ABSTRACT
People have been writing about the portfolio and Villard for more than 175 years. Much that has been written about him or ascribed to him during that period lies somewhere between wrong and absurd.2
Authors have made Villard a sort of Gothic Lieutenant Kijé, attributing to him acts and deeds he surely did not do.3 It is what Bony characterized, in a different context, as “unwitting mythmaking.”4
