In one version, he says that Gilles, Isabeau, and Le Mardi
ran away at the first high words, and that he and Sermaise
had it out alone; in another, Le Mardi is represented as
returning and wresting Villon's sword from him: the reader
may please himself. Sermaise was picked up, lay all that
night in the prison of Saint Benoit, where he was examined by
an official of the Chatelet and expressly pardoned Villon,
and died on the following Saturday in the Hotel Dieu.
This, as I have said, was in June. Not before January of the
next year could Villon extract a pardon from the king; but
while his hand was in, he got two. One is for "Francois des
Loges, alias (AUTREMENT DIT) de Villon;" and the other runs
in the name of Francois de Montcorbier. Nay, it appears
there was a further complication; for in the narrative of the
first of these documents, it is mentioned that he passed
himself off upon Fouquet, the barber-surgeon, as one Michel
Mouton. M. Longnon has a theory that this unhappy accident
with Sermaise was the cause of Villon's subsequent
irregularities; and that up to that moment he had been the
pink of good behaviour. But the matter has to my eyes a more
dubious air. A pardon necessary for Des Loges and another
for Montcorbier? and these two the same person? and one or
both of them known by the ALIAS OF Villon, however honestly
come by? and lastly, in the heat of the moment, a fourth name
thrown out with an assured countenance? A ship is not to be
trusted that sails under so many colours.
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