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 EABELAIS 
 
RABELAIS 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER BESANT, M.A. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA.* 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
njLlUcJ^i \ C \ C K 
 
 HENRY MORSt S i £PHEfcU» 
 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The translations in the following chapters are in some 
 cases my own; in others taken from Urquhart and 
 MotteuXt after comparison with the original 
 
 2T i A r>< >**> <rs 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 I. HIS LIFE, 
 
 II. THE GIANT OP TOURAINE, . . 
 
 III. THE ABBEY OP THELEMA, . 
 
 IV. THE YOUTH OP PANTAGRUEL, 
 
 V. PANUROE, 
 
 VI. THE QUEST OP THE DIVINE BOTTLE, 
 VIL THE ORACLE OF THE BOTTLE, . . 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 50 
 
 71 
 
 78 
 
 92 
 
 127 
 
 178 
 
» , 
 
 ' • • -♦,•; 
 
 
 RABELAIS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The initial difficulty which presents itself to him who 
 would treat of Rabelais, is that he must refrain from 
 advising his readers, unless they are undertaking a 
 serious study, to follow up his own account by reading 
 the original. Alone among the great writers of the 
 world, Rabelais can be appreciated by students only. 
 To the general reader, to the young, to women in all 
 ages, he is a closed book. For very shame he must be 
 hidden away. His real features are only revealed to those 
 who lift the veil with serious intent to study and not to 
 laugh. To all others the man is a buffoon, and the book 
 is what Voltaire called it in the early days before he 
 understood it, "Un ramas des plus grossieres ordures 
 qu'un moine ivre puisse vomir." 
 
 Calvin, Luther, Stephen the Printer, La Bruyere, Fene- 
 lon, Lamartine, among other wise and learned men, found 
 Rabelais insupportable and abominable. On the other 
 hand, Cardinal Dupexron called 'Pantagruel' "lelivre;" 
 
 F.C. — VIIL A 
 
2 RABELAIS. 
 
 Bishop Btnet annotated Rabelais in four different editions; 
 Coleridge, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Kingsley — a whole 
 chorus of nobie voices has been raised in defence and 
 praise of the man and his took. .Almost every French- 
 man who studies the literature of his own country finds 
 it necessary to produce an essay on Rabelais; almost every 
 French writer of these days endeavours to extenuate his 
 faults and to magnify his name. Among these writers 
 of our own age are Ste Beuve, Villemain, Philarete 
 Chasles, Lenient, Prosper Merimee, Victor Hugo, Guizot, 
 Michelet, Lacroix, and Jules Janin. No other author 
 has been so repeatedly the subject of criticism. But 
 on Rabelais, as on Shakespeare, the last word will never 
 be said. No book on Rabelais has yet appeared, or ever 
 will appear, that can be considered exhaustive. 
 
 It is the main object of the present volume to show 
 by what qualities Rabelais has drawn to himself, and con- 
 tinues to draw, the praise and admiration of those who 
 study him. In the preparation of the work I have con- 
 sulted all those writers named above, and a good many 
 more ; and I have reconsidered every point of a previ- 
 ous judgment which I ventured to pronounce on Rabelais 
 five years ago in my book on the French Humourists. I 
 desire, however, especially to call the attention of those 
 who require a more extended study on Rabelais than my 
 limits will allow, to the book, in two volumes, of M. Jean 
 Fleury (Paris: Didier, 1877). There are many points on 
 which I cannot agree with M. Fleury in his conclusions, 
 as, for instance, on the religious belief of Rabelais. But I 
 must acknowledge my great obligations to the book, especi- 
 ally as to the " Voyage of the Divine Bottle." That part 
 of the ' Pantagruel,' — the most important and the most 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 interesting — has never before, I think, been so clearly 
 and so sensibly set forth. In fact, the great merit in M. 
 Fleury's work is the common-sense, unencumbered with 
 traditional rubbish, which he brings to bear upon the 
 difficulties both of the book and the life. 
 
 An uncertainty, quite needless, as I believe, has been 
 introduced into the life of Rabelais by a desire to make 
 him out, at certain periods of his life, younger than he 
 really was. Thus it has appeared to some that he must 
 have been thirty instead of forty when he emerged from 
 his convent ; that for a grave physician of fifty, and a 
 lecturer in the university, to act in a farce was unseemly ; 
 he must therefore, they say, have been forty, not fifty. 
 One fails to see how the unseemliness, if any, is removed 
 by this curtailment of a decade, for surely it is as inde- 
 corous to play the fool at forty as at fifty. It is, as 1 
 hope to show presently, one of the most remarkable fea- 
 tures in the life of Rabelais, that he was always young. 
 
 It is objected, again, that there are certain years of 
 his life difficult to fill up. I cannot find these years. 
 It is objected, farther, that according to the usual dates 
 of their birth, the Du Bellay brothers, always said to 
 have been his schoolfellows, would be eight or ten years 
 younger. The usual dates, however, may be wrong, 
 because no one could know the age of the Du Bellays 
 better than Rabelais himself, and he distinctly states that 
 the eldest, Guillaume, died in the year 1543, in the year 
 of his grand climacteric — Van de son age I-e climactere — 
 that is, at sixty-three, which would make him, according 
 to the usual date, just three years older than his protege. 
 There does not seem to me, indeed, the slightest reason 
 for altering the date of Rabelais's birth. Colletet, Leroy, 
 
4 KABPLA1S. 
 
 and Bishop Huet collected their materials when his 
 tomb was still standing with his name and age upon it. 
 The second had access to the church register at Meudon. 
 The Bishop visited Chinon, and got every scrap he could 
 find bearing on the life. Rabelais, according to them 
 all, was born in the year 1483. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 HIS LIFE. 
 
 " Mieulx est de ris qui de larmes escripre." 
 
 " Better it is to write of laughter than of tears." 
 
 Francois Eabelais was born in the town of Chinon, 
 province of Touraine, in the year 1483, the same year in 
 which Luther and Eaphael saw the light. His father, 
 who had a small estate or vineyard, called La Deviniere, 
 near the town, is said to have been an apothecary. Some, 
 carried away by a sense of the fitness of things, and 
 unable to see in the great writer anything but a bon 
 vivant, say that his father kept a tavern. Fifty years 
 after the death of Eabelais, De Thou, speaking of 
 Chinon, mentions that his father's house had then be- 
 come a tavern, and writes certain epigrammatic Latin 
 verses, in which the shade of Eabelais congratulates 
 himself on such a fate for the house in which he was 
 born. The verses seem to prove — first, that the house 
 had not before been a cabaret ; and secondly, that the 
 world was yet only in the first stage of understanding 
 the character of Eabelais. The following is an imitation 
 of the lines : — 
 
6 RABELAIS. 
 
 " So did I live from youth to age, 
 
 In feast and wine, in mirth and song; 
 So did I write that every page 
 My lifelong banquet should prolong. 
 
 Bacchus my god : he, lest below, 
 These gloomy shades my faith should kill, 
 
 By trusty letters lets me know 
 What things his votaries compass still. 
 
 Before my father's house, he says, 
 A tavern's pole and bush are spread, 
 
 To point whence mirth her song may raise, 
 Between the white wine and the red. 
 
 Where revellers still the feast prolong, 
 And laugh and sing from morn to night ; 
 
 In my old chamber rings the song : 
 In my old garden dwells delight. 
 
 Each sings in turn his chansonette ; 
 
 Outside let frigid prudence rest ; 
 And here the dancers pirouette, 
 
 And here the piper pipes his best." 
 
