Few would dispute that François Villon has an important place in the canon of French literature.  Villon, who may have written as few as 3329 lines of poetry, is widely read today in France and abroad. (1)  The history of this popularity is, however, still a subject of debate.  In 1923, Louis Thuasne blamed the despotic taste of the Pléiade for a lengthy eclipse of interest in Villon following Marot's 1542 edition of his works: "pendant laquelle le nom de Villon tomba dans un oubli presque complet." (2)  Recently, Jean Favier, Director General of the French National Archives and Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, blamed the French Neoclassical mentality for the same phenomenon: "ŒEnfin Malherbe vint.'  On cesse de lire Villon et de l'imprimer." (3) Villon out of print and unread; Villon unsung and unheard!  Favier's next paragraph reveals another common feature in this critical mythology: a dramatic early to mid nineteenth-century Renaissance:  "Et nous voici en plein Romantisme.  Villon revint dans les bibliothèques et dans les anthologies." (4)

There is no shortage of scholars who will testify to an 18th-century silence about maître François or to the next century's sudden, if not miraculous "redécouverte". (5)  Even the extensive bibliographical studies of Paolo Morabito and Jean Dufournet provide less than a dozen entries between them for this period. (6)  What then shall we make of lines 117-118 in chant 1 of Boileau's Art Poétique : "Villon sut le premier dans ces siècles grossiers/ débrouiller l'art confus de nos vieux romanciers." (7)  How ironic this hyperbolous praise if the evidence of Villon's readership in the following century could be reduced to little more than a footnote!  The present study proposes corrections to a flawed reception history which has long been accepted in the absence of scholarly evidence to contradict it.

Let me begin by pointing out that during the hundred or so years following Marot's last edition of Villon's work, selections of his poetry appeared in at least four printed books; 14 in one of them. Also, we have three manuscript anthologies from the beginning of that same period; one of them with 22 selections. (8)  In 1692 Fontenelle chose to begin his five volume anthology with 14 selections from Villon. (9)  This successful work was reedited in 1696 and again in 1752. (10)  Finally, Marsy, Sauterau and Imbert published 14 selections in their anthology in 1788. (11)

A quick glance at Prosper Marchand's bibliographical article in his Dictionnaire historique . . .  (1759), demonstrates that the volume of critical commentary on Villon surpassed that of the editions.   The 18th century produced additional critical studies along with extensive quotation in dictionaries, a discussion of Villon in Voltaire's correspondence and even one musical setting of a passage from the Testament . (12)   Printed and manuscript editions of Villon's works have turned up in a number of 18th-century library and book sellers' catalogs. (13)  Finally, there were scholars who read and transcribed Villon's works in Charles d'Orleans' personal manuscript, manuscripts C , P  and R  (MSS. Paris, B.N. fr 25458, 20041, 1719, 12490) and the Jardin de Plaisance  (J) nearly a hundred years before their so-called "discovery" in the nineteenth century. (14 )

The evidence speaks for itself, Villon was in the libraries and his words on the lips of readers, some of whom were members of that bastion of classicism, the Académie Française, frequenters of salons, a sculptor and art historian, a professor of Philosophy, wealthy noble bibliophiles, lexicographers and a historiographer. (15)

It is, however, not simply in our assessment of Villon's popularity that we have been led astray, but also in our interpretation of known critical artifacts.  In 1867, Pierre Jannet published an edition of Villon's poetry which he claimed was faithful to an unpublished one allegedly prepared before 1728 by Bernard de La Monnoye, jurist, poet, Academician and scholar of early French verse, who died that very year.  Jannet worked from a transcription made by Gustave Masson, who discovered the manuscript in London in 1858.  The unsigned and undated manuscript consists of marginal, interlinear, paste-on notes and added manuscript pages in an exemplar of the 1723 Coustelier printed edition of Villon's work, now in the British Library (hereafter B.L. 241.f.17).  The near exclusive role of these notes is the presentation of the text which, had it been published in La Monnoye's time, would have added nearly 200 lines to and varied significantly from the canon established by Clément Marot in 1533.  One of the reasons for this variation was that the Lais  and Testament  were heavily corrected in favor of manuscript source C .  Nearly every page of B.L. 241.f.17 bears identical handwritten initials.  At least seven editions and reprints attest to the popularity of Jannet's restoration.  The so-called "La Monnoye" edition, a prominent feature in the history of textual criticism, is one of the few items in 18th-century Villon studies known and frequently mentioned by modern scholars.

