James Branch Cabell

“ Yonder is Paris—laughing, tragic Paris, who once had need of a singer to voice all her splendor and all her misery. Fate made the man; in necessity's mortar she pounded his soul into the shape Fate needed. To kings' courts she lifted him; to thieves' hovels she thrust him down; Lutetia's palaces and abbeys and taverns and lupanars and gutters and prisons and its very gallows—Fate dragged him past each in turn that he might make the Song of Paris. He could not have made it here in the smug Rue St.-Jacques. And now the song is made, Catherine. ”

“ You have not heard of François Villon? The Rue St.-Jacques has not heard of François Villon? Pigs, pigs, that dare not peer out of their sty! Why, I have capped verses with the Duke of Orleans. The very street-boys know my 'Ballad of the Women of Paris.' Not a drunkard in the realm but rants my 'Orison for Master Cotard's Soul' when the bottle passes. The King himself hauled me out of Meung gaol last September, swearing that in all France there was not my equal at a ballad. ”

“ Let François de Montcorbier rest in his grave. Your voice is very sweet, Catherine, and—and he could refuse you nothing, could he, lass? Ah, God, God, God!" he cried, in his agony, "why can you not believe me? I tell you Necessity pounds us in her mortar to what shape she will. I tell you that Montcorbier loved you, but François Villon prefers Fat Peg. An ill cat seeks an ill rat." ”

“ It is no knifing matter. Yet, for the sake of old time, come home, Ysabeau; your brother is my friend, and the hour is somewhat late for honest women to be abroad."
"Enné?" shrilled Ysabeau; "and yet, if I cannot strike a spark of courage from this lump here, there come those who may help me, François de Montcorbier. 'Ware Sermaise, Master François!"
François wheeled. Down the Rue St.-Jacques came Philippe Sermaise, like a questing hound, with drunken Jehan le Merdi at his heels. "Holy Virgin!" thought François, "this is likely to be a nasty affair. ”

“ THERE went about the Rue St.-Jacques a notable shaking of heads on the day that Catherine de Vaucelles was betrothed to François de Montcorbier.
"Holy Virgin!" said the Rue St,-Jacques; "the girl is a fool. Why has she not taken Noël d'Arnaye—Noël the Handsome? I grant you Noël is an ass, but then he is of the nobility, look you. He has the Dauphin's favor. Noël will be a great man when our exiled Dauphin comes from Geneppe yonder to be King of France. Then, too, she might have had Philippe Sermaise. ”

“ Eh, ask of Denise, of Jacqueline, of Pierrette, of Marion the Statue, of Jehanne of Brittany, of Blanche Slippermaker, of Fat Peg—ask of any trollop in all Paris how François Villon loves. You thought me faithful! You thought I preferred you to any light o' love! Eh, the credo of the Rue St.-Jacques is somewhat narrow-minded. For my part, I find one woman much the same as another." And his voice shook, seeing how beautiful she was, seeing how she suffered. But he managed a laugh.
"I do not believe you," Catherine said, in muffled tones. "François! You loved me, François. ”

“ Because I love her. Mother of God! has there been in all my life a day, an hour, a moment when I have not loved her! Just to see her once was all that I craved,—as a lost soul might crave one splendid glimpse of heaven's harps and lutes before the pit take him. ”

“ Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in the Rue du Fouarre."
"Ah, cruel!" sighed François. "Will you never let that kite hang upon the wall?"
"It is all very well to groan like a bellows. Guillemette Moreau did not sup here for nothing. I know of the verses you made her—and the gloves you gave her at Michaelmas, too. St. Anne!" cried the voice, somewhat sharply; "she needed gloves badly enough. Her hands are raw beef. And the head-dress at Easter, too—she looks like the steeple of St.-Benoit in it. But every man to his taste, Monsieur de Montcorbier. ”

“ Catherine—"
"René de Montigny is, as all the Rue St.-Jacques knows, a gambler and a drunkard, and in all likelihood a thief. But you prefer the Montignys to me, it appears. An ill cat seeks an ill rat. Very heartily do I wish you joy of them. You will not promise? Good night, then, Monsieur de Montcorbier."
"Mother of God! I promise, Catherine."
From above, Mademoiselle de Vaucelles gave a luxurious sigh. "Dear François!" said she.
"You are a tyrant," he complained. "Madame Semiramis was not more cruel. Madame Herodias was less implacable, I think. ”

“ Let us go to Paris, lad, and start afresh."
Montigny grinned. "I shall certainly go to Paris," he said. "My friends wait for me there—Guy Tabary, Petit Jehan, and Colin de Cayeux. We are planning to visit Guillaume Coiffier, a fat priest with some six hundred crowns in the cupboard. You will make one of the party, François."
"René, René," said he, "my heart bleeds for you."
Again Montigny grinned. "You think a great deal about blood nowadays," he commented. "A man might take you for one of the Nine Worthies. Alexander! will you stable the elephant you took from Porus in the Rue St.-Jacques? ”

“ Noël, I will marry you if you like."
He fell to mumbling her hand. An hour later she told Jehan de Vaucelles she intended to marry Noël the Handsome when he should come back from Geneppe with the exiled Dauphin. The old man, having wisdom, lifted his brows and then went back to his reading.
The patrol had taken Sermaise to the prison of St.-Benoit, where he lay all night. That day he was carried to the hospital of the Hotel-Dieu. He died the following Saturday.
But death exalted the man to some nobility ”