The Story of Francois Villon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION. Mr. E. H. Sothern, in his new play, entitled If I Were King, has presented to the American public a remarkable character who lived and died a few years before Columbus discovered America. Francois Villon lived in an age when one hundred years of constant warfare had reduced the people of France to a condition of poverty and misery; crime and debauchery ruled in the cities, and lawlessness prevailed throughout the country. Villon was the product of a vicious and licentious age. He was a man of genius, and his character was marked by all the frailties that so often exist in men of his stamp. He was a poet, a vagabond, a thief and a profligate. The incidents narrated in the following story are correct reproductions of the adventures and crimes of Francois Villon; and the ballads and verses introduced in the story are translations of his poems. The New York Sun says: Within the past two weeks more than thirty letters have reached The Evening Sun requesting the publication of the poems which are recited by Mr. Sothern and Miss Sheldon in If I Were King. FRANCOIS VILLON. CHAPTER I. THE BENEVOLENT UNCLE. I Have struggled hard, Guillaume, very hard, to make a decent living for myself and Francois; I have worked day and night, but, you know, in these times of war and famine the cost of living is very high, and each year seems harder than the preceding one. The authorities are always raising the taxes to carry on the war, and even the little salt we eat is overburdened with tax. It is shameful. Every morsel I eat tastes of war and taxation. The speaker was a short, thin woman of about thirty years of age, but so prematurely aged by work and privation that a casual observer would have placed her age at not less than forty. Her cheap but well-care...