I find it odd that there exists nowhere a convincing argument for La Monnoye's authorship of B.L.241.f.17.  Jannet himself simply stated: "On savait depuis longtemps que La Monnoye avait eu l'intention de faire une édition des ¦uvres de Villon.  Alors à cet effet il avait annoté un exemplaire de l'édition de 1723.". (16)  Jannet's expression "depuis longtemps" undoubtedly refers to a letter published in 1714, which outlined an ambitious scholarly project, including an edition of Villon's works. (17)  I imagine this announcement would have drawn some attention when it was published, for La Monnoye had just been made a member of the Académie Française two months earlier, on December 13, 1713. (18)

Indeed, the announcement did not go unnoticed, but the anticipation of fellow scholars went unrequited.  A. H. de Sallengre, author of an introduction to La Monnoye's poetic works in 1716, regretted that the promised edition of Villon had not yet been published. (19 ) Prosper Marchand commented in his Dictoinnaire Historique . . . (supra): "On nous avoit fait espérer une Edition, non seulement de Villon, mais même de Coquillart, de la Farce de Patelin, & des autres plus célèbres de nos anciens Poètes François . . . par Mr. de La Monnoye.  Voyez à cet égard le Journal Littéraire  de la Haye, Tome III, pag. 232.  Mais il s'est trouvé qu'il n'avoit fait que quelques Remarques sur la seule Farce de Patelin." (20)  Finally, Alembert's 71-page "Eloge . . ." in 1787 does not mention the proposed edition. (21)

One might well ask why La Monnoye's edition was announced in 1714,  at least nine years before he allegedly began the annotation in B.L.241.f.17.  He was at least 82 years old and had been forced to sell his library in the wake of a bankruptcy perpetuated by the John Law debacle when Coustelier's edition appeared in 1723. (22)  His advancing age, the death of his wife (1726) after forty-two years of marriage and his financial woes would have taken their toll on any project undertaken in that period of his life.

John Fox, who said in 1975 that there was no reason to doubt La Monnoye's authorship, presented a case for attribution of similar annotations in a 1532 edition of Guillaume Coquillart's works.  He found the handwriting identical to that in the Villon edition, and he pointed out that the 1714 prospectus (supra) had also anticipated an edition of Coquillart.  Fox stated also that a number of La Monnoye's projects at the time of his death remained unpublished marginalia in the books of his library. (23)  In 1978 Mary Speer pointed out that according to Jean Boudot's 1749 catalog of Gluc de Saint-Port, purchaser of La Monnoye's library, his notes were actually in a 1537 edition by Marot.  She reasoned that Boudot could have confused this edition with an exemplar of the 1723 Coustelier edition in the same catalog. (24)

Now it is a pity Villonists did not notice that a reviewer of Jannet's edition identifying himself as "A. D.", consulted an undated exemplar of Marot's edition, which he attributed to the printers Arnoul and Charles Anglier and which he said may have been published around 1540. Without actually questioning La Monnoye's authorship of B.L.241.f.17, he transcribed marginal and fly leaf manuscript notes attributed to La Monnoye from the Marot edition.  A. D.'s identification was based in part on a Latin anagram-motto, "A Delio Nomen", penned above the title.  Among the notes were three ballads which the would-be editor attributed to Villon. (25)  None of these corresponds to any of the three extracanonical ballads which the author of B.L.241.f.17 transcribed on added blank pages labeled 91*, 91**, 91***, 104* and 104** (PVxv, PVxii, PVviii).  One last piece of evidence ties the notes and transcriptions in the Anglier edition to La Monnoye.  On page 225 of the 1742 of Villon's works, Le Duchat quoted a letter dated January 28, 1723 in which La Monnoye comments on Etienne Baluze's attribution of a newly discovered ballad to Villon:  "J'ai à votre service trois autres [Ballades] manuscrites, bien entieres, attribuées à VILLON, que Marot, ou n'a point connues, ou n'a point cru appartenir." (26)  These are likely the same three ballads transcribed by our reviewer. (27)  One may well ask why La Monnoye conveyed this information to Le Duchat and why the three transcribed poems do not appear in B.L.241.f.17.

The Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal of Paris houses yet another unsigned and undated manuscript, whose worn marble calf-skin cover bears a gold inlay spine title "Manuscr. Villon".  The contents of this 191 leaf document (Arsenal. 2948)  are a preface containing a general historical essay on French literature with a justification for a new edition of Villon's work, a biography of the poet, reflections on his poetry and an outline of the new edition, at the end of which the editor indicated his wish to insert Marot's "Avis aux lecteurs" (fol. Ar -Pr ).  This is followed by notes for a 240-line texte intégral of of the Petit Testament  (fol. 1r -17r , hereafter L. for Lais ), a 2018 line texte intégral of the Testament  (fol. 17r -114r , hereafter T.), 11 poems from the Poésies Diverses  (fol. 114v -123r , hereafter PD.), including "Epitre à ses amis", "Ballade de Fortune", "Quatrain", "L'Epitaphe Villon", "Question au clerc du guichet", "Louange à la court", "Débat du cuer et du corps de Villon", "Requête à Monsieur de Bourbon", "Ballade des proverbes", "Ballade des menus propos", and "Ballade contre les enemis de la France".  The preface indicates that the six "Ballades en Jargon" (already in the Coustelier edition) would be admitted, without annotation.  Next are notes for Les Repues franches  (fol. 124r -138v ), which the editor attributed the disciples of Villon.  He implied in the preface that Le Monologue du Franc Archier de Baignollet  and Le Dialogue de Messieurs de Mallepaye et de Baillevent  would be included at this point, but he left no notes for these two.  The Repues franches  notes are followed by the text of twenty-three ballads and twenty-two rondels (fol. 139r -166v ), which he alleged were taken from the Jardin de Plaisance  (source J ), and most of which the editor said could be attributed to Villon.  Then he included fortuitously his edition of Jean Molinet's "Testament de Guerre" (fol. 167r -169v ).  Finally there is an eleven-page four-column index to discussions of words in the notes (fol. 170r -175v ).  All but one page, and most of the added notes pasted to the original pages bear the same set of signed initials "JB","JBL" or "JBS".  They may be those of the censor, a secretary or a later cataloger like Jean-Bernard Michault; one can only guess. (28)

The companion volume for Arsenal 2948 was undoubtedly an exemplar of the Coustelier edition, as a cataloger said in his note on the fly leaf.  Evidence for this is the fact that with the exception of 197 lines of text newly attributed to Villon, all of the items not in the manuscript but designated for inclusion in the work are found in the 1723 edition.  This link is further corroborated by instructions and page references for text throughout the notes.

The preface and notes on Villon's text show that the editor was a voracious reader; there are over 175 references to a great variety of literary authors and their works, the Bible, Saint Augustine, dictionaries, legal documents, theological treatises, studies in history, numismatics and local customs.  This scholar made copious medieval and early Renaissance citations: including works by Rabelais, Clément Marot, Martin Le Franc, Guillaume Crétin, Jean Molinet, Alain Chartier, Pierre Michaut, Matheolus, Philippe de Vitry, Guillaume Coquillart, Jean de Meun and Guillaume de Lorris, as well as a host of anonymous works.

Who is the mystery editor of these unpublished notes?  He was not identified by l'abbé Prompsault in 1832, Paul Lacroix in 1854, Henri Martin in1887 and Teodosio Vertone as late as 1983. (29) Antoine Campaux first alleged (30)  that the editor was none other than the controversial historiographer, literary critic, editor of 27 published works, spy and frequent lodger at the Bastille, Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy (hereafter Lenglet) (31)  He based his claim in part on the editor's self identification as the owner of a manuscript which Lenglet did in fact give to the Bibliothèque Royale on April 25, 1744 (Paris, B.N. fr 12490=source R ).  Jean-Bernard Michault's 18th-century biographical study of Lenglet mentioned an unpublished edition of Villon's works in a list of the abbot's manuscripts.  Under the title, Poesies de François Villon , we read that a "manuscrit original" was used in the edition, and that the work was intended for publication in two volumes. (32)  The rest of Michault's biography also shows that Lenglet had edited or written about a number of the authors cited in Arsenal 2948.  Geraldine Sheridan's recent biography quotes from deposition records in the Archives des Affaires Etrangères, Correspondance Politiques, Autriche 138-140  to indicate that he may have begun research on Villon as early as 1715. (33)

