SOURCE: "The Impenitence of François Villon," in The Romanic Review, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, October, 1946, pp. 225-36.

In the following essay, Frank studies the believability of what she considers Villon's feigned penitence.

It has long been customary to think of François Villon as a great sinner who was truly remorseful and penitent on occasion. To be sure, since Siciliano put the famous phrase "je ris en pleurs" in its proper setting critics have recognized this contemporaneous cliché as a suitable contrevérité among the many others of the "Ballade du concours de Blois" rather than as the poet's description of himself. Nevertheless the romantic and sentimental conception of a Villon who wept over his sins and bitterly regretted them still persists. In the early days Marcel Schwob spoke of the Testament as "une œuvre de repentir" [in Revue des Deux Mondes, CXII, 1892], and Gaston Paris believed that...