llon's subsequent irregularities; and that up to that moment he had
been the pink of good behaviour. But the matter has to my eyes a more
dubious air. A pardon necessary for Des Loges and another for
Montcorbier? and these two the same person? and one or both of them
known by the _alias_ of Villon, however honestly come by? and lastly, in
the heat of the moment, a fourth name thrown out with an assured
countenance? A ship is not to be trusted that sails under so many
colours. This is not the simple bearing of innocence. No--the young
master was already treading crooked paths; already, he would start and
blench at a hand upon his shoulder, with the look we know so well in the
face of Hogarth's Idle Apprentice; already, in the blue devils, he would
see Henry Cousin, the executor of high justice, going in dolorous
procession towards Montfaucon, and hear the wind and the birds crying
around Paris gibbet.

A GANG OF THIEVES

In spite of the prodigious number of people who managed to get hanged,
the fifteenth century was by no means a bad time for criminals. A great
confusion of parties and great dust of fighting favoured the escape of
private housebreakers and quiet fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat.
Prisons were leaky; and as we shall see, a man with a few crowns in his
pocket, and perhaps some acquaintance among the officials, could easily
slip out and become once more a free marauder. There was no want of a
sanctuary where he might harbour until troubles blew by; and accomplices
helped each other with more or less good faith. Clerks, above all, had
remarkable facilities for a criminal way of life; for they were
privileged, except in cases of notorious incorrigibility, to be plucked
from the hands of rude secular justice and tried by a tribunal of their
own. In 1402, a couple of thieves, both clerks of the University, were
condemned to death by the Provost of Paris. As they were taken to
Montfaucon, they kept crying "high and clearly" for their benefit of
clergy, but were none the less pitilessly hanged and gibbeted. Indignant
Alma Mater interfered before the King; and the Provost was deprived of
all royal offices, and condemned to return the bodies and erect a great
stone cross, on the road from Paris to the gibbet, graven with the
effigies of these two holy martyrs.[10] We shall hear more of the
benefit of clergy; for after this the reader will not be surprised to
meet with thieves in the shape of tonsured clerk