Manson Milner Brian made an observation in a general study of techniques used in the abbot's published editions, that he frequently ". . . indulged his audience with spicy comments about writers and publishers . . . In concluding his notes, he would add a pointed gibe; witty, daring, lascivious digs at men and institutions appeared repeatedly." (34)  Arsenal 2948's note for  "Carmes chevauchent nos voisines" reads "Ils le faisoient alors pour se délasser de toutes les peines qu'ils prenoient pour le salut du genre humain.  Mais malgré le proverbe,  il y a longtemps que cela n'est plus; on s'en mesfie" (fol. 16r ).

It is one of these "gibes" that gives us an additional proof of the editor's identity.  In another line of L.: "Et la grace de la geolière", he digresses to say: "Mon ami Rousseau m'a dit que cela lui avoit beaucoup servi quand il fut arrêté pour les calomnies dont il avoit" (fol. 15r ).  The note ends abruptly at this point, but we may be sure that the word "ami" was used antiphrastically, for the bitter and defamatory quarrel by letter between Lenglet and the exiled poet Jean-Baptiste Rousseau is a matter of historical record. (35)

Another circumstance that verifies Lenglet's editorship is the fact that he produced in 1735 a three-volume edition of the Roman de la Rose  along with Jehan de Meun's Testament et codicille. (36)  Lenglet is the same scholar who cited these works thirty-eight times in Arsenal 2948, most with specific line numbers and quoting 105 lines directly.  Finally, the editor quotes from an obscure work: "Le Journal de Henri de Lestoille par Mr de Lestoille (fol. 104v , which Lenglet was to publish in 1744 under the title Journal de Henri III, roi de France et de Pologne, ou mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France.  In that very edition, one of Lenglet's notes reads "François Villon, l'un de nos meilleurs Poëtes François, naquit à Paris l'an 1432; puisque sur la fin de l'an 1461 qu'il fit son grand Testament, il se dit dans la trentiéme année de son age.  Il etoit Enfant de Paris, comme il le marque lui-même au Vers 1057 de son grand Testament." (37)  Elsewhere in the 18th century, scholars uniformly derived a 1431  birth date from this internal evidence.  The only other place where we find 1432 is on fol. Cr of Arsenal 2948.  Furthermore, there were no published editions of Villon with consecutive line numbers like the ones proposed in our manuscript. (38)

As for Arsenal 2984's date of composition, it had to be somewhere between 1732 and 1744 because the abbot stated in his preface that he used a manuscript of M. le duc de Coislin (source C ) at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which was not there before 1732, and because he gave up his own Villon manuscript (source R ) to the Bibliothèque Royale in 1744.  The fact that Lenglet quoted the line numbers of his Villon edition in the notes for Pierre de Lestoille's Journal means that he must have established the Villon text before he wrote the commentary for the other, and that he must, at that point, have seen its publication as inevitable.  Arsenal 2948 could not have been completed before 1736, the date of an edition of Mathurin Régnier's poetry cited in the preface (fol. Bv ).

Arsenal 2948 and the B.L.241.f.17 are the only two generally recognized attempts to make systematic use of what are now principal medieval and Renaissance manuscript sources to edit Villon's works: C , R  and J .  It is intriguing that they both went unpublished in their own century, that each announced a heavy reliance on the same manuscript for L. and T. (source C ) and that one is largely a text without notes, while the other is largely notes without text.  I would like to propose that these two are complimentary volumes of the same unpublished edition, and that both are the work of Lenglet.  Evidence for this assertion is complex, but conclusive.  If I am correct, it means that the history of  criticism has perpetuated and perhaps embellished an error for nearly 130 years.

In comparing the two manuscripts, I note the same omnipresent manuscript signature: "JB", "JBL" or "JBS", also the same old shelf mark "3856" in an identical hand on the fly leaf of B.L. 241.f.17 and the first page of the preface in Arsenal 2948.  Certainly these two manuscripts were once side by side in the same collection.

