and convent of the Friars Minor of Paris, com-
plainants, demanding the restoration of the immunity of their church, and

MS. Dupuy 250, fol. 65; r. 5908, foL 116.

2OO

at the same time the return of one Pichart (at present held in the Con-
ciergerie) to the church whence he was taken, of the one part; and the
Procurator-General, opposing this, of the other part. The parlies having been
heard on the seventh of this month, it is ordered that the said church shall
be declared immune again, and restitution made, and that the said Pichart
shall partake of the said immunity. And at the same time he shall be re-
placed in the said church, in the condition he was in when he was taken by
the Provost of Paris.]

The Friars, then, successfully asserted their rights and got
Pichart their prisoner back after eighteen months in* the Concier-
gerie, whither he had been removed, with the others, from the
Chatelet; a significant move, and an ominous. Since the said Pichart
was anyhow hanged a year or two later, his reclaimed sandnary
was not so advantageous to him as it might have been.

We have accounted for Dogis and Pichart. The third of the
supper-party, Hutin du MouSlier, was held by Master Ferrebourg's
clerks, handed over to the Watch, and by them clapped into the
Chatelet also. The fourth member of the party was Franf ois Villon.
Now it is noteworthy that the name of Villon is nowhere mentioned
in Robin Dogis* letter of remission after the adtual setting forth
from the sign of the Chariot after supper; hence Villon's part in
the evening's turmoil is clear. He is lal seen halting a little un-
steadily in front of Mailer Ferrebourg's window, as Roger Pichart
lifts up his voice and begins to taunt the clerks and spit among
them: and at the moment when the rather attractive frolic shows
the firl symptom of developing into trouble Mailer Villon, as an
unbiassed spedlator, judges it advisable to slip away, as swiftly
as Gilles and the girl Ysabeau had vanished that June evening under
the clock of St. Benoit so many years ago. Erupit, evasit\ slinking
like a cat by short cuts home to the safety of the Red Door. He had
seen enough of trouble, or so he no doubt told himself: but his
ironic Daemon had arranged otherwise. Mailer Francois Ferrebourg,
having sent Robin Dogis with such a vigorous shove into the kennel,
had caught sight of Villon's ugly face at the moment he turned
tail to fly. Mailer Ferrebourg had a keen eye, and he was not only
a Pontifical Notary, but had also alas! unlucky poet powerful
friends at the Chatelet. He doubtless had known Villon by sight

2OI

and reputation for years. Mafter Ferrebourg therefore, having in-
ftantly recognised this notorious criminal, gave his name to the
police when they came up at the double to colled: Hutin du Mouftier
and to draw up the proces-verbaL Later the same night Villon,
having retired prudently to bed in his chamber, heard the tramp of
Archers coming up the cloi&er of St. Benoit, heard them halt, with
a clatter of arms, outside the Porte Rouge; heard himself sum-
moned; and ruefully descended. He was taken away and thrall
into the Chatelet with the others, and within the twenty-four hours
the charge had been formally drawn up against all four by the
Criminal Lieutenant, Pierre de la Dehors.

Villon's position in this affair demands, in common justice, a
litde sympathy. He had had no share whatsoever in the night's
brawl for if he had, be sure his friend Robin Dogis would not have
loft the chance of shifting a litde of the responsibility on to such cele-
brated shoulders. Villon therefore lay in the Chatelet once more
under a not very grave charge, and nothing serious could be proved
againft him. But he had to reckon with the new Criminal Lieu-
tenant and his master the Provost; no longer, alas! Robert d'E&oute-
ville, but Jacques Villiers de TIsle-Adam, a man of wrath.

Pierre de la Dehors, finding by the grace of God this incor-
rigible gaol-bird once more in the hands of Justice, had decided
to finish with him, charge or no charge. He possessed, as I perceive,
at lea& four excellent reasons for detecting Villon and grinding
his teeth with satisfadion at the thought of holding him: primo>
Villon was a clerk of University, and therefore, automatically and
his record apart, the enemy; secundo, the Criminal Lieutenant was
Ma&er of the Grande Boucherie of Paris, and had probably not
forgotten the affray with the butchers and the theft of hooks during
the Pet-au-Deable celebrations all those years ago; tertio, he held
in the hollow of his hand one of the moft troublesome blackguards
within the liberties of Paris, a rioter, a burglar, an assassin, a robber
of churches, hand-in-glove with some of the moft desperate char-
afters of the underworld; and quarto, the fellow was a poet, God
help us all! To intelligences of the police and miEtary kind the
word "poet" has ever been as the red cloak to the black bull of

202

Andalusia. Poet! Poet, is he? Well, we shall hear him squeak a
pretty song before very long! The Criminal Lieutenant emits a
short, unpleasing laugh, echoed by his satellites, and turns to direct
his labour of love, the assembling of the voluminous dossier of this
poet, letters of remission and all, since the year 1455. This time the
fellow is not going to slip through our fingers, beau sire Dieuxl

The Criminal Lieutenant, with the hearty approval of Messire
de lisle-Adam, opened the proceedings with a little light torture,
as we know from a Ballade I shall presently quote. Ledifi Francois
Villon, sitting pensive in his Straw once more, conjecturing what
was about to befall him this time, was summoned, taken to Ms
dismay into the chamber of the Question, and forced again to the
agonising water-treatment, all the more hideous this time for Ms
Still acute memories of the prison at Meun, But with Ms pain now
was mixed an intolerable sense of the injustice of Ms punishment;
Ms gasps and shrieks were the more bitter, and with Ms sobbing
and half-incoherent appeals there mingled a half-mad fury and
despair. The Criminal Lieutenant at length nodded to Ms assistants.
Villon, half dead with pain, Ms lean scarred body shaking as with
the ague, a drooping wreck, was helped down the Steps again and
thruSt swooning upon Ms Straw. The turn of Ms friends had come.

It is not difficult to share the sequence of thoughts pouring
confusedly into Villon's mind as he awoke, sMvering, from Ms faint
and became capable of reasoning. I see him brooding in the dark-
ness, head on knees, hands tightly clenched, reviewing in a dull
desperation the paSt, the present, the immediate future. What was
all tMs? Did they mean to do for him tMs time? He had observed
in the eyes of Pierre de la Dehors an ominous glitter. They had
captured Mm on a charge wMch would not bear looking into for
one moment. He had had no part in the insulting of MaSter Ferre-
bourg's clerks, or in the row wMch followed, or in the Stabbing
of MaSter Ferrebourg. He had run for it the moment the trouble
began. By God, they couldn't hang a man for that, could theyj*
But he remembers again the expression in the Criminal Lieutenant's
eyes, and of a sudden sMvers violently.

Whether he was given the Question again, whether he felt the
ghasdy linen placed on Ms mouth, the hellish gurgle of the water,

203

the Steady pouring, whether he felt his heart flooded and his belly
about to burst;, every fibre of his agonised body distended and Part-
ing apart, is not clear, Pierre de la Dehors would no doubt have
welcomed additional information wrenched from this fellow, to be
compared with the Statements of his companions. Nevertheless this
was not the main business. He wanted the fellow out of the way
once and for all. 14 And so very soon Master Pierre de la Dehors,
issuing from a conference with the Provot, ordered his secretaries
to prepare at once the documents required for a condemnation,
followed by the extreme sentence. The documents were drawn up.
The accused Villon heard the rasp and grate of his dungeon door
being flung open, and once more the dreaded summons. He Stag-
gers out, sick with preliminary terror, and is taken by two Archers
not to the Question chamber, but up the Stairs to the Court hall,
where he had appeared only a short time before, when the Faculty
of Theology discovered him. The Provost Villiers de lisle-Adam
sits in his chair on the dais, an assessor on either side of him, the
Criminal Lieutenant in attendance. The prisoner Villon, supported
by his two Archers, confronts him. A greffier begins to read over in
a rapid voice, conversationally, a number of papers, of which Villon,
dazed and weak, can only catch the flying ends of sentences. "Veu
que . . . mmm . . . et veu . . . ccstc Court . . . mmm * . .
ledict Villon . . . mauvaise vie . . . mmm . . . en villain cas
. . . mmm * . . Chrm . . . mm . . ." The rigmarole comes to
an end. The Provoft's cold voice is heard, his cold eyes do not reSt
on the prisoner. Then suddenly an Archer is nudging Villon in the
ribs, and it is over. What was it? What did he say? Pend - ?

The Archer jerks a thumb. The Court rises. The ProvoSt passes
out, chatting with an assessor and fingering the jewel at his neck.
The two Archers turn to their prisoner, drooping and bewildered
there, licking his dry lips. Right about turn ! They march him down
to his cell and leave him.

The door has clanged, the footsteps recede along the Stone
corridor* Yes. He has got it this time all right This is the end.

14 It would seem that the Bishop had washed his hands of Villon, as of Regnier de
Montigny and Colin des Cayeulx, and left him to the temporal arm.

204

Saturn has played Mm Ms laSt trick. He is to be hanged by the neck,
fendu et eSlrangU. By God, it has come at last! Well.

He Stares into the darkness, hugging his knees, seeing Death,
as once before, beckoning and grinning before him, feeling in the
thick muSty air of the chamber that creeping graveyard chill, that
faint smell of damp mould he has felt and smelt before once
before twice before. This time it is final. The King is not likely
to die again to oblige him, nor is there any little Princess on the
horizon, about to make a timely entry into Paris, His turn has
arrived. The others have all gone before him, Colin? Colin is a
rattling bag of bones, if he Still swings or perhaps they have pulled
him down by now and bundled him into Ms hole, without prieSt,
without sprinkling, without a prayer for Ms sinful soul. . . . He
closes Ms eyes and sees Colin Still hanging, with the iaSt Strips and
tatters of flesh fluttering on him, like the pictures of Death in the
Innocents gallery. He holds out his thin arm and feels it, curiously,
picturing it in a year's time on Montfaucon. He feels the jerk of
the cart pulling from underneath, hears the thick choke he has
heard more than once on an execution day, sees the convulsions and
the twitching. He counterfeits in the darkness the final grimace,
la moe, out of wMch he made a few good jokes in a Ballade of the
Jargon a year or so ago.

Prince, qul na bauderie
Pour eschever de la soe f
Danger de grup en arderie
Fait aux sires jaire la moe!

Brrr! He will soon know all about the halk-grup himself now.
God! What an end, after all! He gets as little pleasure out of think-
ing of it as ChriSty Mahon out of the forecast of Pegeen Mike.
"It's queer joys they have, and who knows the thing they'd do,
if it'd make the green Stones cry itself to tMnk of you swaying and
swiggling at the butt of a rope, and you with a fine Stout neck, God
bless you! the way you'd be half an hour, in great anguish, getting
your death." And then to dangle there and rot. Rain to wash your
bones, and sun to dry and blacken you, and the birds to peck out
your eyes, and all the toughs of Paris bringing their mopsies out to

205

laugh at you! He hears the dry creak of the rope chafing in the
pulley-block again, and the rattle of Colin as a breeze takes him and
dances him round and round. . . . And Montigny has gone too,
the same way. And the fat traitor Tabarie too, no doubt, dribbling
and blabbing Ms friends' lives away horns veritable! Well for
Tabarie Villon's eyes narrow and a speck of sombre light glows
in themif the amboureux has got him firft. A few nice gentlemen,
all old friends, were waiting round the corner to welcome that
wind-bag when the angdz let him loose. Pah!

And Chri&ophe Turgis? He is dead years ago, screaming in a
bath of hot oil. And the Wolf? God knows. Cholet? God knows.
All his friends are gone. And the girls? Kissing and whispering on
some other fool's knee, the drabs of hell. And Katherine? A spasm
of pain shakes his body. Katherine! If it were not for her cruelty
would he be lying here now, waiting for the birds to stab his eyes
out? He covers his face with his hands, and his soul passes down into
the nether darkness.

So a few days dragged on, and black misery alternated with a
fatalift shrugging. It was his fate. "J'en seray dehors quant je tres-
passeray!" In this mood, with a momentary return of his old swag-
ger, he composed the TetraStic or Quatrain summing up his position

in a cynical jest

Je suis Frangois, dont ce me poise,
Ne de Paris empres Pontoise,
Et d'une corde d'une toise,
Sgaura mon col que mon cul poise.

[Francois am I, woe worth it me!
At Paris born, near Pontoise citie,
Whose neck, in the bight of a rope of three,
Mu& prove how heavy my buttocks be.]

(Payne.)

He recited this, I think, to his gaoler, and it provoked a mutual
snigger. But one evening, with his hunk of hard bread and his
water-pitcher, came the friar to prepare him for death; and his
blackguard doggedness vanished, leaving him humble, a sinner
trembling on the brink of Eternity. It was then, with the returning

206

hold of his religion warming and comforting him, that his thoughts
on his end shaped themselves into that great music which is the
Ballade of the Hanged, beginning with that cry to his fellow-men,
on behalf of himself and his doomed companions:

Freres humains qui apres nous vivez,
N'ayez les cuers contre nous endurcis,
Car, se pitie de nous povres avez,
Dieu en aura plus toll de vous mercis . . .

Then comes the swelling note, like a rising wind, and in his vision
he sees the black shadow of Montf aucon with its rotting, swinging
shapes, his own body, the bodies of those who hang with him.

Vous nous voiez cy attachez cinq, six,

Quant de la char, que trop avons nourrie,

Elle eH piega devoree et pourrie,

Et nous, les os f devenons cendre et pouldre.

De noslre mal personne ne s'en ne;

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldrel

And he cries again to his brother-men to hush their mockery
and heave up their hands for him and his companions:

Envers le Fils de la Vierge Marie,
Que sa grace ne soit pour nous tarie,
Nous preservant de rinfernale jouldre . . .

Then the profundity of genius shakes him, and he makes that
picture of the gallows and its fruit which is like a painting of Zurbu-
ran or El Greco in its sombre splendour, its vision of mortality:

La pluye nous a buez et lavez,

Et le soleil dessechiez et noircis;

Pies, corbeaulx f nous ont les yeulx cavez,

Et arrachie la barbe et les sourcis:

Jamais nul temps nous ne somrnes assis;

Puts fa f puis la, comme le vent varie,

A son plaisir sans cesser nous charie,

Plus becquetez d'oiseaulx que dez a couldre . . .

And so to the final passionate prayer:

Prince Jhesus t qui sur tous sdgneurie,
Garde qu'Enfer nait de nous la maiflrie;
207

A luy n'ayons que faire ne que souldre.

Hammes, icy na point de mocquerie;

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre!

Such a poem has never been written before him, nor since.

Sentence being delivered, in due course Villon and his com-
panions Dogis, Pichart, and du MouStier were removed from the
Chatelet to the "condemn'd hold" of the Conciergerie in the Palais,
for the poet the first Stage of the journey to Montfaucon. It does not
appear that any sentence had been passed on any of the other three,
but, as we know, the turn of Pichart at leaSt was more or less at
hand. With the transference to a fresh prison, and the knowledge of
its significance, there awoke in Villon once more the inStinct to
fight for life. He had no illusions. Nothing could save him this time
unless Jie -beStirred himself at once; and so, waking from his Stupor
and fascinated gaze on Death, he was visited by a spurt of energy.
After all, his sentence was patently absurd. The ProvoSt (he knew)
was rushing him out of the way on a flimsy pretext that no law
could justify for a moment, counting on a swift execution. But
although the ProvoSt held the power, there was Still juStice left
somewhere, was there not? They could not hang a man for running
away from a Street row, whatever his paSt, could they? At once his
spirits began to revive, his mood to change, a new light to come into
his eyes. He realised that his time for making an appeal was short,
and might even be smothered unless he exerted every fibre: and
before many hours of his occupation of the Conciergerie dungeon,
I imagine, a messenger was speeding once more to the cloister of
St. Benoit with a message, scrawled with the gaoler's connivance,
pleading inStant aftion for the love of God. At the same time Villon
applied for leave to appeal to the Parliament, and was granted leave.
It is evident that the conscience of Villiers de TIsle-Adam was not
entirely at reSt in this matter.

Villon had a Strong case, and the ProvoSt had overstepped the
mark moSt patently: and Guillaume de Villon, who had so often
saved the situation before, was not the man to turn a deaf ear to
this desperate cry. He a&ed, I presume, at once, even If he had not
already done so on learning of the disaster. Treading once more the

208

well-worn path to the houses of those men of power whose e&eem
he had constantly enjoyed, the old priet must have set in motion
every influence he could come at, every legal and parliamentary in-
fluence which might buttress Francois" already respectable case. The
result is seen in an order of the Court of Parliament, the lat of the
judicial documents concerning Francois Villon's life, under the date
of January 5, 1462 (Old Style); that is, January 3, 1463 (New
Style):

v e Janvier Ixxii (v. ,/?.). Veu par la Court le f races fait far le prevail de
Paris ou son lieutenant a I'encontre de maisJre Francois Villon appel-
lant d'eflre pendu et esJrangle.

Finaliter ladifte appellacio net ce dont a esJe appelle mis au neant,
et eu regard a la mauvaise vie dudifi Villon, le bannifl jusques a dix
ans de la ville, prevofle, & viconte de Parish*

[January 5, 1462 (Old Style). The Court having considered the case
brought by the Provo& of Paris and his Lieutenant against Master Francois
Villon, and the latter having appealed from the sentence of hanging and
Wrangling: It is finally ordered that the said appeal, and the sentence pre-
ceding, be annulled, and having regard to the bad character of the said Villon,
that he be banishecl for ten years from the Town, Provosty, and Viscounty
of Paris.]

This precious document, this final entry of such extreme value
to the biographer, I have myself Struggled painfully to decipher,
letter by letter. It appears at the very bottom of the fifty-ninth page
of a register of Arrefts, or Orders of the Court, compiled by the
greffiers of the Tournelle; a Newgate Calendar in summary, em-
bracing the periods April 1433 November 1400 and December
1440 July I485. 16 It is written in thin faded ink in vile crabbed
characters, devilishly cramped and run together, as much like collo-
quial Urdu as French; in the left-hand margin a laconic sign-poSt,
the one word Villon. It is probable that in no way did the grcfficr
who made the entry distinguish the prisoner Villon from any other
prisoner whose sentence it was his duty to record. Staring at it, fin-
gering the paper, I have seen in a vision this official running his

15 MS. Dupuy 250, fol. 59.

M The register includes also, very curiously, one or two historical records, particularly
a bald note of the wounding of St. Joan before Compiegne (, . . Jehanne la Vucelle
blecce devant Compiengne)> and her martyrdom.

209

finger down his lift of names, ticking them off one by one, entering
the reprieve of the prisoner Villon, sanding his wet ink, Stolidly
turning over the page and continuing with the next item. So tjiree
hundred years later in Paris another block-headed minister of Jus-
tice will be writing down the sentence of one Chenier, Andre, of the
next morning's batch for the guillotine. The one poet escaped, the
other died. It is all one.

The entry, then, is made. Messire Villiers de TIsle-Adam has loft
the game. The excessive injuftice of his award has cried to Parlia-
ment. The said Villon has escaped the gallows again, at the eleventh
hour, and is a free and happy man for what is ten years' banish-
ment when the neck is safe? All the joy of the said Villon burfts out
into one terrific whoop in the Ballade addressed, on learning of the
quashing of his sentence, to Eftieime Garnier, Clerk of the Guichet
to the Chatelet. 17

Que vous semble de mon appel,
Gamier? "Pels je sens ou folie?

I have dealt with it more fully in another place. We may glance
in passing at the second ftanza, which remembers with indignation,
mixed with triumph, the Queftion and the agony of the water.

Se feusse des hoirs Hue Caff el,
Qui jut extrait de boucherie,
On ne meuil, parmy ce drafpel,
Fait boire en cesJe escorchertel
Vous entendez bleu joncherie?
Mais quant ces~le faine arbitrage
On me juga far tricherie,
EsJoit il lors temps de moy taire?

The dancing in the Straw, the mad waving of arms and legs,
the cracked voice bellowing joyously to the roof, the frantic hugging
of the gaoler, the frenzy of relief, are patent in every line of this
loud song. What was banishment when he had juft by a nail's
breadth escaped the doleful jig of Montfaucon? As for the sentence
of banishment, it will appear on examination not so harsh as it

1? The Clerk of the Guichet at the Chatelet kept the register of prisoners, their in-
coming and outgoing, their descriptions and identity. He could be punished for ex-
tracting money from prisoners under any pretext whatsoever.

210

sounds. In the Grant Coufiumier de France 18 there appears a defini-
tion of the meaning of the phrase "banishment from the Town,
Provofty, and Viscounty of Paris," and the area to which it applies.
I will summarise.

The Town of Paris includes the banlieue, all that area within a
circular line drawn round Paris from the centre (on the Parvis of
Notre-Dame), a league in diameter.

The Prevote of Paris is all that area controlled by the Provo&
in common law from the Chatelet.

The Vicomte of Paris includes certain outlying Strong-points for
which the Provoft is bailli under the King, as the caftles of
Montlhery, Gonnesse, Corbueil, and Poissy, and the dilri<5t from
Poissy on the north-weft to La Ferte-Al'ais on the south-eat.

The sentence of banishment carried with it confiscation of all
property and all rights at common law: a rider which left our Villon
cold enough, since he had never had the one and could well do
without the other for a time, as he had done before. The ceremony
of publishing the sentence had a certain spacious air, as had so
many vanished things of this age. The Clerk of the Prevote des-
patched to one of his official criers a copy of the sentence, and the
crier, proceeding therewith to every cross-roads within the liberties
of Paris, cried in a loud voice that Francois de Montcorbier, dit
Villon, was banished for ten years from the Town, Provofty, and
Viscounty: at the same time warning all lieges that they mull not
receive, comfort, nor aid in any way the said Montcorbier, dit
Villon, on pain of forfeiting body and goods to the King our Lord:
and that on the contrary, whoever should perceive the said Mont-
corbier, dit Villon, in any place within the proscribed area exclud-
ing a holy place was at once bound to take him "a assemblee de
gens & cry a haro! a son de cloches, & par toutes manieres que I' en
fourra" This done, the said Montcorbier, d& Villon, was to be
haled before Justice to receive his punishment 19

It is plain that a sentence of banishment took effect within a
few hours of its promulgation, for Villon had one more prayer to
make to Parliament, and made it as a poet should, in a Ballade. This

. 10816, fol. 183 v 184; r. n. acq. 3555, fol. 78. Q. Thuasne.
Grant Cou&umier, fr. 23637, fol. no.

211

is the very clamorous Ballade in which he calls on all his five senses,
eyes, ears, and mouth,

Le nez, et vous, le sensitif aussy,

to cry aloud his gratitude to the Sovereign Court, Mother of the
Good, Sifter of the Blessed Angel's; to his heart to pierce itself, as
with a spit, and dissolve in tears of praise; and to his teeth, his lungs
and liver, and his vile body,

Et vous, mes dens, chascunc si s'esloche;

Saillez avant, rendez toutes mercy,

Plus haultement quorgue, trompe, ne cloche,

Et de maschier n'ayez ores soulcy,

Considers que je feusse transy;

Foye, polmon et rate, qui respire,

Et vous, man corps, qui ml esJes et fire,

Quours ne pourceau qui fait son nyt es fanges,

Louez la Court, avant qu'U vous empire,

Mere des bons et seur des benois angesl

[And you, my teeth, if each one of you can clatter, leap for-
ward, and render thanks more loudly than organ, or trump, or bell,
and take no thought of chewing food now; for consider that I was
paralysed with fear. And you, my liver, my lungs, my spleen, since
you are Hill alive, and you, my body, who art so vile, fouler than
any bear or swine who rolls himself in filth, give praises to the
Court, ie& worse arrive to the Mother of the good, and sister of
the blessed angels!]

The reason for all this noise and rodomontade appears in the

Envoi.

Prince, trois jours ne vueillez m'escondire,
Pour moy pourueoir et aux miens adieu dire;
Sans eulx argent nay, icy n'aux changes.
Court triumphant, fiat, sans me desdire,
-Mere des bons et seur des benois angesl

[Prince, deny me not three days' grace, to provide for my
journey and bid my folk adieu. Without them I have no money,
here or at the changers*. Triumphant Court, give this your fiat,
and reject me not, Mother of the good, and sister of the blessed
angels.]

212

Thus lie begs humbly of Parliament three days* grace to prepare
for his long journey, to bid his folk farewell, and to supply himself
with money from that fount of benevolence which had never failed
him, the thin purse of Guillaume de Villon. The three days' grace
was granted. He sought out his mother in her poor room and said
good-bye to her, and left her, with what tears and blessings of hers
it is easy to imagine. She probably never saw her son again on this
earth.

The laSt hour with MaSter Guillaume de Villon may be well
imagined also: the overhanging cloud of sorrow; the forced cheer-
fulness of the old man; the visage of the poet, darker and more
haggard than ever; the old prieSt and his servant striving to keep
their grief in check by fussing over the boy's bundle, his change of
hose, the half-paty, the bottle of Beaune saved for him, the laft of
the good year; and at length the final embrace, the purse thruSt
into his hand, the lat benediction muttered over his head by an old
man blinded with tears; the Stooping figure in its black gown Stand-
ing in the open doorway of the Porte Rouge, blessing and comfort-
ing the wanderer for the lat time with the Cross; and the slouching
figure of the poet going heavily down the cloiSter, paSt the flagstone
where Chermoye had fallen, pat the house of Master Pierre de
Vaucel (ahf Katherine!), pat the Stone bench under the clock,
where he had sat that night of Corpus ChriSti and risen to kill his
man, out to the right into the Rue St. Jacques and up the long hill,
paSt Sorbonne, paSt the old house of Jehan de Meung, paSt the
Dominicans to the Porte St. Jacques, thick and frowning under the
grey January sky, looking out to the Orleans road.

We, too, shall never see him again.

213

Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte
De& dela t
Pareil a la

Feuitte morte.

PAUL VERLAINE.

HE disappears into the void, and there is no more news of him;
only two very faint far-off echoes, nearly a hundred years after, in
Rabelais, who loved him. Both are almoft without doubt pure
fantasy.

The fir& of them has been shown to be an echo itself of a &ory
attributed to a half-mythical personage, Primate d'Orleans, a pre-
decessor of Villon as the laureate of vagabond clerks and goliards. 1
It is a patriotic but not a polite ftory. Rabelais places the scene of
Villon's retirement, after being banished, in England, at the court
of Edward v.

Mai&re Francois Villon banny de France s'c&oit vers luy retire: il I'avoit
en si grande privaute receu, que rien ne luy celoit des menues negoces de sa
maison.

[Ma&er Francis Villon being banish'd France, fled to him [Edward v.],
and got so far into his Favour as to be privy to all his Household Affairs.
Pantagruel, Bk. iv, IxviL 2 ]

One day the King of England, having made Mailer Villon thus
free of his household, showed him the Royal Arms of France hung
in a retired part of the palace, at the same time calling Mailer Villon
mockingly to witness in what reverence he, the King of England,
held the Arms of France, in that he had them hung there. Upon
which Villon, firing, explained to the King of England the real
reason why his Majesty had had the Arms of France hung in that
place, namely, to make a practical use of the terror they inspired in
his Majesty, as in all the English.

1 Also to Hugues le Noir, at the court of King John.

2 Le Motteux, trans., 1694.

214

Sacre-Dieu, respondit Villon,, tant vous eftes saige, prudent, entendu, &
curieux de voftre sante, & tant bien esJes servy de vosJre docte medecin
Thomas Linacre!

["Od's Life," answer* d Villon, "how wise, Prudent, and careful of your
Health your Highness is, and how carefully your learned Doctor Thomas
Linacre looks after you!*']

The repartee (there is more of It than that) is in character with
the patriotic temper of the singer of la bonne Lorraine and the
composer of the bellowing Ballade againft the Enemies of France,
and Rabelais, who bore us no love, 3 could not have fathered his gibe
better. There is no evidence of Villon's ever having been in England.
This joke may certainly be set down as having been borrowed by
Rabelais from an earlier source, probably the thirteenth-century
farceur I have mentioned. It is full also of Rabelais 5 characteristic
treatment of hiftory; for Villon was not banished France, but only
part of France; Edward v. died in the year of his accession, 1483,
being thirteen years old; and Linacre was physician to Henry vn.
and Henry vin., as Rabelais, a doilor himself, should have known.
It is clear that he needed only a lay-figure to drape a joke on, and
used Villon as the mot decorative.

The second anecdote, also from the Fourth Book of Pantagruel,
has more likelihood of being true, in foundation if not in develop-
ment. The scene is Poitou, where, as we know, Villon had wan-
dered during his exile of 1456-1460. I proceed with the &ory entire
in Peter le Motteux* translation.

Mailer Francis Villon, in his old Age, retir*d to St. Maixent In Poitou,
under the Patronage of a good honest Abbot of that place. 4 There to make
sport for the Mob he undertook to get the Passion acted after the Way and
in the Dialect of the Country. The Parts being distributed, the Play having
been rehears'd, and the Stage prepar'd, he told the Mayor and Aldermen,
that the Mystery might be ready after Niort Fair, and that there only wanted

3 Compare, for example, the clownish figure of Thauma&e, grand Clerc d'Angleterre,
who in Bk, n. xviii-xix is vanquished with such contumely by Panurge. In my Lyons
edition of 1588 a contemporary hand has written against the name of ThaumasTie: Thomas
Morus. Blessed Thomas More, who loved a jest, may have laughed over this caricature.
Pantagruel came out in 1532. He went to the scaffold in 1535. Rabelais owed something
to the Utopia.

4 The Abbot of St. Maixent, 1461-1475, was Jacques Chevalier, Nothing is known of
any connection between him and Villon.

215

Properties and Necessaries, but chiefly Clothes fit for the Parts; so the Mayor
and his Brethren took care to get them.

Villon, to dress an old Father Grey-Beard, who was to represent God the
Father, begg'd for Fryar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan
Fryars of the Place, to lend him a Cope and a Stole. Tickletoby refus'd him,
alledging that by their Provincial Statutes, it was rigorously forbidden to give
or lend any thing to Players. 5 Villon reply'd, That the Statute reached no
farther than Farces, Drolls, Anticks, loose and dissolute Games, and that he
ask'd no more than what he had seen allow'd at Brussels and other Places.
Tickletoby, notwithstanding, peremptorily bid him provide himself elsewhere
if he would, and not to hope for any thing out of his Monastical Wardrobe.

The Parisian, the hero of so many town-exploits and the official
poet o the Coquillards, was not likely, even in his repentant old
age, to ftand such treatment from a bumpkin lay-brother. The refer-
ence to Brussels is an embellishment

Villon gave an account of this to the Players, as of a most abominable
Adion; adding, that God would shortly revenge himself, and make an
Example of Tickletoby.

The Saturday following he had notice given them, that Tickletoby upon
the Filly of the Convent was gone a-mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be
back about two in the Afternoon. Knowing this, he made a Cavalcade of his
Devils of the Passion through the Town. They were all rigg'd with Wolves,
Calves, and Rams Skins, lac'd and trimm'd with Sheeps Heads, Bulls
Feathers, and large Kitchen Tenter-Hooks, girt with broad Leathern Girdles,
whereat hang'd dangling huge Cow-Bells and Horse-Bells, which made a
horrid Din. Some held in their Claws black Sticks full of Squibs and
Crackers; others had long lighted pieces of Wood, upon which at the corner
of every Street they flung whole Handfuls of Rosin-dust, that made a terrible
Fire and Smoak: having thus led them about, to the great Diversion
of the Mob, and the dreadful fear of little Children, he finally carry 'd them
to an Entertainment at a Summer-House without the Gate that leads to
St. Ligarius.

As they came near the Place, he spy'd Tickletoby afar off, coming home
from Mumping, and told them in Macaronick Verse,

Hie es~l Mumpcttor natus de gente Cucowli,
Qui solet antique scrappas portare bisacco*

B The lay-brother Tickletoby in the original, Frere Etienne Tappecoue was strictly
within his rights, religious and civil.
6 In the original:

H/V de patria, natus de genie beti&ra,

Qui solet antique bribas portare bissaco.
Why le Motteux improved on Rabelais I cannot tell.

2l6

A Plague on his Fryarship (said the Devils then) the lowsie Beggar
would not lend a poor Cope to the Fatherly Father, let us fright him.
Well said, cry'd Villon; but let us hide our selves till he comes by, and then
charge home briskly with your Squibs and burning Sticks. Tickletoby being
come to the Place, they all rush'd on a sudden into the Road to meet him,
and in a frightful Manner threw Fire from all sides upon him and his Filly
Foal, ringing and tingling their Bells, and howling like so many real Devils,
hho, hhho, hhho, hhho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hou, hho,
hho, hhoi, Fryar Stephen, don't we play the Devils rarely? The Filly was
soon scar'd out of her seven Senses, and began to ftart, to funk it, to trot
it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it, to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to winse it,
to frisk it, to leap it, to curvet it, with double Jirks, and bum-motions; in
so much that she threw down Tickletoby, tho' he held fas! by the Tree of
the Pack-Saddle with might and main: now his Traps and Stirrups were of
Cord, and on the right side, his Sandal was so entangled and twilled, that
he could not for the Hearts Blood of him get out his Foot. Thus he was
dragg'd about by the Filly through the Road, scratching his bare Breech all
the way, she still multiplying her Kicks against him and Straying for fear,
over Hedge and Ditch; in so much that she trepann'd his thick Skull so, that
his Cockle Brains were dash'd out near the Osanna, or High Cross. Then
his Arms fell to pieces, one this way and t'other that way, and even so were
his Legs serv'd at the same time: then she made a bloody Havock with his
Puddings, and being got to the Convent, brought back only his right Foot
and twilled Sandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the Rest.

Villon seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to his Devils,
you will act rarely, Gentlemen Devils, you will act rarely; I dare engage
you'll top your Parts. I defie the Devils of Saumur, Douay, Montmorillon,
Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, voire far Dieu, even those of Poidiers, for
all their bragging and vapouring, to match you.

It is impossible not to recognise in the development of this lory
the ferocious gaiety, the enormous gulo of the author of the Battle
of the Abbey Close and the Battle of the Chitterlings. Rabelais no
doubt heard the legend on a journey into Poitou, or from some
wandering Poitevin, over a cup of Chinon wine, on a summer eve-
ning by the silver, sleepy Vienne, and so wove out of an ordinary
ridiculous mishap this truculent farce ending in slaughter. But here
again there are echoes. The diablerie of the Repue Tranche of Mont-
faucon, which I have quoted early in this book, will occur as
resembling this Story; and it has been noted also that in one of the
Colloquies of Erasmus, Exorcismus, sive Speflrum, there is a tory

217

of a very similar nature attached to a country house near London in
the year 1498, long after Villon's death at the moft liberal computa-
tion. Rabelais 7 general way with hiftory, we all know, is the smash-
ing way of Friar John with the invaders of the vineyards, and the
reference in his tory to a visit of Villon to Brussels at once removes,
or seems to remove, any pretence to a<5hiality.

Beyond these two Stories, then, both very doubtful, both at-
tached to Villon's name so long after, there is nothing.

It is certain that he could not have lived long. When he wrote
his greater work, in 1461, he was already, as we have seen, worn
out, bald, and prematurely aged at thirty. There is an indication,
indeed, that he may have been in the firt ftages of consumption;
the verse btii of the Grant Teflamenti

Je congnols approcher ma seuf;
Je crache, blanc comme coton,
Jaccopms gros comme ung efleuf.

This points directly to lung-disease a result, probably, of the
months spent in the fosse at Meun: both the recurring thuit and the
"spitting white." The verse continues, pathetically underlining his
haggard superannuation:

Qu'efl ce a dire? que Jehanneton
Plus ne me tient pour valeton,
Mats pour ung viel use roquart . . .
De viel porte voix et le ton,
Et ne suys quung jeune coquart.

[I feel my thirst approaching; I spit gobbets of phlegm as big
as tennis-balls. . . . What is there to be said? Only that Jehanneton
no more takes me for her gallant, but a worn-out old hack. I have
the voice and bearing of age, and yet I am still but a cockerel.]

One more fragment of his own evidence completes the diag-
nosis. It is the laft huitain of the Grant Teflament, immediately
before the Ballade crying Pardon to One and All,* completing his
funeral arrangements.

Quant au regart du lummaire,
Guillaume du Ru fy commetz.
218

Pour porter les coings du sualre,

Aux executeurs le remetz.

Trop plus mat me font qu'oncques mals

Barbe, cheveulx, penil, sourcis.

Mai me presse; eh temps desormais

Que crie a toutes gens merds.

[In the matter of wax-lights, I leave them to GuUIaume du Ru;
and as to who shall bear the pall, I entrust my executors with it.
Now more than ever my body gives me pain groin, hair, beard,
and eyebrows. I am harassed with ills: it is time for me to cry
pardon of all and sundry.]

He is seen here a sick man; and to the lung trouble shadowed
forth in the earlier verse we may now certainly add, unless he is
exaggerating, that disability called (by the French) the mal de
Nafles, which has been shown to have existed epidemically almost
as long as the world, though Charles vin/s army has been blamed
for bringing it from Calabria, towards 1492. To a man thus harassed
the road of exile could hardly fail to lead, and before very long, to
the grave.

Did Villon wander into Anjou, where his maternal uncle, the
religious of Angers, might have helped him to prepare his latter
days ? Did he return by painful ftages to Poitou, to the girls there,
or did he trudge in the end back to Paris? "Maybe," thinks Mr.
Belloc, "he only ceased to write; took to teaching soberly in the
University, and lived in a decent inheritance to see new splendours
growing upon Europe." If it were so ! But if it were, would not such
a miracle, the conversion of such a famous blackguard, have been
blazed about? Would not the University Rolls have noted it? Above
all (for rolls may be loft and burned), would there not have been a
living tradition in Paris of his return and enrollment among decent
men ? And again, had Villon come back to live peaceably in Paris,
could he have helped writing more verse? Could a poet of his
ftature, knowing the things he had already written, feeling his
maftery and seeing his end approaching before his pen had gleaned
his teeming brain, have been able to ftifle the voice within him?
The Grant Teflament had brought him fame, his verses were in
every Parisian mouth already. Would he not have been compelled

219

by his genius, Stronger than sickness of body or mind, to make
more songs?

There is no answer. The will of MaSter Guillaume de Villon,
which undoubtedly contained some entry concerning the beloved
rascal, whether a thankful Nunc Dimittis or (more likely) a laSt
commendation to the mercy of God and the prayers of God's
Mother, has never been found. And there is one laSt consideration.
Had Villon returned and slipped back once more into the old life
with the old companions, he would have ended, this time, more or
less swiftly, either in the Hotel-Dieu, in the Chatelet, or on Mont-
faucon; and there would be, once more, in the absence of documents
recording it, some legend, some ballad, some tradition about his
laSt days in Paris. For the Parisians loved him, and he was their
own poet.

But there is no single legend about him. . . . He passes
wearily, with his Staff and bundle, cloaked, his hood pulled well
over his eyes, under the arch of the St. Jacques Gate, the massive
sweating arch of Stone with its portcullis, flanked by its two Stout
round towers, the guard pacing above, the hollow echo repeating
the exile's footSteps. He crosses the bridge over the moat, going
heavily and slouching, clogged with melancholy, sickness, and
weariness of body and spirit. He trudges off along the southern road
once more, and the gathering January darkness receives him.

We Strain our eyes into the dark, but he has vanished utterly,
and no sound comes back. He wrote not a single known word of
poetry after the Grant Testament. Twenty-six years after his dis-
appearance the firSt printed edition of the Works was issued in
Paris by Pierre Levet, a Gothic quarto. 7

FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE OF THE FIRST PRINTED EDITION.

This, it seems clear, Villon never saw. He was dead, then, by
1489 at the lateSt. "<%uant a moy" says Guillaume Colletet, his brief

*Bibl. oat. Res., Ye. 245.

220

biographer about 1650, "je conjecture qu'il abandonna cette vie sur
la fin de celluy du roy Louis XL, c'efl-a-dire environ Van 1482."
La Monroye agrees. Prosper Marchand supposes he died not in
exile, but in Paris; on what grounds I know not. It seems mot
likely of all, since there was the faint legend of him years after in
Poitou, that he found his way there in the end and later died;
whether among the Franciscans of St. Maixent, shriven and hou-
selled by his protestor, the good honeft Abbot of that place, whether
in a village tavern-brawl, whether alone, in some obscure hovel far
from friends, whether in the arms of a wench, whether hanged
from a country gibbet, will never be known until the Day.

I see that makaris amang the lave
Playis here their padyanis, syne gois to grave;
Sparit is nocht their facultie:
Timor Mortis conturbat me.

He was a very great sinner, and a poet to whose fame there will
eternally ftand the monumentum aere ferennius which the Roman
so superbly ordered. During his hunted life he had twice, possibly
three times, lain under sentence of death, had been half a dozen
times punished by the Question, twice banished voluntarily, once
by the State. He had committed homicide at twenty-four and bur-
glary and sacrilege at twenty-five, and his unrecorded thefts, tab-
bings, cheats, and brawlings are probably innumerable. He was
poor and ftung by Strong passions, and his miserable life alternated
between the tavern, the brothel, and the prison. He was a very bad
character indeed, and would never have had a chance against (let
us say) Lord Tennyson for the Laureateship of the British Nation,
had he been of our race and lived in our time: apart from his being
an adherent of the Romish Church, whose tenets are so reflected
in his writings. In his nature the fine and the gross were inex-
tricably mingled. He was as weak as water, as variable as a weather-
cock, mercurial, impulsive, idle, mocking, childlike, egoistic, warm-
hearted, sensual, careless, driven before every guft of desire; a rake
and a spendthrift worshipping beauty; a common criminal firm in
faith and affection; a companion of thieves and whores and vaga-
bonds, producing from the dregs of his life an exquisite flower of

221

FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST PRINTED EDITION.

