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Out of all Villon's works that ballad stands forth in flaring reality, gross and ghastly, as a thing written in a contraction of disgust. M. Longnon shows us more and more clearly at every page that we are to read our poet literally, that his names are the names of real persons, and the events he chronicles were actual events.
In one version, he says that Gilles, Isabeau, and Le Mardi ran away at the first high words, and that he and Sermaise had it out alone; in another, Le Mardi is represented as returning and wresting Villon's sword from him: the reader may please himself.
"She does not know me," Villon's delight cried in his heart, and at the thought his spirit fluttered with fierce exaltation. The Lord of Moncorbier, who was Grand Constable of France, might say many things that were denied to the lips of François Villon. Katherine pleaded warmly: "There is a man in prison at this hour for whom I would implore your clemency. His name is François Villon.
"The Count of Montcorbier is luckier than François Villon. But the lady has a high mind and a fierce spirit. She may not relish the deception, pardon the cheat his lie!" Something in the king's words struck upon Villon's fiery hopes like a stream of ice-cold water and seemed to quench them.
At Christmas-time in 1456, readers of Villon will remember that he was engaged on the "Small Testament." About the same period, circa festum nativitatis Domini, he took part in a memorable supper at the Mule Tavern, in front of the Church of St. Mathurin. Tabary, who seems to have been very much Villon's creature, had ordered the supper in the course of the afternoon.
"Be secret, sweet," he murmured. "It was Her Majesty, the Queen." A wild roar of laughter from Villon's friends greeted this sally, and the fury it brought to Huguette's face. Louis, royally angered, made as if to rise in protest, but the heavy hand of Tristan fell on his shoulder and restrained him, and Villon, noticing his irritation, waved him down with a pacifying gesture.
Villon's pages brought the armour of the Grand Constable and began to buckle it upon him. While this was being done, he turned and spoke to his brothers-in-arms: "Comrades, let each man carry himself to-night as if the fate of France depended upon his heart, his arm, his courage. Strike for the mothers that bore you, the wives that comfort you, the children that Renéw you the women that love you."
I am immortal, lass. Exegi monumentum. Villon's glory and Villon's shame will never die." He flung back his bald head and laughed now, tittering over that calamitous, shabby secret between all-seeing God and Francois Villon. She had drawn a little away from him. This well-reared girl saw him exultant in infamy, steeped to the eyes in infamy.
All the above wrote plays and tragedies on the subject of Joan of Arc between the years 1805 and 1862. Daniel Stern was the only authoress who composed a drama in honour of the heroine. While all this galimatias of dramas has sunk into the limbo which waits for all such work, Villon's two lines remain as bright as the day on which, four centuries ago, he wrote them:
Master François gave back the salutation with a mien of splendid condescension, while the rest of the company glared at the burgess who thus thrust himself upon them, and Tristan, cursing the king for his temerity, felt for a hidden dagger. Villon's patronizing wave of the hand was magnificent in its effrontery, and his words matched his gesture nobly.
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