Les Lais

Les Lais / par François Villon. - Budapest: Kossuth, 1983. - 40 p.: ill.; 74x55 mm.

Red velours binding with portret in gold frame. Hand set in Monotype Garamond and printed on Zanders Ikonorex Special Mat. Eight reproductions by László Gyarmathy of portrets in oil-panting by Endre Szász. Edition of 200 copies for customers of the Kossuth Printing House.


Text in french of Les Lais (The Legacy) of the famous poet, vagabond and thief François Villon. (Paris ca 1431 - after 1463 ) Villon got a master of arts degree in 1452 and became a clerk. In 1455 he was sentenced to banishment, after a scuffle with a priest - both courting the same girl - and fled. His sentence was remitted by King Charles, but in the next year he was again in trouble because of a girl named Catherine de Vaucelles. He had to flee a second time, to his uncle in Angers this time. Not quite a year later he was caught again because the chapel of the Navarre College was broken open and five hundred gold crowns were stolen. Through Louis XI he came out of prison and went back to Paris. In less than a year he was banished again. So his life went on, alternating between living as a bohemian and being imprisoned. In 1563 he was arrested and condemned to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to banishment on 5 January 1463. After that date there is no further record of Villon. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballades written while in prison. He wrote 'Le Lais' when he was on the run to Angers. The most famous and cited line he wrote is perhaps the question "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?" (Where are the snows of yesteryear?) from the 'Ballade des dames du temps jadis'.



Statue of François Villon in Utrecht