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If I Were King
In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was sodden through and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained and shamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavy as if with the breaths of all the rogues and all the vagabonds that had haunted the hostelry from its evil dawn. Such guttering lights and glimmering flames as lit the place -- for there was a small fire on the wide hearth in spite of the fine weather -- peopled the gloom with fantastic quivering shadows as of lean fingers that unfolded themselves to filch, or clenched themselves to stab in the back. But its patrons seemed to like the place well enough in spite of its miasma, and Master Robin Turgis, the fat landlord, drowsy with his own wine and dripping from the heat, surveyed them complacently, and wallowed as it were in the rattle and clink of mug and can, the full-throated laughter and the shrill chatter, crisply emphasized by oaths, which assured him of the Fircone's popularity with its intimates. Master Robin's intelligence was limited; his wit was simple; the processes of his mind moved easily along the lines of least resistance. The Burgundians might be hammering with mailed fists at the walls of Paris; the fire-new crown of Louis the Eleventh might be falling from the royal forehead: it mattered not a jot to dishonest Robin so long as the Fircone brimmed with company.
140 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1901
25 people are currently reading
329 people want to read
About the author
Justin Huntly McCarthy
110 books2 followersJustin Huntly McCarthy (1859 – 20 March 1936) was an Irish author and nationalist politician. Son of Justin McCarthy.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 1, 2011
This book was mentioned in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". It piqued my curiosity. I couldn't find it at the library and my ebook was a terrible copy that I couldn't decipher. I ended up buying an original copy from 1901. The first part of the book reads like a play similar to Shakespeare. Modern writers don't usually write with such imagery and eloquence. At the 3/4 of the book, I was in love with the characters and the story. There are some great quotes about love and honor. I was truly cheering for Villion, the main character, at the end.
The story is of a vagabond poet when given the chance to win his love and save France, shows great character and honor.
The story is of a vagabond poet when given the chance to win his love and save France, shows great character and honor.
September 9, 2016
I discovered this book when I first read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn - it was one of the books that Francie Nolan took out of the library. It brought magic into her dreary life, and (although my life was anything BUT dreary) it brought magic into mine, with its tale of poet-bandit, Francois Villon, the wild and passionate woman who loves him, and courtly intrigue. I haven't read it in years, but intend to find a copy. I could use a little magic in my life. If you can find this book, read it. Guaranteed, it will bring a smile to your face - and perhaps a tear to your eye.
January 26, 2020
3.5 stars
A fast-paced adventure I’ll remember for awhile. François Villon runs across king Louis in a most unusual fashion, in a Paris tavern. Burgundy is threatening war on France and the court is crumbling from within. The king would like to continue ruling, of course, but he also wants to be amused. And no better person than the washed-up man from the tavern. Villon is swept away to the palace and given a high title and a week to enjoy it before his execution. Is there any chance Villon can cheat the gallows and win the lady he loves?
A fast-paced adventure I’ll remember for awhile. François Villon runs across king Louis in a most unusual fashion, in a Paris tavern. Burgundy is threatening war on France and the court is crumbling from within. The king would like to continue ruling, of course, but he also wants to be amused. And no better person than the washed-up man from the tavern. Villon is swept away to the palace and given a high title and a week to enjoy it before his execution. Is there any chance Villon can cheat the gallows and win the lady he loves?
March 9, 2021
This is the book the horrible librarian, the one who won't even look Francie Nolan (heroine of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) in the eye. Francie, age 11, frequently asks her for a recommendation, and the librarian keeps giving her the same book - this one, a mushy historical romance about Francois Villon, the French poet. Such a telling detail! Noel Coward once wrote that "in the world of entertainment, it is essential for someone to cater to the illiterate." He was talking about books like this one. The irony is that Francie is not the illiterate here - that would be the librarian.
May 6, 2025
If you have read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, then you might be looking for this book, too. I found it on Google Books for 99 cents. It's quite quaint. Very French!
Read
January 8, 2026Well, that was interesting. Like all of the other reviewers, I heard about this book in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". I don't know why that librarian kept giving it to kids over and over, because I thought it was just ok. I recognize that I'm not the right audience though, since I generally don't click with most "classics". As such, I'm leaving my rating blank. Still, if you do like classics, this story features sword fights, disguises, doe-eyed noble ladies declaring their love, etc.
April 26, 2024
Like so many others, I learned of this book in reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. And I am glad I did. A beautifully told romance in the tradition of Ivanhoe—upholding honor, loyalty, courage, and love.
Copies are hard to find, but worth the effort .
Copies are hard to find, but worth the effort .
