François de Montcorbier was born in
1431 in a poor family. Soon,
fatherless, he is adopted by the chaplain Guillaume de Villon,
teacher of Canon Law. François will receive from his
''more-than-father'' his name, Villon, a cultural, social and
religious education. In 1443, he enters the Faculté
des Arts, where he will become bachelier (Student
who received his Baccalauréat diploma) in 1449.
In 1452, Villon receives his Licence and Mastery in Art. As a
student, between 1453 and 1455,
he will participate in fights and raggings against the police.
In june 1455, François Villon, after being attacked by
Phillipe Sermoise, priest, hurt him mortally. He will obtain
in 1456 remission letters for his murder. After his house-breaking
in the Navarre collegium, he will tell he composed, this night,
to give himself an alibi, the Lais, also known as the
Petit Testament (Little Testament). He will quit Paris in
the beginning of 1457. An inquiry is opened in May and he will be
betrayed by one of his accomplices. He will continue, then, to
live an life of errand. He will be accepted in the courts of
Charles d'Orléans, at Blois, where he will compose Je
meurs de soif aupr�s the la fontaine (I die of thirst near
the fountain). At this time of his life, he will be in relation
with a gang of criminals, the ''Coquillards'', and he will create
in their cant poems full of linguistic games.
In 1461, he will be jailed in Meung-sur-Loire, and will be tortured
by the bishop Thibaud d'Aussigny. The real reasons behind this are
unknown, but this period will be created a lot of poems, like the
Epître à ses amis, and the Débat
du coeur et du corps. He will be freed by the coming of Louis
the Eleventh in the city. He will start the writting of the
Testament, to which he adds ballads the following year. In
november 1462, he is accused of theft, jailed in the
Châtelet, and then set free. In the same month, he
will be caught in a fight against Ferrebouc, a pontifical notary,
and will be jailed once more, tortured and condemned to be hang out
where he write the Epitaphe Villon (also known as the
Ballade des Pendus).
In january 1463 a new jugement will
only condemn him to exile for 10 years from the city of Paris.
He disappears, supposedly caught up by his violent past... He
appears as the first modern french lyric poet...
He was, in fact, discovered by Helena, Fourth Generation
Toreador, and searching for any clue
about Meneleus's secret whereabouts.
Charmed by the passion and violence of the mortal, she Embraced
him and soon after disappeared in Portugal. She hoped Villon would
prove a thorn to Alexandre, who
had attacked the Toreador of Paris without any real provocation.
Villon soon joined the Anarchs, where
he met Ivan, against Alexandre's and
Saviarre's rule.
He soon became leader of the Anarchs, and under his rule, the
Anarch won their greatest victory the night Alexandre and Saviarre
were destroyed in the parisian uprising of
1481.
Soon after, Beatrix stepped in and
declared herself Prince of Paris, and started one of the first
attempt to make peace with the Anarchs. Strangely, even if the
Anarchs were losing grounds everywhere else in Europe, they still
were quite powerful in Paris (some wondered if they had some
Camarilla's help, and looked Beatrix with a suspicious eye...).
Feeling the change, Villon accepted the peace in exchange of the
Convention of Thorns (1493), which
gave the Anarchs the right to organize and defend themselves from
Elder's attacks. As a proof of her sincerity, she made Villon her
own Chambellan, even if the Ventrue wanted his head for the
''crimes'' he committed! (Another proof of Villon's secret alliance
with Beatrix?)
Working in Beatrix's shadow, he helped her keep the control of
Paris from Ventrue's graps.
While Beatrix organized the active resistance against the Ventrue
Protestant forces, Villon worked his new project: making France the
center of the world culture and art: He looked Paris as a new
Alexandria. But For this, France would have to become under the
only control of the Toreador Clan. So he worked hard to intrigue
the incapacitation of any other Clan's mortal pawns, and so remove
much of their influence. He will have to take over La Rochelle, a
Major Ventrue/Protestant city, and destroy the Prince and his
Bloodline there (1628)...
Beatrix, suffering the natural Paranoia of the Elder in position
of power, decided to move away from Paris, always fast and deadly
in its uprisings. Villon gave her the idea of moving the King and
all the mortal court where they would be of no real danger. With
her personnal education and some intrigues, the King would become
strong enough to take absolute power in France.
In 1661, Louis the Fourteenth,
known as the Sun King, takes the absolute power of France. In
1682, he moves in the newly
constructed Palace of Versailles, along with all the weakened
Noblesse. In the same year, Villon takes the secret control
of Louis XIV's armies and, as Beatrix declares the
Toreador Hegemony, he uses the
army to threaten the Princes of every important french city,
reminding them of the La Rochelle example.
The Toreador Hegemony is accepted by the Princes of France, and
they become ''Marquis''. Villon
is given the Louvre Palace Elysium by Beatrix.
But by advancing in his project, Villon lose his past Anarch ideals
and becomes an effective and merciless Ancillae.