 There seems to be little doubt of the authenticity of the 
 bouse, which is still shown ; and the chain of traditions 
 which attaches it to the name of Rabelais is clearly 
 complete from the time of De Thou. It stands at the 
 corner of the Rue de la Lamproie, in the oldest part of 
 the town, and is itself certainly the oldest house in the 
 quartier. It is built of a yellowish-white stone quarried 
 out of the rock behind, which supplied the stones of which 
 the castle of Chinon itself was built. It has an old door- 
 way now no longer used, the threshold of which is a foot 
 and more below the present level of the street : there arc 
 
CHIN ON. 7 
 
 two or three old windows, and two modern ones : it is a 
 house of two storeys, ground and first floor, with a large 
 window, a double dormer, of later date, in the high- 
 pitched roof. The Rue de la Lamproie in which it 
 stands is an ancient and narrow street, little changed 
 from the aspect which it must have presented four 
 hundred years ago. Then, as now, the houses, built of 
 stone, presented low projecting fronts over a narrow 
 street of cobbled stones with a gutter down the middle. 
 The open booths have since got glass fronts, it is true, 
 but these stand open all day, so that the men and women 
 who work and talk in them from morning till night, after 
 the industrious manner of the French, may see and take 
 part in what passes. Then, as now, the women at early 
 day trudged in from the country bearing baskets of fruit, 
 poultry, and eggs, bringing the breath of the fields into 
 the close streets, wearing, perhaps, the same blue stuff 
 and certainly the same close white cap : then, as now, sun- 
 burnt boys with wooden sabots clattered over the stones, 
 driving the pack-laden asses; the sad-faced sisters and 
 nuns glided silently about the streets; and the burly 
 monk from Seuilly, red-faced and heavy-lipped, lounged 
 and laughed on his way to the tavern over which then, 
 as now, the bush proclaimed the goodness of the wine. 
 There was the open baker's shop, there was the same 
 smell — an omnipresent smell composed of fried onions 
 and other strong ingredients due to absence of drainage, 
 — French folk are conservative, and slow to learn. Near 
 the end of the street was the old church of St Etienne, 
 with, outside, its carved double portal, and the crown 
 above the fleur-de-lys, and, inside, the scattered figures 
 of white-capped women, who in France maintain between 
 
8 KABELAIS. 
 
 them a Perpetual Adoration. Lower down still was the 
 old church of St Mexme, guardian saint of Chinon : its 
 central tower and spire have fallen down, but the severe 
 and plain west front with its two towers stand yet. The 
 Rue de la Lamproie is, and probably always was, a street 
 of small booths and workshops. The birthplace of 
 Rabelais, however, is a corner house. The narrow street 
 to which it also belongs contains white and trim hotels 
 standing in their own gardens, kept secluded from intru- 
 sive gaze by high stone walls, so that the street has a sort 
 of Moorish aspect. Here were then, as now, the resi- 
 dences of the better class, the gens de la robe. 
 
 As regards the situation of the town, no better could 
 have been found to fill the brain of an imaginative child 
 with food for delightful thought. It stands quiet now, 
 and bereft of its former greatness, on the north bank of 
 the swift and bright Yienne, some eight miles above its 
 junction with the Loire. A long bridge connects it with 
 a suburb on the opposite shore. Immediately behind 
 the town rises a great rock three hundred feet high, on 
 whose level summit stand the ruins of the splendid castle 
 of Chinon, where our King Henry II. breathed his last, 
 and where Charles the Dauphin received Joan of Arc. 
 The grand old castle in the days when Rabelais was a 
 boy was no longer a royal residence. Louis XI. preferred 
 his manor-house of Plessis les Tours, standing in its 
 marshy meadows. Charles VIII. loved the more commo- 
 dious castle of Amboise. Francis I. chose to live at pretty 
 Chenonceaux. But Chinon was maintained with garrison, 
 governor, drawbridge, and moat, in all the discipline of a 
 medieval fortress. No doubt the furniture and tapestry 
 still remained in the long low saloon where the Wondrous 
 
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CHINON. 9 
 
 Maid discovered the prince. The zigzag way from the 
 Place up to the castle still echoed with the iron heels of 
 men-at-arms who clambered up or down ; aud knights 
 with banner and gleam of armour still rode clattering up 
 the steep incline which led to the tall narrow donjon. 
 Splendid traditions of kings haunted the place itself. 
 Great palaces and castles lay everywhere almost in sight 
 of the castle of Chinon. The twin towers of Tours, the 
 castles of Plessis, of Chaumont / Vendome, Saumur, Lan- 
 geais, Amboise, Chenonceaux, Blois, Chambord, lay all 
 around, each with its history and associations of royal 
 names. Besides the great castles there were also the manor- 
 houses, those country retreats and lodges which good 
 King Rene* of Anjou loved to build, what time the long 
 wars came to an end, and the generations which had 
 been cooped up for a hundred years within stone walls 
 came out, wondering, and grey-headed men learned for 
 the first time the smell of a pine-wood, or listened bewil- 
 dered to the rustle of the birches by the shallow Loire. 
 Then there were the great monasteries — the cages of 
 the monagaux (monk birds) — the cathedrals and the 
 stately abbeys. Notable and before all was the Abbey 
 of Fontevrault, in these modern days turned into a prison, 
 where monks and nuns lived together within one wall, 
 according to one rule, governed by an abbess, a lady of 
 high degree. Or to the boy Francois, when he wandered 
 down the road which led from Chinon to Saumur, what 
 things to see, what things to remember, what things 
 to fire the imagination ! First, vineyards everywhere, 
 save where the low marshy meadows by the river would 
 grow nothing but osiers, reeds, tall grass, meadow-sweet, 
 wild rose, hollyhock, and foxglove; among these stood 
 
10 RABELAIS. 
 
 white birches, rustling poplars, and acacias. Beyond 
 the meadows ran the river, broad and shining, a silent 
 highway which bore on its bosom many a barge laden 
 with wine of Saumur, Bourgueil, and Vouvray — flat- 
 bottomed barges with rudders twelve feet long. All 
 along the left of the road, where the low cliff rises per- 
 pendicular from the fields, people then, as now, made 
 homes for themselves in the quarried rock, and lived 
 like Horites in the caves, a thing of itself for a boy to 
 dream about. On the white road the sunburnt women 
 drove the cows and geese ; the women tended the vines, 
 the women weeded the fields, and in shady corners at 
 noontide the women sat together, ate their bread, and 
 talked. If they had their little ones with them, perhaps 
 they talked of great Gargantua, how he set up a stone 
 at Poitiers, and another — a pierre couverte — at Saumur ; 
 with that story of the cathedral bells, and how he hung 
 them round the neck of his mare in sport. 
 
 Then the boy would meet the children on his way, 
 carrying yard-long loaves in tiny arms : he would mark 
 shady lanes leading straight out of the white road into 
 impenetrable blackness of what seemed a deep forest, 
 but was only a clump of trees : on the walls by the 
 roadside the pink-and-white stonecrop, thirsty and dry : 
 poppies too, instead of wallflowers. Here and there flat 
 stretches of sand, like a sea-shore, when the Loire was 
 low : on the sand the women spreading out the clothes 
 to dry. Everywhere bundles of fagots tied up for the 
 women to carry home by strings of pack-horses. Now 
 and then a covered cart, the home of a family with brown 
 skins and bright black eyes, all at work on the grass mak- 
 ing baskets out of the osiers. Fishing-boats on the river 
 
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 11 
 
 with broad brown sail. Here a cottage of white stone 
 under great walnut-trees ; and here a village with its old 
 church, and above the portal its row of carven saints. 
 
 On the way, at the town of Cand^, Montsoreau, or 
 Saumur, the boy would find a tavern, where a motley 
 group were gathered together to drink, sing, and gascon- 
 ade. There the burly monk, the jolly cure, the bailiff, 
 the clerk, the soldier, the farmer, and the merchant, 
 sitting together beneath the trees in the shade outside the 
 house poured down the strong good wine of the country 
 without stint or measure, and talked the while. Beside 
 them, the boy — a boy with large eyes and broad fore- 
 head — stood silent, delighted, listening, — he was a boy 
 who was one day to make all immortal, — to the gossip 
 and stories of the drinkers, the chattering of the women, 
 the merriment and careless happiness of the whole. 
 
 They put him into the cloister so young, this poor 
 boy, that his memories were arrested at that point : he 
 saw only what a child sees, the outward show, where 
 everything is what it seems to be : he had acquired as 
 yet none of that sympathy which grows up so easily 
 in the minds of those who live among their fellows. 
 What came to him later was of another kind. Let us 
 remember that. 
 
 The things he saw as a boy remained in his brain. 
 He fed on them during the long years of monkery. 
 When, forty years later, he began to write, it was of 
 Touraine and the Tourangeaux. He described, with the 
 pen of a man, what remained in his memory from the 
 impressions of a child. This, too, may be rememberec 1 . 
 
 Rabelais, then, belongs to that part of France which is 
 the most fertile and the richest in the countrv. He comes 
 
12 KABELAIS. 
 
 from a land of plenty, where the wine is generous and 
 abundant, where the fruits are like the seeds of the way- 
 side grass for cheapness. 
 
 And he was born in a country rich in associations, 
 especially of kings, in traditions and legends, especially 
 of giants, in great castles and cathedrals, and proud of 
 its strong, healthy, and well-to-do race. 
 
 There were, it is said, five sons, Francois being the 
 youngest. There were no daughters. Of the four elder 
 brothers we know nothing. Probably one or more died 
 young, victims to the close and unhealthy air of the 
 crowded town, and probably one at least survived to 
 take over the paternal estate, or the youngest would not 
 have been sent to a monastery. The name of Rabelais 
 has long since vanished out of the place. In 1687, 
 Bishop Huet, annotator of Rabelais, found an old woman 
 of the name still living at Bourgueil, a town ten miles 
 from Chinon : and he heard a tradition in the city of 
 Chinon that the last male representative of the family, 
 an apothecary, had died in the greatest poverty. 
 