February 16, 2023
I've been curious about this ever since I first encountered it prominently mentioned as the basis for Rudolf Friml's "The Vagabond King" on the cover of the score - I even read two other novels featuring Villon (Doris Leslie's I Return and Francis Carco's Le Roman de François Villon) in the vain hopes, in those days before the Internet, of learning the plot behind the music! Well, now we have Project Gutenberg, and it finally occurred to me to look for the original novel there...
It's a flowery lyrical swashbuckling 'fantasy period historical' novel in the spirit of Sabatini and Jeffery Farnol: precisely the sort of thing beloved by classic Hollywood and so lovingly spoofed by McDonald Fraser in The Pyrates. And yes, I can see precisely why it appealed as material for a stage adaptation (and, the Internet now informs me, multiple screen versions). It's almost as if it was written with the stage in mind, because the whole thing takes place in a series of static locations, with all other action taking place 'off-stage' and then being reported by the characters, rather than being shown in the narrative itself - this becomes very obvious when an entire battle takes place off-stage while the narrative stays in the gallows square with characters coming and going!
The book seemed a bit conflicted over the character of Noel le Jolys, who is described in ways that would normally code him as a villainous rival - a pretty pink and gold fop, who courts the heroine and resents the hero, and sleeps with the Bad Girl in the meantime - and yet who is also described by the hero as "too brave a bird to be a decoy-duck" and by the narrative as "a soldier" with "a grave courtesy", and who happens to be the one to slay the main villain (yet again off-stage). I actually liked the fact that he isn't simply written off as a womanish coward, as such a character undoubtedly would have been in a Sabatini book, but it did come across more as confusion than as unseen depths on Noel's part...
The rest of the characters are very recognisable from the musical, and indeed you can more or less see exactly where the songs fit in, because the lyrics are close enough to the extant text! There are a lot of poems and/or song lyrics in the book, and at least one I recognise as being based on a well-known Villon ballad, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?" I don't know his poetry well enough to say whether the others are genuine Villon lyrics in translation or not, but they're not bad verse.
All in all a rollicking adventure, with genuine pathos and tension in the final scene (even though we know, intellectually, that the hero must survive somehow). This was the stuff of my childhood daydreams, however sorely out of fashion since.
It's a flowery lyrical swashbuckling 'fantasy period historical' novel in the spirit of Sabatini and Jeffery Farnol: precisely the sort of thing beloved by classic Hollywood and so lovingly spoofed by McDonald Fraser in The Pyrates. And yes, I can see precisely why it appealed as material for a stage adaptation (and, the Internet now informs me, multiple screen versions). It's almost as if it was written with the stage in mind, because the whole thing takes place in a series of static locations, with all other action taking place 'off-stage' and then being reported by the characters, rather than being shown in the narrative itself - this becomes very obvious when an entire battle takes place off-stage while the narrative stays in the gallows square with characters coming and going!
The book seemed a bit conflicted over the character of Noel le Jolys, who is described in ways that would normally code him as a villainous rival - a pretty pink and gold fop, who courts the heroine and resents the hero, and sleeps with the Bad Girl in the meantime - and yet who is also described by the hero as "too brave a bird to be a decoy-duck" and by the narrative as "a soldier" with "a grave courtesy", and who happens to be the one to slay the main villain (yet again off-stage). I actually liked the fact that he isn't simply written off as a womanish coward, as such a character undoubtedly would have been in a Sabatini book, but it did come across more as confusion than as unseen depths on Noel's part...
The rest of the characters are very recognisable from the musical, and indeed you can more or less see exactly where the songs fit in, because the lyrics are close enough to the extant text! There are a lot of poems and/or song lyrics in the book, and at least one I recognise as being based on a well-known Villon ballad, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?" I don't know his poetry well enough to say whether the others are genuine Villon lyrics in translation or not, but they're not bad verse.
All in all a rollicking adventure, with genuine pathos and tension in the final scene (even though we know, intellectually, that the hero must survive somehow). This was the stuff of my childhood daydreams, however sorely out of fashion since.
"Kill Thibaut d'Aussigny. You are a skilful swordsman, they say. You are little better than an outlaw. You say you love me. Kill Thibaut d'Aussigny!"
Villon looked at her queerly. To save his life he could not keep his face from quivering. He was eating his heart and it tasted very bitter, and his own voice sounded far away to him, like a voice in a dream.
"So that you and Noel what's his name may live happily ever after?"
Katherine drew back from him, a little scorn in her eyes and on her lips.
"Are you less eager to serve me than you were?"
The question struck him in the breast like the stroke of a sword. He remembered his golden vows and his golden verses, and sickened at his shadow of disloyal doubt and anger.
