VILLON, FRANcOIS (1431-c. 1463), French poet, was born in 1431, and, as it seems, certainly at Paris. He was entered on the books of the university of Paris as Francois de Montcorbier, but was always known by the name of his patron, Guillaume de Villon. It appears that he was born of poor folk, that his father died in his youth, but that his mother, for whom he wrote one of his most famous ballades, was alive when her son was thirty years old. Villon was received into the house of Guillaume de Villon, chaplain in the collegiate church of Saint-Benoit-le-Bes tourne, and a professor of canon law, who was probably a rela tive. The poet became a student in arts, no doubt early and took the degree of bachelor in 1449 and that of master in 1452.
On June 5, 1455, being in the company of a priest named Giles and a girl named Isabeau, he met, in the rue Saint-Jacques, a certain Breton, Jean le Hardi, a master of arts, who was with a priest, Philippe Chermoye or Sermoise or Sermaise. A scuffle ensued ; daggers were drawn ; and Sermaise, who started the broil, died of his wounds. Villon fled, and was sentenced to banish ment—a sentence which was remitted in January 1456, the formal pardon being extant in two different documents, in one of which the culprit is described as "Francois des Loges, autrement dit Villon," in the other as "Francois de Montcorbier." By the end of 1456 he was again in trouble. In his first broil "la femme Isabeau" is only generally named, and it is impossible to say whether she had anything to do with the quarrel. In the second, Catherine de Vaucelles, of whom we hear not a little in the poems, is the declared cause of a scuffle in which Villon was so severely beaten that, to escape ridicule, he decided to flee to Angers, where he had an uncle who was a monk. As he was preparing to leave Paris he composed the Petit Testament. Hitherto Villon had been rather injured than guilty. But on the eve of leaving Paris he was concerned, just before Christmas 1456, in robbing the chapel of the college of Navarre from which five hundred gold crowns were stolen. The robbery was not discovered till March and in May the police came on the track of a gang of student-robbers owing to the indiscretion of one of them, Guy Tabarie. A year
more passed, when Tabarie, being arrested, turned king's evidence and accused Villon, who was then absent, of being the ringleader, and of having gone to Angers, partly at least, to arrange for similar burglaries there. Villon, for this or some other crime, was sentenced to banishment : and he did not attempt to return to Paris. For four years he was a wanderer, apparently a pedlar for some part of the time ; and he may have been, as each of his friends Regnier de Montigny and Colin des Cayeux certainly was, a member of a wandering thieves' gang. It is certain that at one time (in the winter of 1457), and probable that at more times than one, he was in correspondence with Charles d'Orleans, and visited that prince's court at Blois. He made his way to Bourges where he was again in trouble, and had a taste of prison. From Bourges he went to the Bourbonnais, where he found shelter for a brief period with Jean II. de Bourbon. Thence, if his own words are to be taken literally, he wandered to Dauphine. He was in prison at Orleans, put to the question and under sentence of death, when pie was released on the passage of the little princess of Or leans through the town on July 17,146o. He had spent the sum mer of 1461 in the bishop's prison of Meung. Villon owed his release to Louis XI., who passed through Meung on a royal progress and freed prisoners on Oct. 2.
It was now that he wrote the Grand Testament, the work which has immortalized him. Although he was only thirty nothing appears to be left him but regret ; his very spirit has been worn out by excesses or sufferings or both. In the autumn of 1462 we find him once more living in the cloisters of Saint-Benoit, and in November he was in the Chatelet for theft. In default of evidence the old charge of the college of Navarre was revived, and even a royal pardon did not bar the demand for restitution. Bail was, however, accepted, but Villon was present at a street quarrel from which he hastily got away. Nevertheless he was arrested, tortured and condemned to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to banishment (for ten years) by the parlement on Jan. 5, 1463. From this time he disappears from history.