 We learn little from Rabelais himself about his family. 
 He mentions his father, and, in his extravagant fashion, 
 he sings the praises of Chinon. He gives no hint of 
 mother, brother, sister, or of that wide circle of cousin- 
 ship and fringe of early connections and friendships by 
 which men's lives overlap each other, so that they feel 
 less lonely. This is the result of the convent. So far 
 as we can learn from his book Rabelais was alone in the 
 world save for the scholars, his friends, who might, at 
 any moment of rivalry, become the scholars, his enemies. 
 There is even one passage in which he may be supposed 
 to speak in bitterness of his own mother. " For 
 
SCHOOL. 13 
 
 mothers," he says, " who cannot bear to keep their chil- 
 dren about the house more than nine, or, still oftener, 
 seven years, by only putting a shirt over their frocks 
 and cutting off a little hair from the crown of their 
 heads, and saying certain magical and expiatory words, 
 transform them into birds" — meaning that they get 
 them off their hands as early as possible, and put them 
 into monasteries. 
 
 Was it only for nine years that the little Francois had 
 the enjoyment of free air and the fields 1 One could 
 hope it was for longer. It seems as if he would not 
 have remembered so much after so short a space. 
 
 They sent him, in the first place, to the convent at 
 Seuilly, near his father's estate. Beneath the shadow of 
 the great castle of Coudray-Montpensier, the ruins of the 
 convent may still be seen. Here his education began. 
 
 It has been pointed out, and needlessly insisted on, 
 that Rabelais was born at the very high tide of the Renais- 
 sance, — that he was a child of that greatly hopeful time 
 when the discovery of a new world, of a new learning, of 
 new thoughts, opened up endless vistas of happy and glad 
 f orelooking. It is only true so far as dates go. Little, in- 
 deed, of the tide of new learning had reached in the last 
 decade of the fifteenth century the remote convent of 
 Seuilly. Little did they know, in the Rue de la Lamproie, 
 of Greek scholars, Latinists, Humanists, the invention 
 of printing, the changes which were to come. Rabelais 
 went as a boy into the darkness of his cell full of the old- 
 world prejudices, ideas, and traditions, and came out of 
 it after many years of twilight into a sunshine which 
 dazzled him. So that another thing to be remenbered 
 about this man is, that he never understood, in conse- 
 
14 RABELAIS. 
 
 quence of his long cloistership, the proportions, the pos 
 sibilities, and the limitations of the new forces. That 
 was why Luther and Calvin, who seemed angry, with 
 cause, were in fact ignorantly impatient with him. 
 
 One would like to know more about this first school, 
 what the hoy learned, whether he was already tonsured, 
 with the " white shirt over his frock." We have abso- 
 lutely no information about the length of time spent at 
 Seuilly, or his age when he was removed from Seuilly and 
 sent to the convent of La Baumette, near Angers. This 
 was one of the foundations of that great and much mis- 
 represented prince, Rene of Anjou, who instituted it in 
 1464 for the purpose of providing an education on more 
 liberal and intelligent principles than those venerable 
 methods whose dethronement was so near. 
 
 It was at La Baumette that the education of Rabelais 
 really commenced. It would be pleasant to learn some- 
 thing of those early days spent in the convent close to 
 the walls of black Angers. The town is now larger than 
 Chinon, still preserving its ancient narrow streets and 
 crowded houses. There is the castle, an irregular octa- 
 gon, standing beside the river. Behind it, on a hill, is 
 the cathedral, and, in those days, there were, round all, 
 the black walls. There, as at Chinon, associations of 
 royalty and majesty clung about the place ; but, as there, 
 the splendour of a court had passed away. King Rene's 
 gardens, his menagerie, his fish-ponds, his painted gal- 
 leries, his studios, were things of the past, but still 
 remembered and talked about by men not yet beyond 
 middle age. 
 
 It was at the close of the fifteenth century. The boy 
 knew nothing of the changes that were to come, in which 
 
LA BAUMETTE. 15 
 
 he was himself to play so great a part. The press was at 
 work in Paris ; already Bude was learning and teaching 
 Greek; already Lefevre d'Etaples was at work on his 
 French version of the Bible ; already the trees were full- 
 grown which were to furnish the stakes for martyrs; 
 everywhere was the restlessness which comes before great 
 movements — the timid were anxious, the daring were 
 asking questions. 
 
 How did Eabelais get his enthusiasm for knowledge ? 
 Some stories, doubtless, of the outer world penetrated to 
 La Baumette. Perhaps among the brothers who taught 
 were some who had caught the spirit of their founder, 
 Rene, and were open to the influence of the time. The 
 very sight of the printed books may have been a stim- 
 ulus ; the reading of Cicero may have been a revelation. 
 
 The boy was in good company at the school. Among 
 the scholars were three of the illustrious Du Bellay 
 brothers — William, afterwards general, ambassador, and 
 statesman, whom Rabelais never tires of praising; 1 Jean, 
 afterwards cardinal; and Martin, afterwards bishop. 
 Another scholar was Geoffroy d'Estissac, the son of a 
 noble family of the Pays d'Aunis, who became in 1518 
 Bishop of Maillezais. These school friendships were 
 maintained in after-life, to the great profit of Rabelais. 
 
 The time of study at La Baumette came at length to 
 an end, and Rabelais had to make choice — such choice as 
 
 1 The biographies give the date of William's birth 1491, which 
 furnishes, as stated in the preface, an argument for those who place 
 the birth of Rabelais ten years later than the traditional date. But 
 the biographers have followed Brantome. Rabelais, who most cer- 
 tainly knew, says that William died in the year 1543, " in the cli- 
 macteric year of his age " — that is, at 63, which gives his birth in 
 1480. 
 
16 RABELAIS. 
 
 was in his power — of a future. The career of an ecclesi- 
 astic was the only one open to him. That had been 
 settled without his consent long before. In those days 
 a boy's metier was decided for him very early in life. 
 Indeed, there was little choice. The calling of the father 
 must be that of the son, unless he preferred the one pro- 
 fession — of the Church — which always remained open. 
 There were, to be sure, melancholy examples of inde- 
 pendence, like those of Villon and his friends, of men 
 who refused to follow in the beaten track. Mostly, their 
 bodies were visible for many years, hanging on the gibbet 
 of Montmartre, a lesson plain for all to read. 
 
 So, at some date which is uncertain, young Rabelais 
 left the convent of La Baumette, and decided to become 
 a cordelier, a Franciscan monk, at Fontenay-le-Comte in 
 Poitou. 
 
 What made him become a Franciscan, a member of 
 that order which held all learning in suspicion, and, 
 above all, the new learning 1 The Benedictines honoured 
 scholars; why did he not enter that order? But the 
 Grey Friars, fr aires minor es, the brotherhood which had 
 grown to consider ignorance as great a virtue as poverty, 
 what demon led the youth to become their prey? It 
 was, too, an unlucky time ; monks were growing suspi- 
 cious; rumours were afloat; the first symptoms of the 
 great Revolt were already appearing : with the new ideas 
 had come their nurse and foster-mother, the study of 
 the Greek language. A scholar was already looked upon 
 as a heretic — a favourer of the new learning as one who 
 favoured the new ideas. 
 
 As Dolet wrote, in Latin verse : " Should any dare 
 to profess a knowledge of Greek, that wretch will be 
 
CONVENT. 1 7 
 
 esteemed by the judgment of the people next to a 
 heretic, or even worse." 
 
 The battle of prejudice against learning, always, in 
 some form or other, going on in the world, was just 
 then raging with extraordinary violence. On the one 
 side stood the little band of Greek and Hebrew scholars; 
 on the other, the rest of mankind, represented and 
 headed by the Franciscan monks. Why, asked the grey 
 frocks, does a man wish to read the Scriptures in their 
 original tongue, except to find weapons with which to 
 attack the authority of the Church? Were there not 
 plenty of examples to prove the fact of such intention ? 
 Lefevre d'Etaples, for instance, who translated the Gospels 
 — most mischievously — into French ; Farel, his disciple ; 
 Gerald Eoussel, Briconnet, — all notorious favourers of 
 the new opinions ? Was there not Jean de Caturce of 
 Toulouse, whom they had got, very happily, burned'? 
 Were there not Dolet, Desperiers, Erasmus, Luther the 
 Antichrist, and even, though he professed orthodoxy so 
 loudly, the great French scholar, Bude himself? 
 
