sts of a poem in forty stanzas of eight octosyllabic lines (each
rhymed a, b, a, b, b, c, b, c) called the _Petit Testament_[156]; of a
poem in 173 similar stanzas called the _Grand Testament_, in which about
a score of minor pieces, chiefly ballades or rondeaux, are inserted; of
a _Codicil_ composed mainly of ballades; of a few separate pieces, and
of some ballades in _argot_, collectively called _Le Jargon_. Besides
these there are doubtful pieces, including a curious work called _Les
Repues Franches_, which describes in octaves like those of the
Testaments the swindling tricks of Villon and his companions, an
excellent Dialogue between two characters, the Seigneurs de Mallepaye
and Baillevent, and a still better Monologue entitled _Le Franc Archier
de Bagnolet_. The Little Testament was written after the affair with
Catherine de Vausselles, the Great Testament after his liberation from
the Bishop's Prison at Meung. Many of the minor poems contain allusions
which enable us to fix them to various events in the poet's life. The
first edition of his works was, as has been said, published in 1489. In
1533 he had the honour of having Marot for editor, and up to the date of
the Bibliophile Jacob's edition of 1854 (since when there have been
several editions), the number had reached thirty-two.

The characteristics of Villon may be looked at either technically or
from the point of view of the matter of his work. He had an
extraordinary mastery of the most artificial forms of poetry which have
ever been employed. The rondel, which Charles d'Orleans wrote with so
much grace, he did not use, but his rondeaux are generally exquisite.
The ballade, however, was his special province. No writer has ever got
the full virtue out of the recurrent rhymes and refrains, which are the
special characteristics of the form, as Villon has. No one has infused
into a mere string of names, such as his famous _Ballade des Dames du
Temps Jadis_ and others, such exquisitely poetical effects by dint of an
epithet here and there and of a touching burden. But the matter of his
verse is in many ways perfectly on a level with its manner. No one
excels him in startling directness of phrase, in simple but infinite
pathos of expression. Of the former, the sudden cry of the Belle
Heaulmiere after the recital of her former triumphs--

Que m'en reste-t-il? honte et peche;

and the despairing conclusion of the lover of La Grosse Margot--

Je suis pai