This article was written by Alysa Salzberg
The first time I read François Villon's works, I discovered a world I had yet to unearth, however, knew by heart. One of France's greatest medieval poets, Villon, writes in an old form of French. His poems include countless references to people, places, and events of his time. Sometimes it appears even more complicated than that: Villon occasionally wrote in the obscure jargon of the Coquillards, a gang of criminals.
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As a young American expatriot in the twenty-first century, a multitude of things separate me from Villon. But there is richness in his words--a passion and exuberance that transcend these barriers. He writes about Paris and its sights with such lucidity, I find that, though we are different, Villon's love of the city mirrors my own. "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?" (Where are the snows of yesteryear?) is one of the poet's most famous lines. Could I still find some trace of Villon's life in Paris today?
I began my quest in the Cèlestins neighborhood, where one François de Montcorbier was born in 1431 or 1432. The area is in the Marais, one of Paris' most historic districts, where streets lined with crooked, sooty buildings accentuate the city's past. Just off the busy Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the first few old houses on the rue du Petit Musc promise a glimpse into the Middle Ages--maybe even some vestiges of the Abbey of the Cèlestins, where Villon's mother regularly went to pray. But within a few more paces, the street turns out to be like many others in the city: a surprisingly harmonious mix of old and new buildings with a few scattered shops, which provides a lovely walk, yet the old abbey is nowhere to be found. At the end of the street, the lower remnants of a tower from the infamous Bastille have been placed in a park. I pass by and meander along the Quai. At the Pont Louis-Philippe, I cross the Seine, stopping midway to peer at the water below. In Villon's time the bridges of Paris were brimming with houses that blocked the river from view.