222

pure poetry; a temper as flecked with dark and light as an April
day, Above all, melancholy possessed him soon, whether his mood
was gaiety, or defiance, or recolle<5tion.

His soul is displayed naked in bis works, and there is a minor
Ballade in which he sums up compa6tly, in his half-shrugging, half-
remorseful way, his nature; and ours.

Je congnols pourpolnt au colet,

Je congnols le moyne a la gonne,

Je congnols le maUlre au varlet,

Je congnols au vollle la nonne,

Je congnols quant pipeur ]argonne,

Je congnols folz nourrls de cresmes,

Je congnols le viz a la tonne,

Je congnols tout, fors que moy mesmes.

The Envoi;

Prince, je congnols tout en somme,
Je congnols coulourez et blesmes,
Je congnols Mort qul tout consomme,
Je congnols tout, fors que moy mesmes.

[I know the doublet by its collar; I know the monk by his
habit; I know the mailer by his servant; I know the nun by her
veil; I know the sharper by the Jargon; I know fools fed on creams;
I know wine by its barrel; I know all, except myself.

Prince, I know all things; I know the coloured from the plain;
I know Death, which devours all; I know all, except myself.] (B.
des Menus Propos.)

There were moments in his soiled and guilty life when his spirit
revolted from the lews,

troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;

Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o* the moon.

And moments when he saw himself clearly and shivered, and
called on God; but this mood passed. He had nearly every human
weakness except insincerity.

But whether he died swiftly, by the knife or the rope, and was
thruft carelessly into his unknown grave; or whether he died calmly

223

in his bed, fortified for his longest journey with the Viaticum; or
whether he lingered miserable and alone and saw Death beckoning
hollow-eyed, terribili squdore, from a muddy ditch, I should like
to think that the lat thing that came to him, as his eyes closed for
ever on this false world, was not the memory of Katherine's red
mouth, nor the laughing of Tabarie in a tavern, nor the twang of a
lute, nor the gasp of the angry prieSt he struck down that June
evening, nor the clatter of Archers running along the Street, nor a
harlot's giggle, nor the drone of his master commenting AriStotle in
the Schools, nor the coughing and spectacles of kind MaSter Guil-
laume de Villon, nor the blood-freezing rattle of pulleys in the
QueStion-Chamber of the Chatelet, nor the rushing of Seine in
spring flood under the bridges, nor the cry of ravens turning and
wheeling round the black gibbet of Montfaucon: but, infinitely
warm and comforting, the vision of a high Gothic window, its ruby-
and turquoise fading into the winter dark, and underneath, by a
tall pillar, in the laSt glow of tapers wafting before Our Lady's
image, a bent, huddled old woman Stretching out worn hands and
Stammering his name.

Repos eternel donne a cil,
Sire, & clarte perpetuelle.

224

Ill

THE WORKS

Allons, madones d'amour qu'il a chanties, hahayl Margot, Rose, Jehanne la
Saulcissiere, hahayl Guillemette, "Marion la Peautarde, hahayl la petite Macee,
hahayl toute la folle quenaille des ribaudes, des truandes, des grivoises, des
raillardes, des mllotieres! . . .

Oh! tu es seul et Men seull Meurs done, larron; creve done dans ta fosse,
souteneur de gouges; tu nen seras pas moms immortel, poete glorieusement
jangeux, ciseleur inimitable du t/ers, joaillier non pareil de la Ballade!

J. K. HUYSMANS.

[Come, ladies of love whom he has sung, hahay! Margot, Rose, Jehane
the Sausage-Maker, hahay! Guillemette, Marion la Peautarde, hahayl Little
Macee, hahay! All the mad rout of trollops, truands, mopsies, laughing
baggages, and minxes of the town! . . .

But you are alone, deserted! Die, then, thief; die in your ditch, pimp for
Street-sluts S You shall be none the less immortal, poet of glory and the gutter,
inimitable sculptor of verse, incomparable craftsman of the Ballade!]

J. EL Huysmans.

THE LITTLE TESTAMENT, 1456
'(LES LAIS)

Le meilleur foete parisien qm se trouve.

CLEMENT MAROT OF CAHORS.

IN the April morning of the Renaissance, Francois L, surnamed the
Father of Letters, being on the throne of France and the Roman
and Venetian and Florentine and Milanese presses pouring scholar-
ship a silver torrent into Europe, 1 the poet Clement Marot under-
took to make, at the Royal command, the firSl critical edition of the
poems of Francois Villon. This, the twenty-firft printed edition at
that day, appeared in 1533, and is remarkable, I think, for two
things: firftly, that a poet of the Renaissance should lavish such
admiration on the laft poet of a dead world, and secondly, that
Marot was (at lea& for a time) a Calvinift; though the Dear knows
he mut have been as severe a disappointment, with his sunny
Pantagruelism, to the sadiil of Geneva as Rabelais was. 2 Neverthe-
less he escaped the dreadful town and the fires which burned for
Servetus.

1 The Aldines of Venice and the Giuntas of Florence particularly.

2 Contemplate the foaming of Calvin in the treatise De Scandalis, in which he rends
Rabelais with full tusks as one who, at first following the light (by which Calvin means
insulting certain aspects of the Catholic Church), was later blinded, and profaned with
sacrilegious laughter the eternal verities (by which Calvin means Calvinism).

227

Marot's edition, a small cxftavo, with its Genevan diStich,
appears in the Catalogue of the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris,
where it is preserved, thus:

Les CEuvres de[|Franpys Villon] [dc Paris, reveues et remises cn|]lcur
entier par Clement Ma-[[rot valet de chambre|[du Roy.|| Distique du did
Marotj|Peu de Villons en bon savoir]|Trop de Villons pour deceuoirjJOn les
vend a Paris en la grant salle du Palais, en la bouticque de||Galiot du Pre.
Fin des ceuvres de Frangoys Villon de\ [Paris, reveues et remises en leur entier
par\\Ckmet Marat, valet de chambre du Roys\^et furent paracheuees de
imprimer le der-\\nier iour de Septembre, Lan mil cinq\\cens trente et troys?

His homage flowers in his Preface. The dead poet is the beft
of all Parisian singers. His genius, apart from the low and obscure
buffoonery scattered through the Testaments, is vrayment belle &
herolque. Marot has undertaken his difficult task pour V amour de
son gentil entendement & en recompense de ce que je puys avoir
aprins de luy en lisant ses ceuvres. The best poetry of Villon is of
such excellence,

tant plain de bonne dodrine, & tdlement painft de mille belle couleurs, que
le Temps , qul tout efface, jusques icy ne Fa sceu effacer, & moins encor
I'efacera, ores & d'icy en avant, que les bonnes escriptures franfoyses sont &
seront myeulx congneues & receuillies que jamais.

[so full of good dodrine, so glowing with a thousand lovely colours, that
Time, which effaces all, has till now been powerless to touch it; and will
henceforth be still more powerless, as the fine literature of France is and will
be more known and cherished than ever before.]

Had this poet, adds Marot, but had the advantage of getting a
little polish in the courts of princes (and thank God he did not, we
may cry), he would have carried off the laurels from every poet of
his time. It is evident that Marot admired him enough to take pains
to present the beft edition possible. He confesses himself at the out-
set astonished that les imprimeurs de Paris & les enfans de la ville
had not taken better care of Villon's text. He ransacked and collated
previous editions, manuscript and printed, all full of repeated errors,
obscurities, and lacunae He tells how he collected versions from
the lips of bons vieillards, old men who could repeat large tra&s of

8 Bibl. nat. R6., Ye. 1297.

228

Villon's poetry by heart, without having seen a text. Finally he used
his own judgment, partie par deviner avecques jugement naturel, in
restoring dubious passages; not with good results. One sees, con-
sidering the mass of editions before him, that Marot's task was not
light. The firft printed book of Villon's verse bearing a date is
Levet's of 1489, seventeen years after the firft public press in Paris
was set up in the Rue St. Jacques. 4 Of the manuscript editions before
1489 some few were in libraries in Charles d'Orleans', for ex-
ample, and in the Bourbon's, and certainly in the King's library,
for Francois I. had a powerful love for Villon's verse and a large
number circulating among the poet's admirers from hand to hand:
these laft, grimy and dog's-eared with continual thumbing, Gained
brown with wine, and possibly a trifle of blood, smeared with the
droppings of tallow candles, grease, and tavern slops, preciously
conserved and recopied, with all their transmitted errors. Marot's
evidence shows, too, that Villon's verse was repeated all over the
town by many mouths, and remembered lovingly like Euripides'
by the folk of Abdera; recited with most applause, I well imagine,
by the fireside in those haunts where the poet's lank figure seemed
Still to lurk in the shadow caft by guttering torches. And this was
no posthumous fame. When Villon calls himself already in the
Little Telament le bien renomme Villon it can have been no fan-
faronnade. He had a reputation in the University quarter before
1456, and got many a drink on the Strength of it, no doubt, and not
a few kisses for nothing also: for women worship a successful poet,
as Tennyson knew, and Alfred de Musset, and Martin Tupper, and
Browning, and a score beside.

His fame has waned, and waxed, and waned, and waxed again
through the centuries. A dozen years after Marot edited him the
young bright gods of the Pleiade descended in a burSl of glory,
Ronsard and du Bellay and Jodelle and their company, bringing
high Spring and recovered learning like a lovely ftorm into French
poetry; and Villon slipped into the shadows. A poet who, like
Ronsard, would lock himself into his chamber for three days to

* The first press in France had been established in Sorbonne by two professors, Jehan
Heynlin and Guillaume Fichet, in 1469. Both presses were by Ulrich Gering, Michel
Friburger, and Martin Kranz.

229

read the Iliad through, 5 had no point of contaft with the escholier
and his slapdash scholarship. Villon had no Greek, and the whole
Pleiade was drunk on Greek. Villon's Latin learning was sketchy,
the scraps of an outworn curriculum, often negligently gathered
between a debauch and a riot. To the humanists of the Renaissance,
Latin, the golden Latin of the Auguftans, was a second mother-
tongue. Yet their joyous salute to the new scholarship was not so
final and sharp as that of the Abbe Coignard ("What is a woman
by the side of an Alexandrine papyrus?"), for they were great
lovers of beautiful women, as also of Stringed music, and finely
printed books, and well-engraved sword-hilts, and softly-cut coins,
and clear paintings, and wine, and trees, and clouds, and every
gracious toy under Heaven. Placed between a Greek manuscript and
a laughing girl, I think, they would certainly have turned inftinc-
tively to pay homage to beauty incarnate; but with the manuscript
firmly tucked under one arm.

The seventeenth century, ruled by Malherbe, at whose order the
nervous Muse, like a fifteen-year-old miss at Bath under the frown
of Nash, preserved decorum, ignored Villon completely. In the
eighteenth a small number of wits and poets favoured, rather freak-
ishly, the medieval barbarian, among them Voltaire, La Fontaine,
and the Jesuit Father du Cerceau, who re-edited him in 1723, re-
marking on the ease of his writing and the richness of his rhymes.
The great Boileau, in a patronising couplet which is often quoted,

Villon sut le premier, dans ces siecles grossiers,
Debrouiller I' art confus de nos vieux romanders,

[Villon, in that barbarous age, was the firsl: to unravel the con-
fused handiwork of our old romance-writers.]

expressed the opinion that Villon was the firl of the old French
authors who was readable: not (as Gallon Paris observes) that
Boileau had ever read Villon. He was no fingerer of antique books.
M. Paris thinks Boileau took his opinion from Patru, called the

6 ]e veux lire en trois jours Vlliade d'Homere,

Ef pour ce, Corydon, ferme bien I'huis sur moy.

From the Sonnets.
230

^Quintilian of his age, who had quite surprisingly in that classic
period commended Villon's Style and lordship of language.

The nineteenth century brought in the Romantics, with the
cravat tied a I'infidele, a la melancolique, and & la turque; and with
these came the re-discovery proper. To the fine poet Theophile
Gautier, above all, Villon came as a precious gift. The mixed misery
and gaiety! The self-searching! The devil-may-care and the de-
bauchery! The virility! Laughter and tears! The buffoon mingled
with the tragedian! A true Romantic! The acid Sainte-Beuve threw
a little necessary cold water on these raptures, but the curve was
Steadily rising. Henceforth the fame of Villon is to be set and secure.
By the end of the century Scots and Dutchmen have heard of him,
and are athrob with enthusiasm: and (what is worse) the Rossetti
School in England hear of him a little later as well and adopt him,
among the lilies and flames and ladies with long awkward necks,
among the refined perversities, the decorative but muzzy mysticism,
the hand-woven aesthetics and what not of their academy. By what
chance Mr. Beerbohm, in his series of caricatures of the Rossetti
period, refrained from celebrating the advent of Villon into this
sele<5t company I cannot tell I can only think that Piety, indignant,
rose, and Licence, wild-eyed, retired.

At this moment Villon (in the modern literary phrase) is
briskly quoted. In France fresh editions of the Testaments and the
Ballades appear regularly, critical and uncritical, decorated and
undecorated. In England, I believe, though there is not much move-
ment, the Stock is firm. A fresh translation of the Testaments was
quite recently issued for the Casanova Society. C'cst vertueusement
of ere, as the great Rabelais says in his Prologue to the Fourth Book;
but speaking of a sovran remedy against thirSL

231

IT was a quaint device of the Schoolmen to pretend that clear
thinking is an exact science, with laws and definitions. Among their
axioms was this, that created things are of two kinds, those sub-
sifting of themselves and those subsisting in a subject. 1 The firSt
kind they called Subftance: as an angel, a man, a horse. The second
kind they called Accident: as colour, movement, emotion. The Sub-
ftance could exift without Accident, but the Accident had need of
the Substance and could not exiSt without it: except (as the School-
men said in their queer manner) in one case only, and that (if I
may be forgiven for saying so) the MyStery of the Altar. If I have
Stumbled for the moment into elementary Scholastic Logic it is
purely for the purpose of beginning the task of discussing the poetry
of Francois Villon in a clear and ordered manner. I propose divid-
ing it, in the manner of the School's, into two ditin<5t parts the
form of his verse (corresponding roughly to the Substance) and the
colour, emotion, and spirit of the words which compose it (corre-
sponding to the Accident). The form we shall discuss soberly and
with precision; but what will happen when we come to the other
(and especially the Grant Tettamenf) I cannot say, for there is a
deal of beauty in it.

Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine foeta,

Quote so for fessis in gramme, quale per cestum

Dulcts aquce saliente sitim re&inguere rivo.

[O heavenly Poet! such thy Verse appears,
So sweet, so charming to my ravish'd Ears,
As to the weary Swain, with Cares opprest,
Beneath the sylvan Shade, refreshing Rest;
As to the fev'rish Traveller, when first
He finds a Crystal Stream to quench his Thirst.]

(Dryden, Vergil, Bucolic V.)

The known works of Franjois Villon are the Petit Tetfament
(1456), consisting of forty verses, or huitains, each verse an o<5tave,
each line odosyllabic: and the Grant Teflament (1461), consisting
of one hundred and seventy-two verses of precisely the same kind,
broken at intervals by sixteen Ballades, three Rondels, the Lament

a Mrs. Bossom disagrees.

232

of the Belle Heaulmiere (which is a triple Ballade), and one other
separate piece, the Belle Le^on, of the same texture as the mass of
the Testaments. In addition to this, the main body of the Works,
there is what a number of Villon's editors call the Codicil, which
contains the glorious Ballade of the Hanged, the Debate (in the
form of a Ballade) between the Heart and Body of Villon, the wry
Quatrain written after his condemnation, and three other Ballades
of minor importance. Beyond this, again, there is a loose handful
of mediocre Ballades, a dithyramb in the Testament metre celebrat-
ing the infant Princess Marie de Bourgogne, and laStly the Jargon,
in thieves'-Latin, on which I touch later in this book.

This is all that can be definitely said to be from Villon's hand.

A number of other Ballades and Rondels, the comic Monologue
of the Free Archer of Baignollet, and the long comic dialogue
between the Messieurs de Mallepaye and de Baillevent, may be

grouped together under the label "School of ": for though

attributed to Villon they are rejected by every conscientious editor.
With these may certainly go the Repues Tranches, which are be-
lieved to be the work of Friar Baulde de la Mare, one of Villon's
joyous companions and a bad bargain of the Carmelite Order.

I will begin by disse6ting briefly and describing the form which
is of chief importance in Villon's poetry, and in which he achieved
his loveliest flight.

THE BALLADE

From all the moulds into which poets have poured their
thoughts the Ballade Stands apart: for it is fixed, yet flexible; Stiff
in form, yet capable of reflecting a thousand moods; antique, yet
vigorous and ever young. I would willingly compare it also to such
a piece of embroidery as one sees painted in the Tres Riches Heures
du Due de Berry at Chantilly: a Stiff flowered fabric, on which are
worked the massieSt gold, rich flowers, glowing jewels, a superb
range (within its limits) of colour and fantasy.

In its corred and ritual form the Ballade is conStru&ed of three
Stanzas, each of eight o<5tosyllabic lines, finished by an Envoi of
four. 2 (I do not speak of the Chant-Royal, which is but a swollen

* You may have two extra feet in the line and two extra lines in each stanza. Villon's
Double Ballade (page 316) has six Stanzas and no Envoi.

2 33

Ballade and a cumbrous, pompous beaL) The rhymes of the Bal-
lade I speak of the Standard form ran irrevocable ah ab b c b c
in each ftanza, and in the Envoi b c b c. I display the pattern in a
Stanza from Dunbar's Ballade in Honour of the City of London,
which carries the two extra feet allowed by the rubric:

London, thou art of townes A per se:

Soveraign of cities, seemliest in sight,
Of high renoun, riches and royaltie,

Of lordis, barons, and many a goodly knyght;

Of most deledable lully ladies bright;
Of famous prelatis, in habitis clerical!;

Of merchauntis full of suMlaunce and of myght:
London, thou art the Flour of Cities all. 3

Again, in a slightly different mood, oilosyllabic and modern:

Saint Michael of the Flaming Sword,
ProvosT: of Paradise, dear Knight,
High Seneschal of Heaven, Lord
Of legions massing for the Fight
Monseigneur! on its way last night,
Aspersing terror like a dew,
There passed in Strong decisive flight
The soul of Lady Barbecue.

The Envoi perhaps requires a note to itself. It begins mol
usually with the vocative "Prince!": an echo of the old days when
poets rhyming in competition at academic tourneys addressed their
Ballades to the Prince or seigneur who presided. But it is often
addressed, according to the mood of its Ballade, to a miftress, or
a poet, or to Venus, or to Fortune, or to Almighty God as in the
Ballade of Charles d 'Orleans, very tender and plaining, on the death
of his young wife:

Dieu, sur tout souverain Seigneur,

Ordonnez far grace et doulceur

De I'ame d'elle, tellement

Quelle ne soit fas longuement

En fame, soussi, et doleur.

3 I would have quoted Chaucer's lovely "Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere," but?
it has, alas, only seven lines to the Stanza. The older English poets took liberties, almost
without exception.

234

[O God, high Sovereign over all, by Thy grace and kindness
so order her soul that she may not long remain in pain, care,
and sorrow.]

And again:

Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even to-day your royal head may fall
I think I will not hang myself to-day. 4

It will be readily perceived that some of the beauty of the Bal-
lade form lies directly in its apparent difficulty, its unyielding frame,
the ftrict economy of its three rhymes. In medieval French and
English, and particularly among the predecessors of Villon (after
whom it went out of fashion for four hundred years, to be revived
as bric-a-brac firft by Banville and Richepin and others in France,
by Andrew Lang and Auftin Dobson and others in England), it
has every possible change rung on it: it is used for religion, for love,
for war, for politics, for despair; it is devout, courteous, sardonic,
languishing, minatory, moral, triumphant, what you will. Chiefly
among Villon's predecessors it is used for love-complaints and rhap-
sodies, of which a charming example is that fragrant Herrick-like
little thing of Euftace Deschamps about a lover coining upon his
miftress plucking roses in a May garden, which begins:

Le droit jour d'une PenthecousJe
En ce gradeux moys de May
Celle ou fay m'esperance toute
"En un jolis vergier trouvay
Cueillant roses, puts luy priay:
Baisiez moy. Se dit: Voulentiers.
Aise fu; adonc la baisay
Par amours f entre les r osiers.

[Right on a day of Pentecost, in the sweet month of May, I
found her in all whom my hopes are centred in a pretty orchard,
plucking roses. Then, "Kiss me," I prayed her. And she answered
"Right willingly," with joy. Thereupon I kissed her for love,
among the rose-trees.]

4 G, K. Che&erton, Ballade of Suicide.

2 35

So much for love. In the matter of war, there is Deschamps*
watery Ballade or Lament for the death of the great Bertrand du

Guesclin:

O Bretaingne, ploure ton esperance,
Normandie, fay son entierement,
Guyenne aussy, et Auvergne or t'avence,
Et Languedoc, quier luy son mouvement;
Picardye, Champaigne, et Occident
Doivent pour plourer acquerre
Tragediens, Arethusa requerre
Qui en eaue jut par plour convertie,
A fin qua touz de sa mort les cuers serre:
Plourez, plourez flour de chevalerie.

[O Brittany, weep thy hope. Normandy, make his obsequies,
and Guienne also, and you, Auvergne, be not backward; and you,
Languedoc, follow his passing. Let Picardy, Champagne, and the
West find them tragedians to lament; Arethusa herself, dissolved
into water by weeping, requires it, in order that every heart might
be wrung by his death. Weep, O weep, flower of chivalry.]

And, for courtesy, Deschamps* salute to Geoffrey Chaucer:

O Socrates plains de philosophic,

Seneque en meurs et Anglux en pratique f

Ovides grans en ta poeterie,

Bries en parler f saiges en rethorique t

Aigles treshautz, qui par ta theorique

Enlumines le regne d'Eneas,

L'Isle aux Geans, ceuls de Bruth, et qui' as

Seme les fieurs et plante le r osier f

Aux ignorans de la langue pandras t

Grant translateur, noble Geffroy Chaucierl

[O very Socrates, filled with philosophy! O Seneca in morals,
Englishman in deeds! O great as Ovid in thy poetry, sober in
speech, sage in rhetoric! High-soaring Eagle, who by thy Muse
illuminest the reign of Aeneas, the Isle of Giants and the race of
Brutus, who hast sowed such flowers and planted such roses! O
succour of those ignorant of the [French] tongue, great translator,
noble Geoffrey Chaucer!]

I will not quote anything of Guillaume de Machault or Eus-
tache Morel or Alain Chartier, since their Ballades are in the great

236

part amorous and didadic and often, if classic in form, excessively
tedious; Alain Chartier's especially, although he is a mafter of this
medium, and dominated the firft half of the fifteenth century.
Froissart's are not much better, and he is often irregular, falling into
the heresy of the nine-line ftanza with no Envoi. I cannot omit
mention of Christine de Pisan, that daughter of Charles v.'s aftrol-
oger, in whose white hands the Ballade assumes a delicacy apart.
Greater than these, and a living mafter in Villon's time, is Charles
d'Orleans, whom some have compared with Petrarch and some
with Heine. The poetry of Charles d'Orleans exhales a high melan-
choly, an aristocratic lettered grace, a sure poise, a fine irony, but
no vigour: exile and weariness are often in it, but no profundity of
experience or bitterness. But he could produce sudden lovely things
like the Firft Rondeau of Spring, full of the plash of water, the
green, the song of birds.

Le temps a laissie son manteau
De vent, de jroidure et de pluye f
Et s'esJ veflu de brouderie,
De soleil luysant, cler et beau;

II ny a be fie ne oyseau
Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou crie:
Le temps a laissie son manteau
De vent, de jroidure et de pluye.

Riviere, jontaine et ruisseau
Portent, en livree jolie,
Gouttes d* argent et d'orfaverie,
Chascun s'abille de nouveau.

Le temps a laissie son manteau.

[The Year has flung off his mantle of wind, of cold, and rain,
and has vested himself in broidery, in sparkling sunshine, clear and
splendid; there is no bird nor animal which does not sing or cry
aloud in his jargon. The Year has flung off his mantle of wind, and
cold, and rain. Each river, fountain, and Stream wears its lovely
livery of jewelled and silver drops; the whole world is clothed anew.
The Year has flung off his mande.]

Of one aspeft of him (though a Valois and a soldier) it might
be said, as it says of another in the sonnet:

237

Your life is like a little flute complaining
A long way off, beyond the willow trees;
A long way off, and nothing left remaining
But memory of a music on the breeze. 5

He is a poet nevertheless, and mut be read: some of Ms songs
are perfed: pieces of fresh beauty. When Villon Stayed at the Caftle
of Blois that brief space during his wanderings he no doubt de-
voured in the well-warmed, well-furnished, candle-lit library there
more than one manuscript containing poems of the Duke's and
the beft earlier poets. The manuscript now in the Bibliotheque
nationale (Fr. 1104) his eyes may well have contemplated: it is
an anthology by the Duke and his circle of lesser poets, containing
as well the two Ballades Villon himself composed at Blois and
Orleans* But what he learned at Blois and what he gathered from
the poetry of his predecessors the Parisian vagabond infused with
vigour and made his own, excelling those from whom he had (or
had not) learned his trade.

THE RONDEAU

This is the other, and lesser, fixed form in medieval French
poetry. It has two principal variants, the Virelay and the Bergeron-
nette.

The Rondeau (like the Ballade) had been nearly done to death
by Villon's time. It would be idle to pretend that Villon's Ron-
deaux, with one exception, are any better or any worse than a
hundred others turned out by poets and poetasters since the decay
of the Trouveres. Charles d'Orleans, even, made only half a dozen
fine Rondeaux: chiefly the two on the advent of Spring, the gush
of pure edtasy which begins Dieu, quil la fait bon regarderl, and
that final ironic thing, Saluez moy toute la compaignie, which is
so full of resignation and farewell. Villon's one great Rondeau is his
Epitaph; also a leave-taking.

The form is elastic, but it has a constant: the recurrence of the
opening line, as in a fugue. The Rondeau may be seven lines long,
like one of ChriSHne de Pisan's, or thirteen, like some of Charles

H. Belloc, Sonnets and Verse.

238

d'Orleans'. At its average it is nothing more than a vehicle for man-
nered conceits. I quote the second-beSi of Villon, on a dead mistress,
made for Mafter Ythier Marchant; it is saved from mediocrity by
one vivid line.

LAY

Mort, fappelle de ta rigueur,
Qul m'as ma maiflresse ravie,
Et n es pas encore assouvie
Se tu ne me tiens en langueur:
One puts n'eus force ne vigueur;
Mais que te nuysoit elle en vie,
Mart?

Deux estions et n'avions qu'ung cuer;
S'zl esJ mort, force eft que devie,
Voire, ou que je vive sans vie
Comme les images, par cuer,
Mort!

Rossetti has put this into English song:

Death, of thee do I make my moan,

Who hadst my lady away from me,

Nor wilt assuage thine enmity
Till with her life thou hast mine own;
For since that hour my Strength has flown.

Lo! what wrong was her life to thee,
Death?

Two we were, and the heart was one;

Which now being dead, dead I must be,

Or seem alive as lifelessly
As in the choir the painted Stone,
Death!

The line that is alive is the eighth, the reft is a poetic exercise.
It is not, moreover, a true Rondeau according to the Statutes. Marot
calls it Lay, ou fluBoH Rondeau. But as it is the beSl Villon has
done in this way, short of the Epitaph, which is high poetry and
appears elsewhere in this book, we will let it Stand, and so jog
on.

239

Uan quatre cens cinquante six,
Je, Franfoys Villon, escollier . . .

STUDYING for the five hundredth time the Petit Testament (which
Villon calls the Lais, or Bequests) I muse once more on what five
years of vagabondage, with a taSte of prison and the Question, can
do for a man. In 1456 he is devising hobbledehoy jokes with tavern
signs and Stuffing a mock will full of bequeSts which when hot and
fresh were comprehensible only to a contemporary of Paris. In 1461
he is writing the Ballade of Dead Ladies, and becomes Straightway
one of the maSter poets of Christendom.

The Petit Teflament, except for its pictures of Parisian life, is
green fruit. Of its forty verses about half a dozen, perhaps, are poetry
as Villon can write it. The personal quips which (as in the Grant
TeHament) aroused the loud laughter of Villon's friends of the
University and the town, were unintelligible much less than a
hundred years after him. "Sufficiently to understand the point of
them," explains Marot, "it is necessary to have been a Parisian of his
own time, and to have known all the places, men, and things of
which he speaks: as the memory of them passes away, so in less and
less degree will the significance of his allusions be comprehended."
Now Marot, writing in 1533, was as near to Villon as we are to
Matthew Arnold and Browning. For us the true savour of these
gibes is completely loSt; and yet they are bright with a splendid
vigour.

The Petit Testament begins in a manner characteristic of Vil-
lon's careless mood, rare as it is. The firSt verse has no maSter-verb
and ends in the air.

Uan quatre cens cinquante six,
Je, Franfoys Villon, escollier,
Considerant, de sens rassis,
Le frain aux dens, franc au collier,
Quon doit ses oeuvres conseillier t
Comme Vegece le raconte,
Sage Rommain, grant conseillier,
Ou autrement on se mesconte . . .
240

[In the year 1456, 1, Francois Villon, clerk, with my senses clear,
bit between the teeth, collar-free, considering that a man must look
to his own works (as Vegetius, the wise Roman and venerable
counsellor, has declared), or otherwise he reckons amiss. . . .]

But in the second verse he is a craftsman again. This little glow-
ing miniature, as in a Book of Hours, of Old Paris in the grip of
winter I count, in its economy of words, a thing of maftery.

En ce temps que fay dit devant,
Sur le Noel, morte saison,
Que les loups se vivent de vent
El quon se tient en sa maison,
Pour le frimas, pres du tison,
Me vint ung vouloir de brisier
La tres amoureuse prison
Qui souloit mon cuer debrisler.

[At this time, as I have said, near Christmas, in the dead of the
year, when the wolves feed on wind and men Stay indoors, hugging
the hearth, on account of the cold, there came to me a desire to
break my prison, where Love has held my heart in such duress.]

Here is a clear pidbire: the gabled Streets, dumb, muffled in
snow, under an iron sky; the wolves baying and sharpening then-
teeth outside the walls, driven ravenous from the woods of Mont-
martre and Rouvray; behind barred doors, the blazing log fire and
the family clustered around, sipping hot wine, roaming chestnuts,
and telling Stories of the Loup-Garou and the Moine Bourru. 1
Rabelais, I think, remembered this verse when he saw in a vision
the good Grandgousier toafting his legs before "un beau clair &
grand feu, & attendant griller des chaflaignes escrit au foyer avec
un bajfton brusle d'un bout, dont on escarbote le feu, faisant h
sa femme 6- famille de beaux contes du temps jadis" *

*[A good, clear, great Fire, and, waiting upon the broyling of some
Chestnuts, is very serious in drawing Scratches on the Hearth, with a Stick
burnt at the one end, wherewith they did stirre up the Fire, telling to
his Wife and rest of the Family pleasant old Stories and Tales of Former
Times.] (Urquhart's trans.)

x The Moine Bourni, an incarnation of the Devil, the stock bogey and night-demon
of Old Paris. Late at night, and especially during Advent, he glided through the Greets,
shrouded in a gown of coarse stuff, attempting to strangle all who crossed his path. He
was to Paris what the Loup-Garou is to Brittany.

241

But something more than the cold is tormenting the poet. The
cruel miftress, jdonne et dure, has given him his conge.

Et se fay prins en ma javeur
Ces doulx re gars et beaux semblans
De tres decevante saveur
Me trespersans jusques aux flans,
Bien ilz ont vers moy les piez blans
Et me faillent au grant besoing.
Planter me fault autres complans
Et frapper en ung autre coing*

[If I succumbed to her dear looks and lovely deceits, of such
sweet treachery that they pierce my very heart, they have now left
me well in the lurch, forlorn in my greatest need. I am fain to carry
my plaint elsewhere and to Strike out afresh.]

He broods over it, and it inspires him (as so often happens O
Queen! Mater s<zva Cupidinum!) to a little deathly mediocre rhym-
ing. He cries haro to the heavens on the false one, wearying with
his clamour Death and the little gods, for a score of lines or more:
and then in a breath, abruptly, announces his departure from Paris.

Adieu! Je men vois a Anglers:
Puis quel ne me veult impartir
Sa grace, II me convient partir.

[Good-bye. I am off to Angers. Since she will not yield me
her grace it is Better to get away.]

It is at this moment, on the eve of leaving the town (which, as
we know, he omits to do for a little time, the affair of the College
of Navarre ^intervening), that the dying lover is visited with the
of a burlesque will and testament; some vague mem-
ories floating in his mind, possibly, of Adam de la Halle or Jean
Regnier of Auxerre, of whose testaments he may have heard, and
having almoft certainly a diftin<5t remembrance of those facetious
lines of Euftace Deschamps which he mut have known by heart,
and which obviously helped to inspire the form of the Testaments :

Item, je laisse a I'ordre grise
Ma viez braie & ma viez chemise,
Et s'ay laisse pareillement
Au Roy, le Lout/re & le Palays
Et la Tour de Bois: cell beau lays.

242

[I fern, I leave to the Grey friars my old drawers and my old
shirt, and similarly to the King I leave the Louvre, the Palais, and
the Tour de Bois: this is a good bequest.]

The ninth verse of the Petit Teflament is the preface to this will:
a deliberate use of the customary invocation of the Sacred Trinity
and the Mother of God; yet no ignoble use, for it is mixed with
faith and true affection. "Firstly, in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft, and of the glorious Mother by
whose mediation none is loft, I leave, in God's name, my fame to
Mafter Guillaume Villon. . . ."

Premier ement, ou nom du Pere,
Du Filz et du Saint Esperit,
Et de sa glorieuse Mere
Par qui grace riens ne perit,
Je laisse, de far Dieu, mon bruit
A maisJre Guillaume Villon,
Qui en Yonneur de son nom bruit,
Mes tentes et mon pavilion.

There follows one despairing verse bequeathing his poor Stabbed
heart to the cruel one, and after that he forgets her, plunging with
growing absorption and joy into the comic possibilities of his plan.
We are at the eleventh huitain. The lift of bequefts carries us to the
thirty-fourth. We may consider in full only the more vigorous.

Item, a maisJre Ythier Mar chant,

Auquel je me sens tres tenu,

Laisse mon branc d*assier tranchant,

Ou a maisJre Jehan le Cornu,

Qui esJ en gaige detenu

Pour ung escot huit solz montant;

Si vueil, selon le contenu,

Qu'on leur livre, en le rachetant.

[Item, to Master Ythier Marchant, to whom I am greatly be-
holden, I leave my branc [short sword] of sharp steel, which is held
in pawn for a scot of eight sols; or else to Master Jehan le Cornu.
Let it be delivered to them, according to this demand, on defray-
ment of the cots.]

Mafter Ythier Marchant was a sombre, wealthy, and consider-
able personage in contemporary Parisian politics; a Burgundian,

2 43

and later an implacable enemy of Louis xi. In 1473 he was con-
cerned, with the Duke of Burgundy, in a plot to poison the King,
and died mysteriously in prison the following year. Whether Villon
knew him (and with him many more of the wealthy and powerful
who appear in the two Testaments) it is not always possible to telL
The society of that age was easy enough, and University acquaint-
ance no doubt opened many doors. Master Guillaume had friends
in high places also. But probably the poet knew a large number
of these personages by repute only, leaving aside the police and
Chatelet officials, and put them into his verse to amuse his snig-
gering audiences of the Pomme de Pin and the Espcc dc Bois.
He knew something of the affairs of Ythier Marchant, nevertheless,
and bequeaths him in the Grant Teflament a Rondeau for his dead
loves. Master Jehan le Cornu was Criminal Clerk to the Chatelet,
and had helped Villon, who mentions him again in the Grant Tes-
tament:

Item, a mat fire Jehan Cornu

Autre nouveau lals luy vueil faire,

Car il m'a tous jours secouru

A mon grant besoing et affaire.

[Item, I wish to make a new bequest to Master Jehan le Cornu,
who has always befriended me in the days of my greatest need.]

But the intention may here be sarcasm, as in so many of the be-

quefts.

Item, je laisse a Saint Amant
Le Cheval Blanc, avec la Mulle
(Et a Blarru mon dyamanf)
Et TAsne Roye qui reculle.
Et le decret qui articulle
Omnis utriusque sexus,
Contre la CarmelisJe bulle
Laisse aux curez, four mettre sus.

[Item, I leave to Saint-Amant the White Horse, with the Mule
and to Blarru my diamond) and the jibbing Striped Ass. The decree
Omnis utriusque sexus, against the Carmelite Bull, I leave to the
seculars, to hearten them.]

Pierre de Saint-Amant was Clerk to the Treasury, and from
the context a great rider before the Lord. Villon may, thinks Marcel

244

Schwob, have been for a brief period in St. Amant's employ as a
writer, since his friend Regnier de Montigny's family was con-
ne<5ted with the St. Amants. Blarru is identified by Longnon with
Jehan de Blarru, a goldsmith of the Pont au Change. Prompsault
thinks he is another person, a loose character. The White Horse,
the Mule, and the Striped Ass (or Zebra) are tavern signs. The
Lateran Decree Omnis utriusque sexus, which Villon bequeaths to
the priefts of the diocese of Paris, had in 1215 given the seculars the
exclusive right of confessing their own parishioners of either sex,
once a year at leaSl. The Mendicant Friars in 1449 obtained a Bull,
la Carmelifle bulle, from Nicolas v. empowering them to share this
right. At about the time when Villon was composing the Petit Tes-
tament, or soon afterwards, delegates of the seculars returned tri-
umphant from Rome, having with the support of University and
the French bishops succeeded in obtaining a Bull of Calixtus in.
revoking his predecessor's award. Villon bequeaths the zealous
seculars of Paris their old Decree to hearten them.

To MaSter Robert Vallee, povre clerjot en Parlement (he be-
longed to a wealthy family of financiers), Villon leaves his breeks,
now detained at the Trumelieres tavern, by the Halles, to make a
better headdress for his mistress Jehanne de Millieres; also, since he
is a blockhead, the Ars Memorandi, that pedagogic manual; finally
direding that out of the sale of the teSlator's mail-shirt Mafter Val-
lee, this poor fish, ce poupart, is to be bought a scrivener's Stall by
St. Jacques-la-Boucherie. To Jacques Cardon, rich burgess and mer-
chant draper, the poet leaves the acorn from a willow plantation;
which must conceal a gibe of the beft; also, for his refedion every
day, a plump goose, a capon rich in fat, and ten hogsheads of white
wine: but also (left the said Cardon should grow too corpulent) a
couple of lawsuits.

Item, je laisse a ce noble homme
Regnier de Montigny, trois chiens.

[Item, I leave to that noble man Regnier de Montigny three
dogs.]

The dossier of Regnier de Montigny we have already seen. To
the Seigneur de Grigny the poet leaves six dogs more than to Mon-

245

tigny; also the ward of Nijon and the caftle and donjon of Biceftre;
both haunts of ruffians. The Seigneur was a notable litigant and
violent character, perpetually in the Courts. To a certain Mouton
are left three lashes with a ftirrup-leather and a lodging in prison.

Et a maiHre Jaques Raguier
Laisse I'Abruvouer Popin,
Pesches, poires, sucre, figuier,
Tousjours le chois d'ung bon loppin,
Lc trou de la Pomme de Pin,
Clos et convert, au feu la plante,
Emmaillote en jacoppin:
Et qui voudra planter, si plante.

[And to Ma&er Jacques Raguier I leave the Abreuvoir Popin,
together with peaches, pears, sugar, and a fig-tree [Longnon says
the Fig-Tree was a tavern] ; a good mouthful at all times, and the
tavern of the Pomme de Pin, roof and cover: where he may sit feet
to the fire, wrapped in his mantle; and let the world wag as it
may.] (Planter is an unseemly verb of the Jargon.)

Eight lines as closely packed with medieval life, when they are
examined closely, as you could wish. Mafter Jacques Raguier, who is
for ever installed in front of the fire at the Pomme de Pin, wrapped
in his mantle, is in himself an epitome of one asped: of the Middle
Ages: for having been in his youth a notable boozer and one of
Villon's circle, drinking from dawn to dawn and immersed in
rapscallionism, he repented and cat off his dirty life and was
assoiled, and took Orders, and died at a great age Bishop of Troyes
in 1518, being also titular Abbot of Montieramey and of St. Jean-de-
Provins, in that diocese. So at leaft M. Longnon discovers: and I
should be sorry to think he had mistaken his man. As for the great
water-trough called the Abreuvoir Popin, a good gift (save for its
contents) for such a rude beuveur, it Stood at the bridge-head near
the Chatelet, and was a lounging-place and rendezvous for all the
loose fellows, gipsies, night-birds, and brazen doxies of the quarter.
There was an inn of disreputable fame near, bearing its name. The
Pomme de Pin in the Rue de la Juiverie, in the Cite, is familiar.

