custodians to attribute all things evil to the time of the great upheaval, to pay any serious attention to this particular allegation. However it happened, the pages are lost, and there, as far as we are concerned, is an end of them.
But in a way we are able to piece together from Dorn Gregory's later statements, and from certain traditions which still linger here and there in the highways and byways of Poitou, enough material to enable us to ascertain with something like sufficient accuracy, what it was that Master François Villon did accomplish as Count of Montcorbier in those seven days of splendour which his mocking king accorded to him. We know for certain that the king found him an admirable counsellor, cool, wary and judicious, and that during the period of his ministry, Louis followed his advice with a faith which, if it were founded indeed upon a superstitious adherence to the edicts of the stars, proved itself to be thoroughly justified by his Lord Constable's common sense, foresight and astonishing knowledge of human nature. We know, too, that he proved himself no less skilled as a soldier than as a statesman, as capable of pre-eminence in the arts of war as in the arts of peace. His knowledge of Cæsar's Commentariés and his natural inclination to strategy,
