Longnon,
rummaging among old deeds, has turned up the negative and
printed it off for our instruction. Villon had been supping
- copiously we may believe - and sat on a stone bench in
front of the Church of St. Benoit, in company with a priest
called Gilles and a woman of the name of Isabeau. It was
nine o'clock, a mighty late hour for the period, and
evidently a fine summer's night. Master Francis carried a
mantle, like a prudent man, to keep him from the dews
(SERAIN), and had a sword below it dangling from his girdle.
So these three dallied in front of St Benoit, taking their
pleasure (POUR SOY ESBATRE). Suddenly there arrived upon the
scene a priest, Philippe Chermoye or Sermaise, also with
sword and cloak, and accompanied by one Master Jehan le
Mardi. Sermaise, according to Villon's account, which is all
we have to go upon, came up blustering and denying God; as
Villon rose to make room for him upon the bench, thrust him
rudely back into his place; and finally drew his sword and
cut open his lower lip, by what I should imagine was a very
clumsy stroke. Up to this point, Villon professes to have
been a model of courtesy, even of feebleness: and the brawl,
in his version, reads like the fable of the wolf and the
lamb. But now the lamb was roused; he drew his sword,
stabbed Sermaise in the groin, knocked him on the head with a
big stone, and then, leaving him to his fate, went away to
have his own lip doctored by a barber of the name of Fouquet.
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