Non-Fiction > Uncollected essays > Volumes 33-38, 1876-1878 - Cornhill magazine > Volume 36

STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER. 227
the Seventh with letters of mercy, commuting the penalty to a year in a
dungeon on bread and water, and a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James
in Galicia. Alas ! the document was incomplete ; it did not contain the
full tale of Montigny's enormities ; it did not recite that he had been
denied benefit of clergy, and it said nothing about Thevenin Pensete.
Montigny's hour was at hand. Benefit of clergy, honourable descent
from king's pantler, sister in the family way, royal letters of commuta-
tion — all were of no avail. He had been in prison in Rouen, in Tours,
in Bordeaux, and four times already in Paris ; and out of all these he
had come scatheless ; but now he must make a little excursion as far as
Montfaucon with Henry Cousin, executor of high justice. There let him
swmg among the carrion crows.
About a year later, in July 14-58, the police laid hands on Tabary.
Before the ecclesiastical commissary, he was twice examined, and, on the
latter occasion, put to the question ordinary and extraordinary. What
a dismal change from pleasant suppers at the Mule, where he sat in
triumph with expert operators and great wits ! Ho is at the lees of life,
poor rogue ; and those fingers which once transci-ibed improper romances
are now agonisingly stretched upon the rack. We have no sure know-
ledge, but we may have a shrewd guess of the conclusion. Tabary, the
admirer, would go the same way as those whom he admired.
The last we hear of, is Colin de Cayeux. He was caught in autumn
1460, in the great Church of St. Leu d'Esserens, which makes so fine a
figure in the pleasant Oise valley between Creil and Beaumont. He was
reclaimed by no less than two bishops ; but the Procureur for the Pro-
vost held fast by incorrigible Colin. 1460 was an ill-starred year: for
justice was making a clean* sweep of " poor and indigent persons,
thieves, cheats, and lockpickers," in the neighbourhood of Paris ; * and
Colin de Cayeux, with many others, was condemned to death and
hanged, t
Villon and the Galloavs.
Villon was still absent on the Angers expedition when the Prior of
Paray sent such a bombshell among his accomplices; and the dates of his
return and arrest remain undiscoverable. M. Campaux plausibly enough
opined for the autumn of 1457, which would make him closely follow
on Montigny, and the first of those denounced by the Prior to fall into
the toils. We may suppose, at least, that it was not long thereafter ; we
may suppose him competed for between lay and clerical courts ; and we
* Chroii. Scand. xit supra.
t Here and there, priucipall}^ in the order of events, this article differs from M.
LoDgnon's own reading of his material. The ground ou -which he defers the execu-
tion of Montigny and De Cayeux beyond the date of their trials, seems insufficient.
There is a law of parsimony for the construction of historical documents ; simplicity
is the first duty of narration ; and hanged they were.