 For some unknown reason, then, Eabelais left Angers 
 and the riant country of Anjou and Touraine for the 
 barren heaths and marshy flats of La Vendee. It is 
 possible that he was induced to go there by his friend 
 Geoffroy d'Estissac, afterwards Bishop of Maillezais. In 
 the convent, there grew up in the mind of the young 
 monk a dangerous ambition. He, too, would make himself 
 one of those colossal scholars who, like Bude or Scaliger, 
 knew everything. He, too, would be an encyclopaedia 
 of learning. By him, as by these great repositories of 
 knowledge, nothing in the shape of literature or learn- 
 ing was to be neglected. They did not as yet under- 
 
 F.C. — VIII. B 
 
18 RABELAIS. 
 
 stand the art of special research ; they would know and 
 grasp all, just as Roger Bacon, Brunetto Latini, and Jean 
 de Meung, of the thirteenth century, knew all. Ency- 
 clopaedic pretension was a medieval absurdity ; and yet, 
 while it survived, during the next two centuries, it pro- 
 duced astonishing results. 
 
 Fortunately Rabelais had access to books — one does 
 not know how — and found one or two congenial brethren, 
 who joined in his studies, and encouraged him in the 
 ardour of learning. He read all that he could find to 
 read — Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, French of his own 
 times, French of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, 
 the Romance of the Rose, romances of chivalry, books of 
 medicine, botany, astronomy, mathematics — everything. 
 His principal friend and colleague in study was one Pierre 
 Amy, a brother monk. Two others, named Ardillon 
 and Finet, participated in their pursuits. Outside the 
 convent, and in the town, Rabelais had the good fortune 
 to become a friend of Andre Tiraqueau, lieutenant-general 
 in the bailiwick of Fontenay-le-Comte. Rabelais calls him 
 " the good, the learned, the wise, the humane, the gallant, 
 and the equitable Andr£ Tiraqueau." He was one of 
 the greatest lawyers of his time, and a most voluminous 
 writer. As he was also the father of a numerous family, 
 it was said that he presented the world with a book and 
 a child every year. It is not stated which was the more 
 useful gift. Bouchet, another writer on jurisprudence, 
 also took up his quarters at Fontenay in order to be 
 near his enemy and friend Tiraqueau, with whom he 
 kept up a continual controversy in Latin, de legibus con- 
 nubialibus. And, in the course of years, his friend Geof- 
 froy d'Estissac became Bishop of Maillezais ; and when 
 
MONASTERY LIFE. 19 
 
 he was not at Liguge, lived in his chateau of Erncnaud, 
 close to Fontenay-le-Comte. 
 
 About the convent life we know nothing, except that he 
 had these friends, that he studied, and that he proceeded 
 in regular course to priest's orders. The collectors of 
 idle stories who formerly wreaked their foolish will on 
 the life of Eabelais crowd these years with inexpressible 
 silliness. He was a mere purposeless buffoon, a " sayei 
 of good things," a player of idle practical jokes, this in- 
 defatigable and continual student. Doubtless Rabelais 
 was at all periods of his life a cheerful and even a mirth- 
 ful companion; outside the walls, with Tiraqueau and 
 Bouchet, he was able to lay aside his books, to forget the 
 chanting of masses, and to give full play over the wine 
 which he loved to the Tourangeau gaiety which was his 
 birthright. The unanimous voice of tradition, the gen- 
 eral love of his friends, the ready hospitality which he 
 ever received, the patronage and protection of men so 
 entirely different as the Cardinals of Guise, Chatillon, 
 and Du Bellay, Guillaume du Bellay, Andre Tiraqueau, 
 and Bishop Geoffroy d'Estissac, all confirm the tradition 
 that he was an excellent companion and talker, and no 
 doubt a bon vivant. His latest and best biographer, M. 
 Fleury, endeavours, by comparison with other humorists, 
 to prove that Eabelais was of grave character. But his 
 comparison does not hold. All the writers whom he 
 adduces — Lucian, Cervantes, Moliere, Beranger, Courier, 
 — were every one artists. Rabelais alone pays no atten- 
 tion to style. He writes as he must have talked ; the 
 laugh is in the page, as in his voice : what he gives the 
 world is not a laboured essay, but the free and spontane- 
 ous flow of his own ideas. That copious stream of illus- 
 
20 RABELAIS. 
 
 tration, anecdote, and quotation which runs throughout 
 1 Pantagruel ' came from a full mind, a ready tongue, and 
 a mirthful heart. I, for one, will not surrender the 
 mirthfulness of Rabelais. 
 
 As a first outcome of his labours, and on feeling his 
 own powers and acquirements, Eabelais aspired to be 
 considered a Fellow of that little college of scholars, the 
 members of which continually wrote to each other letters 
 of exhortation, of inquiry, and of friendship. Pierre Amy 
 was already a correspondent of the illustrious scholar 
 Bude, with whom Rabelais also endeavoured to enter into 
 communication. For some time his efforts were unsuc- 
 cessful. At length, however, he succeeded in getting a 
 letter in a mixture of Greek and Latin from the great 
 scholar. Rabelais had threatened, in jest, to bring an 
 action, pro dolo radio, against Amy, for pretending to an 
 amount of credit with Bude which he did not possess. 
 Bude replies to him in the same tone, pointing out that 
 his pleas will be void in law. Then he becomes serious, 
 and says, w You are astonished, like a young man who 
 doubts nothing, that I have made no answer to your ap- 
 peal, and you take fire, thinking yourself despised by me. 
 But should you not first have assured yourself that your 
 grievance was real 1 Should you not have learned that 
 illness or pressing business had prevented me 1 " 
 
 In fact, Bude was busy in 1520, when this letter was 
 written, in describing the Field of the Cloth of Gold. 
 After this, however, he always names Rabelais in his 
 tetters to Amy. " Salute Rabelais, your brother in 
 learning and religion, in my name." When the troubles 
 began with the ignorant friars, Bude" breaks out into 
 passionate indignation. " What news is this that has 
 
FREEDOM. 21 
 
 come to me? I learn that you and Rabelais, your 
 Pylades, in consequence of your zeal for the Greek 
 language, are vexed and annoyed in a thousand ways 
 by the brothers, sworn enemies of literature and elegance. 
 fatal madness ! We had already learned and witnessed 
 with our own eyes some proofs of their insensate fury ; 
 we knew that they had attacked ourselves, as the chief 
 of those who have been seized with the ardour of 
 Hellenism, and that they had sworn to annihilate the 
 cult of Greek letters restored some time since to the 
 eternal honour of our time." And to Rabelais he says, 
 " I received the news from one of the most enlightened 
 and human of your brethren, that they had restored you 
 your books, your only joy, which they had arbitrarily 
 confiscated, and that you had again received your liberty 
 and your former tranquillity." 
 
 Among the books thus seized and thus restored were 
 probably those for which the receipt still exists — for an 
 Aristotle, a Homer, a Cicero, and other works sold by 
 Henry Stephen to Pierre Amy in 1519. 
 
 There was, then, a persecution of some kind. By th€ 
 interference of powerful friends — no doubt, Tiraqueau 
 was one — the two students who had been imprisoned 
 and deprived of their books were released. It was in 
 1523. In 1524 Rabelais was out of the convent. 
 
 We may pass over all the stories which have been told 
 about his escape from the convent, and the tricks by 
 which he outraged his brother monks. These silly tales 
 are confuted, if by nothing else, by the fact that all this 
 time Rabelais, with limited access to books, was pain- 
 fully and laboriously acquiring knowledge. He was, 
 besides, a priest and a preacher. How could such a man 
 
22 RABELAIS. 
 
 be a mere monkey, rejoicing in monkey tricks? We 
 may, at the same time, consider the story that he was 
 put into an in pace cell — that is, immured for life on 
 bread and water — as unworthy of credit. What seems 
 perfectly simple and easy to believe is that, after Amy 
 and Rabelais got back their books and their compara- 
 tive freedom, a great disgust fell upon both. The abbey 
 and the monks; the constant tolling of the bell; the 
 wearisome recurrence of the services ; the stupid talk of 
 the brethren ; the dreadful monotony of the future ; the 
 absolute futility of the life ; the penances ; the punish- 
 ments for petty breaches of discipline, — all these things 
 became intolerable. They would bear them no longer. 
 One day, talking over their troubles, they opened a Virgil 
 at random, and fell upon the line — 
 
 " Heu ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum ! n 
 
 Of all the sortes Virgiliance which Eabelais has else- 
 where recorded, this was the most sensible and most to 
 the point. They took the friendly advice, and they ran 
 away. Nobody has ever inquired, so far as I know, 
 whither Amy ran, or what became of him. One hopes 
 he found a refuge somewhere, and a shelf on which to 
 place his Homer and his Aristotle. 
 