March 4, 2021
Exciting, endearing, enveloping.
I am in love with this book. Shakespearean undertones that hint at a Romeo-and-Juliet-like love story with a little bit of Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. But with these reminisces of older writings you are drawn into a world that is unique and yet familiar in it's history. With the main character based on the real life poet François Villon, we are transported to 15th century France under the rule of Louis XI during a time of uncertainty and upheaval in france between King Louis and the Duke of Burgundy. Once arriving we are shown that love and hope of the future, and death and sacrifice exist in the same for all people of all classes in both the lowest places and the highest. I think the main theme of this book is summed up best by the author himself: "A strange thing," mused Colin, "that a trifle of hair less on a man's chin and a trifle of dirt less on a man's cheek, with some matter of clean linen and a smooth jerkin, can make such a difference." "Not at all," said René de Montigny," we are all the same at the core, every man-jack and woman-jill of us, hungering, thirsting, lusting, just after the same fashion. 'Tis only the coat that counts."
I am in love with this book. Shakespearean undertones that hint at a Romeo-and-Juliet-like love story with a little bit of Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. But with these reminisces of older writings you are drawn into a world that is unique and yet familiar in it's history. With the main character based on the real life poet François Villon, we are transported to 15th century France under the rule of Louis XI during a time of uncertainty and upheaval in france between King Louis and the Duke of Burgundy. Once arriving we are shown that love and hope of the future, and death and sacrifice exist in the same for all people of all classes in both the lowest places and the highest. I think the main theme of this book is summed up best by the author himself: "A strange thing," mused Colin, "that a trifle of hair less on a man's chin and a trifle of dirt less on a man's cheek, with some matter of clean linen and a smooth jerkin, can make such a difference." "Not at all," said René de Montigny," we are all the same at the core, every man-jack and woman-jill of us, hungering, thirsting, lusting, just after the same fashion. 'Tis only the coat that counts."
December 4, 2024
لو كنت ملكاً، جاستن مكارثي، ١٩٠١م، ترجمة إبراهيم رمزي
2.5🌟
مسرحية تاريخية كتبها الكاتب الأيرلندي جاستين مكارثي، وتدور أحداثها في فرنسا خلال عهد الملك لويس الحادي عشر.
تركز القصة على شخصية فرانسوا فيلون، الشاعر اللص و المتشرد الذي يتمتع بذكاء حاد وروح ساخرة، والذي يحارب الحكم بأشعاره و آرائه. في لحظة حرجة، يُعرض عليه فرصة لتولي عرش الملك مؤقتًا، مما يدفعه للتفكير في معنى السلطة والمسؤولية.
2.5🌟
مسرحية تاريخية كتبها الكاتب الأيرلندي جاستين مكارثي، وتدور أحداثها في فرنسا خلال عهد الملك لويس الحادي عشر.
تركز القصة على شخصية فرانسوا فيلون، الشاعر اللص و المتشرد الذي يتمتع بذكاء حاد وروح ساخرة، والذي يحارب الحكم بأشعاره و آرائه. في لحظة حرجة، يُعرض عليه فرصة لتولي عرش الملك مؤقتًا، مما يدفعه للتفكير في معنى السلطة والمسؤولية.
March 5, 2020
One of Francie Nolan's favorites from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, this was a short little tale with kings and thieves, prostitutes, hard drinking, sword fights, and astrologers. Entertaining certainly.
September 6, 2022
Ever since I was young, this book has been one of my beloved favorites! I've read it a total of about 20 times now. A certain librarian recommended it to me at age 12 and I'm glad she did :)
January 24, 2024
3.5 stars
Hunted down a copy because of the mention in Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and, honestly I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this. It's a real swashbuckler complete with duels, obsessive love, daring rescues, and thwarted intrigue (but not the best writing ever). Claims to be historical, complete with the author complaining he can't tell us the bulk of the story because the manuscript he's referring to was damaged, but has close to the same level of accuracy as Robin Hood. Fun little romance (in the old-school sense of the word), recommended to anyone looking for some heroics and adventure without the overdose of grim-dark "realism" found in most newer "fantasy" books.
Hunted down a copy because of the mention in Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and, honestly I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this. It's a real swashbuckler complete with duels, obsessive love, daring rescues, and thwarted intrigue (but not the best writing ever). Claims to be historical, complete with the author complaining he can't tell us the bulk of the story because the manuscript he's referring to was damaged, but has close to the same level of accuracy as Robin Hood. Fun little romance (in the old-school sense of the word), recommended to anyone looking for some heroics and adventure without the overdose of grim-dark "realism" found in most newer "fantasy" books.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews