From all this we gather dimly, as one discerns objects in a mist,
that Master Fran?ois Villon, as Count of Montcorbier, proved nimself
to be little less than equal to the high opinion of himself which he
had confided all unwittingly into the ear of his masquerading
sovereign. But the pages in which Dom Gregory sets forth at length
exactly all that Master Fran?ois Villon did and said and thought
during the period of his astonishing probation, are unfortunately
lost to the Abbey of Bonne Aventure, and, in consequence, to the
world. No less than six folios consecrated by the careful pen of Dom
Gregory to this memorable epoch have vanished from the priceless
manuscript. The custodian of the Abbey library will tell you with
tears in his eyes that these pages disappeared during the storm and
stress of the French Revolution, but travellers in France are too
well aware of the readiness of ecclesiastical custodians to
attribute all things evil to the time of the great upheaval, to pay
any serious attention to this particular allegation. However it
happened, the pages are lost, and there, as far as we are concerned,
is an end of them.
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