 Once outside the convent, Rabelais steps into the light 
 of day. Henceforth there is little further difficulty about 
 the details of his life. He was in 1524 in his forty-first 
 year. He had been under monastic discipline for about 
 thirty years. He knew next to nothing of the outer 
 world. Save for his schoolboy memories of La Baumette, 
 Angers, and Chinon, he had seen no other town than 
 Fontenay-le-Comte. All the experience which an ordi- 
 
EFFECT OF CONVENT. 23 
 
 nary man acquires before five-and-twenty he had yet to 
 learn. Meantime he could have for the moment but one 
 thought, to get rid of his grey frock and that cordelier's 
 rope with the three knots, and to escape from the Be Son- 
 nante, the Island of Bells. This he managed by the help 
 of his friend D'Estissac, who obtained permission for him 
 to pass into the Benedictine convent of Maillezais, — a 
 permission which Eabelais interpreted to mean, authority 
 to keep outside a Franciscan convent. But the rules, 
 the long years of discipline, the multiplication of ser- 
 vices, were like so many cruel fetters, the iron of which 
 entered into his very soul and made wounds which never 
 healed, so that for the rest of his life he was fain to cry out 
 continually against the hypocrisy, the unreality, the detest- 
 able stupidity of monkery. In VBe Sonnante, as we shall 
 presently see, there were nothing but cages full of birds — 
 monagaux, monk-birds — red, white, grey, black, or black 
 and white, which are perpetually singing. " Why," asks 
 Panurge, "do they sing?" Their guide, iEdituus, tells 
 how that they are made to sing by the bells hanging 
 over their cages. " Would you like me," he says, " to 
 make these monagaux, that you see there with hoods like 
 bags for filtering hypocras, sing like so many wild larks?" 
 Then he rang the bell six times only, and the monagaux 
 began to sing. " And if," says Panurge, " I ring this bell, 
 shall I in the same way make those birds with the red- 
 herring-coloured plumage sing 1 " " Just the same," said 
 iEdituus. Panurge rang, and immediately the birds ran 
 together and began to sing, but their voices were hoarse 
 and displeasing. 
 
 Now at length he was free. The ' damnable iteration 
 of the bells would call him no more from the quiet of his 
 
24 liABELAIS. 
 
 cell to the grunting of a wearisome and heartless service. 
 He could throw off his hood and look round him. 
 
 Consider, he had not yet lived at all. He had had no 
 3'outh ; the world was all fresh to him. Other men of 
 his age had lived, enjoyed, and were grown sated with 
 the pleasures of life ; this young fellow of forty was like 
 some girl emerging from her convent, as ignorant of men, 
 save for some chance echoes which might beat upon his 
 ear in his cell at far-off Fontenay, or some glimpses of 
 country life seen in the streets of the little town. Other 
 men of forty had tried, proved, and found their own 
 weakness and their strength. Rabelais was still untried. 
 He knew not as yet what his strength was. He was a 
 man of forty with the diffidence, the vague aspirations, 
 the credulity, the hope, and the confidence of twenty. 
 Outside a convent, he felt sure, all men must be good. 
 In other dress than grey frock and three-knotted ropes, 
 all hearts must be sound. 
 
 And here begins the happiest time in his life — the six 
 years of uninterrupted freedom, leisurely study, and 
 enjoyment; those years of which the too credulous De 
 Thou says — " Abandoning every serious pursuit, he gave 
 himself up entirely to a dissolute and self-indulgent life." 
 They were spent partly in the courtly and cultivated 
 residence of D'Estissac, at Liguge, near Poitiers. Bou- 
 chet, in a letter to Rabelais, speaks with pedantic en- 
 thusiasm of the spot where " the Naiads sport beside the 
 river in the green meadows, and beside them the wood 
 nymphs, the Dryads — and the mountain nymphs, the 
 Oreades." 
 
 Rabelais answers Bouchet in similar strain, saying that 
 he writes to him from his bed in his little room at Liguge 
 
FREEDOM. 25 
 
 It is impossible to say how long he stayed under the 
 roof of the good bishop. There was a great deal for this 
 emancipated schoolboy of forty to see and to do during 
 the next six years. He had to visit his old friends, the 
 Du Bellay brothers. It was very likely at this time that 
 he collected the materials for a history in Latin of the 
 1 Ruses de Guerre' of Guillaume du Bellay. He accepted, 
 according to tradition — but Rathery and Colletet are silent 
 on the subject — the little village living of Souday, near 
 Guillaume du Bellay's chateau of Langey, in Le Perche. 
 Probably here he made the acquaintance of Marot, and at 
 this time he qualified himself somehow for that intimate 
 knowledge of the universities of France, which he after- 
 wards showed in ( Pantagruel.' Marot's acquaintance was 
 formed before 1532, because a sonnet is addressed to 
 Rabelais in a volume of verses published by Marot in 
 that year. Now, between 1527 and 1532, Marot was 
 either in Paris, or with the Queen of Navarre in the 
 Duchy of Berry, or at his native place of Cahors-en- 
 Quercy. Where did Rabelais meet him 1 It must have 
 been either at Bourges or in Paris itself, and there seems 
 nothing unreasonable in the supposition that Rabelais 
 was hearing lectures or profiting by the libraries of the 
 University of Bourges and of Paris. The sonnet is in 
 Marot's happiest style, imitated from Martial, and breath- 
 ing that easy epicureanism which, with a hatred of clerical 
 bigotry, was all that the two had in common. 
 
 u Could we, my friend, dispose our clays at will, 
 And catch the present moment and its sport , 
 Could we live, as we ought, in freedom still, 
 No palace would we haunt, attend no court, 
 
26 RABELAIS. 
 
 Would bid farewell to mansions, nobles, suits, 
 With all their splendour and their blazoned arms, 
 
 And find in cloistered shade the world's best fruits, 
 In books and learned talk the world's best charms. 
 
 Love should be there, with ladies fair and sweet, 
 
 And full content, to bless our fond retreat." 
 
 These six years, about which some writers on Rabelais 
 find so much difficulty, seem to me, therefore, very com- 
 pletely filled up. His studies during this time appear to 
 have been chiefly in the direction of botany and medicine. 
 In 1530, being then in the forty-seventh year of his age, 
 but only the sixth of his freedom, the ex-Cordelier 
 resolved on entering into a new profession. He, who 
 was already a scholar acknowledged among the scholars 
 of his own country, would also be a physician. The 
 registers of Montpellier for that century can still be con- 
 sulted to show that "Franciscus Rabelsesus, Diocesis 
 Turonensis, solvit die 17 Septembris 1530, unum 
 aureum." After this follows the usual student's decla- 
 ration of obedience, signed by himself. There is no 
 mention made of priests' orders, or of his Benedictine 
 obligations. 
 
 At forty-seven, juvenis inter juvenes, he proposed to 
 begin, not a new study, but the systematic course of a 
 professional student. How many are there among us 
 who feel sufficient elasticity even at thirty to enter upon 
 a new study 1 
 
 The prescribed course on which Rabelais thus entered 
 consisted, for ordinary students, after a preliminary ex- 
 amination to show knowledge of logic and of philosophy, 
 of three years' attendance at lectures. This was followed 
 by the Bachelor's degree granted after examination. Three 
 
MONTPELLIER. 27 
 
 months after the Bachelor's degree, application conld be 
 made for a licence to practise. Before this was conferred, 
 four theses had to be held, two on each of two consecu- 
 tive days, and, eight days afterwards, two more theses. 
 The licence was then solemnly conferred by the Bishop 
 or Vicar-General, the candidate being accompanied by 
 two professors. The Doctor's degree, called "1'acte de 
 triomphe," could only be obtained by passing another 
 and much more difficult examination, called the "Tri- 
 duanes," which consisted of examinations in six subjects, 
 and lasted for three days. If the candidate satisfied 
 two -thirds of the professors, he was admitted to the 
 Doctor's degree. The conferring of this degree was con- 
 ducted with much state and ceremony. The recipient, 
 accompanied by his sponsor (an officer corresponding to 
 the " Father of the College " at Cambridge), and followed 
 by the whole body of the university, marched in proces- 
 sion with bands of music to the church of St Firmin, 
 the bells of which were set ringing. Here, after compli- 
 mentary harangues in Latin, the new doctor received his 
 red robe, his bonnet of black cloth covered with a fwuppe. 
 of crimson silk, a gold ring, and a gilt belt. He was 
 also presented with a copy of the works of Hippocrates. 
 The ceremony concluded by the new doctor distributing 
 sweetmeats, gloves, and preserved fruits. 
 