B.L. 241.f.17 bears a probable series title "L'Histoire et les Chefs de la poésie française, avec la liste des poètes provençaux et françois, accompagnées de remarques sur le caractères [sic] de leurs ouvrages" handwritten on the title page of the printed edition above a new handwritten volume title: "Poésies de François Villon et de ses disciples, revues sur les différentes éditions, corrigées et augmentés sur le manuscrit de M. le duc de Coislin et sur plusieurs autres, et enrichies d'un grand nombre de pièces, avec des notes historiques et critiques."  Four components of these titles present interesting parallels with Arsenal 2948.  The first parallel is the word "chefs" in the series title.  The preface of Arsenal 2948 calls the most important French literary authors "chefs de différents âges de notre peuple" (fol. Bv ).  The same preface claims that the Repues franches  were written by "disciples" of Villon (fol. Nv ).  We see a third parallel in the use of "Poesies" instead of "OEuvres" in both manuscripts.  This runs contrary to a tradition which had begun with Marot in 1533, and remains today the dominant term used in complete works editions of Villon.  Last, it is obvious from ". . . enrichies d'un grand nombre de pièces, avec des notes historiques et critiques"  that the editor of B.L. 241.f.17 had a sizable body of additional poems and notes which are not present in this volume.  Where are they, if not in Arsenal 2948?  Ironically, Sheridan alleges that Lenglet may have had an agreement with Parisian printer Antoine-Urbain Coustelier to edit a whole series of early French works, an agreement which Coustelier likely abandoned in frustration over Lenglet's preoccupation with other projects as well as his absence from Paris combined with a lengthy imprisonment from September 1721 and lasting nearly two years. (39)

Another important title in B.L. 241.f.17 is the name given to the largely fixed-form poems outside of T. and the Jargon:  "Poesies Diverses de François Villon" (p. 92), replacing Marot's and Coustelier's "Autres ‘uvres de Villon".  Surely this is the first occurrence of the name which was used through 1977 in the editorial tradition of our poet.  As you might guess, the preface of Arsenal 2948 also labels these "Poesies Diverses de François Villon" (fol. Mv ).

Looking at the poems themselves, I note that the additional text mentioned in Arsenal 2948 is present in B.L. 241.f.17, including the "Debat de Villon et de son Cuer" and the "Ballade contre les ennemis (médisants) de la France", which are contained in sources R  and J , but not in C .  My suspicions about the source for some additions in B.L. 241.f.17 were confirmed by a handwritten footnote on p. 104, intended to explain a reading in the "Ballade des menus propos": "vers 23. +Je congnois filz, varlet et l'homme/ c'est ainsi qu'on lit dans le MS de M. de Robertet."  As I indicated above, Lenglet owned this manuscript, which we call source R .  Source J , the Jardin de Plaisance , which Lenglet claimed to have  used in Arsenal 2948, is the only one containing the third stanza (i.e. vv. 21-30) of the "Debat de Villon et de son Cueur".  This restoration is discussed on fol. 119v  of Arsenal 2948 and accomplished on p. 99 of B.L. 241.f.17.  Another place where Lenglet had drawn from source J  was in the 45 fixed-form poems beginning on fol. 139r  and labeled "Autres poesies qu'on croit de François Villon".  A note in the upper right-hand corner of this page reads "ajouter aprés le dialogue de malpaye et de baillevant à la p. 61 avant la ballade XLVI."  Now each of these fixed-form poems in Arsenal 2948 was assigned a Roman numeral (I-XLV) and they were given a contiguous line numbering system, ending on v. 973.  No doubt Lenglet intended to insert them before three "Ballades sur l'amour" which are printed on pp. 61-64 of the second section in his exemplar of the Coustelier edition.  A manuscript note at the bottom of p. 61 in B.L. 241.f.17 says: "Inserer  Les additions manuscrites intitulées autres poesies qu'on croit de François Villon".  Predictably, the printed poems are assigned sequential Roman numerals "XLVI-XLVIII", and their line numbering begins with v. 974.

