Secondly, there was William of Champeaux, who founded the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris. This William was a man of large learning and small means; and he was well content to dine daily on a lettuce, a pinch of salt, and a mouthful of bread. The shadows of dinners which form the substance of tailors’ repasts, are reflections from the board of William of Champeaux.
Thirdly, there was William of Paris, the familiar friend of St. Louis, King of France. This bishop, next to piety, was famed for his knowledge of politics; and as tailors have ever been renowned for knowing what is going on “i’ the capitol,” and for discussing such goings on with uncommon freedom, I think we may trace this characteristic of the race to the news-loving and loquacious prelate of eight centuries ago.
Fourthly, there was St. William of Maleval, of sufficiently ignoble birth to have been a tailor; and who did, in his youth and his cups, what modern young tailors frequently offer to do under similar circumstances, namely, enlist. If our useful friends have not imitated the latter example set them by the Saint, we may trace their love of the pot, at least, to the early model they found in their patron of Maleval; and if often they find themselves in the station-house, lying upon no softer bed than the bare ground, they doubtless find the reflection as feathers to their bruised sides, that it was even thus that the founder of the Gulielmites lay in a cave of the Evil Valley to which he gave a name (Male Val), and which before was known by no better than the Stable of Rhodes.
Fifthly, there was William of Gelone, Duke of Aquitaine, whom it took St. Bernard twice to convert before he made a Christian of him; and who had such gallant propensities that he might have been one of the couple sung of in the ‘Bridal of Triermain,’ where of three personages it is said that—
“There were two who loved their neighbours’ wives,
And one who loved his own.”
The well-known gallantry of the tailors therefore is an heirloom from William of Aquitaine.
Sixthly, there was William sometime Archbishop of Bourges, who left to the guild of whom we are treating the example which is followed by so many of its members, and which consisted in utterly dispensing with a shirt. He further never added to his costume in winter, nor diminished anything in it in summer; and they who have taken St. William for a patron are known, though not for the same reasons, to be followers of the same fashion.