The next huitain holds the firft of Villon's two respectful
oblique references to the great Robert d'Eftouteville, his patron.

246

Item, a maiHre Jehan Mautaint
Et maifire Pierre Basennier,
Le gre du seigneur qui attaint
Troubles, forfaiz, sans espargnier;
Et a mon procureur Fournier,
Bonnetz cours, chausses semelees,
Taittees sur mon cordouannier f
Pour porter durant ces gelees.

[Item, to Master Jehan Mautaint and to Master Pierre Basen-
nier, the good-will of the seigneur who strictly punishes all
turbulence and transgression; and to my procurator Fournier,
bonnets without earflaps and well-soled shoes at my cordwainer's,
to wear during these present frosls.]

The "seigneur" is the Provoft. Mailer Jehan Mautaint, Exam-
iner at the Chatelet, as we know, will about three months hence
be opening an official inquiry into the burglary at the College of
Navarre. Master Pierre Basennier, notary, was greffier crimind at
the CMtelet. The procurator Pierre Fournier, procureur > de Saint-
Benoit at the Chatelet, had from the context done Villon some ser-
vice one way or the other: he is not, says Longnon, the Pierre
Fournier whose daughter married the poet Martial d'Auvergne,
but an elder Fournier, later a counsellor of Parliament.

Item, a Jehan TrouvS, bouchier,
Laisse le Mouton franc et tendre,
Et ung tacon pour esrnouchier
Le Beuf Couronne qu'on veult vendre,
Et la Vache:

[Item, to Jehan Trouve, butcher, I leave the fresh and tender
Sheep, and a whisk to keep flies off the Crowned Ox, which is for
sale; also the Cow.]

Jehan Trouve, mafter-butcher of Paris, was no doubt one of the
butchers of the University whose hooks were Stolen during the Pet-
au-Deabk riots. The Sheep, the Crowned Ox, and the Cow are
taverns.

Item, au Chevalier du Guet,

Le Heaulme luy establis;

Et aux pietons qui vont d'aguet

TaHonnant far ces eflablis,

247

Je kur laisse deux beaux riblis,
La Lanterne a la Pierre au Let.
Voire, mais j'auray les Troys Lis,
S'ilz me mainent en ChasJellet*

[Item, to the Captain of the Watch I leave the Helmet; and to
his foot-Sergeants who go the rounds, groping among the ftalls,
I leave two good Street brawls and the Lantern of the Pierre au Let
[the Rue des Ecrivains, by St. Jacques-la-Boucherie]. But faith, I
mufl have the chamber called the Three Beds if they hale me to
the Chatelet]

The grinning poet heard this gibe at the police, the natural ene-
mies of his companions, greeted, I think, with a shout of applause
which rattled the windows.

To Perrenet Marchant, called the Baftard de la Barre (it is by
his hands that the Ballade to ma damoysdle au nez tortu is to be
delivered, in the Grant Teftameni), are bequeathed three sheaves
of ftraw for him to lay on the ground, and so pursue the amoureux
meftier, the only trade he knows.

In the twenty-fourth verse Villon remembers the duck-ftealing
nights around the moats of Paris.

Item, au Loup et a Cholet
Je laisse a la fois ung canart
Prins sur les murs, comme on souloit,
Envers les fossez, sur le tart t
Et a chascun ung grant tabart
De cordelier jusques aux piez,
Busche, charbon et poix au lart f
Et mes houseaulx sans avantpiez.

[Item, to the Wolf and to Cholet I leave each a duck taken by
the walls, as we used, along the moats towards dark: and to each a
long tabard like a Franciscan's, reaching to the feet; also firewood,
coal, and peas and bacon, and my thick boots without uppers.]

One sees the three heroes skulking round the ramparts, one
hears the muffled squawk of a Strangled duck, and a ftifled laugh,
and hoarse whispers, and one sees three shadowy forms withdraw-
ing Stealthily, hugging the walls, gliding in the shadow for fear of
the Watch.

248

Here the Testament takes a sudden turn, ostensibly tender and
warm-hearted, but actually bitter and mocking, as will appear.

De rechief, jc laisse, en pitie,
A trots petis enfans tous nus
Nommez en ce present traiftie,
Povres orphdins impourveus,
Tous deschaussiez, tous desveflus,
Et desnuez comme le ver;
jf'ordonne qu'ilz soient pourveus
Au moins pour passer cesJ yver:

Premierement, Colin Laurens,
Girart Gossouyn et Jehan Marceau,
Despourveus de biens, de parents,
Qui n'ont vaillant Vance d'ung seau,
Chascun de mes biens ung fesseau,
Ou quatre blans, s'ilz I'ayment mieulx.
llz mengeront maint bon morceau,
Les enfans, quant je seray vieulx.

[Item, I leave of my charity to thee little shivering children,
named in this present document, poor orphans, uncared for, un-
shod, and naked to the winds [the following]. I direct that they
be provided for, at leasT: till this winter is past:

Firstly, to Colin Laurens, Girard Gossouyn, and Jehan Mar-
ceau, having neither kindred nor substance, and worth not the
handle of a bucket, I leave each a share of my eft ate: or, if they
prefer it, four blancs [say, fourpence]. They will fare well, dear
children, when I am old.]

"Three poor orphans of University," says Longnon. "Three
rich and griping old usurers of Paris, notorious speculators in salt,"
discover later commentators. The mockery obviously has it, even
if there were no documentary evidence for this identification; for
Villon proceeds:

Item, ma nomination?

Que fay de I'Universite,

Laisse par resignation

Pour sedurre d'aversitS

Povres clers de cesJe cite

2 [The Letter of Nomination, sealed by University, showed a graduate's eligibility to
be presented for a benefice.]

249

[Item, my Letter of Nomination, which I hold of University, I
resign and bequeath to rescue from adversity certain poor clerks
of this city.]

The "poor clerks" are

maisJre Guillaume Cotin
Et maifire Thibault de Vittry,
Deux pot/res clers, parlans Latin,
Paisibles enfans, sans esJry,
Humbles, chantans bien au leftry.

[Master Guillaume Cotin and Master Thibault de Victry, two
poor priests learned in Latin, peaceful fellows, of quiet dispositions;
humble, and sweet chanters at the ledtern.]

Mafter Cotin and Mafter de Vidry were two aged and ex-
tremely rich Counsellors of Parliament and Canons of Notre-
Dame. Villon leaves them a rent-charge on the house of one
Gueldry, butcher; a house in the Rue St. Jacques, whose tenant,
having a Strong aversion to paying any rent at all, was sued in this
year 1456 by the Chapter of St. Benoit, to whom the house be-
longed.

He leaves to "those taken in the trap," by which he means the
prisoners of the Chatelet, his mirror, and the good graces of the
gaoler's wife; to the hospitals, his window-curtains, spun from
spiders' webs; to the gueux and vagabonds lying and freezing at
night beneath the Slalls, a punch in the eye; to his barber, the clip-
pings of his hair; to his cobbler, his old shoes; to his fripier, his
worn-out duds, all for less than they cot when new,

Item, je laisse aux Mendians,
Aux Filles Dieu et aux Beguines,
Savour eux morceaulx et frians,
Flaons, chappons, et grasses gelines,
Et puis preschier les Quinze Signes.

{Item, I leave to the Mendicants, the Filles-Dieu and the
Eeguines, luscious and dainty morsels, flawns, capons, and plump
fowls; and then to preach the Fifteen Signs.]

His hungry lips are smacking, his mouth watering. The Mendi-
cants are the four Mendicant Orders: the Dominicans (in France,

250

Jacobins), the Franciscans (or Cordeliers), the Carmelites, and the
Auguftinians. The Filles-Dieu are the good sixers by the Porte St.
Denis, who comforted with a cup of wine and a roll of bread all
condemned gallows-birds on their way in procession to Montfaucon.
The Beguines are the pious widows of St. Avoye, in the Rue du
Temple. The Fifteen Signs are the fifteen signs which shall precede
the LaSt Judgment, a topic for so many preachers, poets, and artifts
of the Middle Ages. There was in Villon's time a facetious piece in
verse by Jehan d'Abundance called Les Quinze grans & mervetlleux
Signes nouvellement descendus du del au pays d 'Angleterre: and
in some ancient versions of the Dance of Death a review of the
Fifteen Signs follows the Dance.

To Jehan de la Garde, a rich grocer of Paris, Villon leaves the
sign of the Golden Mortar, and also a votive crutch from the abbey
of St. Maur4es-Fosses, to the south-eaft of Paris, to make him a
muftard-peftle. There follows an inexplicable burft of rage:

A celluy qui fifl I'avant garde
Pour falre sur moy grief z exploiz,
De far moy saint Anthoine I'arde!
Je ne luy feray autre laiz,

[To him who went with the advance-guard [? of the watch]
to do me such grievous mischief, for my part may St. Anthony
scorch him! I make no other bequesl.]

It concerns, no doubt, a ftreet affray in which the poet's heels
were not quite quick enough. St. Anthony's Fire was a kind of ery-
sipelas, epidemic and common to this period, called also the mal des
ardens. 3 It had its name from the religious of St. Antoine in Dau-
phiny, who were instituted to nurse the afflicted. The oath is a
favourite one with Rabelais.

Item, je laisse a Merebeuf,
Et a Nicolas de Louvieux,
A chascun I'escaille d'ung ceuf,
Plaine de frans et d'escus vieulx.

[Item, I leave to Merebeuf and to Nicolas de Louvieux each an
eggshell full of francs and old crowns.]

* It has also been identified with the slow consumption called I'ergotisme gangreneux,
due to lack of food and hygiene.

251

The jeft behind this bequest, again, remains enigma. Pierre
Merebeuf and Nicolas de Louvieux were two wealthy and powerful
bourgeois, the one a draper of the Rue des Lombards, the other an
alderman of Paris, a councillor of the Chambre des Comptes, finally
ennobled. From such personages the bequeft of an eggshell full of
francs and old crowns the escu being worth about three francs
muft have produced dignified snorts of contempt: if indeed they
ever knew about it. They are Villon's butts again in the Grant Tes-
tament.

And so we come to that passage with which I have begun this
book, in which the sound of Angelus from Sorbonne, booming on
the shivering night, is caught and fixed for ever in a verse; and
with it (I am sorry to have to mention this again, but there it is)
a sudden upspringing flame of devotion and recolledlion. And after-
wards, the night being Still again and the prayers despatched, the
poet's fancy goes off, "zigzag and woodcock fashion," harum-
scarum at a tangent, into a parody of the language of the Schools,
ff le fatras" says P. Champion, "du commentaire ariHotelique" He
feels (so he says) Dame Memory at work, locking into her aumbry,
atop of Collateral Species, False Opinative and other toys of the
intellect:

Et mesmcment ^Estimative,

Par quay prospe&ive nous vient,

Similative, formative . . .

[Also the Estimative [faculty of judging], by which enters the
Perspedive [or judgment], the Simulative [or faculty of imita-
tion], the Formative [or faculty of giving form to the Idea]
... [or words to that effect].]

In the gradually silting-up bed of that Aristotelian flood, so
silver, so spacious, and so majestic in St. Thomas's time, many
pedants had gambolled during the two hundred years before Vil-
lon, till now it wandered feebly through arid acres of glose and
commentary a mere trickle of clarity. It had become more and
more like Algebra, but without the low cunning againft which the
aged Classic (God bless the aged Classic!) so gallantly protected;
and it was simple to make chaff of the dry chopped formulae
trampled and tossed about in the Schools. Nor was Villon the laft

252

to have a fling. Rabelais followed him with the derisive and Lewis-
Carrolish Cresme Philosophale dcs Quettions Encydopediques de
Pantagvuel, lesquelles furent disputees Sorbonificabilitudissinement
es Escoles de Decret prez Sainft Denis dc la Chartre a Paris:
"Utrum, une Idee Platonique voltigeant dextrement sur Forifice du
Chaos pourroit chasser les esquadrons des atomes Democritiques.
Utrum, les Ratepenades volans par la tranftudicite de la porte
cornee, pourroient espionnitiquement decouvrir les visions Mori-
fiques, devidant gironniquement le fil du Crespemerveilleux enve-
loppant les attiles des Cerveaux mal calfretez," etc. And as late as
the eighteenth century a Spanish Jesuit composed the satire called
The Hiflory of the famous Preacher, Fray Gerundo de Campazas,
in whose convent the Letor in Philosophy was such a raging
Aristotelian that if he were asked merely how he did, he would
answer: "Materialiter, well; formaliter, subdiflinguo, reduplicative
ut homo, nothing ails me: reduplicative ut religiosus, I am not with-
out my troubles.'* 4

Villon devotes three verses to pulling a long snook at the
Schools, firmly alleging that by concentration on such operations of
the mind a man becomes

Fol et lunatique par mots:

Je I'ay leu, se bien m*en souvient,

En Ariflote aucunes foiz.

[Mad and lunatic for months: I have read it so (if I remem-
ber rightly) in Aristotle, many a time.]

But I think he is lying. He was no such fanatical Ariftote-
lian.

He perceives at this that his ink is freezing and his candle going
out, that his fire is dead, and that he can get no more: and so,
sketching a brief self-portrait (and remembering his fame, already
stirring) he ends abruptly.

Fait au tempts de ladite date
Par le bien renommS Villon,
Qui ne rnenjue figue ne date.
Sec et noir comme escouvittion,

* Prior Braccy, O.P., Eighteenth-Century Studies.

2 53

// na tente nc pavilion
Quit nait laissic a ses amis,
Et na mats quung feu de billon
Qui sera tantost a fin mis.

[Made at the aforesaid date [Christmas 1456] by the celebrated
Villon, who eats neither fig nor date. Dried-up and black as a
maulkin, he has no tent nor pavilion that he has not bequeathed
to his friends. Only a few coppers remain; and there will soon be
an end of them.]

There is written under this in some manuscripts, Cy fine le Tes-
tament Villon, here ends the Testament of Villon. In one, the
Arsenal MS., there Stands before this formula a schoolboy whoop:
"Et ho!" I think it should always Stand there. It is the Petit Tefia-
ment (saving about four verses) in two words.

ET HO.

254

THE GREAT TESTAMENT, 1461
(LE TESTAMENT)

WITH THE CODICIL AND THE LESSER POEMS

Dure chose ell a souflenir

Quant cuer pleure et la bouche chante.

CHRISTINE DE PISAN.

[Hard it is to bear, when the heart weeps but the mouth sings.]

A BALLADE in dialogue called the Debate between the Heart and
Body of Villon Strikes like a shaft of sunlight through the darkness
of the Bishop of Orleans' prison at Meun-sur-Loire and reveals the
kind of man who in the summer of 1461 sat very dolefully in his
Straw in one of the lower dungeons, his feet shackled to a Staple:
that haggard, worn, dark, meagre, hunted creature we have already
seen, prematurely bald, a kind of scarecrow, very near the gibbet;
but in his sunken eyes a gleam, the enduring narquois spirit of this
Parisian.

Of the two Ballades which bear every mark of having been
composed in this prison, the Debate is the more significant. It is
metaphysical, the work of a grown man, no more a roySter about
University; and a man trying gropingly to probe his soul and ac-
count for the obscure treachery of his fate, but for which he

255

had not now been Sorrow's heritor,
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.

Yet Still (as with the philosopher in Boswell) cheerfulness keeps
breaking in or at leaft that salt sardonic humour of his. His heart
begins the Debate by attacking Villon bitterly for his folk plaisance,
which has brought his body, see! to this late, like a poor whipped
cur trembling in the corner.

LE DEBAT DU CUER ET DU CORPS DE VILLON
[La com- Qu'esJ ce quc j'oy? Ce suis jel Qui? Ton cuer,

^Villon a Q u * n ** Cnt ma * S $ U ' a Un % P Ct ** ^ Ct

ion cttcr. ] Force nay plus, subflance ne liqueur,

Quant je te voy retraicJ ainsi seulet,

Com povre Men tapy en reculet.

Pour quoy eH ce? Pour ta folle plaisance.

Que t'en chault il? J'en ay la desplaisance.

Laisse m'en paixl Pour quoy? J'y penseray.

Quant sera ce? Quant seray hors d'enfance.

Plus ne t'en dis. Et je men passeray.

[Who is this I hear? Lo, this is I, thine heart,

That holds on merely now by a slender String.
Strength fails me, shape and sense are rent apart,

The blood in me is turned to a bitter thing,

Seeing thee skulk here like a dog shivering.
Yea, and for what? For that thy sense found sweet.
What irks it thee? I feel the fting of it.

Leave me at peace! Why? Nay now, leave me at peace;
I will repent when I grow ripe in wit.

I say no more. I care not though thou cease.]

(Swinburne.)

The poet defends himself, parrying the thrufts firft with impu-
dence, then with defiance. "Come!" replies his heart, "face your
pretty position ! You are thirty years old. You are no infant. If you
were a half-wit you'd have some excuse for playing the fool like
this!"

J'en ay le dueil; toy, le mal et douleur.

Se feusses ung pot/re ydiot et folet,

Encore eusses de t'excuser couleur:

256

Si nas tu soing, tout t'esJ ung, bel ou let.
Ou la tesJe as plus dure quung jalet,
Ou mieulx te plaisJ qu'onneur cesJe meschanct!
Que respondras a cesJe consequence?

[I have the sorrow o it, and thou the smart.

Wert thou a poor mad fool or weak of wit,
Then might' st thou plead this pretext with thine heart;

But if thou know not good from evil a whit,

Either thy head is hard as stone to hit,
Or shame, not honour, gives thee most content.
What canst thou answer to this argument?]

(Swinburne?)

"I'll be out of it all when Fm dead/' answers Villon recklessly.
"My God!" says his heart, "what a consolation!" "And what wis-
dom! what eloquence!" sneers the poet.

J'en seray hors quante je trespasseray \
Dieu, quel confort Quelle sage eloquence!
Plus ne t'en dis. Et je men passeray.

[When I am dead I shall be well at ease.
God! what good luck! Thou art over eloquent!
I say no more. I care not though thou cease.]

(Swinburne.}

And then, turning on his tormentor, Villon lays the blame for
everything on Saturn, the sinister planet under which he was born.
(His heart speaks firft.)

Dont vient ce mal? II vient de mon maleur.
Quant Saturne me feist mon fardelet,
Ces maulx y meist, je le croy.

["Whence, then, this misery?" "It's my bad fortune. When
Saturn piled on my load he added all this, I think."]

"Rubbish!" scoffs his heart. "Is not the wise man mafter of
such things?"

Voy que Salmon escript en son rolet;
"Homme sage, ce dit il, a puissance
Sur planetes et sur leur influence"

257

["See, Solomon writes in his scroll: 'The wise man has power
(he says) over planets and their influences.' "j 1

The poet replies heavily:

Je nen croy riens; tel qu'ilz m'ont fait seray.
["I believe nothing of that. What I made I shall remain.'*]

And the dialogue proceeds.

Que dis tu? Deal certes, cesJ, c'esJ ma creancc
Plus ne t'en dis Et je men passeray.

["What do you say?" C T faith, I believe it!" "I say no more."
"And I can do without."]

The Envoi holds final promises of reformation.

Veulx tu vivre?Dieu men doint la puissance!
// te fault . . . Quoy? Remors de conscience,
Lire sans fin. En quoy? Lire en science,
Laisser les jolzl Eien j'y adviser ay.
Or le retienl J'en ay bien souvenance.
N'atens pas tant que tourne a desplaisance.
Plus ne t'en dis. Et je m'en passeray.

["You want to live?" "God give me strength to do it!" "You
must have, then " "What?" "Penitence. You must read dili-
gently." "What?" "Books of value." "And you must give up your
loose companions." "Very well. I'll see to it." "You won't forget?"
"I have made a note of it." "Don't exepect too much, or you'll be
disappointed. I say no more." "And I can do without."]

O rueful, hopeful, weathercock heart of man! I mean, of
course, medieval man: penitence throbs in every line of this, and a
longing to Struggle clear of the morass and get both feet on the firm
road, among the virtuous and the well-found: but life is too Strong,
and there are too many women. And, I fancy, the earnest mood
changes within the o<5lave. It is difficult to say. The other Ballade
composed (at leaft in his mind) in the dungeon at Meun, whether
earlier or later, is a different thing altogether, and a delicious thing,

1 The allusion is to the Book of Wisdom, vii. 19: Ipse enim dedit mihi horum, qua
sunt, scientiam veram: ut sciam dispositionem orbis terrarum, et virtutes elementorum
anni cursus et ttdlarum disposition?*.

258

half-smiling, half-desperate, gay, even; informed with a sort of
aff etionate pleading confidence in his friends, the unbuttoned band
of rhymers and wits and joyous companions far away in Paris, who
(it is obvious) love the unlucky rogue. He begins:

[EptStre.] EPISTRE EN 'FORME DE BALLADE, A SES AMYS

Aiez pitie f aiez pitiS de moy,
A tout le moms, si vous plaist, mes amis!
En fosse gis r non pas soubz houx ne may,
En cesJ exit ouquel je suis transmit
Par Fortune, comme Dieu I'a permis.

Filles, amans, jeunes gens et nouveaulx,
Danceurs, saulteurs, faisans les piez de veaux,
Vifz comme dars t agus comme aguillon,
Gousiers tintans cler comme cascaveaux,
Le lesserez la t le povre Villon?

[Have pity, have pity on me, my friends at least, if it please
you! Here I lie in the ditch, not under the holly nor yet under the
May, in exile, into which fortune has brought me, by God's will.
Girls! Lovers, old, young, or new! Dancers, and you, leapers, who
dance the Calfs Feet [a comic acrobatic dance], swift as darts,
sharp as a spur! O melodious gullets, clear as mule-bells, will you
leave him here your poor Villon?] 2

and so continues, running over in his mind the ranks of his old
companions and mixing regret and nostalgia for the bright joftle
of the Streets with his cry:

Ckantres chantans a plaisance, sans loy,
Galans, rians, plaisans en fais et dis,
CourenSj alans, francs de faulx or, d'aloy.
Gens d'esperit, ung petit estourdis.
Trop demourez, car il meurt entandis.
Faiseurs de laiz, de motetz et rondeaux
Quant mort sera, vous lui jerez chaudeauxl
Ou gist t il n'entre escler ne tourbillon:
De murs espoix on lui a fait bandeaux.
Le lesserez la, le povre Villon?

3 The opening line is a plain echo of the Book of Job, xix. 21: Miseremini met, misere-
mini mei, saltern vos amid mei, quia mantis Domini tetigit me.

259

[O singers , singing s weedy at your pleasure, without com-
mandment; laughing gallants, so excellent in word and deed;
rovers and ramblers of quality, free of your counterfeit gold; O
wits, madcaps you delay too long, and he perishes meanwhile.
Makers of lays, and motets, and roundels! when he's dead you'll
make him hot possets! [Or, if the reading chandeaux is preferred,
'When he's dead you'll burn candles for him/] Where he lies
there enters neither light nor breeze; thick ramparts are a bandage
for his eyes. Will you leave him here, your poor Villon?]

In his third ftanza he describes for them, not without a twifted
smile, his present condition, how he f afts every Sunday and Tues-
day which means the week round, since Wednesday, Friday, and
Saturday were days of abstinence, and even fals for the devout;
how he eats only dry bread, and how his drink is water . . . and
here he is certainly thinking of the Question with its horrid
draughts of cold water. "Come," he says:

Venez le veoir en ce piteux array
Nobles hommes, francs de quart et de dix f
Qui nc tenez d'empereur ne de roy,
Mais settlement de Dieu de Paradis:
Jeuner lui fault dimenches et merdis
Dont les dens a plus longues que ratteaux;
Apres pain sec, non pas apres gasJeaux,
En ses boyaulx verse eaue a gros bouillon;
Bas en terre t table n'a ne tresteaulx.
Le lesser ez la, le povre Villon?

[Come, see him in his piteous array, my noble friends, living
tax-free and obeying no man's ban, Emperor's or King's, but only
God's in Heaven. See, he is constrained to fast on Sundays and
Tuesdays, and his teeth are longer than a rake's! His meat is dry
bread and no cake, and he washes his guts after it with lashings of
water! See how low he lies, lacking table and tresdes! Will you
leave him here, your poor Villon?]

ENVOI

Princes nommez, anciens, jouvenceaux,
Impetrez moy graces et royaulx seaux f
Et me montez en quelque corbillon.
Ainsi le font, I'un a I'autre, pourceaux f
Car, ou I'un brait, Us fuyent a monceaux.
Le lesserez la, le povre Villon?
260

[O Princes aforesaid, young and old, obtain for me the Royal
grace and seal, and draw me up from here in some basket! Why,
even swine, when one of their fellows squeaks for help, fly to his
aid in a heap! Will you leave him here, your poor Villon?]

There is one more Ballade, Probleme OH Ballade de la Fortune,
supposed to have been made about this time, in which Fortune
holds a conversation with the poet, very soberly and heavily, show-
ing him how many great kings and warriors have been led into dole
by her, Priam, and Hannibal, and Scipio of Africa, Julius Caesar
and Pompey also, and Jason, Arphaxad, King of the Medes, Alex-
ander, Holof ernes, and Absolon; advising him to take his thwack-
ings quietly. The Monk's Tale enumerates similar "old ensamples"
and has much the same moral:

I wol biwaille, in manere of tragedie,
The harm of hem that toode in heigh degree,
And fillen so that ther nas no remedie
To brynge hem out of hir adversitee;
For certein, whan that Fortune li& to flee,
Ther may no man the cours of hir with-holde.

It is a dull Ballade of no merit, and I shall not ftay to quote it.
The passage through Meun of Louis xi. changed Villon's moralis-
ings and groans alike into whoops of joy. Paris received him even-
tually to her arms again, and in 1461-2, as we have seen, the Grant
Teftament was composed, which we are now broaching.

THE GRANT TESTAMENT

He begins in a sullen rage, remembering his wrongs, but col-
leftedly:.

En I'an de mon trentiesme aage,
Que toutes mes hontcs j'eus beus
Ne du tout fol, ne du tout sage,
Non obsJant maintes femes eues,
Lesquettes j'ay toutes receues
Soubz la main Thibault d'Ausslgny . . .
S'evesque il efl, seignant les rues,
Qu'il soit le mien je le regny.

[In the thirtieth year of my age, having supped my fill of
shame, being neither altogether foolish nor altogether wise, and

261

notwithstanding the many punishments I have suffered at the hand
of Thibault d'Aussigny is he a bishop, blessing people in the
Street? No Bishop of mine, by God!]

He chews his anger and resentment over and over, rumbling
and grumbling. He is not Thibault's serf and chattel, is he? No,
faith. A good summer on bread and water ! May God reward Thi-
bault for it! Holy Church tells us to pray for our enemies, does she?
Very well. He'll say him a Picard's prayer. 2 But wait! There is a
verse in the Psalter which will do for his lordship of Orleans very
well:

Le verselet escript septiesme

De pseaulme Deus laudem.

[The verse which is written the seventh of the Psalm Deus
laudem, .]

The poet's face (I see it from here) has a wide grin of pleasure
as he writes this down. The seventh verse of Psalm cviiL, Deus
laudem, recited on Saturdays at None, is this: Fiant dies ejus fauci:
et efiscopatum ejus accifiat alter. "May his days be few, and may
another take his bishopric." Good! Justice is satisfied. The poet
turns to praise God at the full of his lungs for his deliverance, and
Our Lady also, and "Leys, le bon roy de France" May the King be
endowed (he roars) with the fortune of Jacob, the honour and
glory of Solomon, and the years of Methusaleh! May twelve goodly
children, all sons, issue from his royal loins, 3 each as brave as
Charlemagne and as virtuous as St. Martial, and may he get Para-
dise at the end! And so, to end these transports:

Escript l f ay I' an soixante et ung,

Que le bon roy me delivra

De la dure prison de Mehun,

Et que vie -me recouvra,

Dont suis, tant que mon cuer vivra,

Tenu vers luy mhumilier,

z The Picards were a curious fifteenth-century sub-sect of heretics in Hungary, preach-
ing common property in women: they were exterminated by Zisca, chief of the Hussites,
and their name became attached to other obscure heretics in the Low Countries. The
proverb Priere de Picard, quoted by Villon, concerns their habit of saying no prayers at
all for their dead.

3 Actually Louis xi. had four sons, of whom two died in infancy: also two daughters.
I do not count his natural children.

262

Ce que feray tant quil mourra:
Bienfait ne se doit oublier.

[Written in the year '61, when the good King delivered me
from the harsh prison of Meun and I thereby recovered life: on
which account I hold myself humbly beholden to him as long as my
heart beats, and will do so till death; for such a benefit must not
be forgot.]

There now is displayed by Marot the rubric

ICY COMMENCE VlLLON A ENTRER EN MATIERE PLAINE
D'ERUDITION ET DE BON SQAVOIR,

[Here begins Villon to enter into matter full of erudition and
good learning.]

under which the poet begins very deliberately an Apology, or Con-
fession, of his whole life, his turbulent youth, and his sins; finding
his soul, he says, after so many plaints and tears, groans of anguish,
miseries, dolours, and chastisements, ground by these griefs and
sharpened like a needle, pricking him more than all the Commen-
taries of Averroes on Ariftotle. He brands himself a great sinner,
yet a hanger-on to the infinite mercy of God, humbly hoping, like
our own old poet, for "a gobbet of His grace"; and explaining and
excusing his wildness he tells the ancient ftory from the Policmticus
of John of Salisbury, heard in the Schools, and held in the poet's
wayward mind no doubt for years, of the sea-pirate Diomedes, who
was brought before Alexander, condemned to death. On the Em-
peror asking this man why he was a bandit he answered shortly
that had he had an emperor's fortune he might have been Alex-
ander, but poverty knows no law: for which defence Alexander
released and favoured this raisonneur. Alas! says Villon. If Al-
mighty God had seen fit to give me, too, such a patron, I should
have had a different tale to tell!

Necessite jaifl gens mesfrendre,
Et jaim saillir le louf du boys,

[Necessity drives men astray, and hunger goads wolves snarling
from the wood.] '

This was also the defence of the blackguard Nephew of
Rameau. "La voix de la conscience et de I'honneur ell bien faible,

lorsque les boyaux crient." Such immorality has always been mot
bitterly condemned by those of the righteous with a well-lined belly.
Follows a quick gush of regret for the wafted years, for youth
soiled and thrown away, and shame for dishonourable old age now
tapping at the door. The cry is loud and sincere:

Je plaings le temps de ma jeunesse,
(Ouqud j'ay plus quautre galle
Jusques a I' entree de viellesse) >
Qui son partement m'a cele.
11 ne sen eft a pie die
N'a cheval: Mas! comment don?
Soudainement s'en esJ voile
Et ne m'a laissie quelque don.

Alle sen esJ, et je demeure,

Povre de sens et de savoir,

Triste, jailly, plus noir que meure . .

[I regret the days of my youth when I sported more than most,
right up to the brink of age for youth's departure escaped me:
he vanished neither afoot nor on horseback. Alas! how then? He
flew away suddenly, leaving me naught.]

Aie! he laments. The flying golden years are paft, leaving me
here sad, weary, poor, burdened with miseries, blacker than a mul-
berry* See what idleness and the love of women can do for a manf
Women! Why, even now

Bien esJ verte que 'fay ame
Et ameroie voulentiers;
Mais trifle cuer, ventre affame
Qui n*e$J rassasie au tiers,
M'osJe des amoureux rentiers.

[I have loved, faith! and I would love again gladly; but my
sad heart and empty belly, not a third satisfied, drag me from the
byways of dalliance.]

This is the unembarrassed self-revelation which echoes in so
much of the world's great literature, in St. Auguftine, and Byron,
and Baudelaire, and Verlaine, and Heine. Observe, though, that
Villon, this human sinner, pretends no singleness of moral and
spiritual aspiration. He is thinking of his soul, certainly; but of the

264

fleshpots also, the soft sheltered life which might have been his had
he not burned his youth away in chambering and wantonness.

He! Dieu, se j'eusse estudie
Ou temps de ma jeunesse folle
Et a bonnes meurs dedie,
J'eusse maison et couche molle.
Mais quoi? je fuyoie I'escolle,
Comme fait le mauvais enfant.
En escripvant cesJe parolle,
A peu que le cuer ne me fent.

'[Dear God! had I but heeded my books in the days of my
flaming youth, and given some thought to good conduct, I might
have had my own house, and a soft bed to lie in! But Lord! I
fled the Schoole like a naughty child. ... As I write this my heart
is like to break.] 3

He broods on this for a time, remembering from Holy Writ
the Sage Ecclesiaftes and the Patriarch Job on the brevity of life and
the fleeing vanity of all the joys of youth. "My days/' he groans,
"are consumed like flaming tow."

Mes jours s'en sont allez errant
Comme, dit Job, d'une touaille
Font les filetz, quant tisserant
En son poing tient ardent paille.

[My days have run and vanished away like threads of tow (as
Job says) when the weaver lays a burning straw to them.]

Dies met velocius transierunt, quam a texente tda succiditur,
et consumpti sunt absque ulla spe. It is the sixth of the seventh of
the Book of Job. So in The Hound of Heaven a later Francis echoes
the cry:

I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist.

Compare, in this mood, Verlaine, whose agitated life so resembled Villon's:
Qu'as-tu fait, 6 tot que voila

Pleurant sans cesse,
Dis, qu'as-tu fait, tot que voilh,
De ta jeunesse?

265

And Villon passes to that lovely lament for his bright com-
panions,

Ou sont les gracieux gallans
Que je suivoye ou temps jadis,
Si bien chantans, si bien parlans,
Si plaisans en faiz et en dis? . * .

which I have placed in full elsewhere: that lament in which he
reviews their present ftate, how some of the ruffling lads he sang
and rioted with are now great seigneurs, but others naked beggars
in the gutter, and others dead and rotted, and others retired in the
cloifter. The fit takes him then to remember his poverty and his
extraction.

Povre je suis de ma jeunesse,
De povre et de petite ex trace;
Mon pere not oncq grant richesse,
Ne son ayeul, nomme Orace;
Povrete tous nous suit et trace.
Sur les tombeaulx de mes anceftres,
Les ames desquelz Dieu embrasse!
On n'y volt couronnes ne ceptres.

[Poor I am, from my childhood, poor, and of humble Stock.
My father had little wealth, nor his grandfather Horace either.
Poverty has dogged and tracked us all; and on the tombs of my
sires (may God receive their souls!) there are neither crowns nor
sceptres.]

His father is long dead, God reft him, and his mother has
not very long to live now; and her son will follow her. . . . Reach-
ing out largely and gazing, as it were, on Mortality face to face,
he falls into that musing and obsession which was so familiar to
the medieval mind, but which is in our own day bad form, and
worse: a musing on and acknowledgment of Death, its inevitability,
its embracing swoop.

Je congois que pot/res et riches,
Sages, et folz, presJres et laiz,
Nobles, villains, larges et chiches,
Petiz et grans, et beaulz et laiz,

266

Dames a rebrassez colletz,
De quelconque condition,
Portans atours et bourreletz,
Mort saisit sans exception.

[Well, I know that poor and rich, wise and fools, priests and
laity, nobles, churls, spenders and screws, great and small, beautiful
and ugly, ladies in fur-necked gowns, ladies of quality, wearing rich
ornaments and high headdresses all, all, without exception, are
seized by Death.]

It is simply a summary of all the quatrains written under the
Dance of Death in the Innocents cemetery, where the poet had no
doubt lately been, pondering the paintings and ogling the women.

But now across his verses here, as one reads, over the chill scent
of tombs, there comes an almoft imperceptible soft Ausonian air,
like the candidi Favonii which greet the traveller over the Alps as
he approaches the gates of Italy: for Villon is reaching the goal of
his meditations and his loveliest song: yet his dread continues
through two more verses.

Et meure Paris ou Helaine,
Quiconques meurtj meurt a douleur
Telle qu'il pert vent et alaine;
Son fiel se creve sur son cuer!
Puis sue, Dieu scet quelle sueurl
Et n'e/l qui de ses maux I'alege:
Car enfant n'a, frere ne seur,
Qui lors voulsift esJre son plege:

[[So Paris dies, and so Helen; and whoever dies, dies with
pain: his breath fails, his gall bursts over his heart, he sweats
God! what sweat! And there is no one who relieves him of his
agony, no child, or brother, or sister, who would take his place.]

He is in a sort of trance, gazing fascinated on the pain and
horror of dissolution, the failing breath, the death-sweat: and his
love of women's bodies, so soft and precious, completes his engulf-
ment in dismay at their fate.

La mart le fait fremir, pattir,
Le nez courier, les vaines tendre f
Le col enfter, la chair mollir,
Joinfles et nerfs croisJre et eBendre.

267

Corps femenin, qui taut es tendre,
Poly, souef si precieux,
Te fauldra il ces maux attendre?
Oy, ou tout vif aller e$ cieulx.

'[Death makes him shiver and go white, makes the nose a hook,
the veins tight-Strung, the neck swell, the flesh turn flabby, the
nerves and joints sTxetch and dilate. . . . O body o woman, so
tender, so smooth, and soft, and precious, does this doom wait for
you, too? Assuredly: or else one needs must go to Heaven alive.]

And then, then comes the miracle, the Strain of music to becalm
his fever.

Charm me asleep, and melt me soe

With thy delicious Numbers
That, being ravish'd, hence I goe
Away in easy Slumbers.
Ease my sick Head,
And make my Bed,
Thou Power that canst sever
Me from this 111,
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My Fever.

This music is the Ballade of the Dead Ladies, which I have
printed in its place with the notes proper to it, later in this book.
It is one of the towering poems of the world, both for its melody, its
sadness, the dreamy, shimmering fabric of which it is composed,
the beauty of its separate evocations, its rhythm, its sequence of
words, and its crescendo and culmination. It was possibly composed
in a thieves' cellar, or in a riverside ftews.

The poet, intoxicated by the thing he had wrought (and who
would not be?), endeavours to repeat it immediately in the Ballade
of the Dead Lords; a piece of verse comparatively inferior, and
although not despicable, and far above the run of its type (it is of a
common pattern, the Methodical Enumerative, unfired by edlasy),
not of the glorious fluff of the Dead Ladies. It deals, moreover, with
great lords lately dead, and does not range the ages of hiftory and
faery like its predecessor, I give two ftanzas and the Envoi.

268

BALLADE
DES SEIGNEURS DU TEMPS JADIS

[Autre Qui plus, ou ell le tiers Calixte,

ballade.] Dernier decede de ce nom,

Qui quatre ans tint le fapaliste?

Alphonce le roy d'Arragon,

Le gracieux due de Bourbon,

Et Artus le due de Bretaigne,

Et Charles septiesme le bon?

Mais ou esJ le preux Charlemaigne?

Semblablement, le roy Scotlste
Qui demy face ot, ce dit on,
Vermeille comme une amative
Depuis le front jusquau menton?
Le roy de Chippre de renon,
Helas et le bon roy d'Espaigne
Duquel je ne scay pas le nom?
Mats ou efi le preux Charlemaigne?

BALLADE
OF THE LORDS OF OLD TIME

[What more? Where is the third Calixt,

Last o that name, now dead and gone,
Who held four years the PapalisT:?

Alfonso King of Aragon,

The gracious lord, Duke of Bourbon,
And Arthur, Duke of old Britaine?

And Charles the Seventh, that worthy one?
Even with the good knight Charlemain,

The Scot too, king of mount and mist.

With half his face vermilion,
Men tell us, like an amethyst,

From brow to chin that blazed and shone;

The Cypriote King of old renown,
Alas! and that good King of Spain,

Whose name I cannot think upon?
Even with the good knight Charlemain.]

(Swinburne.)

There is, after all, a sort of processional music in it. One hears
silver trumpets shrilling and sees the Kings passing, in robes ftiff

269

with embroidered flower-work and jewels. A poet's delight in trans-
cribing lately names for their own sake, which Villon shares with
Milton (que diable!}, 4 and a not ignoble worship of heroic or
merely splendid or decorative personality these inform the Bal-
lade also. As for the names contained in it, Calixtus in. held the
Papal throne for only three years and eight months, from April
1455; Alphonse v., called the Magnanimous, King of Aragon,
Naples, and Sicily, reigned 1416-1458; Jean, Duke of Bourbon, an
uncle of Charles vi. and one of the moft lettered and art-loving men
of his age, died 1453; Artus IIL, Duke of Brittany, Constable of
France, surnamed the Dispenser of Juftice, died 1458: Clement
Marot confuses him with Arthur the King, the great half-legendary
Arthur of the Celts, who is quite obviously out of place in this gal-
lery; Charles vn. of France, called the Good, died at Meun in July
1461. In the second &anza the personages are less important or more
vague. The Scottish King with the amethyft birthmark down his
face is James n., son of the royal poet. "1436 tves the coronacioun"
says the Winton MS., "of K* James the secund with the Red Schelly
cattit James with the fyr in the face, he beand bot sax yer aid and ane
half, in the abbay of Halyrudhous, quhar now his banys lyis." In
Auguft 1460, at the siege of Roxburgh Caftle, James "unhappely
was slane with ane gun, the quhil\ bra\ in the fyring" The King
of Cyprus of renown may be one of three, but is probably the laft
of his line, Jean de Lusignan, thirteenth of the name, who died in
1458 without issue-male; the good King of Spain, whose name Vil-
lon pretends not to know whether for a joke or to get another
rhyme in "om" or "on" is moft likely Juan IL, King of Catile
and Leon, who died in 1454. As for the Envoi,

Ou ell Claquin le bon Breton?
Ou le conte Daulphin d'Auvergne
Et le bon feu due d'Alen^on?
Mais ou efl le preux Charlemaigne? ,

* Compare, from Paradise Lost, i.:

And all who since, baptized or infidel,
Jou&ed in Aspramont or Montalban,
Damascus, or Morocco, or Trebizond,
Or whom Bizerta sent from Africk shore
When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.

270

[Where is Guesclin, the good Breton?

Lord o the eaftern mountain-chain,
And the good late Duke of Alengon?

Even with the good knight Charlemain.]'

(Swinburne.)

it is soon resolved. Claquin is the great Du Guesclin of Brittany,
hero of a whole epic. The Dauphin of Auvergne is Beraud in., lal
of his hereditary branch, who died in 1428. The "late good" Duke
of Alenjon is another joke, since he was not dead at all, but had
been sentenced in 1456 to perpetual imprisonment for high treason.
Louis xi. pardoned him in 1460. Of Charlemagne, Charles li reis,
nostre emperedre maignes, the refrain of this Ballade, I need explain
little, I hope. The Song of Roland is at the bed-head of every man
who loves high poetry, and inevitably before his eyes as they light on
the word "Charlemagne" there rises at once a vision of the Emperor
of the Western World as he appears in Diirer's pkfaire, with his
terrible eyes and his great white flowing beard; veiled in dalmatic
and crowned with his tall crown surmounted by the Cross; grasping
in his right hand the sword Joyeuse, with the relic of the Holy
Lance in its pommel, and in his left hand the orb. And with this
vision there is heard in the mind (I speak not of the genteel, but of
men of good report) a loud fanfare and a galloping of hoofs, as
when the Emperor on his deHrier Tencendor went clanging and
pounding, hot with anger, through the awful passes of the Pyrenees
(as it says in the Song) to succour Roland.

Par grant iror chevalchet Charlemalgnes ,
Desor sa broigne li gifl sa barbe blanche.

[Blazing with anger rides Charlemagne; his white beard flying
shrouds his breast of mail.]

Observe that all the personages in the Ballade of Dead Lords
are roughly contemporary with Villon, and that he was not ignorant
of European affairs.

Immediately on the heels of this follows another 'Ballade & ce
propos, en vieil langage franfoys (Marot) in the same key, but a
failure an attempt, it seems, at a paftiche of thirteenth-century

271

French. It is enumerative, like the others, but bald, dry, and of little
value. Nevertheless it has one line glittering like a Byzantine ikon.

Voire, ou soit de Constantinobles
Uemperieres au poing dorez,
Ou de France ly roy tres nobles
Sur tous autres roys decorez,
Qui four ly grans Dieux aourez
Bastist eglises et couvens,
S'en son temps il jut honnorez,
Autant en emforte ly vens.

[Why, where is that Emperor of Constantinople with the golden
fists? Where is that most noble King of France, glorious above all
other Kings, who for the love of God built such churches and
convents? If he was honoured in his time, the wind has blown as
much away.]

"The Emperor with golden fits" gives you at once the Orient:
the minarets; the coloured domes; the Liturgy of Chrysoftom; the
i\onoflasis and its array of Strange framed oval-faced saints with
heads and vestments of solid gold and silver, Studded with gems;
the flowery Greek rites. Where had a shabby Parisian poet seen a
pi6ture like this, unless in the hall of some great seigneur, the Valois
or the Bourbon ?

As a master of the organ who has pushed back his great Stops
after the final 1 thunder of some fugue till lingers abstracted at the
keyboard, repeating and embroidering his theme on a slenderer
reed, so Villon now runs on with the Death theme in huitains\ but
his thoughts are shaping themselves definitely and concentrating
on one aspe6t, an absorbing one to him perpetually: the decay of
women's beauty, and the tragedy of it. There flower in due course
the ten verses of the Lament of the Belle Heaulmiere, the old
woman keening over her dying fire, remembering her youth, her
vanished beauty, and the hot sweet sins which remain to her (as a
poet has said) like the perfume of wine lingering in an empty
jar. A hundred years before her the Wife of Bath had raised the
same loud complaint:

272

But Lord Crist! whan that it remembreth me
Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee,
It tikleth me aboute myn herte roote!
Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote
That I have had my world, as in my tyme.
But Age, alias! that al wole envenyme,
Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith,
tat go, fare wel, the devel go therwith!
The flour is goon, ther is namoore to telle,
The bren, as I best kan, now moste I selle.

Of the Belle Heaulmiere's very frank and fierce lament for
physical beauty the invention was actually not Villon's, but Jean de
Meung's, who had incorporated a plaint of the kind into his con-
tinuation of the immense Roman de la Rose a century before. 5 The
old woman (called the Belle Heaulmiere presumably from the
heaulme, the ditin<ftive headdress, like the mitra of the Roman
trumpets, or possibly from her having been the bride of an
armourer) passes in review, relentlessly, her dried and skinny mem-
bers, evoking the time of their soft whiteness and their ravishing
spring, bewailing and reviling old age, which has spoiled her of all
her treasures.

LES REGRETS DE LA BELLE HEAULMIERE *
[La vieille Advis m'est que j'oy regreter

7antll e " La bdle 3 ui f uf h " lmierc >

temps de so. Soy jeune file soushaitter

jeunesse.] fa farler en telle maniere:

"Ha! viellesse felonne et fiere,

Pourquoi m'as si tost abatue?

Qui me tient, qui, que ne me fiere,

Et qua ce coup je ne me tue?"

[Me thought I heard the complaint of the fair who was formerly
the Heaulmiere, crying for her youth and lamenting in this wise:
"Ha! Age, brutal, relentless Age! why hast vanquished me so
soon? What hinders me from slaying myself, and so ending all at
one blow?"]

She remembers the loveliness of her body, which once no man could
resift, but which is now scorned even by truandailles, the very beg-

6 From verse 13,526 on: but I have not read it.

* Swinburne's translation of "The Lament" will be found on page 386.

273

gars, dregs, and riffraff. She remembers also the graceless darling
lover of her youth, to whom she gave so freely what others were
glad to purchase, getting in exchange merely blows and betrayal,
but forgetting all these in his infrequent kiss.

"Or eft il mart, passe trente ans,
Et je remains vielle, chenue.
Quant je pense, lasse! au bon temps f
Quelle jus, quelle devenue;
Quant me regarde toute nue,
Et je me voy si tres changiee,
Povre, seiche, megre, menue,
Je suis presque toute enragiee.

"Qu'est devenu ce -front poly,
Cheveulz blons, ces sourcils voultiz
Grant entroeil, ce regart joly,
Dont prenoie les plus soubtih;
Ce beau nez droit } grant ne petiz f
Ces petites joinctes oreilles,
Menton jourchu, cler vis traictiz t
Et ces belles levres verrneilles?

'["Well, he is dead these thirty years and more,, and here am I
left a grey old woman. Aie! when I think of the good days, what
I was then, what I am now, when I look at myself naked and see
myself so changed, poor, dried-up, skinny, shrivelled, I could be
beside myself with rage almost.

"Where is my smooth forehead, my golden hair, my well-arched
eyebrows, the broad space between my eyes, and my lovely look,
which fired the cleverest of them? Where is my fine straight nose,
neither too big nor too little, my pretty small ears, my dimpled
chin, my clear features, and my beautiful red lips?"]

It is not accounted refined to follow the catalogue of charms
further, nor yet to transcribe the old women's bitter outcry of con-
tempt at their present ruin: for she is through, and spares no inch
of herself. 6

"Ces gentes espaules menues,

Ces bras longs et ces mains traictisses f ,

Petiz tetins, hanches charnues,

Eslevees, propres, jaiclisses

e See Appendix E: The Blazon of Beauty.

274

A tenir amoureuses Uses;
Ces large $ rains, ce sadinet
As sis sur grosses fermes cuisses;
Dedens son joly jardinet?

"Le front ride, les cheveux gris,
Les sourdlz cheus, les yeuls estains f
Qui faisoient re gars et ris
Dont mains marchans furent attains;
"Nez courbes de beaulte loingtains,
Oreilles pendantes, mousues,
Le vis pally, mort et de stains,
Men ton fronce levres peaussues:

"C'es~l d'umaine beaulte I' is sue!
Les bras cours et les mains contraites,
Des espaules toute bossue;
Mamelles, quoy? toutes retraites;
Telles les hanches que les tettes;
Du sadinet, fy! Quant de cuisses,
Cuises ne sont plus, mais cuissettes
Grivelees comme saulcisses."

[Those sweet slim shoulders, those long arms and pretty hands,
those little breasts and fine plump hips, so high, so fair, so excellent
for Love's tourneys; those broad loins, and that jewel, enshrined
within its charming garden, set upon such plump firm thighs?

[The forehead is wrinkled, the hair grey, the eyebrows have
fallen, the eyes are dead those eyes which flung such looks and
smiles, whereby so many passers-by were wounded. The nose is
hooked, and its beauty is fled, the ears hang down, shrunken; the
whole face is waxen, dead, and extinguished, the chin puckered,
the lips grown coarse.]

[Such is the end of human loveliness! My arms are shrivelled,
my hands withered, my shoulders humped, my breasts Ale! all
shrunken, hips and paps alike. And that jewel fie! fie! And as for
my thighs, thighs they are no more, but skin and bone, speckled
like sausages!]

275

She comes at laft to silence, and a final brooding.

"Ainsi le bon temps regretons
Entre nous, povres vielles sotes
Assizes bas, a crouppetons f
Tout en ung tas comme pelotes,
A -petit feu de chenevotes
Toll allumees, to/I esJaintes;
Et jadis fusmes si mignotes! . . .
Ainsi en prent a mains et mamtes"

["So do we regret our good time, we poor silly old fools,
crouching on our hunkers in a heap, like a bundle of old clothes,
over a little fire of hemp-stalks, soon alight and soon out ... we
that once were so tasty. Thus it happens to one and all."]

I cannot refrain from quoting from J. M. Synge's free and
lovely prose-paraphrase of this Lament.

The man I had a great love for a great rascal would kick me in the
gutter is dead thirty years and over it, and it is I am left behind, grey
and aged. When I 3o be minding the good days I had, minding what I was
one time, and what it is I'm come to, and when I do look on my own self,
poor and dry, and pinched together, it wouldn't be much would set me
raging in the Greets.

Where is the round forehead I had, the fine hair, and the two eyebrows,
and the eyes with a big gay look out of them would bring folly from a great
scholar? Where is my straight shapely nose, and two ears, and my chin with
a valley in it, and my lips were red and open? . . .

It's the way I am this day my forehead is gone away into furrows,
the hair of my head is grey and whitish, my eyebrows are tumbled from me,
and my two eyes have died out within my head those eyes that would
be laughing to the men: my nose has a hook on it, and my ears are hanging
down; and my lips are sharp and skinny.

That's what's left over from the beauty of a right woman a bag of
bones, and legs the like of two shrivelled sausages going beneath it.

It's of the like of that we old hags do be thinking, of the good times
are gone away from us, and we crouching on our hunkers by a little fire of
twigs, soon kindled and soon spent, we that were the pick of many.

We are nearing the beginning of the Teftament proper; but
there is some very pretty moralising before we reach it. The Ballade
of the Belle Heaulmiere to the Daughters of Joy follows after her
Lament, and is a piece of advice which some have deemed cynical.
The firt ftanza gives the doctrine of it.

276

LA BELLE HEAULMIERE AUX FILLES DE JOIE
"Or y pensez, belle Gantlere
Qui m'escoliere souliez esJre,
Et vous, Blanche la Savetiere,
Or efl il temps de vous congnoistre.
Prenez a deflre et a senestre;
N'espargnez homme, je vous frie:
Car vielles nont ne cours ne eflre,
Ne que monnoye quon descrie."

["Now, my sweet Glover, once my pupil, consider this well.
You, too, Blanche the Cobbler. Now is the time to consolidate.
Take them right and left, I beg you 5 and spare no man; for aged
trulls have neither currency nor place, any more than a worn-out
coinage."]

It is addressed to six ladies of Paris, not harlots exclusively by pro-
fession, but demi-mondaines of the lower bourgeoisie, mingling
Cyprian exercises with their daily occupation: the firSl being the
Belle Gantiere, who sells gloves in her spare time; the second
Blanche la Savetiere, whose husband (an easy man) cobbles shoes;
the third the Gente Saulcissiere, goddess of the sausage-shop; the
fourth Guillemette la Tapissiere, who works in tapeftry; the fifth
Jehanneton la Chaperonniere, skilled alike in making hoods and
horns; and the sixth Katherine 1'Esperonniere, who has a husband
(a wittol, I fear) in the spur-making gild. To all these the Belle
Heaulmiere's warning is brief and practical: "Gather ye roses while
ye may." Now is the time! Take them where you can and spare
none, for in a short time, sweethearts, you won't get the chance!
No coyness, I beg ! You'll wish one day, my dears, you'd had more
Business Method.

Such is the gift of the old lady's homily: a model of clear, brisk,
constructive commercial theory.

The Ballade to the Daughters of Joy (it is not a very good one)
sets Villon meditating on the nature and quiddity of lights-o'-love,
and their beginnings; and thence on the nature of women generally
and their inclination to toying; and his very reasonable conclusion
is that, taken by and large, the love of women is the devil Pour ung
flaisir millc doulours. He bursts Straight into the sardonic Double
Ballade, which is printed later in this book: but having finished, his

277

old wound begins to ache again. I think it is as clear as it can be that
the lady mut be the same who tabbed his poor heart in 1456. Ma
Mere rose, on whom a little later in the Teftament he turns with
a sudden snarl, hurling a well-conceived insult, is obviously a lover's
conceit for Katherine de Vausselles. It is plain, as we have seen,
that Villon cherished for one woman what is his nearest approach
to pure love. His pain on her account is genuine, and his complaint,
though dressed in the jargon of the old school of interminable
martyrs to Love, obviously nourished on a burning sickness. "If
she whom I formerly served, " he begins lamentably,

Se celle que jadis servoie
De si bon cuer et loyaument,
Dont tant de maulx et grief z j'avoie
Et souffroie tant de torment,
Se dit m'eufl, au commencement,
Sa voulente (mais nennill las),
J'eusse mis faine aucunement
De moy retraire de ses las.

[If she whom I formerly served with such faith and so loyally,
she for whom I have suffered so many griefs, miseries, and tor-
tures if she had only told me her will at the beginning (but alas!
she did not), I might have done something to free myself from
her toils.]

This does not sound like a chagrin for a passing trull. The evi-
dence (as I have said before, but it may be repeated) that Katherine
de Vausselles is Villon's enduring torment is very Strong. She was
socially above the ruck of the poet's loves. She had had him
whipped, as he makes plain in the fifth verse of the Double Ballade.

De moy, povre, je vueil parler:
J'en fus batu comme a ru toiles,
Tout nu t ja ne le quiers celer.
Qui me feisJ machier ces groselles,
Fors Katherine de Vausselles?
Noel le tiers esJ, qui jut la.
Mitaines e ces nofces telles . . .
Bien esJ eureux qui riens n'y a!

[I would speak too of myself poor fool! I was thrashed (on
this account) like linen washed in a stream, stark naked why

278

should I seek to conceal it now? And who made me chew such
bitter humiliation but Katherine de Vausselles? Noel was the third
person present. Of the thwackings received at such festivities
happy is he who knows them not!]

He had indeed endured at her fair hands (as we have noted)
the double indignity promised Panurge on his marriage. If this is
indeed the suffering he means, he broods over it for five verses,
bitterly remembering his bondage, and how she had led him by the
nose with a thousand fooleries; and then with a sudden harsh laugh
sends the whole business to the devil.

Je regnle Amours et despite

Et deffie a feu et a sang.

Mort far elles me frecifite,

Et ne leur en chault fas d'ung blanc.

Ma v'ielle ay mys soubz le bane;

Amans je ne suyvray jamais:

Se jadis je jus de leur ranc,

Je desclare que n'en suis mais.

[I renounce and curse all loves, and defy them, with blood and
fire! They send a man to the brink of death, and care not a brass
farthing! I've shoved my hurdygurdy under the seat [a minstrel's
locution signifying the end of an occupation] ; and if I ever walked
with lovers or counted myself among them, I hereby swear it will
happen no more.]

"I've flung my plume into the wind," he says, swaggering de-
fiantly. "I'm henceforth free to blaspheme love as I please! If any
fool wants to know why I do it, let him be content with this: A
dying man may speak his mind." For some whimsical reason
perhaps because he is in a black, tearing rage and looking round for
something to satisfy it the Bishop of Orleans comes immediately
into his mind, and at once he is off again. The Question Ordinaire
presents itself to his memory once more: I can hear him grinding
his teeth and snarling.

. . . Quant fen ay memoire,
Je fry four luy et reliqua,
Que Dieu luy doint, et voire, voirel
Ce que je feme . . . et cetera,

2 79

[When I remember these things, I pray for him . . . and the
rest o it. May God give him (indeed, by God!) all I think his
due . . . et cetera.]

"Not that I wish him ill," he adds, grinning with fury. "Oh,
no! Nor his lieutenant either! Nor his Official, who is such a charm-
ing helpful character! (Grrrr-rr!) And as for little Mafter Robert
... I 1 Lord, I love them all, the whole bunch; as much as God
loves a Lombard!" And thinking of the bloodsucking usurers of the
Rue des Lombards he emits a harsh chuckle; and is at once off
again zigzag on a fresh tack. A thought has jut come to him. He
will make a new edition of the mocking Testament which he wrote
in 1456, and which was such a popular success.

Si me souvient bien, Dieu rnercis,
Que je feis a mon fartement
Certains laiz, I' an cinquante six,
Quaucuns, sans mon consentement t
Voulurent nommer Testament;
Leur flaisir jut et non le mien.
Mais quoy? on dit communement
Qu'ung chascun nes~i maisJre du sien.

[I remember very well (God be praised!) that I composed
certain Bequests in the year '56, on going away. Some people have
been determined to call this a Testament , but without my consent.
It was their wish, not mine. But what of that? They say nobody
is completely master of his own.]

As we observe, Testament is not the title of his own choosing:
he had called it Les Lais. But the artift bows gracefully to popular
clamour. They want to call it a Testament? Very well 1 , then. As
they like. If (he adds) there is any one who did not receive the
bequeft reserved for him in that previous will, let him apply after
Villon's death to his heirs, namely Moreau, Provins, and Robin
Turgis. Robin Turgis, a large creditor of the poet's, kept the Pomme
de Pin, as we know. Moreau has been identified with a matter-
cook, Provins with a ma&er-confelioner both of Paris. 2 And now,
since the drawing up of a more elaborate will and Testament is

1 Hangman of Orleans.

2 There is here, thinks P. Champion, an echo of an unpublished repue Tranche.

280

necessary, Villon summons his clerk Fremin, who does not exift;
and ordering him to take his seat by the bedside, with pens, ink,
and paper, takes a deep breath and begins.

It is my intention to pluck from the Grant Teflamcnt proper,
now beginning at verse Ixx., under Marot's rubric

ICY COMMENCE VlLLON A TESTER,

[Here begins Villon to make his Testament.]

what St. Franf ois de Sales (but referring to a work of greater piety)
calls a posy to sniff at all day long. Of the hundred verses which
compose it, leaving aside the Ballades and Rondels with which it is
budded, a few are dull and a few obscure and a few trifling. But
it contains also verses of tenderness, irony, merriment, anger, and
beauty.

He begins, as in the lesser Testament, with the customary invo-
cation of the Blessed Trinity; wandering off thence very curiously
for the space of three verses into a disquisition on the ftate of the
souls of the Patriarchs and Prophets in Limbo. "Never," he medi-
tates, "did Hell's flames lick their thighs." And then apologetically:

Qui me diroit: "Qui vous fait metre
Si tres avant cesJe petrolic,
Qui n'esJes en theologie maisJre?
A vous esJ presumption follel"

[Some, no doubt, will say to me: "What is all this? Who made
you a Doctor in Theology? What is this ridiculous presumption
of yours!"]

To this he retorts that Chrit Himself has revealed it, in the
parable of Dives and Lazarus: and in recalling the condition of
Dives his thirdly sympathy is awakened. Lord! The hot place! A
bad look-out for bottle-whackers! God's mercy save us from it! He
pulls himself up with a jerk, jut as he is about to develop this fas-
cinating theme; and with a swift glance at his own condition at
present plus megre que chimere, more haggard than a chimera
returns to his subje<5l and resolutely begins the Testament with
a second devout preface, commending his soul and writings to God
and Our Lady.

281

Ou nom de Dieu, comme fay dit f
Et de sa glorieuse Mere,
Sans pechie soil parfait ce dit
Par moy, plus megre que chimere;
Se je n'ey eu fievre enfumere t
Ce rna fait divine clemence;
Mais d'autre dueil et perte amere
Je me tais, et ainsi commence.

Premier, je donne ma povre ame

A la benoiste Trinite.

Et la commande a Nostre Dame,

Chambre de la divinite,

Priant toute la charite

Des dignes neuf Ordres des cieulx

Que par eulx soit ce don forte

Devant le Trosne precieux.

[In the Name of God, as I have said, and of His glorious
Mother, may this be without sin that is written by me, who am
more haggard than chimera. If I have not had the diurnal fever
[or ague] it is by the Divine clemency. . . . But I will say no
more of my other miseries and bitter loss, but keep silence, and so
begin:

Firstly, I bequeath my poor soul to the Blessed Trinity and
commend it to Our Lady, Chamber of Divinity; praying all the
Nine Orders of the sky that of their chanty they will convey this
gift before the precious Throne.]

There succeeds to this preface immediately a verse full of a
sad humour.

Item, mon corps fordonne et laisse
A nosJre grant mere la terre.
Les vers ny trouveront grant gresse:
Trop luy a faict faim dure guerre.
Or luy soit delivre grant erre:
De terre vmt f en terre tourne.
Toute chose, se par trop nerre f
Voulentiers en son lieu retourne.

[Item, I give and bequeath my body to the Earth, our common
Mother. The worms will not find much meat on it, for hunger
has bitten it too near the bone already. Let it be delivered as soon
as may be: of earth it was made, to earth it returns. Everything,
unless I err, goes willingly back to the place whence it came.]

282

Then follows that verse of sudden affection and remorse dedi-
cated to his guardian, "more than father, more tender than a
mother/' the good prieSt Guillaume de Villon, chaplain of St.
Benoit. And then comes a flash of autobiography. He leaves to
Mafter Guillaume de Villon

ma librairie,

Et le Rommant du Pet-au-D cable,

Lequel maiflre Guy Tabarie

Grossa, qui esJ horns veritable,

Par cayers eft soubz une table;

Combien qu'il soit rude men t "fait,

La matiere esJ si tres notable

Quelle amende tout le mesfait.

[My library, and the Romance of the Pet-au-D cable, copied out
by Master Guy Tabarie, a man of truth; the manuscript-books lie
under the table. Though inelegant, its matter is so notable that it
makes up for all defects.]

This Romance recounted in burlesque heroics, doubtless parody-
ing the Chansons de Gefle, the great adventure which, as we have
seen, so metagrabolised and incornifuSHbulated the University quar-
ter. As for Master Tabarie, his skill with the pen did not save him
from being sorely beset and bedevilled. The Romance, Villon's firft
known poem, is gone for ever, like the loft works of Livy, the
Sibylline Books, and Panurge's great volume on Braguettes.

Very abruptly then there tirs in the poet's mind the thought
of his aged mother; and with this comes a rush of remorse again,
and tenderness, and a sudden surge of love and devotion to Her,
his lal refuge and his mother's, his Caftle and Fortress,

Help of the half-defeated, House of Gold,
Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory . . .

And to his mother, as if he were once more kneeling hand-in-
hand with her before the compassionate Mother of God, he makes
his bequeSt

Item, donne a ma povre mere

Pour saluer NosJre MaisJresse

(Qui pour moy ot douleur amere,

Dieu le scet, et mainte trisJesse},

283

Autre chattel nay, ne fortress?,
Ou me retraye corps et ame t
Quant sur moy court malle de/iresse,
Ne ma mere, la fovre femmel

[Item, I leave to my poor mother and God knows she has
suffered bitter sorrow through me, and many a grief [this] for a
salute to Our Lady: for beyond Her I have no castle nor fortress
where I may hide me body and soul when stark Despair marches
against me . . . nor my mother either, poor soul!]

The verse is left without an objedive, and leads dire<5tly with-
out pause to the greatest work of this poet, the Ballade made by
Villon, at his mother's request, for a prayer to Our Lady. I have
later in this book transcribed and noted this Ballade, 4 a cry of fer-
vent religion mixed with filial love. It is as four-square and imper-
ishable as the Faith whence it is drawn.

Almost before the laft echoes of the Envoi, like plainsong roll-
ing in the arches of Solesmes, have died away, the love of women
has gripped this poor devil again, and he is &ung and smarting
and bitter in his insults: so compact of earth and fire, of aspirations
and lufts, of lovely and gross, is mortal man. 9 "Item," he begins,

Item, m' amour f ma chiere rose

There is an ugly look on his face. He bequeaths her the thing
she loves more than his heart or liver a large silk purse full of
crowns, though she has plenty already: let him be hanged who
leaves her any more! And spitting out a bitter "Qrde paillarde!" he
pours his suffering and humiliation into a Ballade which has been
deemed inferior, but in which I detect the unmiftakable genuine
fury of love scorned and raging. I have already considered its mys-
terious "Marthe" aerobic.

BALLADE

DE VILLON A S AMYE

Faulse beaulte qui tant me couste chier,
Rude en effecJ, ypocrite doulceur,
Amour dure flus que fer a maschier,
Nommer que fuis, de ma desfacon seur,

* See page 343. 9 1 mean, o course, medieval man.

284

Cherme felon, la mart d'ung povre cuer f
Orgueil mussie qui gens met au mourir,
Yeulx sans pitie, ne veult droit de rigueur,
Sans empirer, ung povre secourir?

Mieulx m'euB value avoir esJe serchier
Ailleurs secours: c'eusJ esJe mon onneur;
Riens ne m'eust sceu lors de ce fait hachier.
Trotter men fault en fuyte et deshonneur.
Haro, haro } le grant et le mineurl
Et quest ce cy? Mourray sans coup ferir?
Ou Pitie veult, selon cesJe teneur,
Sans empirer, ung povre secourir?

[False, lovely one, that hath cost me so dear; ruthless one,
false sweeting, love harder in the mouth than steel, harder than I
can say, to my destruction kin; O traitorous charms, death of my
poor heart! O scornful pride, driving men to their doom! O
pitiless eyes, will rigour not allow her, ere worse betide, to succour
one forlorn?

Better were it for me to have sought help elsewhere, better for
my own pride: nothing would then have wrung this pain from -me.
But I must fly, in shame and dishonour! Haro! haro! both great
and small! But what is this? Shall I, then, die, without a blow?
Or will pity move her, ere worse betide, to succour one forlorn?]

It is the slow, grinding, intolerable pain of Catullus in his
complaint of Lesbia's treachery.

Caeli f Lesbia nos~lra, Lesbia illa f
Ilia Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes . . .

A taunt of the third Stanza holds a breath of the Renaissance,
that contemplation of fresh beauty withering like the flower which
moved Ronsard and his companions so Strongly.

Vng temps viendra qui fera dessechier,
Jaunir t fleflrir vosJre espanye fleur;
Je men risse, se tant peusse maschier
Lors; mais nennil, ce seroit done foleur:
Las! viel seray; vous, laide, sans couleur;

285

[A time will come when your flower will be dried-up, yellow,
faded: I should laugh then, if I could bear as much but no, alas!
That would be folly. I shall be old, and you too, ugly and colour-
less.]

And with, a desperate attempt at mockery he advises her to
drink deep and drown her cruelty.

Or beuvez fort, tant que ru peut courir;
Ne donnez pas a tous cefle douleur,
Sans empirer, ung povre secourir.

[Therefore, drink deep, before the trearn runs dry; inflict not
this pain on all, ere worse betide, etc.]

Debussy's music has heightened the pain of this Ballade, ad-
dressed so bitterly to ma damoysdk au nez tortu, my lady of the
twiSled nose, bought and sold, and yet (curse her) Still held in his
unhappy heart. It is, moreover, a Ballade of true love, and in its
fashion burning and intense; and it begins, as Catullus' quatrain
ends, in an insult like a whip-lash across the face.

The firSt common bequeSt of the Testament follows imme-
diately, made to the same powerful Master Ythier Marchant to
whom in his lesser Testament Villon left his short sword. He now
bequeaths Master Ythier a De Profundis for all his dead loves, whose
names he dare not tell,

Car II me halroit a tous jours,
[For he would hate me eternally.]

continuing with that Lay, or Rondel, on the death of a miStress
I have already quoted in full. The Grant Teflament is now fairly
launched for thirty verses more. Familiar faces begin to appear.
Master Jacques Raguier, the wine-cask we have met before, this
time gets the Great Goblet, the famous Grant Godet tavern in the
Place de Greve, at a tri<5t price of four plaques, or coppers, even if
he has to sell his breeks and go untrussed and in slippers to the
Pomme de Pin. Jehan le Loup, the duck-Stealer, colleague of Casin
Cholet, gets a retriever dog and another long tabard to conceal
his night's bag from the Watch. But more dignified figures than
these begin to fill the poet's page the Sire Denys Hesselin, Coun-

286

cillor of Paris and later Provot of Merchants, the equivalent of
Lord Mayor; the financier, alderman, and councillor Nicolas
de Louviers; Jehan Cornu, Criminal Clerk of the Chatelet; Jacques
Fournier, Procurator and Member of Parliament; Pierre Basanier,
Notary and Clerk of the Chatelet; Pierre de Saint-Amant, Clerk of
the Treasury; Jehan Mautaint 9 and Nicolas Rosnel, examiners at
the Chatelet; the Procurator Eftienne Genevois; and a dozen more,
including the Provoft of Paris, Messke Robert d'Eftouteville him-
self, for whom was composed that mediocre piece called by Marot
Ballade que Villon donna a ung Gentilhomme nouvdlement marie,
four I'envoyer a son Espouse, far luy conquise a I'Espee. I selfeil
the names at random. They may show the free way in which me-
dieval society mingled, substantial burgesses and legal personages
and municipal officers and rapscallions alike, in the taverns which
were the clubs of that age: although probably Villon, as I have
said before, did not know half of them, excepting the police and
Chatelet officials, personally. Nevertheless his close acquaintance
with the Provoft seems assured (as I have pointed out elsewhere),
however embarrassing occasionally to both parties; since Villon,
while not mentioning the Provost by name, dedicates his epithala-
mion to

Le seigneur qui serf saincJ Cri&ofle.

[The seigneur who serves St. Christopher.]

To know that a King's officer has a special devotion to St.
Christopher argues a certain familiarity of access. Much more
enigma is the significance of the easy jet Villon permits himself
in verse clxx. of the Grant Tefiament on a very high personage,
"the Seneschal," who may be either Louis de Bourbon, Marshal
and Seneschal of the Bourbonnais, or Pierre de Breze, High Senes- .
chal of Normandy.

Item, sera le Seneschal,
Qui une fois pay a rn.es debtes,
TLn recommence, mareschal
Pour jerrer oes et canettes,

s He had been entrusted, with Jehan du Four, with the judicial inquiry in the matter
of the burglary of the College of Navarre four years before; which argues a certain coolness
in Villon here.

287

Je luy envoie ces sornettes
Pour soy desennuyer; combien,
S'il veult, face en des alumettes:
De bien chanter s'ennuye on lien.

\Item> the Seneschal, who once paid all my debts, shall by way
of reward be a blacksmith, and shoe geese and ducks. (An inter-
national country gibe concerning the simple-minded. Cf. the Sussex
jest about the men o Piddinghoe, who shoe magpies and hang
ponds out to dry.) To beguile his tedium I send him these frivol-
ities; however, if he likes, let him make spills o 'em. One gets
tired of singing even singing well.]

From the sixth line, hinting that the Seneschal was a prisoner,
it might seem that the Norman personage is meant. He was held
by the King in the caftle of Loches in Touraine at the end of
1461. But the Bourbon, a natural brother of Jean n. of Bourbon,
would be the more likely to have settled Villon's debts, since (as
we have seen) the poet had some sort of bond with that family,
and had lived under their protection. In either case the joke is a
daring one, and even in that broad age might have cot the joker
dear; for Louis de Bourbon (whom, on reflection, I judge the more
likely subject of this verse he was Seigneur of Roussillon in 1460)
married a natural daughter of Louis XL, and in 1466 became Ad-
miral' of France and an extremely high personage indeed. If the
verse is a careless joke, therefore, it is a dangerous one, and prisons
have yawned wide for less. If (as is more likely) the reference to
the payment of debts is a fad, then Villon was on such easy terms
of acquaintance with the Seneschal that he could risk calling him
(in black and white) a thickhead. . . .

Such are the problems one encounters.

I proceed.

To the Sire Denys Hesselin the poet leaves fourteen hogsheads
of the wine of Aunis, ordered from Robin Turgis "at my risk";
from which I gather that the municipal dignitary was convivial.
To the Prince of Fools, Chief and Master of Revels of the Enfans
Sans-Souci, he bequeaths ung bon sot, one Michault du Four, a Ser-
geant of the Chatelet, to be his right-hand fool and mumming-
lieutenant: this Michault (he says) has a pretty wit and sings a good

288

song called Ma doulce amour ^ To two of the Unze Vingtz Sergens
of the Chatelet, his natural enemies, named Denis Richier and
Jehan Vallette, bonnes et doulces gens, he leaves in mockery a
large cornete, the band of velvet or silk which elegants at this
period wore from their hats, tying the end beneath the chin,

"Pour pendre a leurs chappeaulx de faultres;
J f en tens a ceulx a pi6, hohetel
Car je nay que faire des autres.

[To hang from their felt hats. I mean the /octf-Sergeants, what
ho! I've nothing to do with the others.]

To Jehan Rou, a wealthy burgess and Captain of Archers, he
leaves six wolves' heads, which can be nothing less than a pleasant
reference to his friend Jehan surnamed the Wolf, sooner or later
to be seized by the Archers and hacked or hanged: to Perrot
Girart, barber at Bourg4a-Reine, two basins and a pipkin, re-
minding him at the same time of the good trick the poet played
on him half a dozen years earlier, when he got a week's lodging
and plenty of fat roat pork for nothing. To the Mendicant Friars,
the Filles-Dieu, and the Beguines of St. Avoye, for whom he had
some affection (since he later desired to be buried in their chapel),
and also to those at Orleans, he leaves grasses souppes jacoppines,
thick soup, according to Prompsault, made with sugar and eggs,
served in the Dominican house in the Rue St. Jacques on feaSl-days,
and flawns for their refection. To Friar Baulde, a poet and roaring
companion, the reputed author of the Repues branches, a back-
slider from the Carmelites, he leaves a sallad, or casque without
helm, and two double-edged fighting axes, or guysarmes.

There follow oblique references to unlucky adventures with
two women: little Macee of Orleans, whom we have met, and a girl
of Paris unknown, named Denise, who had summoned him before
the ecclesiastical courts for cursing at her.

Item, a mai&re Jehan Cotart,
Mon procureur en court d'Eglise,
Devoye environ ung patart f
Car a present bien m'en advise,

10 Michel du Four also took part in the judicial inquiry into the burglary at the College
de Navarre.

289

Quant chlcaner me feifl Denise,
Dlsant que I'avoye maudite:
Pour son ame, ques cieulx soit mise,
CeBe oroison j'ay cy escripte.

[Item, to Master Jehan Cotart, my Procurator in the Ecclesi-
atical Courts, I owe, now I remember it, about one patart (a
Flemish and Artesian halfpenny) for his services when Denise
brought her action against me, swearing I had cursed her. I have
here composed this prayer for the good estate of his soul and his
admission to Paradise.]

This Ma&er Cotart, his counsel againft Denise, is Bottle-Nose,
the merry and aged Pantagruelift in whose honour Villon imme-
diately proceeds to draw up the jolly Ballade and Prayer, which ap-
pears later in this book. There then returns to him that gut of
mocking bitterness on the subject of the three usurers Marceau,
Gossouyn, and Laurens, mes trois pot/res orphelins, and he pauses
awhile to toy with them. He has heard (he says) that his three dear
children are growing up nicely and becoming ripe for education,
and he at once busies himself with plans for them. They shall hidy
under Ma&er Pierre Richier; u and since the Donat, the Standard
Grammar of ^Elius Donatus, is too tough for their tender minds,

llz sauront, je I'ayme plus chier,

Ave salus, tibi decus,

Sans plus grans lettres enserchier.

[Let them get by heart (I would much prefer it) the Ave salus,
tibi decus, and not trouble to seek more learning.]

This conceals gibes of the beft, for Donat is a jet on donner,
to give, and in setting them the hymn Ave salus to learn Villon is
subtly referring to the saluts of the gold coinage. More mockery
follows:

Cecy esJudient, et hoi

Plus proceder je leur deffens.

Quant d 'entendre le grant Credo,

Trop fort il esJ pour telz enfans.

31 Of the Faculty of Theology, master of an important children's school. He is the only
University professor mentioned by name in either Testament.

290

Man long tabart en deux je fens;
Si vueil que la moitie s f en vende
Pour leur en acheter des flaons,
Car jeunesse esJ ung feu friande.

[Let them study this, what ho! More I forbid them; and as for
the great Credo, it is too difficult for such children, I tear my long
tabard in half for them: let one half of it be sold to buy them
flawns; for youth has a sweet tooth.]

The great Credo, which children learned in school, here means
also long credit, which Villon sarcastically fears is also too difficult
for his three orphans. Flaons are both flawns or custard-tarts and
also the metal disk from which coins were Struck in the Mint. 12 He
continues with that verse on deportment and good behaviour,

Chaperons auront enformez
Et les poulces sur la sainture,

[Their hoods must be worn well over the head, and their
thumbs tucked into their belts,]

which I have already quoted, and which seems a genuine indica-
tion of the manners required from children of University in his
time; and then passes on to gibe, as in the Petit Testament, at his
two povres clerjons, Cotin and de Vilry, the rich old canons of
Notre-Dame, whom he congratulates on their youthful good health
and frolicsomeness, at the same time making them a further be-
queft:

Les bources des Dix et Huit Clers

Auront; je m'y vueil travaillier.

[They shall have the burses of the Dix-Huit. I will see to this
myself.]

The College des Dix-Huit, as we have seen, was the earliest
house of University, founded by the Englishman Josse de Londres
on his return from the Holy Land. It was demolished in 1639, and
its eighteen needy bursars were enabled to live in lodgings on the
indemnity until, a century later, they were amalgamated with the

13 Compare the word * 'flawn' ' used in much the same significance by English printers,
I believe.

[For the interpretation of these two verses I am indebted to P. Champion.]

291

Lycee Louis-le-Grand. Villon finally drops his two canons with a
"Yah yah!" line reflecting playfully on their parentage.

Mais, joy que doy jefles et veilles,
Oncques ne vy les meres d'eulx!

[But on my honour, feasts or fasts, I never set eyes on their
mothers!]

And so we come to the Ballade made for Messire Robert d'Es-
touteville, ProvoSt of Paris, on his marriage to the fair Ambroise de
Lore, daughter of the Baron d'lvry. She died in the spring of 1468,
carried off, it seems, by the same epidemic which took away Guil-
laume de Villon: moult saigc & honnette dame, says a contem-
porary writer. The Ballade is a dull affair, pedantic, of no inspira-
tion, and must have been one of Villon's earliest Student experi-
ments. The initial letters of its firSt two Stanzas yield A-M-B-R-O-I-S-E
D-E-L-O-R-E. It is followed, with an interval of two obscure growling
verses, by a sudden Ballade of astonishing fire and fury directed
againSt envious tongues; exadly as if some one had privily given
the poet a great jab from behind and Started him with a leap into
the air. May all envious tongues, he bellows, be fried in red arsenic!
in yellow arsenic! in saltpetre! in quicklime! in boiling lead! in tal-
low! in pitch! in aspic's blood! in venomous drugs! in the gall of
wolves and foxes! and in half a dozen other tinctures even more
displeasing. He continues cursing like one of Macbeth's witches:

En cervelle de chat qui hayt peschier,
Noir, et si viel quil nait dent en gencive,
D'ung viel maflin, qui vault bien aussi chier
Tout enragie, en sa have et salive,
En I'escume d'une mulle poussive
Detrenchiee menu a bons dseaulx,
En eaue ou ratz plangent groings et museaulx f
Raines, crappaulx et besJes danger euses,
Serpens, lesars et telz nobles oyseaulx,
Soient frittes ces langues envieuses!

[In the brains of a water-shy black cat, so old that it has not a
tooth in its head; in the saliva (which is just as good) of an old
mastiff, foaming mad; in the frothings of a broken-winded mule cut

292

up small with good scissors; in water where rats plunge their snouts,
and frogs, and toads, and dangerous reptiles, serpents, lizards, and
such noble wildfowl in all this may envious tongues be fried!]

The reason for the outburst we have detected before: it con-
cerns one Francois Perdryer and a piece of treachery at Bourges.
Villon repeats the form, the Enumerative-Vituperative, in two
other pieces, the Ballade Joyeuse des Taverniers (sparingly attrib-
uted to him; but it could be by nobody else) againft adulterating
innkeepers, and the more scholarly and intensely patriotic Ballade
againft the Enemies of France. Both are much neglected; I can-
not for the life of me tell why, for they are both good. I will give
firft the jolly Rabelaisian tirade againft the Taverners.

BALLADE JOYEUSE
DES TAVERNIERS

D'ung gecJ de dart, d'une lance asseree,
D'ung grant faussart, d'une grosse massue,
D'une guisarme, d'une fleche ferree,
D'ung bracquemart, d'une hache esmolue,
D'ung grand penart et d'une bisague,
D'ung fort espieu et d'une saqueboute;
De mau-brigands puissent trouver tel route,
Que tous leurs corps fussent mis par monceaulx,
Le cueur fendu t descire par morceaulx,
Le col couppe d'ung bon branc achierin,
Et voisent drus aux Stygiens caveaux
Les taverniers qui brouillent no/Ire vinl

D'ung arc turcquois, d'une espee affilee,
Ayent les paillars la brouaille fondue,
De feu gregoys la perrucque bruslee f
Et par tempefle la cervelle espandue f
Au grant gibet leur charongne pendue,
Et briefvement puissent mourir de goutte;
Ou je requiers et pry que Von leur boute
Parmy leur corps force d'ardans barreaulx;
Vifs escorchez des mains de dix bourreaulx,
Et puis bouillir en huille le matin,
Desmembrez soient a quatre grans chevaulx
Les taverniers qui brouillent no sire vinl

293

D'un gros canon la tesJe escarbouillee >

Et de tonnerre acablez en la rue

Solent tous leurs corps, et leur chair despouillee,

De gros mafiins bien garnye et pourvue;

De jortz esclers puissent perdre la veue;

Neige et gresil tous jours sur eux degoutte f

Avecques ce, ilz aient la pluye toute,

Sans que sur eux ayent robbes ne manteaulx;

Leurs corps trenchez de dagues et couteaulx,

Et puis traisnez jusques en I'eau du Rhin;

Desrompuz soient a quatre-vingts marteaulx

Les taverniers qui brouittent nosJre vinl

ENVOY

Prince, de Dieu soient mauditz leurs boyaulx t
Et crever puissent par force de venin
Ces faulx larrons, mauldttz et desloyaulx,
Les taverniers qui brouittent nosJre vinl

[By the stroke o dart, by sharpened speax; by the swipe of a
huge multi-bladed halbert, by a thump from an enormous club;
by a battle-axe with two heads, by a leel arrow; by a double-handed
sword, by a well-ground axe; by a great dagger-thrust, by a two-
edged tuck; by a Strong snicker, by a crook-headed lance, by howl-
ing brigands in their road, may their bodies be hacked to bits, their
hearts cloven and torn to rags, their necks severed by a good leel
broadsword, and they dragged to the Stygian caverns the taverners
who hocus our good wine!

May the swabs have their giblets tickled with a Turkish arrow
and a sharp sword; may Greek fire scorch their thatch and a great
tempes~l scatter their brains; may their carrion bodies hang from
the high gibbet, and may they die very swiftly of the gout; I de-
mand and pray also that they be prodded with red-hot iron bars
and flayed alive by ten hangmen, boiled in oil in the morning and
torn apart by four ramping great horses: the taverners who hocus
our good wine!

May a great cannon-ball bash their .heads, may they be bruck
by thunder in the Street and may their flesh be gnawed by great
hungry dogs; may huge flashes of lightning blind them, snow and
hail beat on them perpetually, and with this pouring rain, and they
without gown or cape; may their bodies be slashed with daggers
and knives and dragged as far as the river of Rhine, may they be
whanged to pieces by eighty great hammers the taverners who
hocus our good wine!

294

Prince, may God curse their bowels, may they burst asunder
with the swelling of their own venom these traitor thieves,
accursed and forsworn: the taverners who hocus our good wine!]

I have given this splendid Ballade in full because it is man-
verse, Strong, muscled, knotty, red-blooded, roaring, and vigor-
ous, meet to be recited in an age in which few poets have the guts
to curse. The Ballade againft the Enemies of France is also worth
meditating.

BALLADE
CONTRE LES ENNEMIS DE LA FRANCE

[B. pour Recontre soil de betfes feu getans,

France.] Q U j ason w *^ querant la toison d'or;

Ou transmue ahomme en besJe sept ans f

Ainsi que jut Nabugodonosor;

Ou perte il ait et guerre aussi villaine

Que les Troyens pour la prime d'Helaine;

Ou avalle soit avec Tantalus

Et Proserpine aux infernaulx palus; 13

Ou plus que Job soit en grief ve souff ranee,

Tenant prison en la tour Dedalus,

Qui mal vouldroit au royaulme de France!

Quatre mois soit en ung vivier chantans,

La tesJe au fons, ainsi que le butor;

Ou au Grant Turc vendu denier s contans,

Pour esT-re mis au harnois comrne ung tor;

Ou trente ans soit, comme la Magdalaine t

Sans drap vestir de Unge ne de lame;

Ou soit noye comme jut Narcisus f

Ou aux cheveulx, comme Absalon, pendus

Ou, comme fut Judas, par Desperance;

Ou puist perir comme Simon Magus,

Qui mal vouldroit au royaulme de France!

D'Octovien puisJ revenir le terns:
C'esJ quon luy coule au ventre son tresor;
Ou qu'il soit mis entre meules ftotans
En ung moulin, comme fut saint Victor;

13 Note the infernaulx palus of the Ballade to Our Lady.

295

Ou trans glouty en la mer, sans aleine,

Pis que Jonas au corps de la baleine;

Ou soit banny de la clarte Phebus,

Des biens Juno et du soulas Venus,

Et du dleu Mars soit pugny a oultrance,

Ainsy que fut roy Sardanapalus ,

Qui mat vouldroit au royaulme de Francel

ENVOY

Prince, forte soit des serfs Eolus

En la fore/I ou do-mine Glaucus;

Ou prive soit de paix et d'esperance:

Car digne n'esJ de pos seder vertus

Qui rnal vouldroit au royaulme de Francel

[May he encounter the mongers belching fire that Jason met
when he sought the Fleece of Gold; or be changed for seven years
from a man into a beasl:, like Nabuchodonosor; may he suffer such
heavy loss and warfare as the Trojan suffered for the rape of
Helen; may he be swallowed alive with Tantalus and Proserpine in
the infernal marshes; may he have more dolours than Job, and be
imprisoned in the Labyrinth like Daedalus, who would wish evil to
the Realm of Francel

May he howl for four months head downwards in a fishpond,
like a bittern; may he be sold to the Grand Turk for money down
and be harnessed like a leer; or may he live for thirty years, like
the Magdalen, without a scrap of cloth, linen or wool, to cover him;
may he drown like Narcissus, or hang, like Absolon, by his hair,
or, like Judas, in despair: may he perish as did Simon Magus, who
would wish evil to the Realm of France!

May the time of Octavian return, and may molten coin be
poured into his belly; or may he be crushed between moving mill-
Atones in a mill, as was Saint Victor; or drowned deep in the sea,
breathless, in worse plight than Jonas in the body of the whale;
may he be driven from the light of the sun, from the treasures of
Juno, and from the joys of Venus, and from the War-God receive
his extreme doom (as did King Sardanapalus) , who would wish
evil to the Realm of France!

"Prince, may the bright-winged brood of j^Eolus
To sea-king Glaucus' wild wood cavernous

Bear him, bereft of peace and hope's least glance;
For worthless is he to get good of us,

Who could wish evil to the State of France!'*]

SWINBURNE.
296

The Grant TeHament continues.

We are now dkedly upon a Ballade called Les Contrediflz de
Franc Gontier, a vindication of the Town againft the Country, and
of good living againft the simple life. A popular poem called Les
Diflz de Franc Gontier had been published a century before by
Philippe de Vitry, later Bishop of Meaux: an artificial paftoral, the
idyll of a Philemon and Baucis living on fair spring water, crafts,
an onion or two, and the songs of birds, happy in sylvan poverty
and innocence. It had already provoked a Contrediflz by Pierre
d'Ailly, Chancellor of University under Charles vi. Villon's reply
is of a different sort. He calls up (licking his hungry envious lips
meanwhile) the vision of a ftout canon by the fireside in his well-
matted chamber, with an allegorical lady by his side, Dame Sydoine,
personifying Luxury. 14 The poet peeps through a crack and sees
how sweetly they live:

BALLADE
DES CONTREDICTZ DE FRANC GONTIER

Sur mol duvet as sis, ung gras chanoine,
Les ung brasier, en chambre bien natee,
A son cosJe gisant dame Sydoine,
Blanche, tendre, polie, et at tin tee,
Boire ypocras, a jour et a nuytee,
Rire, jouer, mignonner, et bais'ier . . .

[On a downy couch by a brasier, in a soft-matted room, I saw
a fat canon seated, with Dame Sydoine at his side, so white, so soft,
so sweet, so prettily decked, drinking Hypocras night and day,
laughing, sporting, toying, kissing . . .]

and burfts out triumphantly with his refrain

Lors je cogneus que pour dueil appaisier
II nesJ tresor qui de vivre a son aisel

(Then I knew that to comfort one's sorrow there is no treasure
but to live at one's ease.]

Pooh, he cries. Where are your Franc Gontier and his Helaine
now, with their Arcadian nonsense, their dry crafts and water, and

14 Sydoine, from Sidon.

297

their onions making their breath Stink ? As for the birds they keep
such a &ir about, why,

Tous les oyseauh d'icy en Babiloine

A tel escot une seule journee

Ne me tendroient, non une matinee,

all the birds from here to Babylon could not keep me on such a
diet for one day, for one single morning! "For God's sake," he says
contemptuously,

Or s'esbate, de far Dieu, Franc Gontier,
Helaine o luy, soubz le bel esglantier:
Se bien leur esJ f cause nay quil me poise;
Mais, quoy que soit du laboureux me&ier,
11 n'esJ tresor que de vivre a son aise.

[In God's name, let Franc Gontier and his Helen get on with
their idyll under the hawthorn, if it suits them. It is no affair of
mine. But whatever they say about the Simple Life, there's no
treasure but to live at one's ease.]

Here is the scorn of your native town-bird, and in it Villon joins
hands down the ages with Johnson, and Lamb, and that honeft
Baronet in Boswell who preferred the smell of a flambeau at the
playhouse to the fragrance of a May evening in the country.

The next Ballade following is the celebrated one of the Women
of Paris, to which Debussy has put such gay cynical music. In it
Villon reviews (but mostly from hearsay or imagination, for he was
no traveller) the chatter-capacity of all the women of Europe. It
begins:

BALLADE

DES FEMMES DE PARIS

Quoy qu'on tient belles langagieres
Florentines, Veniciennes,
Assez pour esJre messagieres,
Et mesmement les anc'iennes;
Mais, soient Lombardes f Rommaines,
Genevoises, a mes perilz,
Pimontoises, Savoisiennes,
II nesJ bon bee que de Paris.
298

[Though some may esteem the women o Florence and the
Venetians good talkers enough to carry on intrigues anyway and
the ancients also, I swear at my peril, whoever they be, Lombards
or Romans, Genevese, of Piedmont or of Savoy, there's no tongue
like a Paris tongue!]

The second Stanza runs appraisingly over the Neapolitans, Ger-
mans, Prussians (all good cacklers), Greeks, Egyptians, Hunga-
rians, Spaniards, and CaStilians; but returns to the proud refrain:
There are no chatterers like the girls of Paris.

De tres beau parler tiennent chaieres,
Ce dit on, les Neapolitaines,
Et sont tres bonnes caquetieres
Attemandes et Pruciennes;
Soient Grecques, Egipciennes,
De Hongrie ou d'autre pays,
Espaignolles ou Cathelennes,
II n'esJ bon bee que de Paris.

The third trips along with a chuckle:

Brettes, Suysses, n'y scavent guieres,

Gasconnes, naussi Toulousaines:

De Petit Pont deux harengieres

Les conduront, et les Lorraines,

Engloises et Calaisiennes

{Ay je beaucoup de lieux compris?),

Picardes de Valenciennes;

II n'esJ bon bee que de Paris.

[The Bretons and Swiss know nothing about it, nor the
Gascons, nor the girls of Toulouse why, a couple of fishwives on
the Petit-Pent could shut them all up! and the Lorraines too, and
the English, the women of Calais (is this enough for you?) and
the Picards of Valenciennes ... 1 There's no tongue like a Paris
tongue.]

And the Envoi, which Debussy ends in such a shout of laughter:

Prince, aux dames Parisiennes
De beau parler donne le pris;
Quoy qu'on die d'ltaliennes,
II n'esJ bon bee que de Paris.

299

[Prince, award the prize for sweet chatter to the ladies of
Paris. Whatever they may say of the Italians there's no tongue,]
etc.

"Come, observe me the dear creatures, I pray you/' goes on
Villon mischievously, "sitting by twos and threes in the churches
and whispering together so busily/'

Regarde men deux, trois, assises
Sur le bas du ply de leurs robes,
En ces rnoufliers, en ces e glues;
Tire toy pres, et ne te hobes;
Tu trouveras la que Macrobes
Oncques ne fift tels jugemens.
En fens; quelque chose en desrobes:
Ce sont tous beaulx enseignemens,

[Look at them, I beg, seated by twos and threes, on the hem
of their gowns, in mincers and churches. Draw a little nearer, but
make no stir. You will hear such judgments as Macrobius never
delivered. Li&en! You catch something? It is well worth learning.]

another of those little separate glowing miniatures, evoking the
very life of his age, which Villon sets here and there so miracu-
lously into his work. One sees the hoods wagging together under
the fretted Gothic vault and the flaming vitrails. One hears the
flying sibilants. One sees the grinning poet retreating on tiptoe,
and the offended gossips destroying him with a glance. It is as vivid
as yesterday.

It now becomes necessary to face the Ballade of Fat Margot,
which has brought so many blushes to so many editors' virginal
cheeks, and which Swinburne has translated entire. Stevenson calls
it grimy, which is fairly descriptive. Gallon Paris thinks Villon
wrote and preserved it out of bravado, and that its scabrous display
is purely literary. I have no theories about this. It obviously ex-
hales a sort of despair and echoes a cry out of Hell, contradicting
its swagger. It is a personal and authentic document, and is pre-
luded by a mocking dedication:

300

Item, a la Grosse Margot,
Tres doulce face et pourtraicJure.
Foy que doy brulare bigod,
Assez devote creature;
Je I'alme de propre nature,
Et elle may, la doulce sade:
Qui la trouvera d'aventure,
Quon luy Use ceHe ballade.

'[Item, to fat Margot of the sweet phiz and by my faith, and
by God, a charming creature! I love her for nature's sake, and so
does she me, the dear sweet thing. Let any one who may encounter
her by chance read her the following Ballade.]

Brulare Bigod is a relic of the English occupation. "En ang-
loys," says Clement Marot, explaining it, 'par Dieu et Noflre
Dame' ": but I think lie rather elaborates one o the two plain
English oaths by virtue of which, in St. Joan's time, we were known
all over France as the Bigods and the Goddams. However, to the
Ballade, which begins defiantly:

BALLADE
DE LA GROSSE MARGOT

Se '{ay me et sers la belle de bon halt,
M'en devez vous tenir ne ml ne sot?
Elle a en soy des biens a fin souhait.
Pour son amour sains bouclier et passot;
Quant viennent gens, je cours et happe ung pot,
Au vin men fuis, sans demener grant bruit;
Je leur tens eaue } frommage, pain et fruit.
S'ilz paierit bien, je leur dh: "Bene tat;
Retournez cy r quant vous serez en ruit f
En ce bordeau ou tenons nosJre esJat!"

[If I love and serve my beauty with good heart, should you
thereby take me for a fool or knave? She has in herself all the
charms one could desire, and for her sweet sake I gird on sword
and buckler. When folk arrive, I run and get a pot and go for
wine, without too much noise; I serve them water, cheese, bread,
and fruit; and if they are good payers I say to them: "Excellent!
Come back here when you feel like sport, to this brothel where we
drive our trade."]

301

It is pure Hogarth. It describes, baldly and without gloss, the
daily life of Villon in Fat Margot's house, his running to and fro,
serving clients with wine and food, and taking the money; the
quarrels and blows and oaths when the house closes and he and
Fat Margot count the takings; and finally, the going heavily to bed,
both drunk and one amorous not the poet.

Mais adoncques il y a grant deshait,

Quant sans argent s'en vient couchier Margot;

Veoir ne la puis, mon cuer a mort la halt,

Sa robe prens f demy saint et surcot,

Si luy jure qu'il tendra pour I'escot.

Par les cosies se prent cesJ AntecrisJ,

Crie, et jure par la mort JhesucriB

Que non fera. Lors j'empongne ung esclat;

Dessus son nez luy en fais ung escript,,

En ce bordeau ou tenons nosJre estat.

[But then there is great unpleasantness when Margot comes to
bed without the money. I cannot bear the sight of her; I hate her
like death. I snatch her gown, her petticoat and surcoat, swearing
I will take them to pay the scot. Then this Antichrist, arms akimbo,
screams and swears by the death of Christ that she won't let me.
Upon which I punch her on the nose and leave my signature there,
in this brothel where we drive our trade.]

Puis paix se fait, et me lasche ung gros pet,
Plus enflee quung vlimeux escarbot.
Riant m'assiet son poing sur mon sommet,
Gogo me dit, et me fiert le jambot;
Tous deux yvres, dormons comme ung sabot.
Et au resveil, quant le ventre luy bruit,
Monte sur moy, que ne gasle son fruit.
Souz ette gems, plus qu'un aiz me fait plat;
De paittarder tout elle me deftruit,
En ce bordeau ou tenons nosJre eftat.

The Envoi (which bears Villon's acroftic, so that there can
be no dispute over the authorship of this well-etched piece of work)
sums up the position with a shrug in which are mingled shame, de-
fiance, self-loathing, and fatalism.

302

Vente, gresle, gelle, fay mon pain cult.

le suis paillart, la paillarde me suit.

Lequd vault mieulx? Chascun bien s'entresuit.

L'ung vault I'autre; ce& a mau rat mau chat.

Ordure amons t ordure nous assuit;

Nous deffuyons onneur } il nous de-Quit,

En ce bordeau ou tenons nosJre esJat.

[Wind, hail, or rot, my bread is baked. I am a lecher, and
my whore dogs me. Which o us is the better? We are two of a
kind, and equally worth. Bad cat, bad rat. We love the" dregs, and
the dregs pursue us. We fly honour, and honour flies from us, in
this brothel where we drive our trade.]

It is not pretty, but it is very frank. I efteem it higher of its
kind than the peep-bo indecencies of the Reverend Laurence Sterne;
and it is a good thing no Bowdler has ever caft it out of the edi-
tions o Villon's poems, for it is valuable and consoling to see hu-
man sinners in the round, and not posing with their beft side to the
footlights. The Ballade is followed by a huitain giving a licence
(on the poet's behalf) to one Marion TYdolle her name was
Marion Dentu, dite Tldole, and her house was in the Rue des
Quatre Filz Aymon, near the Temple and the tall Jehanne de
Bretaigne to open a school for their trade, which flourishes every-
where except (perhaps) in the prison of Meun: from which it is to
be conjeftured that there had been words between the ladies and
the poet. The next verse is personal and vindidive.

Item, et a Noel Jolis,
Autre chose je ne luy donne
Fors plain poing d r osiers frez cueillis
En mon jardin; je Vabandonne.
Chastoy efl une belle aulmosne,
Ame n'en doit eHre marry:
Unze vlngs coups luy en ordonne
Livrez par la main de Henry.

'[Item, to Noel Jolis I leave nothing but a full handful of withies
fresh plucked from my garden, and so abandon him. Correction
is a good gift, and nobody should mind that! ... I order him two
hundred and twenty Strokes, at the hands of Henry.] 15

15 P. Champion observes that Henry Cousin, appointed Executioner in 1460, was em-
ployed as a whipping Sergeant in 1457. He thinks therefore that Villon's thrashing might
possibly have been judicial, and the reward for insulting Katherine de VausseUes publicly.

Henry is the Executioner of Paris, Mafter Henry Cousin. The
severe whipping ordered by the poet for Noel Jolis at his hands
brings us back again to Katherine de Vausselles, for it was prob-
ably by Noel's hands that Villon was so thrashed and despitefully
used, at her orders; and it was Noel, without doubt, who supplanted
him.

A hatful of minor bequests scattered up and down the Tes-
tament, and variously comic, snarling, or quaint, may be summar-
ily dealt with all; together here and dismissed. Villon leaves to the
wife of Mafter Pierre Saint-Amant of the Treasury, the Mare and
the Red Ass, to go with the White Horse and the Mule left to her
husband in the Petit Teflament, since she took him for a beggar; to
his advocate Mafter Guillaume Charruau a sword; to Makers Mere-
beuf and de Louvieux a licence to hunt game in the celebrated
roflisserie of Mother Machecoue, by the Chatelet; to Sergeant Jehan
Raguier, of the ProvoSl's bodyguard, a tallemouse (which is a cheese
tart and also a popular locution for a bang in the eye) and, for
drink, the water of the Fontaine Maubuee, which Still Stands off
the Rue St. Martin, though they reconstructed it in 1733; to Perrenet
Marchant, BaStard de la Barre, Villon's messenger to Katherine,
three cogged dice for his coat-of-arms, and a pack of doctored
cards; to Casin Cholet the duck-Stealer a Lyons sword, in place of
his cooper's mallet; to Jehan Mahe, called I ' Orfevre de Bois (he was
a Sergeant and Assistant Questioner at the Chatelet), a hundred
Sticks of Oriental ginger, for his own lascivious purposes; to Mas-
ter Robinet Trascaille, a Royal secretary, the poet's platter, which
he was afraid to borrow; to the Chancellor of the Diocese of Paris,
his seal, freshly spat upon: to MaSter Francois de la Vacquerie, proc-
urator to the Officiality,

Ung hault gorgenn d'Escossoys,
Toutesfois sans orjaverie,

a Scots collaret, that is, a hemp necklace, without embroidery, to
hang himself; to MaSter Jehan Laurens, one of Tabarie's judges, and
also a procurator, the lining of the poet's bags to wipe his poor red
eyes, so inflamed through his parents' devotion to the barrel:

Item, a maiHre Jehan Lauren* f
Qui a les povres yeulx si rouges
Par le pechie de ses parent
Qui burent en barilz et courges,
Je donne I'enve+s de mes bouges
Pour tous les matins les torchier:
S'il fusJ arcevesque de Bourges,
Du sendail eusJ, mais il esJ chier

[Item, to Master Jehan Laurens, whose poor eyes are so red,
through the sin of his parents in drinking from barrels and gourds,
I give the linings of my bags to wipe them every morning. Had he
been Archbishop of Bourges he might have had silk, but it is dear,]

if he had been Archbishop of Bourges he might have had silk,
but it cots too much. 16

To the Alderman Michault Cul d'Oue and to Messire Chalot
Taranne, rich burgesses, a hundred sols falling like manna, and the
testator's shoes of tawny leather, provided they salute a certain
Jehanne (and another of her kind) on Villon's behalf; to the Sei-
gneur de Grigny, who got Nijon and Bicebre before, the Tower of
Billy, another haunt of rogues; to Mafter Andry Courault of the
Treasury, the Contredictz Franc Gontier; to Mademoiselle de
Bruyeres, the dowager of the Pet~au-D cable, and to her damsels, a
licence to preach to the wantons of Paris, but not in the cemeteries
which were often, as we know, places of gallantry at night,

Item, pour ce que scet sa Bible
Ma damoyselle de Bruyeres,
Donne preschier hors I'Evangile
A elle et a ses bachelieres
Pour retraire ces villotieres
Qui ont le bee si affile,
Mais que ce soit hors cymetieres t
Trop bien au Marchie au fie.

'[Item, since Mademoiselle de Bruyeres knows her Bible, I
licence her to preach (except the Gospel), herself and her damsels,
to reform these town-mopsies, who are so sharp of tongue. But let
it be outside the cemeteries, and best of all in the String Market.]

15 There may be here an echo o the mysterious recommandation at Bourges, discussed
earlier in this book.

305

To the sick lying in the Hoftel-Dieu, all the table-scraps of
Paris, and the bones of the goose bequeathed already to the Mendi-
cants; to his barber Colin Galerne, a churchwarden of St. Germain-
le-Vieux in the Cite, a lump of ice to be applied to his Stomach; to
the hill of Montmartre, with its great abbey of nuns, the Mont
Valerien over againSt it across Paris; to the Enfans Trouves, the
Foundling Hospital of Paris, a dependency of Notre-Dame^ nothing
at all; but to the Enfans Perduz the warning ("Belle Lepon")
which follows; to MaSler Jacquet Car don, merchant draper, the
poet's song beginning "Au retour de dure prison" which (he says)
may go bravely either to the popular Paris tune of ''Marionette"
made formerly for Marion la Peautarde, or else the tune of "Ouvrez
vo&re huys, Guillemette":

Item, riens a Jaquet Car don,

Car je nay riens four luy d'honnefle,

Non fas que le gette habandon,

Sinon ceSle bergeronnette;

S'dle eufl le chant Marionnette

Fait four Marion la Peautarde,

Ou J'Ouvrez votre huys, Guillemette,

Elle allafl bien a la mouHarde.

[hem, nothing to Jaques Garden, for I have no decent gift
to give him not that he would throw it away save this song;
if it were set to the tune of "Marionnette," made for Marion la
Peautarde, or the tune of "Open your door, Guillemette," it would
go excellently.]

(It is that desperate melancholy Rondeau praying for peace,
which I have set in another place.)

To MaSter Lomer, an official of Notre-Dame, Villon leaves the
power of being well loved by women without losing his head, and
with this, a gift of extreme practical value in such a case. In this
instance at leaSt it is possible to understand Villon's joke, for the
Capitular Registers of Notre-Dame record that Ma&er Pierre Lomer
d'Airaines was in 1456 given the necessary powers and ordered to
clear women of ill repute out of the Cite. To Master Jacques James
(subsequently one of Villon's appointed executors), qui se tue
d'amasser biens he was apparently a notorious money-grubber is

306

bequeathed a licence to become betrothed as often as he likes, but
not to marry; and to one Chappelain the te&ator's simple-tonsure
chapel, a tiny benefice in the gift of University, undoubtedly mythi-
cal, with the obligation of saying one dry Mass (that is, without
consecration), and no cure of souls.

To these other jefts there is now no satisfactory key. They have
their place nevertheless in the pattern of this Parisian tapeftry.

I continue the Teftament at the poem of three huitains called
by Marot Belle Le$on de Villon aux Enfans Perduz, Villon's Good
Warning to the Good-for-Noughts. In it there rings a soberer mood.
It was written obviously in a cloud of depression and foreboding.
From its definite warning to the enfans ferduz to be wary when
in the vicinity of Montpipeau or Rueil, on the road to St. Germain-
en-Laye

"Beaulx enfans, vous perdez la plus
Belle rose de vo chappeau;
Mes clers pres prenans comme glus,
Se vous allez a Montpipeau
Ou a Rueil, gardez la peau:
Car, pour s'esbatre en ces deux lieux,
Cuidant que vaulsifl le rappeau,
Le perdit Colin de Cayeulx.

"Ce n'esJ pas ung jeu de trois mailles,
Ou va corps, et peut esJre I'ame.
Qui pert, riens n'y sont repentailles
Quon nen meure a honte et diffame;
Et qui gatgne na pas a femme
Dido la royne de Cartage.
Uhomme efi done bien fol et infame
Qui, pour si peu, couche tel gage.

"Qu'ung chascun encore mescoutel
On dit, et il esJ verite,
Que charretee se boit toute,
Au jeu I'yver, au bois I'esJe;
S' argent avez, il neH ente,
Mais le despendez tosJ et vitte.
Qui en voyez vous herite?
Jamais mal acquesJ ne prouffite"

["My sweet lads, you are losing the fairest rose that adorns
your hats you, my clerks, who stick to what you take like bird-
lime. If you go to Montpipeau or to Rueil, look out for your skins!
It was for a frolic in those parts that Colin des Cayeulx (thinking
it worth the appeal) lost his.

"It is no trifling game [maille: a copper farthing] in which
you stake body and probably soul: the loser's remorse avails him
nothing, nor saves him from a shameful death. Even the winner
does not receive a Dido, Queen of Carthage, for his reward. How
foolish and lewd, then, is the man who risks so much to gain so
little!

"Listen, all of you! They say and it is true that a cartload
[of wine] is soon drunk out, by the fire in winter or in the woods
in summer. Have you money? It does not last: you fling it away
soon and swiftly. What is the advantage, then? Ill-gotten gain
profits no one."]

it may have been composed soon after the laft frolic of des
Cayeulx, which from the hint in the second and third Stanzas I
judge to have been highway robbery, alleviated with rape and a
booty of wine-casks. It is without poetical merit; like mot warnings.
Following the Belle Lefon comes the Ballade of Good Counsel
to those of Naughty Life, 17 which I have transcribed elsewhere,
with its shrugging refrain,

Tout aux tat/ernes et aux files.

As Villon recited it in some riverside tavern, with one arm
round the neck of Jehanneton and the other flourishing in the air,
it mut have been greeted with peals of laughter from the trulls and
night-birds there assembled. But in writing it down he is in gloomy
earnest. "It's to you I address this, my jovial boys, my frolicking
friends," he goes on.

"A vous parle, campaigns de galle:
Mai des ames et bien du corps,
Gardez vous tous de ce mau hasle
Qui noircifl les gens quant sont mors;
Eschevez le, c'esJ ung mal mors;
Fassez vous au mieulx que pourrez;
Et, four Dieu, soiez tous recors
Quune fots viendra que rnourrez"
17 See p. 312.

308

["It is to you I speak, companions of my pleasures, with your
lusty bodies and your sick souls! Beware, all of you, of that ill
sun which blackens a man when he is dead! Flee from it. It's
a foul death! Escape it, as well as you can: and for God's sake
remember, all of you, that the time will come when you must die."]

He ends, and being recent, as is obvious, from moody loitering
in the Innocents cemetery, his old obsession returns. He bequeaths,
with a dark ironical look, his great spectacles to the Quinze-Vingts,
the hospital for three hundred blind near the Louvre, founded by
St. Louis,

Sans les etfuys, mes grans lunettes,

Pour mettre a part, aux Innocens^

Les gens de bien des deshonnesJes.

[My great spectacles, without the case; in order that they may
set apart, in the Innocents, the good from the wicked.]

And in a wide sweep of the arm he embraces the vaft cemetery,
sleeping under a pallid moon.

Icy ny a ne ris ne jeu.

Que leur valut avoir chevances,

N'en grans Us de parement jeu f

Engloutir vlns en grosses pances,

Mener joye, fesJes et dances,

Et de ce presJ eslre a toute heure?

Toutes faillent telles plaisances f

Et la coulpe si en demeure.

[Here there is no laughter, nor any jest: what does it profit
these to have enjoyed fortune, to have lain in rich beds of honour,
to have drunk their fill of wine, to have revelled, and feared, and
danced, ready for pleasure at every hour? All joys like these dis-
solve; only the guilt remains.]

The end of the Testament is announced, as by the distant toll
of a passing-bell. The ensuing broodings over the piled bones in the
Innocents charniers I have already quoted. A verse in behalf of all
Courts, Regents, and Judges follows, praying God and Saint Dom-

** Lacroix recalls, in connection with this reference to the Quinze-Vingts, a curious
ancient tradition that they were bound by the foundation of their hostel to furnish a certain
number of mourners for burial ceremonies in the Innocents.

309

inic to absolve them at their death: recollected melancholy is the
dominant and growing note of the Testament from now to the end.
To Master Jehan de Calays, Notary to the Chatelet and a
wealthy burgess, who has not seen him for thirty years (so he says),
Villon leaves the whole Grant Teftament. It would not seem to be
a careless or satiric bequeft. Jehan de Calays was a man of some
letters, a poet, 19 and the presumed compiler of the anthology of
contemporary poems called Le Jardin de Plaisance, in which were
included nine Ballades and a Rondeau of Villon; who now awards
Mafter Jehan a plenary faculty

De le gloser et commenter,
De le diffinir et descripre,
Diminuer ou augmenter,
De le canceller et prescripre
De sa main et, ne sceut escripre,
Interpreter et donner sens,
A son plaisir, meilleur ou pire:
A tout cecy je my cons ens.

[To gloss and to annotate, to explain and set in order, to
dimmish or add to it, to cancel or transcribe with his own hand,
and, if he cannot write, to interpret or expand, at his own pleasure,
for better or worse: to all this I give my consent.]

Observe, in the preceding verse, a faint indication

Et ne scet comment je me nomme
[And he does not know my name.]

that the poet had assumed the name of Villon very early: if
indeed this line has any significance at all.

And so we come to the winding-up, to the sad, exquisite verses
beginning Item, j'ordonne a Sainte Avoye. 20 Like Browning's
dying bishop, Villon orders his sepulchre with preoccupied care and

*" He figures in Longnon's papers of the English occupation. He was implicated in a
plot of 1435 to throw the English out of Paris, and saved his neck only by paying an
enormous fine. Charles vn. made him an alderman. The first printed copy of the Jardin de
Plaisance appeared towards 1501.

P. Champion thinks it doubtful if this notary, whose duty was to verify wills (and
hence the bequest), can be the personage of the Jardin.

30 See p. 381.

310

in detail. He is to be laid in the chapel of the Bonnes-Femmes or
Beguines of St. Avoye, in the Rue du Temple: a community of
widows living under the Auguftinian Rule, serving a hospital at-
tached to their house. The sifters' chapel, the only one in Paris of
its kind, was on the firSt floor; and so the poet, narquois to the laft,
makes his wry jeL

De tombd? riens: je nen ay cure,
Car il gr ever oh le planchier.

[My tomb? None at all. It doesn't matter. It would only
overload the floor.]

Above the place of his interment, he directs, there is to be drawn
his image or portrait in ink if that is not too coftly: and around it
there is to be written his Epitaph, in reasonably large letters. This,
for lack of ink, may be scratched on the wall with a piece of coal
or charcoal,

Sans en riens entamer le plaslre;

Au moins sera de moy memoir e

Telle qu'elle es~l d'ung bon follaslre.

[Without in any way breaking the planter. Thus there will at
least remain of me a memory, as of a good crack-brained madcap.]

To this succeeds the melancholy, sardonic Epitaph, which may
be read in its proper place, and the lovely Rondeau following. The
poet's sad fancy runs on then for a space, appointing his executors
and ordering the tolling at his funeral of the Great Bell 1 , the Beffroi
of Notre-Dame de Paris, which Jehan de Montaigu presented to
the Metropolitan in 1400, and which gave tongue only at solemnities
or in alarms.

Item, je vueil qu'on sonne a bransle

Le gros beffroy, qui n'esJ de voirre;

Combien quil n'eB cuer qui ne tremble,

Quant de sonner e/l a son erre,

Saulve a mainte bonne terre,

Le temps passe, chascun le scet:

Fussent gens d'armes ou tonnerre,

Au son de luy, tout mal cessoit.

[Item, I will that there be sounded at full volley the Great Bell,
which is not made of glass; although there is no heart which does

3 11

not quiver at his tolling. He has saved many good lands in times
past, as every one knows. When he gives tongue all ills cease,
whether they be of men-at-arms or of thunder.]

The brazen roar of the Beffroi, rolling over the roofs of old
Paris, resounds eternally in this verse. And let his ringers (says
Villon) receive for their pains four or half a dozen of the usual 1
round loaves, miches, their perquisite; but let these (he adds with a
sudden grin) be St. Stephen's loaves that is, the kind with which
the Protomartyr was put to death. His executors, he continues,
tongue placed in cheek, are to be Messire Martin Belief aye, Criminal
Lieutenant to the Provoft 21 and a Counsellor of Parliament; Messire
Guillaume Colombel, the immensely rich financier, Royal Coun-
sellor, and President of the Chamber of Inquefts; and Messire
Michiel Jouvenel, Cup-Bearer to the King and Bailli of Troyes, sixth
son of the great Parisian family of Jouvenel des Ursins, whose por-
trait in a kneeling group is the glory of the French Primitives in the
Louvre. But if (as is faintly possible) these personages excuse them-
selves, he directs their office to be filled by Master Philippe Brunei,
Seigneur de Grigny, a notable and violent litigant, perpetually in
the Courts; Mailer Jacques Raguier, the celebrated tosspot, with
whom we are by now familiar; and skinflint Master Jacques James,
of whom nothing is known except that his father was a Master of
Works of Paris.

The Probate Court is to have no pickings out of Villon's estate.

Des te&amens qu'on dit le Maiflre
De mon fait riaura quid ne quod.

[The Ma&er of Testaments shall get nothing out of me, neither
quid nor quod.]

All fees are to go to a certain Thomas Tricot, a prieSt, a Master
of Arts of Villon's year, to whose health (and at whose expense)
the teftator cordially expresses his readiness to drink. Master Guil-
laume du Ru, a wealthy wine-merchant of Paris, is charged with the
provision of waxlights and tapers for the funeral Mass, and the
executors with the bearing of the pall. And then, since time presses,
and the teftator finds himself a sick man,

^ In 145*8. The Criminal Lieutenant who nearly hanged Villon in 1462 was Pierre de
la Dehors, as we have observed.

312

Trop plus mat me font qu'oncques mais
Barbe, cheveulx, penil, sourcis,
Mai me presse . . .,

[Now more than ever is my body beard, hair, groin, eyebrows
sick with pain.]

he finishes, and proceeds to the Ballade crying pardon of Car-
thusians and Celestines, Mendicants and Filles-Dieu, of loafers and
patten-clickers, servants and trollops, night-thieves and jugglers,
fools, players, clowns, and tumblers.

BALLADE
PAR LAQTJELLE VILLON CRYE MERCY A CHASCUN

[# & A Chartreux et a Celettins,

mercy * ] A Mendians et a Devotes,

A musars et daquepatins,

A servans et files mignotes

Portans surcotz et juries cotes,

A cuidereaux d f amours transsis

Chaussans sans meshaing jauves bates,

Je crie a toutes gens mercis.

A fittetes monflrans tetins
Pour avoir plus largement d'osJes,
A ribleurs, mouveurs de hutins,
A bateleurs tray nans marmotes,
A folz, folles, a sotz et sotes,
Qui s'en font siflant six a six,
A marmosetz et mariotes,
Je crie a toutes gens mercis.

[Carthusians and Celetines; Mendicant Friars and Filles-Dieu;
mumpers and pattern-clickers; servants and lights o* love in
surcoats and justaucorps; fops in love, with fawn boots falling un-
ashamed over the inSlep I cry you pardon, one and all.

Trollops, displaying your bosoms, thereby to have more custom;
thieves and roaring boys; showmen with performing apes; fools
of both sexes and farce-players, whittling six by six; little boys and
little girls I cry you pardon, one and all.]

But he excludes from the lift, with a terrible scowl, the "damned
traitorous dogs,'* traittres chiens maiiins, who fed him on hard
crusts and forced the water down his gullet; meaning the Lord

3 J 3

Bishop of Orleans and his men. His courtesy to these is the same as
Squire Western's, in argument with his lady sifter; and unseemly.

Sinon aux tratsJres chiens martins,
Qui rnont fait rongier dures crostes
Maschier mains sows et mains -matins,
Quores je ne crains fas trois crotes.
Je jeisse pour eulx petz et rotes;
Je ne puis f car je suis assis.
Au fort, pour eviter notes,
Je me a toutes gens mercis.

ENVOI

Qu'on leur froisse les quinze cofles
De gros mailletz, fors et massis,
De plombees et telz pelotes.
Je crie a toutes gens mercis.

[But as for those damned traitorous dogs, who made me gnaw
such hard crusts, so many nights and mornings, I make them a
gift of belches and f ts; no, I can't do that, being seated. But at
any rate, to avoid riots, I cry pardon of one and all.

ENVOY

"[Let them have their ribs well roa&ed with huge mallets, Strong
and thick, and good clubs loaded with lead, and such trifles. I cry
pardon of one and all.]

On the heels of this Ballade comes immediately, completing and
closing the Teftament, the Ballade pour servir de Conclusion (the
title is Prompsault's), which is such a lamentable anticlimax. It
begins sadly and soberly enough with its invitation:

BALLADE
POUR SERVIR DE CONCLUSION

Icy se closJ le te&ament
Et finisJ du povre Villon.
Venez a son enterrement
Quant vous orrez le carrillon,
VesJus rouge com vermillon f
Car en amours mourut martir:
Ce jura il sur son couillon,
Quant de ce monde vault partir.

[Here closes and ends the Testament of poor Villon. Come ye
to his burial when you hear his passing-bell, but vested in bright
red; for he died a martyr to Love. Thus he swore on his virility,
being about to quit this world.]

He returns, with a laft groan, to his death-wound from Love
and his bitter fate.

Et je croy bien que pas nen ment;
Car chassie jut comme ung souillon
De ses amours hayneusement,
Tant que, d'icy a Roussillon,
Brosse ny a ne brossillon
Qui neusJ, ce dit il sans mentir,
Ung lambeau de son cotillon,
Quant de ce monde voult partir.