 In the case of Rabelais a remarkable exception was 
 made : he was allowed to dispense with the whole under- 
 graduate course, and received his Bachelor's degree two 
 months after entering. Immediately afterwards he be- 
 gan to lecture on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates and on 
 Galen. This fact, which is recorded in the registers 
 of the university, proves not only knowledge but reputa- 
 
28 RABELAIS. 
 
 tion. Other memorials of Rabelais in the Montpelliei 
 registers show us that he left the place in 1532 and 
 came back in 1537 to get his Doctor's degree, and that 
 he lectured in the same year on the Prognostics of Hip- 
 pocrates from the Greek, not the Latin version. His 
 name appears as having been present at certain feasts, 
 at dissections, and at university Functions. It is found 
 for the last time in the beginning of the year 1538. 
 The university possesses in its library one book which 
 belonged to him, and has his autograph. The robe 
 which is shown as that of Rabelais has been, unfor- 
 tunately, renewed twice at least, in 1612 and 1720, and 
 probably very much oftener. Before the former date, 
 every student used to cut off a piece as a memorial of 
 Rabelais, so that, although each of those memorials was 
 small, the whole gown, in the natural course of things, 
 gradually disappeared. 
 
 It is certain that this student, who graduated in two 
 months, entered with spirit and enjoyment into the life 
 of the place. He recurs to it in after-years, laughing 
 over a farce of which we may very well suppose him to 
 have been the author : at all events he was one of the 
 actors. Those who object to a man of fifty playing low 
 comedy on a stage, might with equal justice object to 
 a man of forty, one of the teachers of the university, 
 doing the same thing. But Rabelais had not the modern 
 ideas of personal dignity. To laugh and to make laugh 
 in due season was his delight. Personal dignity in 
 the sixteenth century was principally a matter of birth 
 and rank. No one, for instance, would have expected 
 Coligny or Guillaume du Bellay to act in a farce. 
 
 A curious parallel to this degree of Bachelor in Medi 
 
PORTRAIT. 29 
 
 cine taken by a priest of the age of fifty may be found in 
 the roll of our own Royal College of Physicians. It ap- 
 pears that the physician first named in the letters patent 
 constituting the College, John Chambre, was a priest 
 before he graduated in physic at Padua : that Linacre, 
 on the other hand, was a physician before he was a 
 priest, and that he was ordained at fifty. No one, on 
 that account, has tried to make him ten years younger. 
 One is not prepared to assert that the same association of 
 the two faculties of medicine and divinity was as com- 
 mon in France as in England and Italy, but it is clear 
 that the practice of ordaining a physician or granting a 
 medical licence to a priest was not unknown in France. 
 Certain restrictions were imposed on tonsured physicians : 
 they were not to apply fire or to let blood. 
 
 There are several portraits of Rabelais, all belonging to 
 this, the middle period of life, and yet, in a sense, his 
 youth. One naturally mistrusts them all. Yet there 
 is one effigies which seems probable, figured in Gordon's 
 collection of all that remains concerning Rabelais at 
 Montpellier. He gives two. The one I mean represents 
 an oval face, with square-cut beard, belonging to a man 
 of fifty or so. The eyes are set wide apart, the nose is 
 broad, the lips are full, the forehead is square — the ge- 
 ometrical, not the analytical forehead, which, as mathe- 
 maticians know, is high and narrow. The shoulders, 
 which seem out of keeping with the head, are narrow 
 and sloping — one suspects they were carelessly drawn — 
 but the face is such, one feels certain, as Rabelais might, 
 must have had. The eyes twinkle with humour, the 
 nostrils are sensitive, the lips are mobile ; the features 
 belong to a man of full and strong nature : it is not the 
 
30 RABELAIS. 
 
 face of an ascetic or a dreamer ; it belongs to a man who 
 could never feel any sympathy with theological specula- 
 tion, with religious mysticism, or with unpractical philos- 
 ophy. There is another so-called portrait in the Chateau 
 de Chenonceaux, honourably hung between the heads of 
 Francis I. and Charles VIII. It is also an oval face, 
 with a very thin beard growing like a fringe at the back 
 of the chin. If it is, which I am loath to believe, the 
 face of Eabelais, the likeness must have been snatched 
 in an ignoble moment while the man was laughing at 
 some unsavoury joke. Well, there are things in his 
 book which cannot be denied. It may be a portrait of 
 Rabelais, though one prefers to think it a study of a 
 clown laughing, labelled, by a painter who could only 
 understand the animal nature which Rabelais displays 
 so freely, with the name of the Master. 
 
 It was during his residence at Montpellier that Rabe- 
 lais, no doubt for botanical and medicinal reasons, paid 
 those visits to the lies d'Hyeres, in virtue of which he 
 assumed the title of " Caloier des lies d'Hyeres," a title 
 which he takes at the head of his "Gargantua." He 
 speaks of these islets with a sort of affection — " my islands, 
 the Hyeres, my Stcechades." It was also during this resi- 
 dence at Montpellier that Rabelais made a grand discov- 
 ery — one which rejoiced his heart as a Frenchman, a bon 
 vivanty and a scholar. He found, or thought he found, 
 in a small fish of the anchovy kind, caught off the south 
 shores of France, the garus, of which the celebrated 
 fish -sauce, the garum, was anciently made. He even 
 reconstructed this sauce for himself — one suspects it 
 must have been extremely nasty — and sent a bottle to 
 his friend I)olet, with a Latin epigram. Dolet answered 
 
HIS SAUCE. 31 
 
 •with other Latin verses, in which he promises that Marot 
 shall be celebrated for this ancient discovery : — 
 
 " Now from our heart 
 Let Marot's name resound in grateful verse, 
 When this new flavour, delicate and spiced, 
 The palate pleases and the stomach soothes." 
 
 It is impossible to pass over the Montpellier period 
 without reference to the tradition, which seems to date 
 from the very age of Rabelais, of his visit to the Chan- 
 cellor Duprat. We shall see presently how Panurge 
 presents himself to Pantagruel speaking thirteen differ- 
 ent languages. Mutato nomine, the same story is told 
 of Rabelais : — 
 
 " Being at Paris," says the author of * Particularitez de la 
 Vie de Rabelais,' " and desiring to see the Chancellor, and 
 not being able to obtain an interview, Rabelais put on a 
 green robe and grey beard, and set himself to walk up and 
 down before the Chancellor's door, which was on the Quai 
 ties Augustins, so that numbers of people, including the 
 servants of the Chancellor, asked him who he was and what 
 was his business. To all inquiries he replied that he was a 
 calf-skinner, and that those who wished to be skinned had 
 better make haste and present themselves. 
 
 " The Chancellor, hearing of this foolery, ordered his 
 people to bring the madman to him at the dinner- hour. 
 The fool being introduced, spoke so learnedly on the privi- 
 leges and liberties of the University of Montpellier that the 
 Chancellor placed him at his table, made him take dinner 
 with himself and agreed to respect the ancient privileges." 
 
 This original version of the story, which may be true, 
 but which is most probably spurious, has been amplified 
 by later writers. We are told by them that Rabelais, on 
 being invited by the pages to see the Chancellor, replied, 
 
32 RABELAIS. 
 
 first in Latin, then in Greek, Spanish, Italian, German, 
 English, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean, Basque, and so on, 
 running through the whole known list of Babel until ho 
 came to French itself ; after which, the Chancellor, re- 
 cognising the genius of the stranger, accorded to him all 
 the liberties and privileges of Montpellier. Unfortu 
 nately for the story, there is nothing extant to prove that 
 these liberties were ever menaced. 
 
 In 1532 Rabelais went to Lyons to publish his first 
 work, ' Hippocratis et Galeni libri aliquot ' — a book for 
 the use of medical students, dedicated to his protector 
 and patron, Geoffroy d'Estissac. It was at Lyons that 
 the real work of his life began. From ^November 1532 
 to February 1534 he was physician at the Hospital of 
 Lyons. But in that age of encyclopaedic scholarship a 
 man could not confine himself to one science only, and 
 Rabelais speedily found himself distracted between medi- 
 cine and scholarship. 
 
 The ancient city of Lyons was in the first half of the 
 sixteenth century something like what Bordeaux had 
 been in the fourth and Edinburgh was in the eighteenth. 
 It was a provincial centre of intellectual life which 
 rivalled, and in some degree outshone, the capital. At 
 Lyons the great printer, Gryphe, set up his workshop. It 
 was Gryphe who, in 1550, published the Latin Bible, 
 — an edition remarkable, even in an age when printers' 
 readers were scholars, for the fewness of the errors, as 
 well as for the magnificence of the type. From this 
 press, too, issued the great ' Commentaria Linguae La- 
 tinse ' of Dolet, a two- volume folio of 1800 columns each, 
 with but eight errata for the whole work. Three hun- 
 dred works, more than enough to make a goodly list of a 
 
SOCIETB ANGELIQUE. 33 
 
 great English publishing firm in the days when thousands 
 of books are published every year, made up the works 
 bearing the name of Gryphe. Kound this great printer 
 was gathered a society — the Societe Angelique — of 
 scholars and poets, which offered the noblest welcome 
 and the largest liberality to a man of scholarship and of 
 advanced opinions. That is to say, for a few years only 
 the advanced opinions were accepted; for there very 
 speedily came a time when those who dared to cherish 
 ideas or hopes outside the lines of a stupid orthodoxy 
 had to keep them unspoken and unwritten. It was 
 during the very heyday of the Societe Angelique of 
 Lyons that Eabelais found himself in that city, and be- 
 came one of the Club — almost the earliest literary asso- 
 ciation in France. It was among these men that he 
 found and adopted the opinions which guided and ruled 
 his after-life. What these were, we may gather from 
 the opinions of the two most prominent, Dolet and 
 Desperiers. 
 