We note also that the line numbers in the canonical portion of B.L. 241.f.17 correspond with those in its counterpart, Arsenal 2948.  Here, every time the notes favor C  against the witness of Marot, so does the text; the same applies in those cases where Lenglet rejects C Œs line order as a variant.  In addition, both manuscripts put the 11 selections of PD. in the same order.  A telling illustration is the "Quatrain que feit Villon lorsqu'il fut jugié à mourir".  This poem, on p. 92 is the first of the "Autres OEuvresŠ" in Coustelier's edition, but it is listed third  in the table of contents insert in B.L. 241.f.17, and p 92 is followed by inserts, 91*-[91****] bearing transcriptions of "Epitre de Villon emprisonné en forme de Ballade à ses amis" and "Problème ou Ballade au nom de la Fortune", from source C.  These are labeled with Roman numerals I and II.  Correspondingly, the notes for these two poems in Arsenal 2948 refer to the numbers of the added pages in B.L. 241.f.17.  There is a similar page number correspondence between the two manuscripts for "Ballade contre les médisans (i.e. ennemis) de la France", beginning on p. 104*.

Turning to specific readings, it seems to me that since for each of these unpublished manuscript editions, Marot and source C  shared the position of base text, then each instance where these base texts were both rejected would be of major significance.  Not surprisingly, I found only nine places where Arsenal 2948 chose a reading against the common or diverging witnesses of both source C  and Marot.  In all nine, this is also B.L. 241.f.17's reading.

The "Ballade pour prier Nostre Dame" seems to have presented a number of challenges.  For v. 890, the note in Arsenal 2948 favors an unusual reading from a possibly untraceable source: "Vierge pourtant me veuillez impartir".  It is identical to that chosen by B.L. 241.f.17.  For the same ballad, B.L. 241.f.17 records its only variant lines (for T.880-81) in a note which is crossed out at the foot of p. 45: "soubs lesquels biens ame ne peut perir/ n'entrer es cieulx point ne suis menteresse".  This reading from the source I  tradition, which varies significantly from both Marot and C  at this point, is also recorded on fol. 65r  of Arsenal 2948.

Arsenal 2948 mentions Coustelier's edition six times directly, on four occasions quoting or paraphrasing its footnotes.  In only one instance did Lenglet appear to be giving his printer instructions to reproduce two long notes as they appear printed in Coustelier.  These instructions on fol. 77 read : "Il faut prendre sur l'imprimé pag. 54. la note sur les vers 1088 et 1089."  Correspondingly, the only printed footnotes labeled with manuscript numbers in B.L. 241.f.17 are those for T.1088 and T.1089, on p. 54.  These are among the few notes not crossed out.

Finally, the text of the Repues franches  supports my hypothesis.  B.L. 241.f.17 numbers the lines and proposes the addition of a handful of lines perhaps missing in Coustelier's source.  Predictably, the line numbers match those in Arsenal 2948's notes, where Lenglet cited the text of the added lines.

  In conclusion, I wish to add that these two manuscripts, with their added lines and poems as well as their best-manuscript posture for L. and T. would have advanced considerably the editing of Villon had they been published.  They bear witness along with the titles provided in my appended bibliography to a vitality in 18th-century Villon readership and studies of which modern scholars are ignorant.  The perpetuated misidentification of B.L. 241.f.17 and the oft repeated claim that no one read Villon in the 18th century are reminders that, to a certain extent, the road upon which modern medievalism travels is still paved with assumptions; assumptions which we need to identify and evaluate if we are to play a useful role  in the discussion of the literary canon, and yield a truly reliable reception history of those works which we choose to call medieval literary masterpieces.

University of Tennessee-Martin
11.08.02
 

1. See Catherine E. Cambell, "A Survey of Graduate Reading Lists in French," French Review  56, No. 4 (March 1983): 588-98; Robert D. Peckham, François Villon: A Bibliography , Garland Medieval Bibliographies 3 (New York: Garland, 1990); Rudolph Sturm, François Villon: Bibliographie et Matériaux littéraires, 1489-1988/ François Villon: Bibliographie und Materialien, 1489-1988  (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1990) and Société François Villon, Bulletin  1-18 (1985-2002); Colloque pour le cinq-centième anniversaire de l'impression du Testament  de Villon, (Dec. 15-17 at the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris).

