(1) BOUGEOIS DE PARIS, ed. Pantheon, pp. 688, 689.
We hear nothing of Villon's father except that he was poor
and of mean extraction. His mother was given piously, which
does not imply very much in an old Frenchwoman, and quite
uneducated. He had an uncle, a monk in an abbey at Angers,
who must have prospered beyond the family average, and was
reported to be worth five or six hundred crowns. Of this
uncle and his money-box the reader will hear once more. In
1448 Francis became a student of the University of Paris; in
1450 he took the degree of Bachelor, and in 1452 that of
Master of Arts. His BOURSE, or the sum paid weekly for his
board, was of the amount of two sous. Now two sous was about
the price of a pound of salt butter in the bad times of 1417;
it was the price of half-a-pound in the worse times of 1419;
and in 1444, just four years before Villon joined the
University, it seems to have been taken as the average wage
for a day's manual labour. (1) In short, it cannot have been
a very profuse allowance to keep a sharp-set lad in breakfast
and supper for seven mortal days; and Villon's share of the
cakes and pastry and general good cheer, to which he is never
weary of referring, must have been slender from the first.
(1) BOURGEOIS, pp. 627, 636, and 725.
The educational arrangements of the University of Paris were,
to our way of thinking, somewhat incomplete.
Pages:
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212