Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1903-02-28
CHAPTER VIII.

A WORD WITH DOM GREGORY.
1t is a thousand pities that the ma
terials for building up a practical pre-
sentiment of the real life-story of Mas
ter Francois Villon are so slight, that
in the historical sense they might al
most be said to be non-existent we
know, indeed, a little of Master Fran
co.'s early days, partly from some con-
| LESSONS which must at all times be
! interpreted with a liberal sense Of hui
NOR and CLOSED 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 enron
icle deals, there Is little TO hnd Where
there is much to seek.
The silence of Commines may be ex-
planned in a thousand ways, possibly
professional jealousy of one minister
for another, who in SO short a space or
time did so much n so well, possibly
ignorance of the real facts of the case,
for it is fairly certain hat King Louis
kept his jape and it's 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 1t upon himself, generations
after our poet was dust and ashes, to
edit our poets writings, said much In
praise Of the singer but said little, no
doubt because he knew little, of the
poets life.
And the great creator of P~antagruel
II Gargantua. the immeasurable AL
cOfribias Master, whom the world loves
or hates as Rabelais, in what he con-
tributed to our knowledge of Francois
Villon has only-to use a weather.
4R-,rt, a,,1 K,Nnra-nrpyrr ny, Yhro Cav n do
confusion yet worse COMPOUNDED.
We should be at a deadlock, indeed,
If it were not for Poitou and it's Abbey
of Bonnie Adventure, whose library Is
luckily rich in historical manuscripts
of the period, and richest of all in that
priceless manuscript Of Dom Gregory,
which, treating in general Of the &c
clesiastical history of Poitou in the
fifteenth century, dealt so particularly
and so literally with the life Of Mas
ter Francois Villon, because Master
Francois Villon in his old age was so
excellent n patron of the church. We
say dealt advisedly, for time has treat
ed somewhat scurvily the fair skin
of parchment upon which the good
Dom Gregory recorded his thoughts
and opinions at considerable length as
the rich setting Of the facts, too few
in number, with which he condescend-
ed to enlighten posterity. Many pieces
of parchment are missing from the roll
Of his record, and, ~unhappily, the
greatest gap in the story is precisely
at that point where our hero found
himself so suddenly and so strangely
AXE into favor by his king, and so
suddenly and SO strangely smiled upon
by his mistress. We have indeed some
admirable homiletics of the worthy
friar'S in praise of the conduct and
carriage of Master Francois Villon at
the time Of his unexpected exaltation.
After a gracious invocation of many
saints and angels, the very elect Of
the company of heaven, Dom Gregory,
in a fine spirit of rectitude, proceeds to
applaud the count of Montcorbier for
the high example he set to his fellow
men. Here, in effect says the worthy
churchman, was q man who, having
passed the flower of his life in squalor
and all manner of capabilities, still
kept in a sense the wilderness of his
oul and allowed the brightness of the
celestial flame to burn, family indeed
but unextinguished, on the altar of his
heart. How many men, asks Dom
Gregory, glowing with a pious gratifi-
cation, how a men who in humility
have dreamed that they might under
serener stars and happier auspices do
great deeds and win honorable honors,
would, If put to the proof, show them
selves as splendid in prosperity as
they dreamed themselves In adversely ?
Master Francois Viiion, he goes on to
say, is the loVeliest example known to
him of a man, who, having always be-
lieved in himself with a great belief,
did, on being put to the test, prove that
Lis belief was founded, not on the
shifting sands of vanity and vain glory
but on the solid granite of good faith
and the inestimable doctrines Of the
church.
From all this we gather dimly, as one
discerns objects in a mist, that Mas
ter Francois Villon, as count of Mont
corbier, proved himself to be little less
than equal to the high opinion of him
self which he had confided all un-
Willingly into the ear of his mas
querading sovereign. But the pages
in which Dom Gregory sets forth al