 The former, Etienne Dolet, was an unfortunate scholar 
 who ruined his whole career at the early age of twenty by 
 attacking the ecclesiastics of Toulouse for the burning 
 of Caturce. He had better have cut off his right baud. 
 For the Church waited and watched for the opportunity, 
 which came at last, when he could be handed over tc 
 the mercies of the secular arm. For seventeen years they 
 watched for their chance, and, when it came, pounced 
 upon their quarry and imprisoned him, tortured him 
 with rack, dungeon, and suspense, and finally burned 
 him. The one grace allowed was, that he should be 
 strangled before burning, provided he would first say a 
 prayer to the Virgin, which the poor man naturally con- 
 
 F.C. — VIIL C 
 
34 RABELAIS. 
 
 sented to do. That was not, however, until much later. 
 In 1532 Dolet was working at his great book, and read- 
 ing for Gryphe, being then only about twenty-three years 
 of age, and twenty-seven years younger than Rabelais. 
 It is presumed that his religious opinions were already 
 fixed. They were those of the scholars. It cannot be 
 too strongly insisted upon that the scholars of France at 
 this time, like those of Italy two generations before, and 
 most of their Italian contemporaries, entertained a sub- 
 lime contempt, until they found themselves at the point 
 of death, for Christianity. The Christian religion, to 
 them, meant nothing more than the Roman ritual and 
 the Roman discipline. When they speak of the immor- 
 tality of the soul, they do not mean the immortality in 
 which the Christian trusts ; when they speak, as they 
 often do, 1 of the senseless rest of death, they need not 
 necessarily be assumed to be atheists. As a matter of 
 fact, they were not atheists at all. They were haunted 
 and possessed by the vague religious belief which is 
 expounded in the first book of the ' Tusculan Disputa- 
 tions.' The teaching of Cicero filled them with a con- 
 solation, a hope, and a distinction. They, the scholars, 
 would not be confounded with the vulgar herd ; they 
 would mount upwards, and from some serene height 
 shun the turmoil of the world. They would watch the 
 progress of things, and be for ever occupied in learning 
 more and more of the divine order. The scientific men, 
 among whom was Rabelais, looked upon Nature, and 
 
 1 Thus Dolet writes :— 
 
 " Vivens vidensque gloria mea frui 
 Volo: nihil juvat mortuum 
 Quod vel diserte scripserit vel focerty 
 Ap ; moae." 
 
DESPERIERS. 35 
 
 worshipped Him who created this vast and wonderful 
 cosmos. The scholars, among whom was Dolet, took 
 greater pleasure in the thought that they might for ever 
 float invisible in the pure regions of the upper airs, 
 superintend and study the ways of men, and mark the 
 slow progress towards the Highest Culture. 
 
 Dolet is the representative man of the Societe AngS- 
 lique. He was its greatest scholar, the bravest of its 
 speakers, and the most unfortunate, unless we may ex- 
 cept his friend, Bonaventure Desperiers. 
 
 Desperiers, one of the secretaries of [Margaret, the sis- 
 ter of Francis I., was a scholar of a lower order, no 
 mean poet, but a raconteur of the very first rank. His 
 stories, written for the amusement of the little Bearnese 
 Court, are told with extraordinary verve and dexterity. 
 Unfortunately he carried the Protestant tendencies of 
 his mistress far beyond the limits assigned by her piety 
 and good sense. The soft and limpid atmosphere of 
 pure thought, the rapt mysticism, in which his gentle 
 patron sat, became insufferable to him, and he quitted her 
 service, or was made to leave it, while he had not yet 
 committed himself to the opiuions which, no doubt, were 
 already lying in his heart. But when he published his 
 1 Cymbalum Mundi ' — a book which scoffs openly at Pro- 
 testant and Roman alike, which derides those who pray 
 or look for any answer to then prayers, which under the 
 thinnest veil laughs at faith, hope, creed, and dogma — he 
 cut off from himself every friend, every avenue of refuge. 
 There came a moment when he realised that there was 
 left to him no protector, no asylum, no means of living, 
 no mode of escape from his enemies ; there were thou- 
 sands who longed to burn him; the last meal which 
 
36 RABELAIS. 
 
 could be paid for was eaten ; the last appeal for help had 
 been rejected ; and poor Desperiers, despairing, fell upon 
 his sword, and so died. 
 
 Rabelais divided his time between his hospital work 
 and this circle of scholars and poets. He acted as reader 
 to many of the publications of Gryphe, and he edited 
 two works, the Latin letters of Mainardi, and a couple 
 of Latin forgeries, which he proudly called " ex reliquiis 
 veneranda? antiquitatis," consisting of a pretended will 
 and a contract. It was, some suppose, in consequence of 
 his inability to detect this forgery that Eabelais resolved 
 to publish no more serious works. No doubt he must 
 have been mortified at a failure which reflected on his 
 learning. But as he did subsequently publish learned 
 and serious works, the theory is untenable. We must seek 
 elsewhere for the cause of ' Gargantua and Pantagruel.' 
 
 The popular literature of the day dealt largely in 
 knights, deeds of prowess, giants, and wonders. The 
 1 Histoire des Quatre Fils Aynion,' ' Valentine and Orson,' 
 the exploits of Fierabras, the tale of Melusine, the story 
 of Merlin and of Huon de Bourdeaux, were among the 
 more popular of the cheap books issued to meet the vul- 
 gar taste. Rabelais, probably with no view of making a 
 reputation for himself, but in simple gaiety and careless- 
 ness, set himself to burlesquing the chivalrous romances. 
 He would have a hero who should be as valiant as Fiera- 
 bras, as invincible as Huon, as adventurous as the Four 
 Sons. "We may be very certain that with his common- 
 sense he had already perfectly ascertained his own posi- 
 tion as a scholar. This was respectable. He did not 
 stand in the first front with Scaliger, but he had some 
 reputation. On the other hand, as a botanist, a physi- 
 
LITERARY WORK. 37 
 
 cian, an anatomist, and a lecturer, his name was great, 
 and was growing; greater. He had no reason to be dis- 
 appointed. He had not failed. It was therefore, I be- 
 lieve, in pure fun and light-heartedness that he began 
 the famous series, on the strength of which he lives to 
 after-ages. 
 
 It would lead us too far to examine into the argument 3 
 and contradictors statements out of which the conclusion 
 seems clear that the first publication in the style of rSeii 
 houifon bv Rabelais was "'The great and inestimable Chro- 
 nicies of the g?and and enormous Giant Gargantua.' This 
 simple piece of absurdity, hastily written, but enormously 
 popular, prepared the way for the ''Pantagruel,' now the 
 second book of the whole. The ' Chronicles ' mav be 
 read in the edition published by Paul Lacroix. Their 
 success induced the anonymous author to publish a 
 sequel ; but here he changed his plan. He was no longer 
 writing mere burlesque : serious ideas are set forth side 
 by side with overwhelming nonsense, and the reader steps 
 from the realms of unbridled fancy to grave and wise 
 criticism of things and men. Then, in order to make 
 Gargantua worthy of Pantagruel, the father of the son, 
 Rabelais rewrote his Chronicles altogether, and made a 
 new First Book, which is wiser, more carefully written, 
 more full of wisdom, than the second. Both were pub- 
 lished under the anagram of Alcofribas Xasier. 
 
 In the same year, 1532, Rabelais produced his ' Pan- 
 tagTueline Prognostication,' and an almanac for 1533. 
 He kept up the almanac for every year until 1550, but- 
 they are now all lost with, the exception of a few frag- 
 ments. In one of them he dissuades his readers from 
 believing in prognostics. " If good time comes, it will 
 
38 KABELAIS. 
 
 not be by promise of the stars ; if peace, it will not be 
 for want of inclination among princes to make war, but 
 for want of occasion. I say, for my own part, that if 
 kings, princes, and Christian republics observe the Word 
 of God, and govern themselves and their subjects by this 
 Word, we shall never have seen a year more salubrious for 
 the body, more peaceful for the soul, more fertile in good 
 than that which is about to commence, and we shall see 
 the face of heaven, the virtue of the earth, the bearing 
 of the people joyous, gay, pleasant, and benign, beyond 
 what we have seen for fifty years." 
 
