Then Tabary fell out
with Casin Chollet, one of the fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat,
who subsequently became a sergeant of the Châtelet and distinguished
himself by misconduct, followed by imprisonment and public castigation,
during the wars of Louis Eleventh. The quarrel was not conducted with a
proper regard to the King's peace, and the pair publicly belaboured each
other until the police stepped in, and Master Tabary was cast once more
into the prisons of the Bishop. While he still lay in durance, another
job was cleverly executed by the band in broad daylight, at the
Augustine Monastery. Brother Guillaume Coiffier was beguiled by an
accomplice to St. Mathurin to say mass; and during his absence, his
chamber was entered and five or six hundred crowns in money and some
silver plate successfully abstracted. A melancholy man was Coiffier on
his return! Eight crowns from this adventure were forwarded by little
Thibault to the incarcerated Tabary; and with these he bribed the jailer
and reappeared in Paris taverns. Some time before or shortly after this,
Villon set out for Angers, as he had promised in the "Small Testament." The object of this excursion was not merely to avoid the presence of his
cruel mistress or the strong arm of Noë le Joly, but to plan a
deliberate robbery on his uncle the monk. As soon as he had properly
studied the ground, the others were to go over in force from
Paris--picklocks and all--and away with my uncle's strongbox! This
throws a comical side-light on his own accusation against his relatives,
that they had "forgotten natural duty" and disowned him because he was
poor. A poor relation is a distasteful circumstance at the best, but a
poor relation who plans deliberate robberies against those of his blood,
and trudges hundreds of weary leagues to put them into execution, is
surely a little on the wrong side of toleration. The uncle at Angers may
have been monstrously undutiful; but the nephew from Paris was upsides
with him. On the 23rd April, that venerable and discreet person, Master Pierre
Marchand, Curate and Prior of Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese of
Chartres, arrived in Paris and put up at the sign of the Three
Chandeliers, in the Rue de la Huchette. Next day, or the day after, as
he was breakfasting at the sign of the Armchair, he fell into talk with
two customers, one of whom was a priest and the other our friend Tabary. The idiotic Tabary became mighty confidential as to his past life. Pierre Marchand, who was an acquaintance of Guillaume Coiffier's and had
sympathised with him over his loss, pricked up his ears at the mention
of picklocks, and led on the transcriber of improper romances from one
thing to another, until they were fast friends. For picklocks the Prior
of Paray professed a keen curiosity; but Tabary, upon some late alarm,
had thrown all his into the Seine. Let that be no difficulty, however,
for was there not little Thibault, who could make them of all shapes and
sizes, and to whom Tabary, smelling an accomplice, would be only too
glad to introduce his new acquaintance? On the morrow, accordingly, they
met; and Tabary, after having first wet his whistle at the Prior's
expense, led him to Notre Dame and presented him to four or five "young
companions," who were keeping sanctuary in the church. They were all
clerks, recently escaped, like Tabary himself, from the episcopal
prisons. Among these we may notice Thibault, the operator, a little
fellow of twenty-six, wearing long hair behind. The Prior expressed,
through Tabary, his anxiety to become their accomplice and altogether
such as they were (_de leur sorte et de leurs complices_). Mighty polite
they showed themselves, and made him many fine speeches in return. But
for all that, perhaps because they had longer heads than Tabary, perhaps
because it is less easy to wheedle men in a body, they kept obstinately
to generalities and gave him no information as to their exploits, past,
present, or to come. I suppose Tabary groaned under this reserve; for no
sooner were he and the Prior out of the church than he fairly emptied
his heart to him, gave him full details of many hanging matters in the
past, and explained the future intentions of the band. The scheme of the
hour was to rob another Augustine monk, Robert de la Porte, and in this
the Prior agreed to take a hand with simulated greed. Thus, in the
course of two days, he had turned this wineskin of a Tabary inside out. For a while longer the farce was carried on; the Prior was introduced to
Petit-Jehan, whom he describes as a little, very smart man of thirty,
with a black beard and a short jacket; an appointment was made and
broken in the de la Porte affair; Tabary had some breakfast at the
Prior's charge and leaked out more secrets under the influence of wine
and friendship; and then all of a sudden, on the 17th of May, an alarm
sprang up, the Prior picked up his skirts and walked quietly over to the
Châtelet to make a deposition, and the whole band took to their heels
and vanished out of Paris and the sight of the police. Vanish as they like, they all go with a clog about their feet. Sooner or
later, here or there, they will be caught in the fact, and ignominiously
sent home. From our vantage of four centuries afterwards, it is odd and
pitiful to watch the order in which the fugitives are captured and
dragged in. Montigny was the first. In August of that same year he was laid by the
heels on many grievous counts--sacrilegious robberies, frauds,
incorrigibility, and that bad business about Thevenin Pensete in the
house by the Cemetery of St. John. He was reclaimed by the
ecclesiastical authorities as a clerk; but the claim was rebutted on the
score of incorrigibility, and ultimately fell to the ground; and he was
condemned to death by the Provost of Paris. It was a very rude hour for
Montigny, but hope was not yet over. He was a fellow of some birth; his
father had been king's pantler; his sister, probably married to some one
about the Court, was in the family way, and her health would be
endangered if the execution was proceeded with. So down comes Charles
the Seventh with letters of mercy, commuting the penalty to a year in a
dungeon on bread and water, and a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James
in Galicia. Alas! the document was incomplete; it did not contain the
full tale of Montigny's enormities; it did not recite that he had been
denied benefit of clergy, and it said nothing about Thevenin Pensete. Montigny's hour was at hand. Benefit of clergy, honourable descent from
king's pantler, sister in the family way, royal letters of
commutation--all were of no avail. He had been in prison in Rouen, in
Tours, in Bordeaux, and four times already in Paris; and out of all
these he had come scatheless; but now he must make a little excursion as
far as Montfaucon with Henry Cousin, executor of high justice. There let
him swing among the carrion crows. About a year later, in July 1458, the police laid hands on Tabary.