II esJ ainsi et tellement,
Quant mourut navoit qu'ung haillon;
Qui plus, en mourant, mallement
Uespoignoit d 1 Amours I'esguillon;
Plus agu que le rangutllon
D'un baudrier luy faisoit sentir
(C'esJ de quoy nous esmerveillon),
Quant de ce monde voult partir.

'[And I well believe he is no liar: for he was chased out hate-
fully by his love, like a scullion; so that there is from here as far as
Roussillon not a bush nor shrub which does not bear some shred of
his shirt. This he says truthfully, being about to quit this world.

And so and thus it was that when he died he had but a rag to
his back, and (what was worse) was Slabbed, in dying, by the dart
of Love; more piercing than the buckle-tongue of a baldric he felt
it; we stood aghast at his pain, when he was about to quit this
world.]

But in the Envoi the martyr to Love utters a sudden derisive
yawp and executes a gambol the one occasion, perhaps, justifying
Stevenson's exclamation that Villon is always emitting tears and
prayers and on a sudden running away with a whoop and his fingers
to his nose. The romantic of the Velvet Jacket, I fear, had little
opportunity of comprehending this poet, and so made him a
grotesque.

315

ENVOI

Prince, gent com me esmerillon,
Saichiez quil fill au departir:
Ung traifi but de vin morillon 22
Quant de ce monde voult partir.

[Prince, gentle as a sparrow-hawk, hear what he did on his
departure! He tossed down a sloup of good red wine, when about
to quit this world.]

Rabelais might have fathered this roaring exit from the world
in a gul of laughter, preceded by an horrific que traifl of red wine:
but I think Villon's trick is forced, and his laugh mirthless, his
noise unconvinced, and his gambade half-hearted. The end of the
Grant Testament is the Rondeau Repos eterneL

THERE now remains what is often called the Codicil, and a quantity
of miscellaneous verse. Of the Codicil the Ballade of the Hanged is
the captain and chief, and next to it these three the lovely Ballade
crying to his friends, the Ballade of the Debate, and the Ballade of
Fortune: all three, as we have seen, having been composed, if not
adtually written, in the prison at Meun. The reft of the Codicil is the
Quatrain or Tetraftic which he made on learning of his death-
sentence, the Ballade to Eftienne Garnier, full of yelps and hoots of
joy, on his reprieve, and the Ballade conveying his appeal to Parlia-
ment for three days' grace before the final banishment. The
Quatrain may be repeated here.

QUATRAIN
QUE FEIT VILLON QUAND IL PUT JUGE A MOURIR

[T^tra- Je suis Franpoys, dont il me poise t

NS de Paris empres Pontoise,
Et d f une corde d'une toise
S$aura mon col que mon cul poise.

Morillon: wine, dark-red in colour, from a black grape; assumed to be Auvergnat.

316

[Here am I, Francois woe is me! born at Paris by Pontoise;
and by means of a six-foot rope my neck will shortly discover my
breech is heavy.]

"This, Sir, was great fortitude of mind.' 9 "No, Sir; ftark
insensibility." So the severe have echoed, judging these four lines:
but I efteem them the final grimace of that dogged shrugging
resignation which on so many occasions came to tie relief of this
fellow. The Ballade to Garnier, Clerk of the Guichet at the Chatelet,
is a very fandango and Morris-dance of a Ballade, full of shouts of
triumph and wild flingings abroad of arms and legs. "What d'ye
think of my appeal, Garnier, hey?" bellows the poet:

BALLADE
DE L'APPEL DE VILLON

[Quettion Q u e vous semble de mon appel,

a j* u Clerc Garnier? Feis je sens ou jolie?

Guichet. ] Toute belle garde sa pel;

Qui la contraint, efforce ou lie,

S'elle peult, elle se deslie.

Quant done par plaisir voluntaire

Chantee me jut cesJe omelie,

EsJoit il lors temps de moy taire?

[What d'ye think of my appeal, Garnier? Was I wise or a
fool? Every beast looks to its own skin, and when it's trapped and
held it does its utmost to get free, if it can! When this homily [his
death sentence] was sung to me, without rhyme or reason, was
that the time to keep my mouth shut, hey?]

And he remembers the tortures of the Question, forced on him
by trickery and joncherie.

Se jeusse des hoirs Hue C appel,
Qui jut extrait de boucherie?-
On ne m'euH, parmy ce dr appel,
Fait boire en celie escorcherie.
Vous entendez bien joncherie?
Mais quant cesJe paine arbitraire
On me jugea par tricherie,
EHoit il lors temps de moy taire?

1 The legend that Hugues Capet, "the Great," was sprung from a family of butchers
has no foundation in history. Dante has perpetuated it in Purgatorio, xx.

3*7

[Were I of the blood of Hugues Capet (who came of butchers'
slock) they would not have forced me to drink through the cloth
in their devilish way. You know how it's done! But when they
sentenced me by malice to this harsh punishment was that the
time to keep my mouth shut, hey?]

"Lord!" he goes on, with a wink, "d'you think I hadn't enough
sense under my hood to yell out 1 appeal!' when the notary said:
"You're for the long jump?' Hey?"

Cuidiez vous que soubz mon cappel
N'y eusJ tant de philosophic
Comme de dire: "J'en appel"?
Si avoit, je vous certiffie,
Combien que point trop ne my "fie.
Quant on me difl, present notaire:
"Pendu seres!" je vous affie,
EsJoit il lors temps de moy taire?

And so to the hurraying conclusion:

ENVOI

Prince, se j'eusse eu la pepie t
Pie$a je feusse ou efi Clotaire,
Aux champs debout. comme une espie.
Efioit il lors de moy taire?

[Prince, had I had the pip [i.e. been dumb, like a bird with
that disease] I would long ago have been with Clotaire in the next
world, my body Stuck upright in the fields, like a blade of Straw.
Was that the time to keep my mouth shut, hey?]

Another great bellowing follows the Ballade to Parliament, in
which the poet calls on all his five senses to praise and glorify the
Sovereign Court. He begins:

LA REQUESTS DE VILLON, PRESENTEE A LA COURT
DE PARLEMENT, EN FORME DE BALLADE

[Louenge Tous mes cinq sens: yeulx, oreilles et bouche,

a la Le nez, et vous, le sensittf aussi;

Court '\ Tous mes membres ou il y a reprouche f

En son endroit ung chascun die ainsi:

f< Souvraine Court, par qui sommes icy t

Vous nous avez garde de desconfire.

Or la langue seule ne peut souffire
A vous rendre souffisantes louenges;
Si frions tous, flic du souvrain Sire,
Mere des bons et seur des benois anges!"

THE PETITION OF VILLON PRESENTED TO THE COURT,
IN THE FORM OF A BALLADE

[All my five senses, in your several place,

Hearing and seeing, taste and touch and smell,

Every my member branded with disgrace
Each on this fashion do ye speak and tell:
"Most Sovereign Court, by whom we here befell,

Thou that deliveredst us from sore dismays,

The tongue sufficeth not thy name to blaze
Forth in such strain of honour as it should:

Wherefore to thee our voices all we raise,
Sister of Angels, Mother of the Good!]

And continues, roaring louder than organs, trumpets, or bells,
as we have already seen, and so comes at lat to his point in the
Envoy:

Prince t trots jours ne vueillez mescondire,

Pour moy pourveoir et aux miens adieu dire . . .

This is the laft of the Codicil.

The miscellaneous verse known to be Villon's is of indifferent
value, saving the roaring Ballade of the Taverners and the Ballade
againft the Enemies of France; the firft, as we have observed, not
invariably attributed to him, the second undoubtedly his, but both
having a fine flow of Billingsgate, and both Stout poetry. The long
rambling ecstatic Epittre a Marie d' Orleans, consisting of ten hui-
tains and a double Ballade, I have sufficiently considered, with its
special significance, in reviewing the Life. In this group are also to
be included three Ballades of the old-fashioned school of Deschamps
and Chartier, a sort of formal catalogue of sententiousness, with the
summing-up in the refrain in Villon's hands sardonic and con-
tradicftory. The firft plays with the double meaning Noel, the cry
raised by the medieval French populace in welcoming a Royal
progress, and Noel, Christmas. I give the firft ftanza.

3*9

BALLADE
DBS PROVERBES

Tant grate chievre que mat gifl f
Tant va le pot a Veaue qu'il brise,
Tant chauffe on le fer qu'il rougifl,
Tant le maille on qu'il se debrise,
Tant vault I'homme comme on le prise,
Tant s'eslongne il qu'il n'en souvient,
Tant mauvais eft qu'on le desprise,
Tant crie I' on Noel qu'il vient.

[So much scratch goats that they spoil their bed; so often
goes the pitcher to the well that it smashes; so much is the iron
heated that it turns red; so much is it hammered that it breaks;
so much is a man valued as they take him; so far does he journey
that he is loft to mind; so bad is he that he is spurned; so much
do folk cry Noel that it appears.]

The other is a better piece of work, since it concerns universal
human nature and is informed with half-serious, half-mocking
truth and a realisation of our mortal folly. It begins:

BALLADE
DES MENUS PROP OS

Je congnois bien mouches en let,
Je congnois a la robe I'homme,
Je congnois le beau temps du let f
Je congnois au pommier la pomme r
Je congnois I'arbre a veoir la gomme t
Je congnois quant tout ell de mesmes f
Je congnois qui besongne ou chomme,
Je congnois tout, fors que moy mesmes.

[I know flies in the milk; I know a man by his clothes; I know
fine weather from foul; I know the apple-tree by the apple; I
know the tree by its sap; I know when everything's the same; I
know the worker from the drone; I know everything except
myself.]

The third Ballade of this Enumerative series, having the refrain
Ne bon conseil que d'amoureux, is quite worthless, and contains
Villon's acroftic in its Envoi: as does another Ballade of virtuous

320

import but heavy going, called Ballade de Bon Conseil, dedicated
(like the spelling-book published by Mr. Brown, Dr. Johnson's
early schoolmaster) to the Universe. With these Longnon includes
a much livelier piece, which looks innocent but is not. It has a jolly
"Some-talkof-Alexander" swing; beginning:

BALLADE
DES POVRES HOUSSEURS

On parle de champs labourer,
De porter chaulme centre vent,
Et aussy de se marier
A jemme qui tance souvent;
De moyne de povre convent,
De gens qui vont souvent sur mer f
De ceulx qui vont les bleds semer,
Et de celluy qui I'asne maine;
Mais, a trestout considerer,
Pot/res housseurs ont assez peine!

[You may talk of ploughing, of carrying bubble against the
wind, of getting married to a scold; you may talk of the hard life
of a monk in a poor convent, of seafarers, of sowers in the field, and
of ass-leaders: but, everything considered, poor sweeps have a devil
of a life.]

Housseur means a chimney-sweep : but also, in the free and easy
patois of the honeft country folk round Amiens and Ponthieu, a
quite different kind of labourer; and is so used (it appears) to this
day. We may as well have the reft of this rattling song.

A petits enfans gouverner f
Dieu scet se c'esJ esbatementl
De gens d'arrnes doit on parler?
De falre leur commandement?
De servir Malchus ckauldement?
De servir dames et aymer?
De guerryer et bouhourder t
Et de jousJer a la quintaine?
Mais, a tresJout considerer,
Povres housseurs ont assez peine!

Ce n'esJ que jeu de bled soyer,
Et de prez jaulcher, vrayement;

321

Ne d'orge batre, ne vanner,
Ne de plaider en Parlement;
A danger emprunter argent,
A maignans leurs poisles mener,
Et a charretiers desjeuner,
Et de jeuner la Quarantaine;
Mais, a tresJout gonsiderer,
Povres housseurs ont asses: peine!

[To govern small children, God knows, is no pastime; and
what of soldiery and their commands, and the fierce conduct of
[Malchus] the sword? And what of serving ladies and their love?
And what of battle and the jousts, and tilting at the quintain?
Everything considered, poor sweeps have a devil of a life!

Sowing wheat and reaping the fields is only a game, faith! like
threshing barley, and winnowing, and pleading before Parliament,
and borrowing money in difficulty, and taking frying-pans to travel-
ling tinkers, and dinner to carters, and fasting through Lent. . . .
But everything considered, poor sweeps have a devil of a life!]

This Ballade has no Envoi.

Two other Ballades commonly included in this group mut be
lightly touched on: the firSt is the Ballade du Concours de Blois,
made at Charles d'Orleans' court. This I have quoted in the Life.
It is a mechanical conceit of a pattern popular a century before
Villon, though Stamped with his own mark; and contains the device
of his whole lif e,

Je ris en pleurs.

The second is the Ballade asking a trifling loan of Jean IL de
Bourbon. Some of it is worth repeating, since it is indeed a tadful,
almost irresistible dun, and Villon got at leaSt six more crowns out
of it, I trust. See how gracefully he knows how .to beg.

LA REQUESTE

QUE VILLON BAILLA A MONSEIGNEUR DE BOURBON

[Requefie J> mien Seigneur et Prince redouble,

*de Bour- Fleuron de Lys t royalle geniture,

bon.\ Franfoys Villon, que Travail a dompte

A coups orbes, par force de bature,

Vous supplie par cesJe humble escripture

Que lui iaciez quelque gracieux prefi,

322

De s'obliger en toutes cours eft prett,

Si ne doubtez que bien ne vous contente:

Sans y avoir dommaige ri interest,

Vous n'y perdrez settlement que Fattente.

[My Lord and redoubtable Prince, Flower of the Lily, offspring
of Kings, Francois Villon, whom Fortune has dunned with heavy
blows, hereby prays you, by this humble letter, to make him a
gracious loan. He is ready to own the debt in any court, and doubts
not that he can content you. Your Lordship will run no risk, and
will lose nothing by it but the time of waiting.]

He has already received from the Duke, he says in the second
Slanza, six crowns, which he has laid out in food, and he promises
devoutly to repay all without delay. He is so low (he says) that for
two pins he would sell himself to a bloodsucking Lombard usurer.
Money (he says) does not hang at everybody's belt. The only crosses
he has seen for weeks, by God (he says, referring to the cross on the
coinage), are wooden and tone ones.

Si je peusse vendre de ma sant
A ung Lombart, usurier par nature,
Faulte d* argent rna si fort enchante
Que j'en prendroie, ce cuide, V adventure.
Argent ne pens a gippon n'a sainture;
Beau sire Dieux! je "mesbais que c'esJ
Que devant moy croix ne se comparoisJ,
Si non de bois ou pierre, que ne mente;
Mais sune jois la vraye m'apparoisJ,
Vous n'y perdrez seulement que Fattente.

A sufficiently daring jet, observes Lacroix of the line concern-
ing the crosses; for the devotion of Louis xi. to the True Cross of
Saint-L6 is well known. And Villon adds a little quaint gambolling
postscript to his Envoi:

SUSCRIPTION DE LADICTE REQUESTS

Allez, lettres, jaites ung sault;
Combien que nayez pie ne langue,
Remonflrez en voftre harangue
Que jaulte d 'argent si m' assault.

'[Go, little letters: take a leap, and (though you lack legs and
a tongue) show forth in your speech that I am assailed by lack of
money.]

323

This was Panurge's disease, and indeed the ill which has always
dogged men of letters in all ages: I mean a flux or pernicious
anaemia of the purse. Amor ingenii ncminern umquam divitem fecit,
says the rascally poet Eumolpus in the Satiricon. Only in this late
modern day are the less delicate able to walk abroad in tall hats and
mingle on practically equal terms with the rich.

WE have now reviewed the whole (leaving aside the Jargon, which
is dealt with elsewhere) of the known poetical work of Villon. Of
the mass of minor ftuff, eleven Ballades, seventeen Rondels (moftly
love-plaints), and two dramatic pieces, attributed to him on more
or less plausible grounds, but rejected in all critical editions, I can
myself discern only two pieces which might possibly have been from
his hand; one the admirably comic Monologue of the Free Archer
of Baignoll'et, and the other a cynical Ballade discussing the palpable
truth that the rich get served firft, in love as in other things. This
we may consider firft. The poet is very bitter in this Ballade about
his mistress, a girl of business intin6i, whom one is Strongly
tempted to conned with Katherine de Vausselles: I quote it for
this reason. He loved her so desperately, he says,

Que nuit et jour j'en eflois langoureux.
"[That I was sick of love for her both day and night.]

And for a time, while he had money, his passion was returned;
until she cat her eyes on a rich, blear-eyed, dirty old man.

Or esJ ainsy que, durant ma pecune f

Je fus traite comme amy precieux;

Mais, toH apres, sans dire chose aucune,

CesJe vilaine alia jetter les yeulx

Sur ung vieillard riche, mats chassieux,

Laid et hideux trop plus qu'on ne propose.

Ce neanmoins, il en jouit sa pose;

D'ond, moy, confus, voyant un tel ouvrage,

Dessus ce texte allay bouter en glose:

"Riche amoureux a tousjours I 'advantage."

324

[Thus it was that while I had money I was her darling; but
soon after, without a word, the hussy cail her eyes on a rich old
man, foul, ugly, hideous, more than one can imagine: neverthe-
less he got her, and I myself, thunderstruck at this piece of work,
added to it a gloss of my own: The rich have always advantage in

"Look at the trollop!" he says, writhing in his pain and disgust.
"I was so much her slave that I would have climbed the sky and
torn the moon down for her, if she had asked me! But the mer-
cenary trull mul needs give her body to this old satyr!"

Or elle a tort, car noyse ny rancune
N'eut one de moy. Tant luy fus gracieux
Que t s'elle eusJ disJ: "Donne-moy de la lune"
jf'eusse entrepris de monter jusqu'aux cieulx t
Et, nonobflant, son corps tant vicieux
Au service de ce vieillard expose;
D'ond, ce voyant, un rondeau je compose
Que luy transmets; mais, en pou de langage,
Me respond franc: "Povrete te depose:
Riche amour eux a tous jours I* advantage!"

[[Oh, she did wrong, for she had never an angry or hitter word
from me. I was so much hers that if she had said "Give me the
moon!" I would have undertaken to climb the skies for her. . .
And notwithstanding, she gives her vicious body to this old man!
I made, on seeing this, a rondeau and sent it to her; but with no
mincing of words she answered me straight back: "Poverty counts
you out. The rich have always advantage In love.''^

The Envoi sounds very like Villon, with its allusion to the
Roman de la Rose, which he knew well, and quotes in the Grant
Testament. "Orose" is the hi&orian of the fourth century, whose
work, composed at St. Augustine's demand, had been translated a
hundred times. The poet probably puts him in simply for the
rhyme.

ENVOI

Prince tout bel f trop mieulx parlant qu'Orose,
Si vous navez tousjours bourse desclose,
Vous abuses: car Meung, docJeur tressage r
Nous a descrit que, pour cueilUr la rose,
Riche amoureux a tousjours l f advantage.

3 2 5

[Prince, handsome as you are, and a much better raisonneur
than Orose, if you haven't a purse perpetually open you are wasting
your time. Has not Meung [Jehan de Meung], that most wise
doctor, told us that in plucking the rose the rich have always the
advantage in love?]

This whole Ballade, I say, might well be from Villon's hand in
a careless or bitter mood, or he may have written it while drowning
his pain in a cabaret. In the Manuscript of Bayeux there is a song
which the poet may have known and deliberately echoed, contain-
ing the same complaint:

HVr

, I J ^_i-

f* i i

. _ - 1

* U

i_^ J . J ^-

Htf/ - las, j'ai es
Si m'a - vols el

M J" J =3=

-jj j

- ^<? rfw - ^row^
y - re sa

-i- n J^ ' J

- se De la plus
joy Qu'el n'ay-me-

" jj 1 '" ' m .. :m m

plai - sante a mon
roit aul - /r<f ^w<?

_J i

-: Q ^ .*Lf.
^r<? ip<f ;<?
moy* Mais el

- J r> r

vis en jor de
m'a bien sa joy

Ujc

_J J J J

- : >--= J J-

fayl - ly - - - -

^ h i r>

j" j I =\

ptf)"

^ j- J

J ^ ^v,, 1^,^ ,

m m. fJ , 1

Et ma jail - ly
Et s'esJ pour - vu

de co - ve
d'ung aultre a

? b i H

)_e o_

^^=rz

J. J J

j j

nant; Je I' a - per - choy

mant, d'ung vieil - lart gris f

bien main - te
pel - U de

E^rlT ~1 =

^ .

_j\ J

fe r^*^.

. .

E *P J

nant>

Ja - maiz

ne la

-J J-J^

jf / - roy^

. u

- met.

vant,

Car U

(l)a - voit

que luy

don

- ner.

326

[Alas, I have been robbed of the sweetest one I could imagine, the
sweetest I ever saw all my life; she swore to me that she would be faithful,
that she would never love other but me. But she has betrayed her oath com-
pletely, and forsworn her vow; I now see it clearly, and never again can I
love her; for she has taken another lover, a gray old man, all bald in front.
For he had something to give her.

Par finance je perds m'amye.
Je doibs bien hair povrete,
Jeunesse n'aura plus possete
Or et argent a la maisJrie.
Saches, se je puts, j'en auray
Et puis apres je m'en yray
Veoir la belle deguerpie;
Or, argent luy donneray,
Et puis apres je chesseray f
Le vieillart a la barbe florie.

Through finance I lose my love: well ought I to hate poverty! Never-
more may Youth have at his command gold and silver; but know this, that
if I can, I will find some, and afterwards I will set forth to find my fair
runaway. I will give her money; and then I will rout the old fool, with his
flowing beard.]

I cannot bring this survey to an end without a glance at the
comic Monologue of the Free Archer of Baignollet, a theatre-piece
immensely popular, whoever wrote it, right down to Rabelais*
time/ and later. The poet's shafts are directed againft the Militia of
Free Archers established at the expense of the communes by Charles
vii., and notable for braggadocio and cowardice. The body was
dissolved in 1480 and replaced by mercenaries in the King's pay.

The Monologue seems to be Stamped all over with Villon's
private marks. The Free Archer swaggers on to the Stage, pulling
his moustaches and issuing invitations to all the world to fight. Par
le sang bieul The man of war is terrible, a very hippogriff, breathing
smoke and flame. Will any four gentlemen Step up at once and

1 Rabelais includes in the Catalogue of the Books which Pantagruel found in the great
Library of St. Victor a tome called Stratagemata Francarchieri de Baignolet; and again, in
Epiftemon's account of Hell and its inhabitants (Bk. n.), brings in the Free Archer of
Baignollet as the inquisitor of heresy in those regions.

327

oblige him with a little hand-to-hand combat? No? Morbieu! He
took five English single-handed at the siege of Alengon: three paid
him ransom, one escaped, and the laSl whanged the Free Archer
over the head with a bottle, whereupon (he says) he at once begged
the Englishman to be reasonable, ventrebieul and have a drink, like

a peaceable creature. Why, by the

Here there is inserted in the text a tage-diredtion:

Cy dill ung quidem, par derriere les gens, COQUERICOQ.

[Here some one at the back of the audience crows thus:
Coc^adoodkdoo!}

The Archer ftarts violently; but after making a mental note of
the henrooft he continues the loud tale of his valiance: how in one
engagement a cannon-ball flew through his hair, how his anger was
so ferocious and his onrush in the van of battle so superb that all
the great captains (he knows them all by name) hurried up to
admire,

Le Barronet et le Marquis,
Craon, Cures, I'Aigle et Bressoire,
Accoururent four veoir I'hiftoire;
La Rochefouqualt, FAmiral,
Aussy Bueil et son attirailj
Pontievre, tous les capitames,

[The Baronet, and the Marquis, the seigneurs of Craon, Cures,
TAigle, and Bressoire all ran up to see the sight, with La Rochefou-
cauld, and the Admiral, and Bueil and his iaff, and Penthievre 2
and all the captains,]

taking off their fteel gloves and being careful not to hurt him in
their enthusiasm; how (but for losing his way) he and his brother
Archer Guillemin would have fallen on the Bretons 3 and hewn
them in pieces, but magnanimously restraining his fury he was
prevailed on to retire. Here, observe, the Free Archer evolves a mot
which Oscar Wilde invented, amid considerable applause, four cen-

3 These last four are famous names In the wars of the fifteenth century. The Admiral
is Pregent de Coetivy et de Retz, killed at Cherbourg in 1450; La Rochefoucauld is
Foucauld, seigneur of La Rochefoucauld and Marsillac, one of Charles vn.'s chevaliers;
Jean de Bueil, a great commander, succeeded Pregent as Admiral; and Penthievre is a
Breton captain.

3 It seems to have happened during Louis XL'S punitive expedition against the Dukes
of Normandy and Brittany in 1466.

328

turies later. "I can resift anything but temptation," said Wilde.
"I'm not afraid of anything but danger," remarks the Archer confi-
dentially

Je ne craignoye que les danglers,

Moy; je navoye paour d'aultre chose,

[I feared only danger, myself. I feared nothing else.]

The farrago of bombaft, mixed with frank asides, continues. The
Archer is a devil with the women, as one would exped, yet gallant,
and not like the rude canaille of the rank and file; a dead shot at
the butts, too, and in his tender youth a great performer on the flute.
Well . . . The Archer, preparing to reconnoitre the henrooft, be-
comes aware of a figure rearing behind him, dressed like a man-at-
arms, an arbaleSt in its hand and a white (or French) cross on its
breaft. He Stops short, Staring. His terror is extreme.

(A fart.)

Hal le Sacrement de I'autcll
Je suis affoiblyl Que'esse cy?

[(Aside.) Ha! God's Body, I'm all of a tremble! What's this?]
He addresses the scarecrow.

(A I'espoventail.)

Hal Monseigneur, pour Dieu, mercy!
Hault le traic~l, quaye la vie jranchel
Je voy bien, a voBre croix blanche,
Que nous sommes tout d'ung party I

'[(To the scarecrow.) Ha! My Lord, for God's sake, mercy 1
Lift your arm a trifle, sir, so that I shan't be hit! I see from your
white cross, sir, that we are both on the same side!]

In a moment he perceives a black Breton cross on the back of it, and
breaks into a fresh sweat.

Par le sang bieul cell ung Breton f
Et je dy que je suis Francois! . .
// esJ faicJ de toy, cefle jois,
fernet: c'esJ ung parti contrairel

['Sblood! It's a Breton! and here am I saying I'm a French-
man! It's all up with you this time, Fernet! He's on the other

side.]

3 2 9

The fun develops. The Archer grovels again, swearing by St.
Denis of France and St. Yves of Brittany that he is at the gentle-
man's service, tripes and bowels; then resigns himself to inftant
death and confesses himself, calling his adversary especially to wit-
ness that he never in his life killed anything bigger than a hen. At
laft, after a deal of comic terror, the scarecrow falls with a crash to
the ground, and the Free Archer, drawing near to it after a resped:-
able interval, discovers what it is and breaks into a fury, rending his
enemy with a torrent of oaths and huge bellowings. What! a
dummy! Stuffed with Straw! Par le corps bicul Morbieu! Charbieul
Par la vertu bicul May the Quartan Ague nip the guts of the man
who has fooled him! At any rate he will drag the thing away with
him, for a gage and booty of war ! And the Free Archer turns to the
audience and ends his monologue.

(Au public.)

Seigneurs, je vous commande a Dieu:
Et se Von vous vient dernander
Qu'efl devenu le Franc Archier,
DicJes qu'il n'esJ pas mort encor,
Et qu'il emporte dague et cor,
Et reviendra par cy de brief.
Adieu! Je rnen voys au relief.

[Gentles, I commend you to God. If any ask you concerning
the whereabouts of the Free Archer, say that he is not dead yet, but
has gone off the field with bag and baggage, and will return
presently Farewell! I go to draw my pay.]

It is a merry satire, not too subtle, on a body of militia at whom
all Paris jeered, and no doubt the audience rocked with joy. In its
verve, its mockery, and the arrangement of some of its phrases, it
is very Villon. Guillaume Colletet, from whose Life of the poet
(circa 1650) I have quoted elsewhere, Stubbornly awards it to him,
calling it une satyre centre un rodomont et un pagnot de son terns.
Three of the editions before Marot include the Monologue with the
Works; Marot and succeeding editors exclude it. Some think it was
probably part of a repertoire of farces played by Villon and his
fellows of the University at one time and another, but hesitate to
declare that he wrote it. Others say that he could not possibly have

written it, since it did not appear till after his disappearance from
history. Much more doubt enwraps the Dialogue of the Messieurs
de Mallepaye et de Baillevent; a long burlesque duet of intricate
rhyme from which Rabelais may have devised Panurge's dialogue
with the monosyllabic Friar Fredon in the Fifth Book. 4 I give a
little of it, to show the pattern. The piece is believed to have cer-
tainly formed part of the theatrical repertoire of the Enfans Sans
Souci; it is a plaintive and comic avowal of poverty and covetous-
ness bandied to and fro between M. de Mallepaye (matte paye) and
M. de Baillevent (baitteur de vent, one who pays with wind, instead
of money) .

DIALOGUE
DE MESSIEURS DE MALLEPAYE ET DE BAILLEVENT

M. Hee, Monsieur de Baittevent!

B. Quoy
De neuf?

M. On nous tient en aboy,
Comme despourveuz, malheureux.
B. Si j'avoye autant que je doy f
Sang bieul je seroye chez le Roy,
Un page apres moy!

M. Voire deux!
B. Nous sommes francs . . .

M. Adventureux.
B. Riches.

M. Eien aises.

B. Plantureux.
M. Voire, de souhaits.

B. CesJ assez.
M. Gentilz hommes.

B. Hardis.

M. Et freux
B. Par I'huys.

M. Du joly Souffreteux
Rentiers*

B. De gaiges cassez.

* If Rabelais wrote the Fifth Book; which is disputed.

Another piece hardily attributed to Villon at least once is the celebrated farce of Maiflre
Pierre Pathelin. It is more probable that this might be placed among the works of Bacon,

6 A wry grimace in the direction of the Enfans Sans Souci, that famished and predatory
troop, who sometimes called themselves "heirs of the Abb6 de Saint&e-Soujffrette."

331

M. Nous sommes, puis troys ans passez,
Si minces.

B. Si mal compassez.
M. Si simples.

B. Legiers comme vent.
M. Si esbaudiz.

B. Si mal panszrssez.
De donner pour Dieu dispensez,
Car nous jeusnons assess souvent.

DIALOGUE

OF MM. DE MALLEPAYE AND DE BAILLEVENT
M. He, Monsieur de Baillevent!

B. What's
The news?
M. They keep us in a pretty fix,

Needy and unfortunate.
B. If I had all the money I owe,
'Sdeath, I should be at Court,
With a page attending me!

M. Nay, two!
B. We are both honest. . . .

M. Venturesome,
B. Rich.

M. Easy

B. Fertile . . .
M. True, of desires.

B. That's sufficient.
M. Men of worth . . .

B. Intrepid.

M. And doughty.
B. Behind the door.

M. Heirs of the Abbot
Of Starveling.

B. Cashiered.

M. We have been for three years past
So slender.

B. So badly Marched!
M. So simple.

B. Light as a wind!
M. So jolly.

B. So ill-equipped
To beftow gifts for God,
For we fasl often enough.

332

There is some little skill in this. It is composed of Strophes of
six lines, having two rhymes so arranged that the rhyme of the
third and sixth lines in one Strophe is repeated in the next at the
firft, second, fourth, and fifth. The likeness to Rabelais' Friar jumps
to the eye in such an exchange as

M. Gens . . .

B. A dire: D'ond venez-vous?
M. Francs.

B. Fins.

M. Froidz.

B. Forts.

M. Grans.
B. Gros.

M. Escreuz.

M. The sort of men . . .

B. To say: Where d'you come from?
M. Honeft.

B. Subtle.

M. Cool.

B. Strong.

M. Tall.

B. Stout.
M. Enlarged.

But whether or not this and the Free Archer are Villon's will
be ultimately revealed (the aged Sybil of Panzoult informs me) at
the coming of the Cocqcigrues.

OF his scattered irregularities, his obscurities, his occasional untidi-
ness of syntax, his wilful carelessness, his one or two verses left help-
less in the air, dangling their legs, his demi-assonances, like the
rhyming of Grenobles with Doles, peuple with seule, and enfle with
temple, to take three instances, there is no need to make a howl. 1

1 The rime riche Villon so often uses dropped out of English, poetry after Chaucer. For
example:

The hooly blisful martir for to seke [seek]

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke [sick],

333

Les poetes font a leur guise, as the goddess says in the play; adding,
with enormous truth and aptitude, so far as Villon is concerned,

Ce nefl fas la seule sottise

Qu'on voit faire a ces messieurs-lh.

[That is not the only folly we perceive emanating from those
gentlemen.]

But those who would make him a slovenly improviser, throw-
ing off his song carelessly and tossing together his verses as he felt
inclined, do him wrong. The mot superficial examination of the
planning of the Grant Teflament 2 shows the arrangement of the
whole wort to be not haphazard, but, in spite of a few unimportant
blemishes, rhythmic, subtle, and carefully studied: to take an ex-
ample, that gradual crescendo of meditation on Death which rises
a slow wave and bursts finally into the lovely melody of the Dead
Ladies, falling back afterwards and dying in the Lament of the
Belle Heaulmiere, and her wailing for her lot youth; and again,
that other slow lifting wave of religion and gratitude which swell's
and breaks in the Ballade to Our Lady; and once more, the mocking
laughter of the Ballade of the Women of Paris, hardening and
becoming harsh, and finally set in a bitter grimace as he passes to
the Ballade of Fat Margot; and again, the firSt sad note, as of a
passing-bell and the chant of De Profundis, in the song "Au retour"
deepening and growing more solemn and recollected thence to the
end of the Testament and the Epitaph, A poet of Villon's Stature
could do no less. His fineSt and mot ecstatic work is set in the mass
of the Testament with all the anxiety of the medieval craftsman.
Well did Huysmans call him ciseleur inimitable, joaillier non pareiL
And if his bet verse is required to pass an academic tet, it Still
emerges triumphant, fulfilling at once Pater's condition that all
high poetry aspires towards music, and the corollary of M. Henri
Bremond 3 that all high poetry aspires towards prayer. As for his
lesser flights, his gibes and fleers and mocks, Marcel Schwob, point-

a It is to be noted to begin with that the general form, as of the Petit TcHament also,
follows that of regular testaments, consistently, the testator beginning with the invocation to
the Trinity and to Our Lady, and proceeding in order, soul, body, father, mother, friends,
notaries, executors, etc.

B Pricre et Poesie, 1926.

334

ing out that more than half Villon's butts are rich Parisian finan-
ciers, tax-farmers, usurers, and money-merchants, the Marchands,
Cornus, St. Amants, Baubignons, Baillys, Trascailles, Raguiers,
Tarannes, Hesselins, Colombels, Charruaus, Louvieux, Marbeufs,
Maries, Culdoes, Laurens, Gossouyns, and Marceaus, argues thence
that he deliberately intended his work for a social satire or
pamphlet, 4 for at the latter part of the fifteenth century these finan-
ciers (and especially those of them who were usurers and speculators
in food) were universally hated. But I do not think so much can be
claimed for him, nor that he had anything more in his mind than
personal dislikes and private hatreds. He was, like his ancestor the
disreputable poet Eumolpus in Petronius, one of those men of letters
quos odisse divites solent, and he obviously returned cordially and
fivefold this dislike. If there were some secure proof for Marcel
Schwob's theory, it would certainly give Villon's leaSt gibes a politi-
cal distinction.

We may grant him, then, his moments of slackness, and mo-
ments also when his bright genius sulked and left him plugging
along merely a pedestrian rhymer. But for the greatest part there
is in his verses a maStery, a sureness, a rhythm, a sharp clarity, a
relief, and above all a vigour, a breeze of life, which Stamps him
great. In every page of his works there Strikes upon the eye some
subtle arrangement of words, some final clear-cut picture, some
melody, some round perfection which enlarges and satisfies not only
the eye and the ear, but the mind also.

For example,

Ou sont les gracieux gallans
Que je suivoye ou temps jadis,
Si bien chantans, si bien parlans,
Si plaisans en jaiz et en dis?

and again:

Au mouflier voy dont suis paroissienne
Paradis paint, ou sont harpes et lus.

and again:

Ryme, raille, cymballe, luttes,
Comme fol, -fainflif, eshontez;

* Letter to Sidney Colvin, November, 1899. The theory is developed in Schwob's RSdac-
tions et Notes.

335

Farce, broulle, joue des fleuftes,
Fais, es villes et es citez,
Farces, jeux, et moralitez;
Gaigne au berlanc, au glic, aux quilles:
Aussi bien va, or escoutez!
Tout aux tavernes et aux files.
and:

Venez a son enterrement
Quant vous orrez le carrillon,
Ve&us rouge com vermilion.

and once more:

Filles, amans, jeunes gens et nouveaulx,
Danceurs, saulteurs, faisans les ptez de veaux,
Vifs comme dars f agus comme aguillon t
Gousiers tintans cler comme cascaveaux . . .

In all these there is a running song, playing among the printed
words and perceptible to the inner ear, woven in and out and flow-
ing and returning, repeated like a fugue, a perpetual undercurrent:
like the liquid music one hears (Pater duce et auspice Pater) in
gazing at the paint and canvas of Giorgione's Concert.

Sounds and sweet Ayrs, that give delight and hurt not.

I have chosen instances from the mass of his work. The three
Great Ballades and some of the lesser are music absolute. Only a
very great poet could have written any one of these three: the Bal-
lade to Our Lady, like the rolling of minler organs at one of her
feaSts; the Ballade of the Hanged, which is like the Dies lr&\ the
Ballade of Dead Ladies, a Stringed symphony, shimmering and ex-
quisite, heard afar off on a summer night, among the plashing of
fountains.

Above all, there is his vigour. "It is all round him," says Mr.
Bellbc, "and through him, like a Storm in a wood. It creates, it
perceives. It possesses the man himself, and us also as we read
him." 5 He bmits into a dying twilit world full of half-poets
mumbling their worn-out formulae, and creates the firSt modern
poetry in Europe: modern, I mean, in that it is sharp and athrob

336

with frank self-searching, eager, moody, fed from the poet's own
heart's blood. Had he, as Clement Marot wished, lived and been
formed and polished in the courts of princes he would have become,
moSt probably, a polite little, smug little, precious little Court
versifier, rhyming his uninspired conceits and turning out his quaint
enamelled confections to order, like so many others. But in place
of the faded decorations like tapestries, full of Stiffly-grouped knights
and ladies, of these his predecessors and contemporaries, Villon
creates the poetry of Paris and sets down her soul and the pageant of
her Streets. Where they used over and over again the Stilted,
pompous phrase, the formal courtesy, the decorative, lifeless pattern,
Villon crams into his verse the noisy brawl of the Town, its sights
and sounds and life, its slang, its thieves' patter, foreign oaths left
over from the wars, Latin of the University and the Church, rude
jokes of the tavern, the drone of the Schools, scraps of Street-songs
("Ma doulce Amour" "Ouvrez vostre huys, Gmllemette"), coun-
try patois, the mincing affectations of the genteel. Just as in

Et quidam seros hiberni ad luminis ignes
Pervigilat ferroque faces inspicat acuto;
Inter ea Ion gum cantu solata lab or em
Arguto conjunx percurrit pettine telas

'[Such a one works by night, by the light of his winter fire,
cutting wood for torches with a sharp knife, while his wife, sooth-
ing her long labour with song, passes the noisy comb to and fro

across the web.] /T . ., ^ . TN

(Vergil, Georgics I)

the acrid scent of wood-smoke rises at once to the noStrils and there
is heard die swish of the comb through the threads, the crackling of
the log fire, the rhythmic chopping of the knife on wood, and over
all the crooning of an old dreamy song, so in

Et aux pietons qui vont d'aguet
Taflonnant par ces eftablis . . .

[And to the foot-sergeants who go the rounds, groping past
the Stalls.]

there is heard the tramp of the Watch, the Stumbling along the
cobbles, the word of command, the rasp of halberds poked beneath

337

the Stalls, the grunted exchanges; and over all the vaSt murmur of
the Town, And once more:

Et Ysabeau qui dit:'"Ennel"

For nearly five hundred years the girl Ysabeau, this cockney of
medieval Paris, has been lisping "Enne!" "Reelly!": so that you
can hear the very inflexion of her soft voice, and see the arched
eyebrows, the cheap jewels, the pretty, silly, vapid face upturned to
the mocking face of the poet. She is as alive as Galatea in the
Bucolics, who so many centuries ago flung her apple at the shepherd
Damoetas and fled to the willows. The apple (as a modern Vergil-
iSt, M. Bellessort, has finely said) is Still rolling there, before our
eyes. The willows are quivering; a girl's flushed, laughing face Still
peeps behind. So Ysabeau is Still looking up and saying "Enne!";
the little affected fool. It is in the power of a poet to create, like this,
a moment which is changeless, and to make Time Stand Still.

Of the greatness of Villon, says GaSton Paris, there is one
supreme teSt. He wrote, in a French long ago obsolete and now
sometimes barely intelligible, in an outmoded form, of an age long
dead. The subj eft-matter of his verse loSt centuries ago any a<5tuality
it had, and the values of his age have changed though I may be
excused for suggesting, rather quaintly, that its vital essence, its
faith, is of course indeStru<5tible. Finally, some of his verse is con-
cerned with persons or events so vague, so obscure, or so unpleasant
that of themselves they would not arouse to-day the fainteSl interest.
Yet his verse as you read it is alive, vibrant, as freshly coloured as
when he firSt wrote it down, and ageless.

