As for his three
pupils, Colin Laurent, Girard Gossouyn, and Jehan Marceau -
if they were really his pupils in any serious sense - what
can we say but God help them! And sure enough, by his own
description, they turned out as ragged, rowdy, and ignorant
as was to be looked for from the views and manners of their
rare preceptor.
At some time or other, before or during his university
career, the poet was adopted by Master Guillaume de Villon,
chaplain of Saint Benoit-le-Betourne near the Sorbonne. From
him he borrowed the surname by which he is known to
posterity. It was most likely from his house, called the
PORTE ROUGE, and situated in a garden in the cloister of St.
Benoit, that Master Francis heard the bell of the Sorbonne
ring out the Angelus while he was finishing his SMALL
TESTAMENT at Christmastide in 1546. Towards this benefactor
he usually gets credit for a respectable display of
gratitude. But with his trap and pitfall style of writing,
it is easy to make too sure. His sentiments are about as
much to be relied on as those of a professional beggar; and
in this, as in so many other matters, he comes towards us
whining and piping the eye, and goes off again with a whoop
and his finger to his nose. Thus, he calls Guillaume de
Villon his "more than father," thanks him with a great show
of sincerity for having helped him out of many scrapes, and
bequeaths him his portion of renown.
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