VILLON, vely5x', FRI NcOIS (1431-1). The first and one of the greatest of the French lyric poets of the modern school. Ills real name was Francois de Nontcorbier, and the name Villon, by which he is generally known, he adopted out of gratitude to :Maitre Guillaume de \Ilion, who was to him a sort of second father. The known details of his life are but little edifying. The poet's immediate family was very poor and ignorant. Young Francois early showed a cer tain vivacity of mind and facility of study. which caused Guillaume de Villon to take an interest in him and to plan to give him an education and make an ecclesiastic of him. .Maitre Guillaume took him to live with him in the Convent of Saint Benoit-le-130°11ra., near the Sorbonne. Villon became Bachelor of Arts in 1449, and 'Master of Arts in 1452. But even the degree of :Master was hut an inferior one and the students of the Faculty of Arts had many long years of study ahead of Hum before they could reaeli in the other faculties the high positions to which they aspired. Villon was well liked by his fellow students. and led the roistering life that was characteristic of the students of the tinte. They were always in open conflict with the civil au thorities, thanks to the t.ustom by which the university was a recognized law unto itsidf.
(4n June :5. 1155, Francois, apparently in self defense, fatally stabbed 11 priest, named Philippe Sennaise, and took refuge in the convent. Ile then absented hi In self from Paris, while await ing a pinion, which was granted in January, 1156, and probably at this Hine had a disgraceful intrigue with the Abbess of Pourras. In Decem ber of that year he took part in the robbery of a large SUM of money in the College de Navarre at Paris. He fled to Angers, and in 1457 we find him at Blois at the poetic and gallant court of Charles of Orleans. Then he began a nomadic kind of existence that led him into nearly every corner of France. In 1.161 he was arrested by order of the Bishop of Orleans and imprisoned at Meung-sur-Loire, but after several months of durance was set free on the strength of an am nesty proclaimed by King Louis Xl. in honor of his recent accession. Before the end of 1462 Vil Ion returned to Paris, determined to "settle down" and "become a man." Unfortunately, his
good intentions were not fulfilled. In the begin ning of November, 1462, we find him imprisoned in the Chiitelet on a charge of theft, which, how ever, could not be proved. In this same month he was engaged in a serious brawl, and, although he seems to have taken no active part therein, he was arrested and condemned to death. After more than a year's imprisonment, on an appeal to the Parlement, the sentence was commuted to banishment from Paris. From this time on Villon disappears from view. Ile must lie judged, not by our standards, but by those of his times, in which, from a moral and social point of view, those who represented the law, and those who held their heads highest. were hardly better in many respects than he. His good points were his piety, intermittent but real, his sincerity, the humility with which lie acknowledged his faults and planned to do better. only to fall again at the first temptation. his affection for his mother, his gratitude toward Maitre Guillaume. his sym pathy for those who were suffering the misery about which he knew so much, and his patriotism. He had seen life in all its phases, and knew every thing, as lie naïvely puts it, except himself.
Villon's great merit lies in the intense sub jectivity of his verse. There is no sham. no biding of anything lie feels, whether it he good or bad. His frankness about himself made him feel that he had a right to be just as frank about others, and every one with whom he conies in contact is put upon the grill. The result is that his writings form a hiAly colored and generally trustworthy picture of the times in which he lived. They comprise Le petit testament (1456), a poem in 40 stanzas; Le grand testament (1-161), a poem in 173 stanzas, in which about a score of ballads or rondeaux are inserted; a Codieille, composed mainly of ballads; Le jargon, a collec tion of ballads in argot ; an admirable Dialogue between the Seigneurs de Slallcpaye and Bailia vent ; and o .I/ono/ogue, even more exeellent, en titled Le franc archier dr Bagnolet. Les relines [ranches, a 'unions production, describing the swindling tricks of Villon and his companions, has been wrongly milt dinned to him.