2. Louis Hesnaut (Thuasne), "Villon et ses éditions," Bulletin des bibliophiles  ns 2, No. 1 (1923): 116-26.

3. Jean Favier, François Villon  (Paris: Fayard, 1982) 16.

4. Ibid.

5. Richard Aldington, Rev. of François Villon. OEuvres , ed. by Louis Thuasne, Criterion (London)  3 (1925): 376; André Belleau, "Le Formole du formalisme," Liberté  25, No. 5 (octobre 1983): 154; Jacques Cellard, "François, mort ou vif,"  Le Monde  46e année, No. 13954 (vendredi le 8 décembre 1989): 29; Louis Cons, Etat pésent des études sur François Villon  (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1936) 28; Daunu, Rev. of OEuvres de Maistre François Villon , ed. by Prompsault, Journal des Savants  2e Série, 17 (septembre 1832): 552-64; Margaret Jennifer Kewley Draskau, The Quest for Equivalence: On Translating Villon  (Copenhagen: Athenium, 1986)142; Nathan Edelman, "The Vogue of Villon in France from 1828 to 1873," tr. by Jules Brody and Kathleen Duda, in his The Eye of the Beholder: Essays in French Literature  (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1975) 1;  John Fox, The Poetry of Villon  (London: T. Nelson, 1962) 4-7 [He is by far the best informed, but he underestimates 18th-century interest in Villon]; A. J. A. Van Zoest, Structure de deux testaments fictionnels: Le Lais et Le Testament de François Villon  (The Hague: Mouton, 1974) 71n1.

6. "Bibliografia Villoniana," in Antonio Giuseppe Brunelli, François Villon, con bibliografia e indici a cura di P. Morabito  (Milan: Marzorati, 1961) 203-98 and Jean Dufournet,Villon et sa fortune littéraire , Collection «Tels qu'en eux-mêmes» (Saint-Médard-en-Jalles près Bordeau: Ducros, 1970).

7. Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, "Art Poétique," in OEuvres complètes , Eds. Antoine Adam and Françoise Escal, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 188 (Paris: Gallimard, 1960) 151.  We note also vv. 66-70 of Boileau's "Satire X," (ibid., 65):

J'ay veu tout ce qu'ont fait La Fontaine et Molière.
J'ay leu tout ce qu'ont dit Villon et Saint-Gelais,
Arioste, Marot, Bocace, Rabelais,
Et tous ces vieux Recueils de satires naives,
Des malices du Sexe immortelles archives.

8. See Peckham, 53-54 [E 1558-1648], 8-10 (Br ), 16 (N ), 21 (T ).

9. See Fontenelle in bibliography.

10. Ibid.

11. See Marsy, Sauterau and Imbert in bibliography.

12 See Marchand in bibliography.  This article is an annotated version of the preface he wrote for OEuvres de François Villon  in 1742 (see bibliography).  The bibliography contains other critical studies, reviews, letters, the dictionaries of Borel and La Curne de Sainte Palaye, the music in Montcrief, the letters of Chaulieu to Voltaire and Voltaire to Helvétius.

13. Note the 15 catalogs listing editions of Villon in the bibliography.

14. See Recueil . . . , Goujet and Sallier (in bibliography) for use of Charles d'Orléans' personal manuscript.  Lenglet-Dufresnoy used C , R , J  in his unpublished edition (see bibliography).  It is likely that the three ballades transcribed by La Monnoye and printed by A.D. in Rev. of Les OEuvres de François Villon, annotées par B. de La Monnoye , ed. by Pierre Jannet, Bulletin du bibliophile  année 56 (1889): 144-56, were taken from source P , which also contains 15 works from the Villon canon, and was in the collection of La Monnoye's friend, Etienne Baluze.

15. Henri du Cambout, duc de Coislin; Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux; Bernard de La Monnoye; Pierre Daniel Huet, évèque d'Avranche; l'abbé Claude Sallier; Guillaume Massieu; le président Charles Jean-François Hénault; l'abbé d'Orléans de Rothelin, Marc Antoine René De Voyer de Paulmy d'Argesen (base collection for the Arsenal Library in Paris).  Fontenelle was "Secrétaire en perpétuïté de l'Académie des Sciences".

16. OEuvres complètes de François Villon , suivi d'un choix des poésies de ses disciples, édition préparée par La Monnoye, mise au jour avec notes et un glossaire . . . (Paris: E. Picard, 1867) xx.  One cannot help but wonder if Jannet was alerted to the possibility that there was an annotated exemplar of the Coustelier edition in the Library of Gluc de Saint Port by P. L. Jacob (Paul Lacroix), ed., OEuvres complètes de François Villon  (Paris: Jannet, 1854) xiv, no. 28.  Lacroix's statement contradicts that of Jean Boudot (see bibliography).

