Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

VI
FRANQOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET
AND HOUSEBREAKER
Perhaps one of the most curious revolutions in
literary history is the sudden bull's-eye light cast by
M. Longnon on the obscure existence of Fran9ois
Villon.^ His book is not remarkable merely as a
chapter of biography exhumed after four centuries.
To readers of the poet it will recall, with a flavour
of satire, that characteristic passage in which he
bequeaths his spectacles — with a humorous reserva-
tion of the case — to the hospital for blind paupers
known as the Fifteen- Score. Thus equipped, let the
blind paupers go and separate the good from the
bad in the cemetery of the Innocents ! For his own
part, the poet can see no distinction. Much have
the dead people made of their advantages. What
does it matter now that they have lain in state beds
and nourished portly bodies upon cakes and cream !
Here they all lie, to be trodden in the mud; the
large estate and the small, sounding virtue and
^ Etude Biographique sur Francois Villon. Paris : H. Menu.
182