How true this is and I have found it not possible to share all
Gallon Paris' judgments on this poet one discovers by reading
Villon as all good poetry should invariably be read: aloud. Such is
the ecstasy of his creative force, the life he has breathed into his
work, that it is seen and felt to be poetry absolute, Stirring the soul
and the imagination like a fanfare of silver trumpets, fulfilling the
mind, vibrating, awakening that inSlant response which is the mark
of high poetry. This is a teSl no lesser verse can pass. Villon pos-
sessed le Verbe, the Word, and the magic formula (Rabelais has it,

338

too) by which words are changed into something beyond them-
selves and their arrangement transmuted into the language of an-
other world; a language in which the very shape and size and colour
and texture of words, their resonance, their position and signifi-
cance, become as it were faery, charged with tremendous, or mys-
terious, or ravishing music. Such music, I mean, as

And we in dream behold the Hebrides,
and

Formosam resonare daces Amaryllida silvas,

[You teach the woods to resound with the name of lovely
Amaryllis.] (Vergil, Bucolics I)

and

O western Wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
and

Tuba mirum spargens sonum,

[Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth.] (From the Dies Irce.)

and of course

Echo, parlant quant bruyt on maine
Dessus riviere ou sus eflan.
[Echo, more than mortal-fair,
That, when one calls by river-flow
Or marish, answers out of the air.]
(Payne.)

Such alchemy, the Trismegiftan Arcana, only great poets know,
and Villon is one. "Quel magique ruissellement de pierres!" cries
J. K. Huysmans, adoring his genius, "Sfuel etrange fourmillement
de feux! Quelles etonnantes cassures d'etoffes rudcs et rousses!
Quelles jolles flriures de couleurs vives et mornesl" *

There remains one final short thing to be said. He is a fore-
runner. "Through him firft" I quote Mr. Belloc again "the great

*["What a magical bream of jewels!" cries J. K. Huysmans,
adoring his genius, "What a Strange clustering of fires! What
astonishing rending of primitive, sunset-tinted fabrics! What
fantastic Griping of colors, vivid and gloomy!"]
Le Drageoir aux Epices (& Maitre Francois Villon) .

339

Town, and especially Paris, appeared and became permanent in
letters. . . . Since his pen firft wrote, a shining acerbity like the
glint of a sword-edge has never deserted the literature of the capital.
It was not only the metropolitan, it was the Parisian spirit which
Villon found and fixed : that spirit which is so bright over the whole
city, but which is not known in the fir& village outside j the influ-
ence that makes Paris Athenian,"
This is a true judgment.

THE CREAM OF THE TESTAMENTS

THE BALLADE TO OUR LADY

ON the Strong, simple tenderness and religious passion of this great
Ballade there is no need to insift, beyond noting that the lines

Vierge portant, sans rornpure encourir,
Le sacrement quern celebre a la messe,

sum up the Creed in a dozen words.

It is interesting to observe, in passing, how this noble salute and
prayer to Our Lady, "Empress of the Infernal Marshes/' is fore-
shadowed in English medieval poetry, so rich in devotion to Mary;
Strikingly in the opening of a Ballade by John Lydgate (1370-1451),
of which Villon's opening might almost be an echo

Queene of Heaven, of Hell eke Emperess,
Lady of this world, O very LodeStar.

And again, in the beautiful anonymous Queen of Courtesy:

That Empress al Heaven hath
And Earth and Hell in her baily.

In modern English there is one lovely inspiration from Villon's
chaunt:

Lady and Queen and My&ery manifold

And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St, Hilda did behold

And heard a woodland music passing by:

You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening, and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith which I have held and hold,

And this is that in which I mean to die. 1

1 Hilaire Bclloc, Ballade to Our Lady of CzeHochowa.

343

BALLADE

QUE VILLON FEIST A LA REQUESTS DE SA MERE, POUR PRIER NOSTRE DAME

DAME du del, regente terrienne,

Emperiere des infernaux pains,

Recevez moy, voslre humble chrestienne,

Que comprinse soye entre vos esleus,

Ce non obstant qu'oncques rien ne valus.

Les biens de vous, Ma Dame et Ma Maistresse,

Sont trop plus grans que ne suis pecheresse,

Sans lesquelz biens ame ne peut merir

N'avoir les cieulx, je n'en suis jangleresse: 2

En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

A voslre Filz dictes que je suis sienne;
De luy soyent mes pechiez abolus;
Pardonne moy comme a FEgipcienne, 3
Ou comme il feist au clerc Theophilus,
Lequel par vous fut quitte et absolus,
Combien qu'il eust au deable fait promesse.
Preservez moy de faire jamais ce,
Vierge portant, sans rompure encourir,
Le sacrement qu'on celebre a la messe:
En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

Femme je suis povrette et anci'enne,
Qui riens ne s^ay: oncques lettre ne leus.
Au moustier voy 4 dont suis paroissienne
Paradis paint, ou sont harpes et lus,
Et ung enfer ou dampnez sont boullus:
L'ung me fait paour, Tautre joye et liesse.
La joye avoir me fay, haulte Deesse,
A qui pecheurs doivent tous recourir,
Comblez de foy, sans fainte ne paresse:
En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

3 jangleresse = trickier.

3 The Egyptian is St. Mary of Egypt, penitent, whose story is given in The Golden
Legend. The clerk Theophilus, Vidame or the church of Adana in Cilicia in the sixth
century, being dispossessed of his office by the bishop, in order to regain possession of it
sold himself to the Devil, and was redeemed by Our Lady. His story was a favourite
one of the Middle Ages, and the Saxon nun Hroswitha, Gautier de Coincy, and Rutebeuf,
among others, made a Morality from it. It is sculptured in high-relief in the tympanum
of the North (Cloister) Door of Notre-Dame.

* Au mouflier voy: The possibility of this minster being the Celestines' great church
by the Bastille has been discussed elsewhere in this book.

344

THE BALLADE TO OUR LADY

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
Dame du del, Regente terrienne

LADY of Heaven and earth, and therewithal,

Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,
I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,

Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,

Albeit in nought I be commendable.
But all mine undeserving may not mar
Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;

Without the which (as true words testify)
No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.

Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,

And to me graceless make Him gracious.

Sad Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,
Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theophilus,
Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus

Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.

Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass
(Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby)

The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass.
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,
I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore:

Within my parish-cloister I behold

A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,
And eke a Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore:

One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.

That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be
Thou of whom all must ask it, even as I;

And that which faith desires, that let it see.
For in this faith I choose to live and die.

345

ENVOY

Vous portables, digne Vierge, princesse,
lesus regnant qu' n'a ne fin ne cesse.
Le Tout Puissant, prenant nostre foiblesse,
Laissa les cieulx et nous vint secourir,
Offrit a mort sa tres chiere jeunesse;
Noftre Seigneur tel est, tel le confesse:
En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.

346

ENVOY

O excellent Virgin Princess! Thou didst bear
King Jesus, our most excellent Comforter,

Who even of this our weakness craved a share
And for our sake stooped to us from on high,

Offering to death His young life sweet and fair.

Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare
And in this faith I choose to live and die.

347

THE BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

ONE of the mafter-songs of the world, with its gentle rhymes in -is
and -aine, the exquisite ache of its music, caressing and soothing to
dreams, and its lovely refrain. Its melancholy inquiry and evocation
and its concern with Death are common to large masses of medieval
poetry: but it is incomparable.

Observe the rhyming of moyne, essoyne, royne, and Same. This
was Parisian.

BALLADE

DES DAMES DU TEMPS JADIS

DICTES moy ou, n'en quel pays,
Eft Flora 1 la belle Rommaine,
Archipiades, 2 ne Thai's, 3
Qui fut sa cousine germaine,
Echo parlant quant bruyt on mafne
Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
Qui beaulte ot trop plus qu'humaine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Ou esl: la tres sage Helloi's, 4
Pour qui fut chastre et puis moyne

1 Flora, the celebrated Roman courtesan of Juvenal, Sat, ii. 9.

* Archipiades (or Archipiada) remains enigmas. It has been variously suggested that
Villon means the Greek courtesan Hipparckia, or perhaps Sophocles' mistress Archippa.
In 1896 M. Langlois, a professor at Lille, put forward the ingenious theory that it may
be Alcibiades, whose name Boetius cites in praise of heroic beauty. This Villon may have
heard commented by a master in the Schools, and caught indistinctly.

8 Thais, the Athenian courtesan who followed Alexander into Egypt; or perhaps die
Thai's of Martial. The Middle Ages made the Egyptian Thai's a penitent and a saint; the
composer Massenet and Anatole France, between them, a martyr.

4 Hellols and Esbaillart (Abelard) are well known. The site of their house is pre-
sumed to be at Number 9 of the Quai aux Fleurs. Until recently the reputed house ojE

348

THE BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
Diffes moy ou, n'en quel pays

TELL me now in what hidden way is

Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,

Neither o them the fairer woman?

Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere

She whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,

349

Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?
Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne.
Semblablement, ou est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan 5
Fust gete en ung sac en Saine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

La royne Blanche 6 comme lis
Qui chantoit a voix de seraine,
Berte au grant pie, 7 Bietris, Alis, 8
Haremburgis 9 qui tint le Maine,
Et Jehanne 10 la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan;
Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge souvraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

ENVOY

Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,
Que ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Canon Fulbert, the terrible uncle, was shown in the Rue Chanoinesse, on the north side
of Notre-Dame, formerly part of the Cloiftre des Chanoines Noftre-Dame. Villon must
have passed it often on his way to the house of Margot.

Buridan, a celebrated professor of the University of Paris and a disciple of the Nomi-
nalist William of Ockham. In his youth, according to the tradition, he fell into the hands
of the Queen of Burgundy, who is the centre of a Parisian legend exactly resembling that
of Queen Thamar in the Russian folk-tale. The Queen lived in the Tour de Nesle (the
west pavilion of the Palais Mazarin covers the site) and attracted into her bower any
passer-by students of the University especially who pleased her fancy. When her caprice
was satisfied she had her lovers thrown into the Seine: Buridan escaped by falling on a
barge laden with straw, towed under the Tower by his pupils. He ended his days towards
1360, aged over sixty. A pamphlet briskly entitled Commentariolus hiftorictis de adolescen-
tibus Parisiensibus t per Buridanum, nations Picardum, ab illicitis cuiusdam Regince Francis
amoribus retrattis, published at Leipzig in 1471, gives his story ; as also does the Compen-
dium of Gaguin.

The Queen has been thought to be intended for Marguerite of Burgundy, wife of
Louis x. ("le Hutin"). She was found guilty of adultery and executed by the King's order
in 1314. There is no historical foundation for the Buridan legend.

" The Queen Blanche may be St. Louis' mother, Blanche of Castille, or a dream-figure
of Villon's own.

7 Berte au grant pi, Big-Foot Bertha, the tall wife of Pepin le Bref, and the mother,
in the Epics, of Charlemagne.

* Bietris and Alis are from the Chanson de Geste of Hervi de Metz, in the Lorraine
Cycle, Bietris being the wife of Hervi de Metz, Alis his mother. Prompsault tries to iden-
tify them with Beatrix de Provence, wife of Louis vm.'s son Charles, and Alix de Cham-
pagne, wife of Louis le Jeune, dead in 1206; but this is pure pedantry. The poet may even
have dreamed them.

9 Haremburgis is Arembour, heiress of the Maine, wife of the celebrated Foulque v.,
Count of Anjou: d. 1126.

10 Jehanne is of course St. Joan; burned in 1431. Domremy, her birthplace, was then
in the Duchy of Bar, part of medieval Lorraine.

350

Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen

Who willed that Buridan should &eer

Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine? .

But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden

Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,

And Ermengarde the Lady of Maine
And that good Joan whom Englishmen

At Rouen doomed and burned her there
Mother of God, where are they, then? . . ,

But where are the snows of yester-year?

ENVOY
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,

Where they are gone, nor yet this year.
Except with this for an overword
But where are the snows of yester-year?

351

THE EPITAPH, OR BALLADE OF THE
HANGED

THIS superb, devout, and deadly earnest exercise in the macabre
needs little comment. Observe that the poet prophetically sees his
body and those of his companions as if they had already been swing-
ing and rotting for some time. The Montfaucon gibbet, as I have
shown, was a place for junketting and night-parties. This fa6l gives
point to the imploring cry in the firft Stanza:

De noflre mat personne ne s'en rie,
and also that of the Envoi:

Hommes, icy n'a point de mocquerie.

L'EPITAPHE

EN FORME DE BALLADE QUE FEIST VILLON POUR LUY & SES COMPAIGNONS,
S'ATTENDANT ESTRE PENDU AVEC EULX

[L Epi- FRERES humains qui apres nous vivez,

taphe -KT, i j -

Villon.] Nayez les cuers contre nous endurcis,

Car, se pitie de nous povres avez,

Dieu en aura plus tost de vous mercis.

Vous nous voiez cy attachez cinq, six:

Quant de la char, que trop avons nourrie,

Elle est piega devoree et pourrie,

Et nous, les os, devenons cendre et pouldre.

De nostre mal personne ne s'en rie;

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre!

Se freres vous clamons, pas n'en devez
Avoir desdaing, quoy que fusmes occis
Par justice. Toutesfois, vous Savez
Que tous hommes n'ont pas bon sens rassis;
Excusez nous, puis que sommes transsis,

35 2

THE BALLADE OF THE HANGED

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Freres humains qui apris nous vivez

MEN, brother men, that after us yet live,

Let not your hearts too hard against us be;
For if some pity of us poor men ye give,

The sooner God shall take of you pity.

Here are we five or six Strung up, you see,
And here the flesh that all too well we fed
Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,

And we the bones grow dust and ash withal;
Let no man laugh at us discomforted,

But pray to God that He forgive us all.

If we call on you, brothers, to forgive,

Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we
Were slain by law; ye know that all alive

Have not the wit alway to walk righteously;

Make therefore intercession heartily

353

Envers le Fils de la Vierge Marie,

Que sa grace ne soit pour nous tarie,

Nous preservant de Finfernale fouldre.

Nous sommes mors, ame ne nous harie;

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre!

La pluye nous a buez et lavez,

Et le soleil dessechiez et noircis;

Pies, corbeaulx, nous ont les yeulx cavez,

Et arrachie la bar be et les sourcis.

Jamais nul temps nous ne sommes assis;

Puis ca, puis la, comme le vent varie,

A son plaisir sans cesser nous charie,

Plus becquetez d'oiseaulx que dez a couldre.

Ne soiez done de nofore confrairie;

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre!

ENVOI

Prince Jhesus, qui sur tous a maiftrie,
Garde qu'Enfer n'ait de nous seigneurie: *
A luy n'ayons que faire ne que souldre.
Hommes, icy n'a point de raocquerie;
Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre 1

Longnon:

Prince Jhesus, qui sur tous a maistrie,

GarSfe qu'Enfer n'ait de nous seigneurie . . .

Thuasne:

Prince Jhesus, qui sur tous seigneurie,

Garde qu'Enfer n'ait de nous la mais"lrie ...

354

With Him that of a Virgin's womb was bred,
That His grace be not as a dry well-head

For us, nor let Hell's thunder on us fall;
We are dead, let no man harry or vex us dead,

But pray to God that He forgive us all.

The rain has washed and laundered us all five,
And the sun dried and blackened; yea, perdie,

Ravens and pies with beaks that rend and rive
Have dug our eyes out, and plucked off for fee
Our beards and eyebrows; never are we free,

Not once, to rest; but here and there still sped,

Drive at its wild will by the wind's change led,
More pecked of birds than fruits on garden-wall:

Men, for God's love, let no gibe here be said,
But pray to God that He forgive us all.

ENVOY

Prince Jesus, that of all art Lord and Head,
Keep us, that Hell be not our bitter bed;

We have nought to do in such a master's hall.
Be ye not therefore of our fellowhead,

But pray to God that He forgive us all.

355

THE BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL

TO THOSE OF NAUGHTY LIFE

THE neareft thing we have to this in English poetry as an evocation
of medieval low life is, I think, Skelton's Tunning of Elynour Rum-
mingi Skelton's picture being more convivial in a sluttish, boozy
way and not professionally criminal.

The dodlrine of this Ballade is admirable, and one sees the poet's
wry grin as he writes it, drawing on his own rich experience. Hen-
ley's effective paraphrase in London thieves'-slang of the 'nineties
appears in a later page of this book.

BALLADE DE BONNE DOCTRINE

A CEULX DE MAUVAISE VIE

[Ballade "CAR ou soies porteur de bulks, 1

d%\ Pi P eur 2 ou hasardeur de dez,

Tailleur de faulx coings, 3 tu te brusles
Comme ceulx qui sont eschaudez,
Trai&res parjurs, de foy vuydez;
Soies larron, ravis ou pilles:
Ou en va Pacqueft, que cuidez?
Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.

"Ryme, raille, cymballe, luttes,
Comme fol, fain&if, 4 eshontez;

1 Porteur de bulles: An itinerant hawker of faked indulgences, such as throve on the
strong devotion of the Middle Ages. A blood-brother to Chaucer's Pardoner. Jusserand, in
his work on Chaucer, says of these impostors: "There is not a single stroke of satire in
Chaucer's picture which cannot be justified by letters emanating from Papal or episcopal
chancelleries." Yet they flourished.

a Pipeur, a dice-cogger.

8 Tailleur de faulx coings, a coiner.

* FaincJif, a sneak-thief. Also a strolling player.

356

BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL

(Translation by John Payne)

Peddle indulgences as you may,

Cog the dice for your cheating throws;

Try i counterfeit coin will pay,

At risk of roasting at last, like those
That deal in treason. Lie and glose,

Rob and ravish what profits it?

Who gets the purchase, do you suppose?

Taverns and wenches, every whit.

Rhyme, rail, wrestle, and cymbals play,
Flute and fool it in mummers' shows;

357

Farce, broulle, 5 joue des fleusles;

Fais, es villes et es citez,

Farces, jeux et moralitez;

Gaigne au berlanc, 6 au glic, 7 aux quilles: 8

Aussi bien va, or escoutez!

Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.

"De telx ordures te reculles,
Laboure, fauche champs et prez,
Sers et pense chevaux et mulles,
S'aucunement tu n'es lettrez;
Assez auras, se prens en grez.
Mais, se chanvre broyes ou tilles,
Ne tens ton labour qu'as ouvrez
Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."

ENVOI

"Chausses, pourpoins esguilletez, 9
Robes, et toutes vos drappilles,
Ains que vous fassiez pis, portez
Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.

6 Broulle may mean either to play in masquerades and farces or to practise sorcery.
Compare imbroglio.

8 Berlanc, a table game.

7 Glic, a card game, resembling slightly the modern bouillotte. "Gleek, a game of
cards, in which a glee\ meant three cards alike" (Skeat).

* Quilles, skittles.

* Pourpoins esguilletez, tagged doublets.

358

Along with the strolling players stray
From town to city, without repose;

Act mysteries, farces, imbroglios,

Win money at Gleek, or a lucky hit
At the pins: like water, away it flows;

Taverns and wenches, every whit.

Turn from your evil courses, I pray,
That smell so foul in a decent nose;

Earn your bread in some honest way,

If you have no letters, nor verse nor prose,
Plough or groom horses, beat hemp or toze,

Enough shall you have if you think but fit;
But cast not your wage to the wind that blows;

Taverns and wenches, every whit.

ENVOY
Doublets, pourpoints and silken hose,

Gowns and linen, woven or knit,
Ere your wede's worn, away it goes:

Taverns and wenches, every whit.

359

THE BALLADE AND PRAYER FOR THE SOUL OF
MASTER JEHAN COTART

AN admirable Bacchanalian thing, at once ironic, playful 1 , and in-
fused with real affection for a rude beuveur. Master Jehan Cotart
was a lawyer of the Court of the Diocese of Paris, with the title
Procurator or Promoter Curite. Villon mentions him early in the
Grant Tettament, and had obviously a friendship for him. The
pidlure of old Fiery Face reeling up to Paradise, as he had so often
reeled through the Quarter, hiccoughing and bellowing at the Gate,

BALLADE ET OROISON

PERE Noe, qui plantastes la vigne, 1
Vous aussi. Loth, 2 qui beustes ou rochier,
Par tel party qu' Amours, qui gens engigne,
De voz filles si vous feist approuchier
(Pas ne le dy pour le vous reprouchier),
Archetriclin, 3 qui bien sceustes cest art,
Tous trois vous pry qu'o vous vueillez perchier
L'ame du bon feu maistre Jehan Cotart!

1 Pere No, qui plantaftes la vigne. Rabelais, who is so soaked in Villon's poetry, echoes
this in the Prologue to the Second Book:

"Noe le saintt homme, auquel tant sommes obligez & tenus de ce qu'il nous flanta
la vigne," etc.

a Vous aussi, "Loth. The incident (in mentioning which the poet politely clears himself
of any intent to carp) of Genesis xix.

3 Archetriclin > the chief steward, architridimts , of the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee:

"Et autem guftavit architriclinus aquam vinum jattam, et non sciebat unde esset," etc.
St. John ii.

Villon uses the title as a proper name: a medieval habit.

360

and being admitted by the favour of Father Noe, Lot, and the
Steward of Cana, all three ministers of the Sacred Vine, should have
been painted by Rubens or Brauwer. The Procurator lives eternally
in this Ballade. One can see his swagging belly, his jolly crimson
face, and his great ruby nose, diapre dc bubelettes nacarat, boutonne
d'amethyttes troubles, such a nose as Olivier Basselin's, in honour of
which he wrote such a joyous Vaux~de-Vire, or the kind of superb
nose belonging to the Canon Panzoult and Timber-Foot, Dodor
of Angers, in the Second Book of Pantagruel, which resembled la
ftufle d'un Alembic . , . pullulant, purpure, h pompettes y tout
esmaille, tout boutonne, & brode de gueulles; and in the third Stanza
Villon has given an unforgettable glimpse of Ma&er Cotart's prog-
ress home after an evening with the bottles, Stumbling through the
dark Streets and bumping his head againft a butcher's Stall. The
Procurator's tremulous old autograph laSl appears in a legal docu-
ment of 1460. He died in January 1461.

In the Boozers' Breviary which Panurge might have compiled
this ballade would certainly have been an Office Hymn.

BALLADE AND PRAYER FOR THE SOUL

(ist verse) : Father Noe, who planted the Vine; you also, Lot,
who drank in the grotto, in such fashion that Love, who mazes
folks so, caused your daughters to approach you (I do not say this
to reproach you!); Architriclinus, so learned in your art: I pray
you all three to receive on high the soul of the late good Master
Jehan Cotart!

Jadis extraicfl il fut de votre ligne,
Luy qui beuvoit du meilleur et plus chier,
Et ne deust il avoir vaillant ung pigne;
Certes, sur tous, c'e^hoit ung bon archier; *
On ne luy sceut pot des mains arrachier;
De bien boire ne fut oncques fetart. 5
Nobles seigneurs, ne souffrez empeschier
L'ame du bon feu mailre Jehan Cotart!

Comme homme beu qui chancelle et trepigne
L/ay veu souvent, quant il s'alloit couchier,
Et une fois il se feist une bigne, 6
Bien m'en souvient, a Ferial d'ung bouchier;
Brief, on n'eusl: sceu en ce monde serchier
Meilleur py on, 7 " pour boire toft et tart.
Faidtes entrer quant vous orrez huchier 8
L'ame du bon feu maitre Jehan Cotart!

ENVOI

Prince, il n'eusl: sceu jusqu'a terre crachier;
Tousjours crioit: "Haro! la gorge m'art." 9
Et si ne sceusl: oncq sa seuf estanchier
L'ame du bon feu maislre Jehan Cotart.

* C'efloit ung bon archier; meaning that MaSler Cotart drew a good bow at a cask.

6 Fetart > backward.

8 Bigne, a bump, a blow.

7 Pyon, a tosspot.

8 Huchier, to bellow.

9 "Haro," etc.: *'Hoi! My throat's afire!**

362

verse) : For he was formerly o your own lineage, and
ever drank o the best and dearest, although he never was worth a
brass penny. But truly he was the best o good topers, and no one
could ever get the pot out o his grasp, nor was he ever backward
at the bowl. Noble lords, do not suffer any impediment to the soul
of the late good Master Jehan Co tart!

(jr d verse) : Often have I seen him stagger and reel, having
drink taken, when he went home to bed; and once, indeed, he
banged his head well I remember it against a butcher's stall. In
brief, you could not find anywhere in this world a better botde-
whacker, soaking early and late. Allow him, lords, to enter, when
you hear a bellow from the soul of the late good Master Jehan
Cotart!

(Envoy) : Prince, he could scarcely spit on the ground for dry-
ness! Forever he would roar: "Hoi! My throat's afire!" And never
was he able to quench his thirst the soul o the late good Mailer
Jehan Cotart!

THE DOUBLE BALLADE

A FINE example of the swinging rhythm and verve of Villon in
his more sardonic, clairvoyant mood.

DOUBLE BALLADE

POUR ce, amez tant que vouldrez,
Suyvez assemblees et feslres,
En la fin j a mieulx n'en vauldrez
Et si n'y romprez que vos testes;
Folks amours font les gens bestes:
Salmon x en ydolatria,
Samson en perdit ses lunetes. 2
Bien est eureux qui riens n'y a!

Orpheus, le doux menestrier, 3
Jouant de fleuftes et musetes,
En fut en dangier du murtrier
Chien Cerberus a quatre testes;
Et Narcisus, 4 le bel honnestes,
En ung parfont puis se noya
Pour Tamour de ses amouretes.
Bien est eureux qui riens n'y a!

Sardana, 5 le preux chevalier,
Qui conquist le regne de Cretes,

1 Salmon = Solomon.

* Lunetes = windows. Obvious slang for "eyes."

3 Meneflrier = musician. Villon got Orpheus no doubt out o Vergil, Ge orgies iv.,
that beautiful passage. Observe that he decorates Cerberus with four heads instead of the
statutory three. This is for the sake of the metre.

4 Narcissus did not die of the love of a woman, but of his own beauty. Nevertheless
in verse as in lapidary inscriptions a man is not on his oath.

6 Sardana, Possibly Sardanapalus , though Villon is wrong in attributing to him the
conquest of Crete. Saladin has been suggested. The reference to spinning among the maidens
recalls Achilles' behaviour when he hid at the court of Scyros in women's clothes, for love
of his mistress Deidamia. Possibly Villon confused in his mind two or three heroes and
invented a name, or took Sardana from some forgotten romance.

3 6 4

DOUBLE BALLADE

Now take your fill of love and glee,

And after balls and banquets hie;
In the end you'll get no good for fee,

But just heads broken, by and by;

Light loves make beasts of men that sigh
They changed the faith of Solomon,

And left not Samson lights to spy:
Good luck has he that deals with none!

Sweet Orpheus, lord of minstrelsy,

For this with flute and pipe came nigh

The danger of the Dog's heads three,
That ravening at heiPs door doth lie:
Fain was Narcissus, fair and shy,

For Love's love, lightly lost and won,
In a deep well to drown and die;

Good luck has he that deals with none!

Sardana, flower of chivalry,

Who conquered Crete with horn and cry,

365

En voulut devenir moullier
Et filler entre pucelletes;
David le roy, 7 sage prophetes,
Crainte de Dieu en oublia,
Voyant laver cuisses bien faites.
Bien et eureux qui riens n'y a!

Amon 8 en voulst deshonnourer,
Faignant de menger tarteletes,
Sa seur Thamar et desflourer,
Qui fut incesle deshonneSles;
Herodes, pas ne sont sornetes, 9
Saint Jehan Baptise en decola
Pour dances, saulx et chansonnetes.
Bien e$t eureux qui riens n'y a!

De moy, povre, je vueil parler:
J'en fus batu comme a ru toiles, 10
Tout nu, ja ne le quiers celer.
Qui me feist maschier ces groselles, 11
Fors Katherine de Vausselles? 12
Noel le tiers est, qui fut la.
Mitaines a ces nopces telles, 13
Bien e$"l eureux qui riens n'y a!

Mais que ce jeune bacheler
Laissasl: ces jeunes bacheletes?
Non! et le deusl: on vif brusler
Comme ung chevaucheur d'escouvetes. 14
Plus doulces luy sont que civetes;
Mais toutesfoys fol s'y fya:
Soient blanches, soient brunetes,
Bien esl eureux qui riens n'y a!

e Moullier = woman. Lat. mulier, * Amon: Ammon, son of David.

T David le roy: the Bathsheba incident. B Sornetes = jests.

10 Batu comme a ru toiles: beaten like washing in a stream. A vivid simile, as any one
will perceive who has watched laundresses by a French river thumping their linen with
the bat.

11 Maschier ces groselles: chew such (sour) gooseberries.

12 Katherine de Vausselles we know. Also Noel le Jolis.

33 Mitaines a ces nopces telles: a reference to a country wedding custom. After the cere-
mony the guests took off their gloves or mittens and playfully beat one another with them,
using the formula: "Des noces vous souviengne" "Remember this wedding!" In a similar
fashion children's ears were once boxed in England at the passing of a royal procession.
Rabelais in the Fourth Book of Pantagruel tells a long and extremely dull story of the
mock wedding at the house of the Seigneur de Basch6, at which the butts of tic party
are so brutally thrashed in accordance with this custom that they emerge from the ceremony
half jellied.

14 Chevaucheur d' escouvetes; a rider on broomsticks: a wizard.

366

For this was fain a maid to be

And learn with girls the thread to ply:
King David, wise in prophecy,

Forgot the fear of God for one

Seen washing either shapely thigh:

Good luck has he that deals with none!

For this did Ammon, craftily

Feigning to eat of cakes of rye,
Deflower his sister fair to see,

Which was foul incest; and hereby

Was Herod moved it is no lie
To lop the head of Baptist John

For dance and jig and psaltery;
Good luck has he that deals with none!

Next of myself I tell poor me!

How thrashed like clothes at wash was I

Stark naked, I must needs agree:
Who made me eat so sour a pie
But Katherine of Vausselles? thereby

Noel took third part of that, fun;
Such wedding-gloves are ill to buy;

Good luck has he that deals with none!

But for tEat young man fair and free

To pass those young maids lightly by,
Nay, would you burn him quick, not he!

Like broom-horsed witches though he fry,

They are sweet as civet in his eye:
But trust them, and you're fooled anon;

For white or brown, and low or high,
Good luck has he that deals with none!

(Swinburne.)

367

A BALLADE FROM THE JARGON

THE Jargon or Jobelin (jobdin, from the Patriarch Job, patron of
beggars) of Villon's day was already a sealed language when Cl.
Marot edited him in 1533. "Touching the Jargon/' says Marot in
his Preface, "I leave it to be exposed and explained by Villon's
successors in the art of the crowbar and the jemmy" I' art de la
pinse et du croq. Guillaume Colletet, towards 1650, speaks of the
exigence in his time of a glossary of the Argot, 1 but disdains to use
it to elucidate the Jargon; if indeed it did. The Jargon Colletet dis-
misses as un recueil dc mots dont se servoient les truchcurs et les
couppeurs de bourses. No honeft man (adds Colletet) will feel any
desire to comprehend this Stuff, the property of the gentry of the
bag and cord.

Since then Vitu, Francisque Michel, Lucien Schone, Marcel
Schwob, Jules de Marthold, Aug. Longnon, and above all Lazare
Sainean, have grappled with the Jargon, using the Dijon documents
of 1455 as a basis; and although more than one of them claims to
have understood and interpreted a large amount of it, the verdict
of M. Sainean, mot qualified of all to speak, seems final: the Jargon
remains, and will remain, for the greater part, undecipherable. 2
The Lexicon of the Jargon I have used is that of Longnon, com-
pared with Sainean. Fifty years hence scholars may be recoiling
with equal despair from the slang of the fortifs which so embellishes

. x This. was app^ently not the Jargon ou langaige de I' Argot rtformt, many times re-
printed since the end of the sixteenth century, but (thinks Lacroix) the Diaionnaire en
langage blesqum published at the end of a volume of Lives of the Packmen, Mumpers and
Bohemians, by an author signing himself "Pechon de Ruby, gentilhomme breton " The
date of this was 1596: printed at Lyons,

2 Fewer than a hundred words, all told, are more or less explicable, Compare Dekker's

Canters Dictionane" in Lanthorne and Candle-Light, 1608.

368

M. Francis Carco's Studies of the modern Parisian underworld; for
it is axiomatic that the criminal slang of any great city mut change
often and with great swiftness.

Many of the meanings given below are conjectural. I find this
Ballade irresistible : the very sound and arrangement of the words
is like a gambol of gargoyles and grotesque villainous shapes. The
Envoi especially, though hardly a word in it can be deciphered with
any assurance of accuracy, is an antic hay, danced in the Cour des
Miracles.

LE JARGON OU JOBELIN

DE MAISTRE FRANgOYS VILLON

BALLADE III

Spelicans, 1
Qui en tous temps
Avancez dedens le pogois,
Gourde piarde,
Et sur la tarde,
Desbousez les povres nyois,

Et pour souvenir voz pois,

Les duppes sont privez de caire,

Sans faire haire,

Ne hault braire,

Mais plantez ilz sont comme joncs
Pour les sires qui sont si longs.

Souvent aux arques, 2

A leurs marques,
Se laissent tous jours desbouser
Pour ruer

Et enterver

Pour leur contre, que lors faisons
La 6e aux arques respons,
Et ruez deux coups ou trois

Aux gallois;
Deux ou trois

Nineront tre&out aux frontz
Pour les sires qui sont si longs.

1 Spelicans, light-fingered blades; pogois, cabaret; gourde piarde, good Jiquor; desbouser,
to Strip, rob; caire, money; haire, trouble; braire, squeak, yell; joncs, either the straw of
prisons or the "long poles," or gibbet; sires, dupes.

z Arques, dice; marque, a trull; enterver, to hear or understand; gallois, ruffling fellows.

3 6 9

Et pour ce, benardz, 8

Coquillars,

Rebecquez vous de la montjoye,
Qui desvoye
Vostre proye,

Et vous fera du tout brouer
Par joncher et enterver

Qui eft aux pigons bien cher,
Pour rifler
Et placquer

Les angelz de mal tous rons,
Pour les sires qui sont si longs.

ENVOY
De paour des hurmes

Et des grumes,
Rasurez voz en droguerie

Et faierie,

Et ne soiez plus sur les joncs 4
Pour les sires qui sont si longs.

3 Benardz, ninnies; also a category of thieves unknown; montjoye, a signpost, possibly
also a gibbet; desvoyer, lead astray; brouer, to run; joncher, to cheat; rifter, rifle, rob;
angelz, Sergeants or Archers of the Watch.

* Ne soiez plus sur les joncs means "Look out for quod."

FROM THE PETIT TESTAMENT

MOST of these verses are already scattered through this book. I give
them here again, the mot vivid of them, together and in their
order. By reading them thus their colour and rhythm are more
amply tabled.

37*

FROM THE PETIT TESTAMENT

[LES LAIS]

i L'AN quatre cens cinquante six,
Je, Franfoys Villon, escollier,
Considerant, de sens rassis,
Le frain aux dens, franc au collier,
Qu'on doit ses oeuvres conseillier,
Comme Vegece le raconte, 1
Sage Rornmain, grant conseillier,
Ou autrement on se mesconte . . .

II En ce temps que j'ay dit devant,
Sur le Noel, morte saison,
Que les loups se vivent de vent
Et qu'on se tient en sa maison,
Pour le frimas, pres du tison,
Me vint ung vouloir de brisier
La tres amoureuse prison
Qui souloit mon cuer debrisier.

ix Premierernent, ou nom du Pere,
Du Filz et du Saint Esperit,
Et de sa glorieuse Mere
Par qui grace riens ne perit,
Je laisse, de par Dieu, mon bruit
A maistre Guillaume Villon,
Qui en Fonneur de son norn bruit,
Mes tentes 2 et mon pavilion.

x Item, a celle que j'ay dit,
Qui si durement m'a chassie
Que je suis de joye interdit
Et de tout plaisir dechassie,
Je laisse mon cuer enchassie,
Palle, piteux, mort et transy:
Elle m'a ce mal pourchassie,
Mais Dieu luy en face mercy!

a Comme Vegece le raconte: The muddled edition of Galiot du Pr6, 1532, gives a clue
to this mysterious reference to Vegetius, the fourth -century author of a treatise, De Re
militari, which contains no such moral lesson as Villon indicates. Du Pr< reads Valere
instead of Vegece. It is likely that Valere, Valerius Maximus, is the correct reading. To
his De dicJis facJisque memorabilibus Villon is obviously alluding.

M Mes tentes: In the feudal ages the heir received from the dying head of the family
his blazons and devices, and the pavilions (or standards) appertaining. G. Paris, as we
have seen, suggests a double meaning here tantes, referring to hypothetical relatives of
the poet's.

372

FROM THE LITTLE TESTAMENT

(Payne)

I This fourteen six and fiftieth year,
I, Francois Villon, clerk that be,
Considering with senses clear,
Bit betwixt teeth and collar-free,
That one must needs look orderly
Unto his works (as counselleth
Vegetius, wise Roman he),
Or else amiss one reckoneth,

ii In this year, as before I said,

Hard by the dead of Christmas-time,
When upon wind the wolves are fed
And for the rigour of the rime
One hugs the hearth from None to Prime,
Wish came to me to break the stress
Of that most dolorous prison-clime
Wherein Love held me in duress.

ix First, in the Name of God the Lord,
The Son and eke the Holy Spright,
And in her name, by whose accord
No creature perisheth outright,
To Master Villon, Guillaume hight,
My fame I leave, that still doth swell
In his name's honour day and night,
And eke my tents and pennoncel.

x Item, to her who, as I said,

So dourly banished me her sight,
That all my gladness she forbade
And ousted me of all delight,
I leave my heart in desposite,
Piteous and pale, and numb and dead.
She brought me to this sorry plight:
May God not wreak it on her head!

373

xix Et a maistre Jacques Raguier
Laisse FAbruvouer Popin,
Pesches, pokes, sucre, figuier,
Tousjours le chois d'ung bon loppin,
Le trou de la Pomme de Pin,
Clos et couvert, au feu la plante,
Emmaillote en jacoppin;
Et qui voudra planter, 3 si plante.

xxn Item, au Chevalier du Guet,
Le Heaulme* luy eslablis;
Et aux pietons 5 qui vont d'aguet
Tastonnant par ces eftablis,
Je leur laisse deux beaux riblis,
La Lanterne a la Pierre au Let.
Voire, mais j'auray les Troys Lls f
S'ilz me rnainent en Chastellet.

xxxi Item, je laisse a mon bar bier

Les rongneures de mes cheveulx,
Plainement et sans destourbier;
Au savetier mes souliers vieulx,
Et au freppier mes habitz tieulx
Que, quant du tout je les delaisse,
Pour moins qu'ilz ne cousterent neufz
Charitablement je leur laisse.

XL Fait au temps de ladite date
Par le bien renomme Villon,
Qui ne menjue figue ne date.
Sec et noir comme escouvillon, 6
II n'a tente ne pavilion
Qu'il n'ait laissie a ses amis,
Et n'a mais qu'ung peu de billon
Qui sera tantosl: a fin mis.

8 Planter, in the lal line, is a word of the Jargon used here in a most unseemly signifi-
cance.

4 Heaulme, a closed helmet without visor or ventail, but with two side grilles. This
made it difficult for the wearer to see in front of him. It was a common house and
tavern sign in Paris, and figures in the papers concerning the University's action against the
Provost in 1453.

5 Pietons, the unmounted Sergeants of the Ch&telet.
e Escouvillon, a maulkin, or baker's oven-mop.

374

xix Item, I leave to Jacques Raguier

The "Puppet" Cistern, peach and pear,
Perch, chickens, custards, night and day,
At the Great Figtree choice of fare,
And eke the Fircone Tavern, where
He may sit, cloaked in cloth of frieze,
Feet to the fire and back to chair,
And let the world wag at his ease.

xxii The Captain of the Watch, also,

Shall have the Helmet, in full right;
And to the crimps that cat-foot go,
A-fumbling in the Stalls by night,
I leave two rubies, clear and bright,
The Lantern of the Pierre-au-Let,
'Deed, the Three Lilies have I might,
Hales they me to the CMtelet.

xxxi Unto my barber I devise

The ends and clippings of my hair;

Item, on charitable wise,

I leave my old boots, every pair,

Unto the cobbler, and declare

My clothes the broker's, so these two

May when I'm dead my leavings share,

For less than what they cost when new.

XL Done at the season aforesaid

Of the right well-renowned Villon,
Who eats nor white nor oaten bread,
Black as a maulkin, shrunk and wan.
Tents and pavilions, every one
He's left to one or t'other friend;
All but a litde pewter's gone,
That will, ere long, come to an end.

375

FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT

THESE nine verses, four early, one quaint conceit from near the end,
and those leading to the Epitaph, I have chosen more for sincerity
and spiritual depth than for the irony, anger, despair, or crackling
laughter which are other notes of the Great Testament

FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT

[LE TESTAMENT]

LXXXIV Ou nom de Dieu, comme j'ay dit,
Et de sa glorieuse Mere,
Sans pechie soit parfait ce dit
Par moy, plus megre que chimere;
Se je n'ay eu fievre eufumere, 1
Ce m'a fait divine clemence;
Mais d'autre dueil et perte amere
Je me tais, et ainsi commence.

