We know, indeed, a little of Master
Fran?ois' early days, partly from some confessions which must at all
times be interpreted with a liberal sense of humour and glossed with
an infinite deal of good nature, and partly from stray records made
by those who do not seem to have held the vagrant poet very warm in
their hearts. But of his life in those days of which this chronicle
deals, there is little to find where there is much to seek.
The silence of Commines may be explained in a thousand ways,
possibly professional jealousy of one minister for another, who in
so short a space of time did so much and so well, possibly ignorance
of the real facts of the case, for it is fairly certain that King
Louis kept his jape and its sequel very much to himself, possibly
because Commines felt that his cold spirit was scarcely equal to the
proper recording of so whimsical and oriental an adventure.
Good Master Clement Marot, when he took it upon himself, generations
after our poet was dust and ashes, to edit our poet's writings, said
much in praise of the singer but said little, no doubt because he
knew little, of the poet's life.
And the great creator of Pantagruel and Gargantua, the immeasurable
Alcofribias Nasier, whom the world loves or hates as Rabelais, in
what he contributed to our knowledge of Fran?ois Villon has only--to
use a weather-worn and moss-grown phrase--made confusion yet worse
confounded.
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