In 1694, he meet a young bourgeois 13-years-old girl he will fall
in love with. He will educate her in the Kindred ways, preparing
her to become one of the Kindred. In
1701, he asks Beatrix the right to
Embrace the twenty-years old young woman in the night of her
birthday. Beatrix accepts out of love for Villon hoping he will
discover soon enough Elle is only a
beautiful Poseur, and destroy her... But even as his love for her
will cool down with the decades, he will discover she made of
Intrigue a kind of art that would serve well her Clan...
In 1738,
Alexis, who tried to further the Clan's
intrigues in Russia, arrives in Paris. He will join Villon's
coterie, composed by Villon, Arnaud,
Elle, Ivan.
The French Revolution Will prove
to be Beatrix final nights, and a great challenge for the Toreador
rule over France.
He will remain in Paris until the declaration of the Republic, the
22 September 1792. He will come
back in October 1795, and then will
work hard to rebuild the Clan's influence in France.
Bonaparte was a young and ambitious general. Villon needed a pawn,
and Bonaparte only needed a little help. After some investigations,
Villon determined the respobsibilities of everyone involved in the
Revolution: He framed first Madame Guil, who was discovered using
the revolution to destroy Elders, whatever their Clans. Then he
saw the hand of the Giovanni: His
answer was to send Bonaparte destroy Venice. And then, he
discovered the action of the Setite, and Bonaparte was sent in
Egypt...
In the same time, a discussion between him and Alexis degenerated,
and Alexis refused the position Villon had just asked him to take.
Alexis removed himself from the parisian Kindred society, and used
the Egypt Campaign as an excuse to quit Paris. Villon was
eventually saddened, but he had still much to do to confort his
position.
But even with his successes, his dream had still to come true: So
he worked hard to get the power in Paris through his pawn,
Bonaparte. In 1801, he met Raphael de
Corazon, the Toreador Elder who helped create the Camarilla, and
they shared the same vision about France. Raphael had come with
a potential Childe he Embraced: Lazlo.
Lazlo would remain in Paris, and take the abandonned position of
Alexis.
In 1804, Bonaparte became Napoleon,
Emperor of the French People. The next year, Villon becomes
Prince of Paris.
There was only one slight inconvenience in the soirée
or the Crowning: Saint Just was back,
seemingly Embraced by Robin Leeland: He was the one who helped,
through Madame Guil, Villon clean the Giovanni and Setite
corruption of Paris...
But strangely, Villon started to give more and more responsibility
to his lieutenants, who started to have a lot of power in the name
of the Prince of Paris. Only Alexis, Elle, Ivan and Lazlo know
about what happened to him, and what scheme he was now working on.
He succeeded in creating back the Toreador Hegemony after the
Restauration: Villon received each Prince of all the French
city, and had them drink some of his Blood as Allegiance.
Failure to do so would lead to dire consequences: Each Prince,
freshly freed from Beatrix' influence by the Revolution,
accepted to become back
''Marquis'' as they still
remembered La Rochelle.
The Toreador Hegemony was reborn.
He only awoke in Edict about Art, A Great Blood Hunt
was called against the Clan Brujah and the Anarchs of Paris.
To everyone's surprise, the Great Hunt was a success: Half the
Brujah Elders remained in Paris, siding with Villon, and every
Clan, from Ventrue to Nosferatu to Malkavian followed Villon's
call...
Villon gave Labienus and his Bloodline the Palace of Versailles,
the right to manage the Catacombs to the Nosferatu (but no one know
about the reasons behind the help of the Malkavian...).
He officialized too the Cotterie of Ivan, called the
Masques, who had served him well in the
past and who will continue in the future, with a lot more of power
and influence over the mortals and the Kindred or France. In the
same time, the Veilleurs were created,
too. If everyone believe Alexis asked Villon's permission to
create them, the two are the only ones to know Villon asked Alexis
to merge the occult knowledge he brought back from Egypt to
find a solution about the growing
''Aura of Corruption''. Then he went
back to his own intrigues...
It was the War of Traditions which
called him back: With the help of the Masques and the Veilleurs,
he discovered the schemes of the Technocracy, and made an alliance
with the Sons of Ether of Paris, thus
reducing the Tremere and Order of Hermes influence in the french
capital.
His next official decision was to declare a Blood Hunt on the
Assamite (and everyone who used
their services) in Paris for breaching the Sixth Tradition
(One tried ot kill him in 1961),
make a tentative alliance with the Setite and the Mamluk Prince of
Cairo to help move the Temple of Abou Simbel from the flood of
the new Nasser lake, and declare a Blood Hunt on the Giovanni in
Paris because of the action of Pietro Giovanni in
1994.
But most important, he is finishing his Projet Grand Louvre,
reconstructing large parts of his Haven and renovating others...
When he can be seen, he is at the Cour,
where his decision about what is ''gauche' and what is
''beau'' is usually final. While it is known that his seduction
talent was null when alive, he haunts now the ''revues'' and the
''salons'' and other ''chic soirées'' where his success
is unlimited. His own Herd is constitued by the most beautiful
models in the world.