LXXXV Premier, je donne ma povre ame
A la benoite Trinite,
Et la commande a Noftre Dame,
Chambre de la divinite,
Priant toute la charite
Des dignes neuf Ordres 2 des cieulx
Que par eulx soit ce don porte*
Devant le Trosne precieux.

* Fievre eufumere, the diurnal fever, or ague.
2 Neuf Ordres, the nine Choirs of Angels.

37 6

FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT

(PAYNE)

:xiv Now in God's name and with His aid
And in Our Lady's name no less,
Let without sin this say be said
By me, grown haggard for duress.
If I nor light nor fire possess,
God hath ordained it for my sin;
But as to this and other stress
I will leave talking and begin.

LXXXV First, my poor soul (which God befriend)
Unto the Blessed Trinity
And to Our Lady I commend,
The fountain of Divinity,
Beseeching all the charity
Of the Nine Orders of the sky,
That it of them transported be
Unto the throne of God most high.

377

LXXXVI Item, mon corps j'ordonne et laisse
A noslre grant mere la terre;
Les vers n'y trouveront grant gresse,
Trop luy a fait faim dure guerre.
Or luy soit delivre grant erre:
De terre vint, en terre tourne;
Toute chose, se par trop n'erre,
Voulentiers en son lieu retourne.

LXXXVII Item, et a mon plus que pere,
Maislre Guillaume de Villon,
Qui e$1:e rn'a plus doulx que mere
A enfant leve de maillon: 3
Deget m'a de maint bouillon,*
Et de ce&uy pas ne s'esjoye,
Si luy requier a genouillon
Qu'il m'en laisse toute la joye;

CLXvm 5 Item, donne aux arnans enfermes,

Sans le laiz mais"lre Alain Chartier, 6
A leurs chevez, de pleurs et lermes
Treslout fin plain ung benoislier, 7
Et ung petit brin d'esglantier,
Qui soit tout vert, pour guipillon,
Pourveu qu'ilz diront ung psaultier 8
Pour Tame du povre Villon.

9 Maillon, swaddling-clothes.

4 Degete m'a de maint bouillon seems to cry for our popular locution. "He has got me
out of the soup a hundred times." Bouillon is from tourbillon = upheaval, scrape, mess.

6 A dainty, finicking trifle, mingling sacred rites with profane love as Lydgate mingles
them in his Mass to Venus. The Middle Ages had a vital enough faith to be able to do
these things.

c Alain Chartier (c. 1386-1449) , the mannered and prodigious dull Court poet about
whose memory clings the story of the Princess who kissed his lips as he sat asleep in the
sun, on account of all the good words that had issued therefrom. This is the most poetic
thing about Alain Chartier, a diplomat of sorts. The laiz Villon speaks of is, some think,
the Hospital d' Amours: but Foulet hits the gold more precisely in tracing the allusion to
La Belle Dame sans Mercy:

Je laisse aux amoureulx malades,
Qui ont espoir d'allegement,
Faire chansons, ditz et balades,
Chascun en son entendement. , . .

T Ung benoiflier, a holy-water stoup, filled with their tears, into which the despairing
lovers must dip their guipillon, or sprinkler, a sprig of fresh hawthorn. The conceit might
be out of Herrick, or even the Yellow Book.

8 Ung psaultier, a Book of Hours, psalter, psalterium, containing the whole of the
Psalms, divided among the Offices of every day in the year Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce,
Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. It is hardly likely that Villon expects the lovers, how-
ever desperate, to recite the whole Psalter for him. He means the Hours of one day.

378

Item, my body, I ordain
Unto the Earth, our grandmother;
Thereof the worms will have small gain;
Hunger hath worn it many a year.
Let it be given straight to her,
From earth it came, to earth apace
Returns; all things, except I err,
Do gladly turn to their own place.

Item, to Guillaume de Villon,
(My more than father, who indeed
To me more tenderness hath shown
Than mothers to the babes they feed,
Who me from many a scrape hath freed
And now of me heth scant Hesse,
I do entreat him, bended-kneed,
He leave me to my present Stress.

To lovers sick and sorrowful,

As well as Alain Chartier's Lay,

At bedhead, a benature-full

Of tears I give, and eke a spray

Of eglantine or flowering May

(To sprinkle with) in time of green;

Provided they a Psalter say

To save poor Villon's soul from teen.

379

CLXXVI Item, j'ordonne a Sainte Avoye, 9
Et non ailleurs, ma sepulture;
Et, afSn que chascun me voie,
Non pas en char, mais en painture,
Que Ton tire mon eslature
D'ancre, s'il ne coustoit trop chier.
De tombel? riens: je n'en ay cure,
Car il greveroit le planchier.

CLXXVII Item, vueil qu'autour de ma fosse
Ce que s'ensuit, sans autre histoire,
Soit escript en lettre assez grosse,
Et qui n'auroit point d'escriptoire,
De charbon ou de pierre noire,
Sans en riens entamer le piastre;
Au moins sera de moy memoire,
Telle qu'elle esl: d'ung bon follastre:

EPITAPHE

CLXxvm cy GIST ET DORT EN CE SOLLIER, I
QU'AMOURS OCCIST DE SON
UNG POVRE PETIT ESCOLLIER,
QUI PUT NOMME FRANCOYS VILLON,
ONCQUES DE TERRE N*OT SILLON.
IL DONNA TOUT, CHASCUN LE SCET:
TABLES, TRESTEAULX, PAIN, CORBEILLON.
GALLANS, DICTES EN CE VERSET:

VIKSET Repos eternel 12 donne a cil,

[ou rondeau] ^ ^ ^^ perfetuelle,

Qui vaillant flat ni escuelle 13
N'eut oncques, nung brin de fercil.
II jut rez^ chief, barbe et sourcil,
Comme ung navet qu'on ret ou felle.
Repos eternel donne a cil.

9 Sainte Avoye: We have already seen that the nuns* chapel was on the first floor.

10 Sollier = upper floor, chamber. Lat. solerium. Mid, Eng. soler.

11 Raillon, the bolt shot from an arbalesT:.

12 Repos eternel, etc. : a deliberate evocation of the Introit which begins the Mass for
the Dead:

Requiem (Eternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat is.

13 Escuelle = bowl.

14 // jut rez, etc.: showing that the poet, by privations, by misery, by shaving in prison,
or most probably by some malady, had become completely bald. Observe the "dying fall/*

380

CLXXVI Item, my body, I ordain,

At Ste. Avoye shall buried be;
And that my friends may there again
My image and presentment see,
Let one the semblant limn of me
In ink, if that be not too dear.
No other monument, per die:
'Twould overload the floor, I fear.

CLXXVII Item, I will that over it

That which ensues, without word more,

In letters large enough be writ;

If ink fail (as I said before),

Let them the words with charcoal score,

So they do not plaster drag:

'Twill serve to keep my name in store

As that of a good crack-brained wag.

EPITAPH

CLXXVIII HERE LIES AND SLUMBERS IN THIS PLACE
ONE WHOM LOVE WREAKED HIS IRE UPON:
A SCHOLAR, POOR OF GOODS AND GRACE,
THAT HIGHT OF OLD FRANCOIS VILLON:
ACRE OR FURROW HAD HE NONE.
'TIS KNOWN HIS ALL HE GAVE AWAY;
BREAD, TABLES, TRESTLES, ALL ARE GONE;

GALLANTS, OF HIM THIS ROUNDEL SAY:

ROUNDEL

Mternam Requiem dona,

Lord God, and everlasting light,

To him who never had, poor wight,

Platter, or aught therein to lay!

Hair, eyebrows, beard all fallen away,
Like a peeled turnip was his plight.

JEternam Requiem dona,

Rigueur k transmit en exil

Et luy jrappa au cul la pelle,

Non obftant qu'il dit: "J'en appelkl"

Qui neft pas terme trop subtil.

Refos eternel donne a cil.

as in a plainsong cl
edition of 1489, th
note of longing and finality.

382

Exile compelled him many a day

And Death at last his breech did smite,
Though "I appeal!" with all his might

The man in good plain speech did say.

JEternam Requiem dona.

383

V
THREE ENGLISH VERSIONS

PRAYER OF THE OLD WOMAN, VILLON'S MOTHER

JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE

MOTHER of God that's Lady of the Heavens, take myself, the poor sinner,
the way I'll be along with them that's chosen.

Let you say to your own Son that He'd have a right to forgive my share
of sins, when it's the like He's done, many's the day, with big and famous
sinners. I'm a poor aged woman was never at school, and is no scholar with
letters, but I've seen pictures in the chapel with Paradise on one side, and
harps and pipes in it, and the place on the other side, where sinners do be
boiled in torment; the one gave me great joy, the other a great fright and
scaring; let me have the good place, Mother of God, and it's in your faith
I'll live always.

It's yourself that bore Jesus, that has no end or death, and He the Lord
Almighty, that took our weakness and gave Himself to sorrows, a young
and gentle man. It's Himself is Our Lord surely, and it's in that faith I'll
live always.

385

FROM THE LAMENT OF THE BELLE HEAULMERE

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Advis m'eft que j'oy regreter

MESEEMETH I heard cry and groan

That sweet who was the armourer's maid;

For her young years she made sore moan,
And right upon this wise she said:
"Ha! fierce old age with foul bald head,

To spoil fair things thou art over-fain;

Who holdeth me? who? would God I were dead!

Would God I well were dead and slain!

vi "Where is my faultless forehead's white,

The lifted eyebrows, soft gold hair,
Eyes wide apart and keen of sight,

With subtle skill in the amorous air;

The straight nose, great nor small, but fair,
The small carved ears of shapeliest growth,

Chin dimpling, colour good to wear,
And sweet red splendid kissing mouth?

vin "A writhled forehead, hair gone grey,

Fallen eyebrows, eyes gone red and blind,
Their laughs and looks all fled away,

Yea, all that smote men's hearts are fled;

The bowed nose, fallen from goodlihead;
Foul flapping ears like water-flags;

Peaked chin, and cheeks all waste and dead,
And lips that are two skinny rags.

x **So we make moan for the old sweet days,

Poor old light women, two or three
Squatting above the traw-fire's blaze,

The bosom crushed against the knee;

Like fagots on a heap we be,
Round fires soon lit, soon quenched and done:

And we were once so sweet, even we!
Thus fareth many and many an one."

VILLON'S STRAIGHT TIP TO ALL CROSS COVES

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY
Tout aux tav ernes & aux files

SUPPOSE you screeve? or go cheap-jack?

Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?

Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?

Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the Straight, and land your pot?

How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack,

Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack,

Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;

Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot:

You cannot bag a single stag
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,

And on the square you flash your flag?
At penny-a-lining make your whack,

Or with the mummers mump and gag?

For nix, for nix the dibs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,

Your merry goblins soon stravag
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

ENVOY

It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not;

Until the squeezer nips your scrag,
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

387

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A
THE EARLIER SCHOOLS

THE Lateran Council of 1179 ordered a school to be established in
the precindts of every cathedral in Christendom, with at leaSt one
master: for clerks and poor ftudents education was to be free. From
these sprang a galaxy of great schools, the direct origin of the Uni-
versities of Europe. It is therefore well to be aware, in considering
the rise of the University of Paris, as also of Oxford and the other
thirteenth-century foundations, of their immediate forerunners, the
abbatial and episcopal Schools of Europe.
The mot important of these were:

England . The abbatial School of York, under Alcuin.

Low Countries The capitular Schools of Utrecht, Liege, and Tournai.

Germany . The abbatial Schools of Fulda, under Raban Maur; Salz-
burg, St. Gall, and Reichenau.

France . . The Ecole Palatine, with Alcuin, Raban Maur, and Erigen;
the abbatial Schools of Tours (Alcuin taught here too),
Corbie, Cluny (with St. Odo), Le Bee (with St. An-
selm and Lanfranc), Fleuryj and Auxerre. Also the
episcopal Schools of Lyons, Reims, Laon (St. Anselm
taught here), and Chartres (with John of Salisbury).

Paris . , The Cathedral School of Notre-Dame and the abbatial
Schools of St. Genevieve, St. Germain-des-Pres, and St.
Victor this last notable for the famous four, Thomas,
Hugues, Adam, and Richard de St. Victor, and also St.
Thomas Becket.

For this lift I am indebted to the Initiation thomi&e of the
learned French Dominican, Father Pegues.

391

APPENDIX B
VILLON-PANURGE

THEOPHILE GAUTIER, round about 1832, firt put forward the thesis
that Rabelais drew Panurge in the main from Villon, of whose
works Rabelais had such knowledge, and for whose memory such
affection. I judge it of value to reproduce the portrait of Panurge
from the Second Book of Pantagruel, Sir Thomas Urquhart's trans-
lation, 1653.

Poor Panurge bibb'd and bows'd most villainously, for he was as dry as
a Red-Herring, as lean as a Rake, and like a poor lank slender Cat, walked
gingerly as if he had trod upon Egges. n. xiv.

Panurge was of a middle Stature, not too high, nor too low, and had
somewhat an Aquiline Nose, made like the handle of a Rasor: he was at
that Time five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leaden
Dagger; for he was a notable Cheater and Cony-catcher, he was a very
gallant and proper Man of his Person, only that he was a little leacherous,
and naturally subject to a kinde of Disease, which at that time they call'd
lack of Money: it is an incomparable Grief, yet, notwithstanding he had
three-score and three Tricks to come by it at his Need, of which the mc*st
honourable and most ordinary was in manner of Thieving, secret Purloining
and Filching; for he was a wicked lewd Rogue, a Cosener, Drinker, Royster,
Rover, and a very dissolute and debautch'd Fellow, if there were any in
Paris; otherwise, and in all Matters else, the best and most vertuous Man in
the World; and he was still contriving some Plot, and devising Mischief
against the Serjeants and the Watch. Ib. f xvi.

In brief, he had (as I said before) threescore and three Wayes to acquire
Money, but he had two hundred and fourteen to spend it, beside his Drink-
ing. Ib. f xviL

And with this he ran away as fast as he could, for Feare of Blowes,
whereof he was naturally fearful. Ib. f xxL

At Pantagruel's firft meeting with Panurge (n. ix.) Rabelais
makes Panurge "a young Man of very comely Stature, and surpass-

39 2

ing handsome in all the Lineaments of his Body." I conjecture,
therefore, that he began to draw Panurge but vaguely, feeling his
way, as it were; and that as he proceeded it is five chapters more
before he describes Panurge further, emphasising this time his lean-
ness and cat-like tread the Villon portrait gradually took shape
and blossomed in his mind.

In the chapter (n. xvi.) called "Of the Qualities and Conditions
of Panurge" there seem clear echoes. For example:

At one time he assembled three or foure especial good Hacksters and
roaring Boyes, made them in the evening drink like Templers, afterwards
led them till they came under St. Genevieve, or about the Colledge of
Navarre., and at the houre that the Watch was coming up that way, which
he knew by putting his Sword upon the Pavement, and his Eare by it, and
when he heard his Sword shake, it was an infallible Signe that the Watch
was neare at that instant: then he and his Companions took a Tumbrel or
Dung-Cart, and gave it the Brangle, hurling it with all their Force down the
Hill, and so overthrew all the poor Watchmen like Pigs, and then ran
away, etc.

In this, in other japes and frolics of Panurge, and again in his
squandering three years' revenues of his Lairdship of Salmygondin
in fourteen days,

in a thousand little Banquets and jolly Collations, keeping open House for
all Comers and Goers; yea, to all good Fellows, young Girles, and pretty
Wenches; felling Timber, burning the great Logs for the sake of the Ashes,
borrowing Money before-hand, buying dear, selling cheap, and eating his
Corn (as it were) whilst it was but Grass,

I see the Villon of the Pet-au-Deable, the Repues Franches, and the
College burglary. Finally, Rabelais has not overlooked the poet's
other dominant note:

One day I found Panurge very much out of Countenance, melancholick
and silent. u. xvii.

It is pleasant to believe that the author of Pantagruel, who
shared with the Parisian poet, his spiritual ancestor, the magic
formula, made him to some extent his model for Panurge, the
compare of his gigantic work.

393

APPENDIX C
THE DOUBLE REMISSION

A LETTER OF REMISSION was generally granted for a delinquency on
a petition presented by the suppliant himself, after having volun-
tarily handed himself over to Justice: but if he had, as the term went,
"absented himself/ 5 either through fear or some other cause, his
near relations, parens 6- amis charnelz, might apply for a Letter in
his behalf. In this case they had to explain clearly all the circum-
ftances in which the petitioner implored the grace & misericorde of
the King; and attenuated them as much as they dared. The Letter,
being granted, was obtained either from the Grande Chancellerie
of the Great Seal or from the Petite .Chancellerie of the Lesser Seal;
it was customary to apply to either, but not to both, especially if
only one delinquent was concerned.

Villon, being an absentee, very daringly but prudently took
advantage of the two names, Montcorbier, dit Villon and des Loges,
by which he was known, to make sure of getting a Letter of Re-
mission, 'through his relations, in one name at leat: and applied
to both Chancelleries. He therefore got two Letters, one from the
Grande Chancellerie, addressed to "Maiftre Francois des Loges,
autrement dit de Villon" in which he was said to be s'absentS du
pays, and the other from the Petite Chancellerie, addressed to
"Maiftre Pranfois de Montcorbier," in which it was Slated that it
had been contre luy procede par banissement de noftre royaulme;
that is, he had been summoned, had not presented himself, par
contumace, and was therefore automatically banished.

The subsequent procedure of enterinement or confirmation
necessary to be observed by the holder of a Letter of Remission I
have already described.

394

P. Lacroix, much confused and incornifutibulate8 over .this
double letter of Villon's, in order to account for it weaves out of it
the hypothetical existence of a certain Francois de Montcorbier, a
presumed fellow-ftudent of Villon's, who had been an eye-witness
of the killing of Chermoye and had been accused in Villon's ftead,
but nobly forbore to give the poet away. This is pure novelette.

395

APPENDIX D
THE ROAD TO ORLEANS

SINCE there is no means whatever of tracing the exa<5t path of
Villon's wanderings during the years 1456-60, from the St. Jacques
Gate to Orleans Prison, but only his own scattered indications in
the Grant Testament, the dates he himself gives, and one or two
known historical! facts chiming with his testaments, I have firmly
avoided consulting any Authority whatsoever in my conjectural
tracing of his route: for we all Start equal. I have therefore recon-
structed his exile, as far as it can be reconstructed, from the two
principal sources, the Grant TeSlament and the map of France, and
from my own travel, at the same time using certain assumptions
based on experience and firSt principles. For example,

(a) A man with no settled plan of travel will readily follow the course
of a river when he Strikes one. Hence the probable mounting
of the Loire to Orleans, and thence round the wide sweep of
the river to Sancerre and Bourges, and thence, again, the
following of the river down to Lyons and beyond.

(&) When a man is merely loafing to kill time he will not readily travel
in zigzags involving the covering twice over of the same
ground, when he can go Straight on and lessen thereby the
tedium of his days.

(c) In the autumn and winter rains and snows a man will not tramp
the roads more than he can help; therefore Villon's stay at
Blois and Moulins, the much longer tay at St. Generoux, and
at Bourges and at Roussillon (provided he got there) occupied
all together some considerable part of his four years.

And so forth.

396

APPENDIX E
THE BLAZON OF BEAUTY

IN connection with the catalogue of vanished charms contained in
the Lament of the Belle Heaulmiere it may be of aesthetic interest to
consider the Blazon of Beauty which Brantome colle<5ted from the
lips of a laughing lady of Toledo. The following thirty excellences
(said the Spanish lady) are required to make a woman of perfect
and absolute beauty:

Tres cosas blancas: al cuero, los dientes, y las manos.
Tres negras: los ojos, las cejas, y las pesJanas.
Tres coloradas: los labois, las maxillas, y las unas.
Tres lungas: el cuerpo, los cabellos, y las manos.
Tres cortas: los dientes, las orejas, y los pies.
Tres anchas: los pechos, las fr^nte, y el entrecejo.
Tres eHrechas: la boca, la cinta, y I'entrada del pie,
Tres gruesas: el brago, el musto, y la pantorilla.
Tres delgadas: los dedos t los cabellos, y los labios.
Tres pequenas: las tetas, la naris, y la cabe$a.

That is to say (I have already modified one series slightly, in defer-
ence to modern reticences) :

Three things white: the skin, the teeth, and the hands.
Three black: the eyes, the eyebrows, and the eyelashes.
Three rosy: the lips, the cheeks, and the nails.
Three long: the body, the hair and the hands.
Three short: the teeth, the ears, and the feet.

Three broad: the breast, the forehead, and the space between the eye-
brows.

Three narrow: the mouth, the waisl, and the in&ep.
Three plump: the arm, the thigh, and the calf.
Three fine: the fingers, the hair, and the lips.
Three small: the paps, the nose, and the head.

397

APPENDIX F

Laudemus. vlros glonosos . . .

The Book of Wisdom, #liv,

SINCE this Study o Villon and his environment is concerned with a
gallows company for the moSt part, I have thought it equitable to
balance and round off this fragment of Parisian life of the Fifteenth
Century with some little indication of how better men than they
conducted their affairs. The document which follows (Chancellery
Registers, JJ 173, No. 580) I render Straightforwardly from the
Longnon collection. It concerns the foundation of a chantry in the
Cluniac Priory of St. Martin-des-Champs at Paris in the year 1426
by a high minister of State and his wife, and is an invaluable illus-
tration of the medieval mind. Though French in its accidents, its
substance, combining Strong devotion with a measured equity, is
common to Christendom. In this document, so like a painting of
the Burgundian School, Messire Philippe and his wife kneel in the
shadow, heaving up their hands to the Blessed Trinity and Our
Lady; yet a calm and honourable shrewdness is mixed with their
devotion, and they have no intention of allowing the Prior and
Community to play faSl and loose with the bond.

The foundation was confirmed by Bedford, on behalf of Henry
vi., and by the Parliament on the sixth of December 1426. Messire
Philippe de Morvillier died in 1438: his Statue, removed from his
tomb when St. Martin's Priory was sacked and suppressed at the
Revolution, is now in the Louvre. The Prior of St. Martin con-
cerned in the agreement is the Dom Seguin at whose table our
friend Master Guillaume de Villon was so often a gueSt.

THESE are the treaties, accords, promises, and obligations made, entered into,
promised, anH accorded between the sage and noble persons Messire Philippe

398

de Morvilier, Counsellor of the King our Lord and First President in his
Parliament, and Madame Jehanne du Drac, his wife, of the one part; and
the religious and honourable persons the Prior and Community of the
Church and Monastery of Monseigneur Saint Martin des Champs, in Paris,
of the other part:

Firstly, the foundations and other acts hereinafter mentioned shall be
made in the name and for the profit of the said Monseigneur the First
President and Madame his wife, and for each. Item, the said founders, and
each of them, shall be, if it seem good to them, interred and buried in the
said Church and Monastery of Saint Martin des Champs, in the chapel of
Saint Nicolas, near to Our Lady's chapel, on the left side, and shall erect
there such representation in sculpture as may seem good to them. Item, there
shall similarly be interred and buried in the said chapel of Saint Nicolas
the children of the said founders, if it seem good to them, and all issue of
these children in the direct line by loyal marriage, including the husbands
and wives of the said children. Item, the said religious, Prior and Com-
munity, shall not suffer nor allow the interment and burial in the said
chapel of any other persons without the agreement and consent of the said
founders or of one of them, or of their said children after them. Item, on
the feast of Monseigneur Saint Martin, in the winter of every year, when
the custom is to hold the General Chapter, two religious shall be chosen
from the Chapter, being of the said monastery and resident there, by whom,
or by one of whom, during the said year and until the next feast of Saint
Martin, in the following year, there shall be said a Mass every day between
eight and eleven o'clock in the said chapel of Saint Nicolas for the said
founders, and for each of them, their fathers and mothers and other pre-
decessors and benefactors, and also their said children and other successors;
and in addition the said two religious, and each of them, shall be bound to
recite prayers and particular devotions for the said founders and each of
them, their predecessors, successors, and benefactors. Item, that is to say,
during the lives of the said founders the said Mass shall be the Office of the
Day with a prayer or collect for the said founders; and after the said Mass
the celebrant thereof, vested in alb and stole, shall recite an antiphon of Our
Lady; that is, the Salve Regina, or some other antiphon of Our Lady and
to her honour, with the versicle, prayer, or collect of Our Lady. Item, after
the death of the said founders, or of each of them, the said Mass shall be
of Requiem every day for the first year after the death of the said founder
or founders, and after this Mass the celebrant shall proceed to the said tomb,
being vested in alb and 'stole, and there say the De Profundis and Pater
Nofier, with the verses, prayers, and collects pertaining, with aspersion of
holy water. Item, the said first year being past after the death of the said
founders, or either of them, the said Mass shall be of the Day, and the
celebrant shall be bound to proceed afterwards, as has been said, vefted in

399

alb and stole, and recite on behalf of the said founders De Profundis and
Pater No&er f the verses, prayers, and collects pertaining, with aspersion of
holy water. Item, the said founders shall have share and participation in all
the orisons, prayers, and benefits of the Cluniac Order, and especially of the
said Monastery of Saint Martin des Champs. Item, if the said two religious,
or either of them, shall die during the said year, the Prior of the t said
Monastery, or his vicar, in the absence of the said Prior, shall be bound
during the eight days after death to replace them by two others, or by
another, until otherwise provided by the Chapter General. Item, in the case
where the said two religious, or one of them, shall be hindered by illness or
other reasonable impediment, the said religious, Prior and Community, shall
be bound to have the said Mass celebrated by another, or two other religious,
who shall perform all that the said religious would have performed if there
were no such impediment. Item, each of the said founders shall have cele-
brated every year during his and her lifetime a Solemn Mass of the Holy
Ghost, with deacon, subdeacon, and singer, the said Mass to be celebrated
at the high altar of the choir of the said Church of Saint Martin; that is,
the one Mass on the third day of July, the eve of the feast of the Translation
of Monseigneur Saint Martin, or, if it fall on a Sunday, on the fifth day
of July, the morrow of the feast; and the other Mass to be celebrated on the
thirteenth day of November, or, if it fall on a Sunday, on the day following
the said Sunday, the fourteenth day of November. Item, immediately fol-
lowing the said Masses of the Holy Ghost, and after each of them, there
shall be made a solemn procession into the said chapel of Saint Nicolas,
with the singing in procession of an antiphon of Our Lady, with the verse
and prayer pertaining; and after this there shall be said in the said chapel
an antiphon of Saint Nicolas, with the versicle, prayer, and collect of that
saint; and returning there shall be said in procession an antiphon of Mon-
seigneur Saint Martin, with the verse and prayer of that saint. Item, the
said founders, 'and each of them, every year after their death, shall have,
on the anniversary of their death, or as soon afterwards as is possible, if
there be any impediment on the day, each an Obitt, that is, a vigil with nine
psalms and nine lessons, and the next day a sung Mass, with deacon, sub-
deacon, and singer, the said Mass or Masses of Obitt to be celebrated at
the high altar of the choir of the said Church of Saint Martin: and afterwards
there shall be made a solemn procession to the said tomb, with the singing
in procession of Liber a me, Deus, with versicles; which done, there shall be
recited De Profundis and Pater No&er, with the versicles and prayers per-
taining, with aspersion of holy water, and in returning there shall be said
in procession an antiphon of Monseigneur Saint Martin, with verse, prayer,
or collect. Item, every year on the eve of the feast of Monseigneur Saint
Martin, in the morning before noon, there shall be presented to Monseigneur
the First President of the Parliament for the time being, by the senior o

400

the said religious, the Prior and Community of the said Saint Martin, and
by one other of the said religious, two bonnets with earpieces, one double
and the other single, with the following words:

"Monseigneur, Messire Philippe de Morvillier, during his life
First President of Parliament, founded in the Church and Mon-
aftery of Monseigneur Saint Martin des Champs in Paris a perpetual
Mass and other Divine services, and ordered that in memory and
for the perpetuation of the said foundation there should be offered
and presented every year on this day, to Monseigneur the First
President of Parliament for the time being, at the hands of the
senior of the said Community and another of the religious, this gift
and present, which may it please you to accept and approve."

And the price of the said gift and present of the said bonnets shall be
twenty sols Parisis, at the present rate. Item, with this there shall be made
to the First Usher of Parliament for the time being, at the hands of the
said senior and other religious, the gift of a pair of gloves and an inkhorn,
with these words:

"Sire, Messire Philippe de Morvillier, during his lifetime First
President of the Parliament, founded in the Church and Monastery
of Monseigneur Saint Martin des Champs in Paris a perpetual Mass
and other Divine services, and ordered that in memory and for the
perpetuation of the said foundation there should be offered and
presented, every year on this day, to the First Usher of the Parliament
for the time being, at the hands of the senior of the said Community
and another of the religious, this gift and present, which may it
please you to accept and approve."

Which words shall be recited from writing by the aforesaid senior and
religious; and the price of the said gift and present of the said gloves and
inkhorn shall be twelve sols Parisis, at the present rate. Item, and in order
that these things and all of them shall be performed and carried out by
the said Prior and Community of Saint Martin and all the goods of the
said Church and Monastery, assigned, obliged, charged, and hypothecated,
the said founders shall present and give to the said Church and Monastery
of Monseigneur Saint Martin sixteen hundred livres Tournois in one sum,
for and in place of sixty livres Tournois annual, perpetual, and amortised,
which the said founders had intended to make over, present, and well and
truly assign to the said religious, the Prior and Community and Monastery
of Saint Martin des Champs, for the reason that the said religious declare
and affirm several fine and notable buildings, edifices and ancient heritages
of the said Church, which formerly produced a large, and notable income
every year, being well situate and convenient to the said Church, and capable

401

o doing so again if they could be overhauled, repaired, and refurbished, to
be at present in a late of such ruin and dereli<ftion, owing to the wars which
have now continued for twenty years, and ftill continue, that the said
religious derive no income from them, or very little, and, what is worse,
the said heritages, if they are not immediately put in order, will, it is under-
stood, fall into complete ruin, the which would be an irreparable loss to the
said Community and to their said Monastery. On which account they have
held among themselves, with the assistance and advice af the counsellors
and friends of their said Church and Monastery, several consultations with
the object of saving the said heritages for the good of their said Monastery,
and have come to the opinion that they can neither see nor exped any
means of obtaining sufficient funds to remedy the ruinous condition of the
said places, edifices and ancient heritages, which were of such value to the
said Church of Saint Martin, seeing that the revenues of the said Church
at the present are scarcely sufficient to provide for the maintenance of the
said Community. On this account the said religious, Prior and Community,
desiring fervently to preserve the said places and ancient heritages, and to
amend their state, have, after long and mature deliberation, and for the
evident good of their Monastery, in unanimity determined to accept and
take charge of the said amount of sixteen hundred livres Tournois in one
sum, for and in place of the said sixty livres Tournois annual, perpetual, and
amortised, and to employ the said sum in repairing and rebuilding the said
places and ancient heritages, so far as this sum may be so employed: to
which decision the said founders have freely and willingly consented and
agreed in behalf of the said Church, and have determined, if there be any
residue of the said sixteen hundred livres Tournois, to lay the said residue
out in behalf of the said Monastery as profitably as possible. Item, the said
sum of sixteen hundred livres Tournois, with the consent and agreement of
the said founders and the said Community, shall be placed in the care and
keeping of Guillaume Sanguin, burgess of Paris, to be expended as has
been decided. Item, the said founders and the said religious, Prior and
Community, agree that Master Jehan Vivien, Counsellor to the King our
Lord and President of Chamber of Inquests of his Parliament, with the Sub-
Prior of the said Church and Monastery of Saint Martin des Champs, shall be
delegated by the said founders and religious to decide on which of the said
heritages the sum of sixteen hundred livres Tournois can be most usefully
expended for the good of the said religious and their Monastery, and ac-
cording to their advice and decision the said sum shall so be expended. Item,
with this, the said founders shall give, bequeath, and assign to the said
Church and Monastery of Saint Martin des Champs forty sols Parisis annual,
perpetual, and amortised. Item, the said founders, over and above what is
Heretofore mentioned, and in order that the said religious shall be the more
inclined and willing to pray God for the said founders and each of them,

402

shall present and. give to the Community o the said Monastery of Mon-
selgneur Saint Martin the amount of one hundred livres Tournois in one
sum, of which one-half shall be expended on the vestry of the religious of
the said Community, of which there is great need and necessity, as they
affirm, and the other half employed to the advantage of the said Community
as they shall direct. Item, the said founders shall furnish and supply the
said chapel of Saint Nicolas, where the aforesaid Masses shall be said, well
and fittingly with a chalice, missal, and other requisites (which the said
religious, Prior and Community, shall be bound to preserve, keep, repair,
and replace when necessary), and shall also supply bread, wine, and lights
for the celebration of the aforesaid Mass and other Divine services; the lights
for the aforesaid Mass to be two tapers o wax, each of one livre and capable
of burning during the celebration of the said Mass, and also one torch, to be
lighted at the elevation of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when
the said tapers are consumed they shall be replaced by two others of the
same price, and thus shall be assured the lights for the said Mass, and for
this purpose the said founders shall give and present to the said Church of
Saint Martin, for the benefit of the sacristan of the said Church, forty sols
Parisis annual, perpetual, and amortised. Item, if the said heritages, or any
part of them, on which the said sum of sixteen hundred livres Tournois shall
be expended, shall diminish or come to loss by reason of wars or the fortune
of Time, or in any other manner whatsoever, nevertheless the said Mon-
atery and all the goods thereof shall remain obliged, charged, and respon-
sible for all the performances herein mentioned, without any diminution
whatsoever. Item, and over and above all the things aforesaid, and in order
that the said two religious and bedesmen shall be the more inclined, diligent,
and willing to offer prayers and particular supplications for the good e&ate
of the souls of the aforesaid founders, their predecessors, successors, and
benefactors, the said founders shall give and assign to the said Church and
Monastery of Saint Martin des Champs, and for the benefit of the said two
religious, ten livres Parisis annual, perpetual, and amortised, which the said
religious shall take and receive into their own hands: that is, one hundred sols
Parisis each, over and above what the said two religious ordinarily receive
from the said Church and Monastery of Saint Martin; and the said Prior and
Community shall in no wise prevent or hinder their so doing. Nevertheless
the said religious, Prior and Community, shall be bound to guard, preserve,
and defend by Justice, at their own expense, the said income, in the same
way that they are accustomed to guard and defend all other rights, heritages,
and revenues of the said Church of Saint Martin; but if the said income of
ten livres Parisis shall diminish or fail by reason of wars, the fortune of
Time, or otherwise, by no fault of the said religious, Prior and Community,
then the said Community shall not be held responsible to make it good
nor to pay it to the said two religious and bedesmen, but the said two

religious shall be content to take and receive what is left for them: but
this notwithstanding, the said religious, Prior and Community, shall remain
bound to celebrate the aforesaid Masses and other Divine services in the
manner already set forth. Item, all these presents and all contained therein
the said religious, Prior and Community, shall take up and cause to be
agreed, confirmed, ratified, approved, and authorised by Monseigneur the
Abbot of Cluny, with his letters engrossed and duly signed with his seal, and
to this end the said Monseigneur the First President shall show all diligence
in any way possible, if need arise. Item, all these presents, treaties, accords,
agreements, and obligations shall be presented to the Court of Parliament,
and the said parties, and each of them, shall be ordered by the said Court
to observe and perform them. Made and presented to the Parliament by
Dom Jacques Seguin, Prior, and Jehan de la Bretonniere, Sub-Prior, in their
own persons, and by Master Jehan Paris, Procurator to the said Prior and
Community of Saint Martin, by virtue of the procuration hereto attached
and incorporated, of the one part; and by the aforesaid Messire Philippe de
Morvillier and Dame Jehanne du Drac his wife, also in their own persons,
of the other part: the which parties the Court of the said Parliament has,
at their request and consent, ordered by decree to observe, accomplish, and
perform this present agreement and all therein contained and set forth; this
fourth day of December, 1426.

404

APPENDIX G
BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL

OF critical editions of Villon's text the three beft are those I have
used for this book and describe below: Longnon, Foulet, and
Thuasne. I have not taken into any consideration the numerous edi-
tions with a modernised text: any man of sensibility ranks such
things with The Girls' Shakespeare.

It is madness to attempt comprehension of Villon, his verse, or
his background without some acquaintance with, among others, the
following authorities:

BELLOC, HILAIRE. Avril; Essays on the Poetry of the French Renais-
sance. London, 1904.

The essay on Villon sums up the poet in half a dozen fine
pages.

CHAMPION, PIERRE. Francois Villon, sa Vic et son Temps. Paris, 1913.

A splendid work, continuing and completing the research of

Marcel Schwob. The biographical notes on Villon's companions and

legatees are monumental.

FOULET, LUCIEN. Francois Villon: (Euvres. Paris, 1923. (Third Edition.)

A revision of Longnon's text of 1892.
LACROIX, PAUL. CEuvres de Francois Villon. Paris, 1877.

An edition frequently reprinted, now in the Editions Jouaust.
Later research has left it behind, but some of the notes are till good.
The text is that of the Arsenal MS., since superseded as a base.
LONGNON, AUGUSTS. Etude biogmphique sur Francois Villon. Paris,

The work which inspired Stevenson's essay. It is H11 a classic,
though later discoveries have demolished parts of it.
LONGNON, AUGUSTE. CEuvres completes de Francois Villon. Paris, 1892.
The base of all subsequent critical editions of the text.
405

PARIS, GASTON. Francois Villon (Les grands Ecrivains Franks'),
Paris, 1901.

A compad and for the mot part reliable tudy.
SCHWOB, MARCEL. Francois Villon; R6da&ions et Notes. Paris, 1912.

Notes on the Coquillards, the Jargon, and various episodes in
Villon's career, fully documented.

THUASNE, Louis. Francois Villon: CEuvres: "Edition critique. Paris,
1923.

The lal word (apparently) on the text.

Note. Longnon's text is based on thirteen manuscripts and printed
editions; Foulet's founded on this, with emendations; and
Thuasne's derived from three sources the Stockholm MS. of
1470, the MS. Fr. 20041 of the Bibl. Nationale, and Levet's
printed text of 1489. All three authorities, though they differ in
many readings, agree that the two la& are the bcft of die ancient
sources of Villon's text extant.

II. HISTORICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL

BAINVILLE, JACQUES. Hisloire de France. Paris, 1924.

BELLOC, HILAIRE. Paris. London, 1900.

DENIFLE, (LE P), Documents relatifs h la Fondation de I'UniversitS.

Soc. Hi&. Paris, 1883.

DE ROCHEGUDE (MARQUIS) and DUMOLIN, MAURICE. Guide pratique h
tr avers le vieux Paris. Revised, 1923.

The standard handbook to Old Paris.

DUBECH, LUCIEN, and D'SPEZEL, PIERRE. HisJoire de Paris. Paris, 1926.
EVANS, JOAN. Medieval France. Oxford Univ. Press, 1926.
LEBEUF (L'ABBE). HisJoire de la Ville et du Diocese de Paris. Paris f 1890.
The mailer-work, revised by Augier and added to by Bournon,
of the learned abb who in 1745-1760 published the hiStory of each
of the 450 parishes in the old Diocese of Paris. It is till authoritative.
LEMOINE, HENRI. Manuel d'Hi&oire de Paris. Paris, 1925.
A sketchy work, by an Archivist of the Seine.

III. FIFTEENTH-CENTURY PARISIAN LIFE, ETC.

CHAMPION, PIERRE. Lisle des Tat/ernes de Paris, d'apr^s des documents

du XV 6 stick. Soc. Hift. Paris, 1912.

DE LA SALE, ANTOINE. Les Quinze Joyes de Manage, 1464. (Ed,
Jouauh)

A profound and celebrated satire.

GEROLD, THEODORE, D. es L. Le Manuscript de Bayeux: Publications de
la Facult^ de Lettres de I'Universitt de Strasbourg. 1921.

406

One hundred and three popular songs, words and music, of the
fifteenth century: historical, political, satirical, pastoral, amorous,
Bacchanalian, derisive, and grivoises, transposed from the Bayeux
MS. into modern notation. An anthology of extreme value.

LONGNON, AUGUSTE. Paris pendant la Domination anglaise: Documents
extraits des RegisJres de la Chancellerie de France, 1420-1436. Paris,
1878.

I have quoted largely from this volume of fir&-hand evidence.

PETIT DE JULLEVILLE, L. Les ComSdiens en France au Moyen Age.
Paris, 1885.

Note. There are a dozen publications of the Societe" de 1'Hiftoire
de Paris, mainly contemporary papers (e.g. the Journal d'un
Bourgeois de Paris) which throw light on Villon's time; also
many volumes on medieval French art, manners, and life which
are valuable for example, those large illustrated volumes pub-
lished in the seventies by Firmin-Didot; if so be you can find one.

IV. TRANSLATIONS

Villon has been translated entire into English three times at
leaft: by John Payne, 1892, H. de Vere Stackpoole, 1913, and J.
Heron Lepper, 1924. Separate Ballades and Rondeaux have been
done into English from time to time by Rossetti, Swinburne, Wil-
fred Thorley, and half a dozen other poets.

[THE END]

407

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