17. See "Nouvelles littéraires . . ." in bibliography.

18. Alembert, Jean Le Rond d'.  "Eloge de Bernard de La Monnoye . . ."  In his Histoire des Membres de l'Aacadémie Française morts depuis 1700 jusqu'en 1771, . . . 1787  (Geneva: Slatkine: 1970) Tomes 1 à 6, 395-412 [395].

19. See Sallengre in bibliography.

20. See Marchand in bibliography, 304.

21. See Alembert [whole article].  La Monnoye does not mention his edition while discussing Villon in a letter published in 1726 (see bibliography).

22. J. P. Beaumarchais, Daniel Couty and Alain Rey.  Dictionnaire des littératures de langue française  (Paris: Bordas, 1984) Vol. 2, 1204.

23. "An Eighteenth-Century Student of Medieval Literature: Bernard de La Monnoye," Studies in Eighteenth-Century French Literature .  (Exeter: Univ. of Exeter Press, 1975)  67-71.  Fox identifies the editor not by signature, but because the hand is identical to the one in B.L. 241.f.17 and because "Nouvelles littéraires . . ." (see bibliography) stated that La Monnoye intended to edit Coquillart.   M. J. Freeman, editor of Guillaume Coquillart. OEuvres . . .  TLF 218 (Geneva: Droz, 1975) xiv, correctly identifies the intended notes for this edition in Paris MSS. B.N. fr 25488, 25489 and 25490, written in an identical hand.  Ironically, we also find this hand in Paris MS. Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 2948, who's author is not La Monnoye, but Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy, as we shall see.

24. Mary Speer, "The Editorial Tradition of Villon's Testament," Romance Philology  31, No. 2 (November 1977): 344-61[349-51 for the 18th century].

25. See note 14.  "A Delio Nomen" is a legitimate anagram for "De La Monnoye" with the common exchange of "i" for "y".

26. See OEuvres . . . , ed. Marchand, etc., in bibliography.

27. The edition, witout a dated colophon, could plausibly be the same described in Boudot's catalog by positing that Boudot had also estimated the date.  At any rate, I have seen no record of a 1537 edition printed in Paris or of a dated Anglier edition.

28. The signatory here is designated by both Prompsault (53) and Lacroix (viii) as someone who signed his name "JB".  The ambiguous last strokes here, as in B.L. 241.f.17, could simply be a flourish.

29. See Prompsault, 53 ; Paul Lacroix , viii; Henri Martin, Catalogue des  manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal  (Paris: Plon, 1889) Vol. III, 168; Teodosio Vertone, Rythme, dualité et création poétique dans l'¦uvre de François Villon  ([Rome]: Lucarini, 1983) xxxi.

30. François Villon et ses oeuvres  (Paris: Durand, 1859) 371-74.

31. See Geraldine Sheridan's biography, Nicolas Lenglet Dufresnoy and the Literary Underworld of the Ancien Régime.  Studies on Voltaire and the Enlightenment 262  (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institute, 1989) 281-403, 426-28.

32. Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vie & des ouvrages de M. l'abbé Lenglet Du Fresnoy   (Paris: Duchesne in 1761) 171.

33. Sheridan, 83 & 75-6.

34 .Manson Milner Brien, "The Development of Critical Editing by Abbé Lenglet Du Fresnoy," Papers of the Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters , 23 (1937): 507-16 [514].  It is clear from the rest of the article that Arsenal 2948 is characteristic of Lenglet's editing work.

35. Sheridan, 126-32.

36.  Le Roman de la Rose, par Guillaume de Lorris & Jean de Meun dit Clopinel.  Revu sur plusieurs éditions & sur quelques anciens manuscrits.  Accompagné de plusieurs autres Ouvrages, d'une préface historique, de notes & d'un glossaire.  3 Vols.  (Paris:  chez la veuve Pissot, 1735).

37. See Lestoille in bibliography.

38. The variation from modern line numbering is due to the way lines were counted in the rondeau "Mort j'appelle de ta rigueur" (T.978-87 in this edition).

39. Sheridan, 110-111.  Coustelier had published his Méthode pour étudier l'histoire  in 1713 and his widow printed an edition in 1728.