 As for the ' Prognostication,' it is full of mirth, wis- 
 dom, and predictions which are either safe, such as that 
 there will be a harvest in autumn, and so forth, or else 
 mad with pure merriment and gaiety, as when he pro- 
 phesies a happy year for France. 
 
 " The noble realm of France shall prosper and triumph 
 this year in all manner of pleasures and delights, so that 
 foreign nations will willingly repair hither. Little banquets, 
 little merry-makings, and a thousand joyous things, will take 
 place, in which every one will find pleasure. Never did you 
 see so much wine, nor more dainty. Plenty of radishes in 
 Limousin, plenty of chestnuts in Perigord and Dauphine, 
 plenty of olives in Languedoc, plenty of sand at Olonne, 
 plenty of fish in the sea, plenty of stars in the sky, plenty of 
 salt at Brouage, abundance of grain, vegetables, fruits, garden 
 produce, butter, and milk. Nowhere any pestilence, any 
 war, any grief, any poverty, any care, any melancholy. And 
 those old double ducats, rose-nobles, angels, and royals, 
 shall come back unto me with plenty of sequins and golden 
 crowns." 
 
 It was not, as it turned out, a particularly happy year, 
 especially for those who were burned for heresy. 
 
MISSION TO ROME. 39 
 
 In 1533 Rabelais accompanied his patron and old 
 friend, Cardinal du Bellay, proceeding on a special mis- 
 sion to Eome with the desire of obtaining for Henry VIII., 
 whose cause was taken up by Francis I., his divorce from 
 Catharine of Aragon. Rabelais promised himself great 
 things during this expedition. He would visit all the 
 scholars in whatever Italian towns they passed through ; 
 he would search for plants not known in France; he 
 would make archaeological discoveries ; and he would 
 make a map with plans and drawings to illustrate the 
 topography of Rome. What he did amounted to very 
 little. They passed too rapidly through the towns ; he 
 discovered no new plants ; he dug in a vineyard which 
 his patron bought for him and found nothing ; and he 
 learned that what he proposed to do for the topography 
 of Rome had already been done by an Italian, Marliani. 
 In 1534, after the failure of Du Bellay 's mission, he 
 came back to Lyons with Marliani's book in his hand, 
 and nothing more to show for his journey. This, how- 
 ever, he published with notes of his own, dedicated to 
 Du Bellay. 
 
 There was probably a special reason why he wished to 
 return to Lyons in 1534. This has been discovered in a 
 book of manuscript verse found in the library of Tou- 
 louse. Among them are two Latin poems on the death 
 of Theodule, infant son of Francois Rabelais. 
 
 " Lugdunum patria et pater est Rabelaesus : utrumque 
 Qui nescit, nescit maxima in orbe duo." 
 
 Little Theodule, about whose existence — certainly well 
 known to the intimate friends of Rabelais — nothing was 
 openly said, thus makes his brief appearance in the 
 
40 RABELAIS. 
 
 world, immortalised by a set of verses in manuscript 
 upon a little illegitimate infant, whose existence would 
 never have been known but for the reputation of his 
 father. Who was the mother of the child? Unless 
 some other friend has celebrated the mistress of Rabelais 
 as his child has been celebrated, in Latin verses still 
 lying in some old manuscript volumes waiting to be 
 read, we shall never know. Eabelais himself preserves 
 absolute silence about mistress and son. On all other 
 personal matters he is loquacious : on this he is silent. 
 There are no women in his romance save poor Badebec, 
 Queen Entelecheia, and a hag or two. Why did he 
 make no sign of what may have been the one tender 
 chapter in his life 1 He writes as if the natural tender- 
 ness of man for woman — the sacred respect of one sex 
 for the other — had been crushed in him by long years of 
 monastic discipline. And yet the child ! Is it senti- 
 mental to think that a man so full of noble thoughts, so 
 intensely human in all other respects, was not lacking on 
 this side as well, and that his silence with regard to his 
 mistress was due to the reticence of a heart which had 
 known love, and could not speak of this passage of his 
 life in pages half burlesque 1 
 
 Or, which is more likely, — because this sentimental 
 theory smacks of the nineteenth century, — did Eabelais 
 keep silence about this thing because the matter would 
 have given an additional handle to his enemies 1 
 
 New editions of the ' Gargantua ' and * Pantagruel ' 
 appeared in 1535. In the following year Eabelais agaiu 
 went to Eome, on the invitation of Cardinal du Bellay 
 A series of letters written by him to his old friend the 
 Bishop of Maillezais have fortunately been preserved. 
 
ABSOLUTION. 41 
 
 By the help of these we can understand pretty clearly 
 the kind of life he led there. 
 
 In the first place, it was necessary to set himself right 
 with the Church, whose rules he had been violating for 
 some twelve years unheeded. He therefore addressed to 
 Pope Paul III. a petition, in which he confessed, with 
 official penitence, how, having obtained permission to 
 pass from the Franciscan to the Benedictine order, he 
 had only left the former, and had been wandering about 
 the world thinking of nothing so little as a return to the 
 dulness of a monastery ; how, as regards his pursuits, he 
 had studied medicine, and had become singularly irreg- 
 ular in his canonical hours. He therefore prayed for 
 absolution, for permission to go into any Benedictine 
 convent which would receive him, to hold ecclesiastical 
 offices, and to practise medicine without fees, without 
 the use of the knife, and without fire. The absolution 
 and the permission were granted. Rabelais therefore 
 had nothing to fear from the Church. But he did not 
 look about for a Benedictine convent which would be 
 willing to receive him ; and he seems to have thought it 
 unnecessary to mention that he was the author of those 
 very popular works, 'Gargantua' and ' Pantagruel.' In 
 the letter to Geoffroy d'Estissac, we learn, besides the 
 happy termination of this important business, all the 
 news of Borne. Babelais collects the epigrams of 
 Pasquin and Marforio for his friend ; he tells him how 
 the Turk has fought the Persian ; how the Cardinal, his 
 patron, has interviews with great men ; how he is look- 
 ing about for curious flowers, plants, and vegetables. 
 It is to Rabelais that France owes the melon, the arti- 
 choke, and the carnation ; he sends seeds for the Bishop's 
 
42 RABELAIS. 
 
 mother, with instructions how to use them ; he buys 
 curiosities for him, and so on. It is to be remarked 
 that, outside the leaves of his romance, there is nothing 
 whatever in Rabelais but what is grave and earnest. 
 
 In 1537 he is found in Paris assisting at a dinner, 
 which is certainly one of the earliest of literary banquets. 
 This historic feast — far more interesting than that classic 
 repast offered a few years later to Jodelle, after the per- 
 formance of the first classic drama, written in French — 
 was held in honour of the escape of Dolet from a charge 
 of murder grown out of a homicide. The list of the guests 
 shows pretty well the character of their opinions. Among 
 them were Bud£, the great scholar, who saved his skin 
 from the stake by never-ceasing professions of orthodoxy, 
 just as a free-thinking clergyman might be perpetually 
 signing the Thirty-nine Articles; Berauld, the grave, 
 pious, and Protestant tutor of the three great Chatillon 
 brothers, Odet, Gaspard de Coligny, and Francois d'An- 
 delot ; Danes, the great Hellenist ; Toussain, also a Hel- 
 lenist, called the Living Library ; Salmon, called Macri- 
 nus (the lean), who wrote quantities of Latin verses, and 
 fondly thought his reputation would be greater than that 
 of Horace ; Nicolas Bourbon, tutor of that incomparable 
 lady, Jeanne d'Albret; Voulte; Marot; and Rabelais 
 himself. Why did no one preserve a record of what 
 they said at this banquet, and so make it immortal 1 
 
 From Paris Rabelais repaired to Montpellier, where, 
 on May 2 2d of the same year, he received his doctor's 
 degree, and resumed his lectures. Dolet, Macrin, and 
 Sussanneau, himself a physician and writer on medical 
 subjects, wrote Latin verses, in which the skill and 
 learning of Rabelais are lauded in the highest terms. 
 
THE THIRD BOOK. 43 
 
 We may remark that not one of these writers makes 
 the slightest allusion to ' Pantagruel.' Is it possible 
 that his friends were ignorant of the identity of Al- 
 cofribas JNasier with their learned doctor? 
 
 After two years at Montpellier, Rabelais went back 
 first to Lyons, and then to Paris, where, in 1540, he 
 entered the Collegiate Chapter of St Manr des Fosses, 
 obtaining another permission from the Pope, with abso- 
 lution up to date, to enter this chapter instead of a 
 convent, to recognise the degree of Montpellier, to exer 
 cise everywhere the practice of medicine, and to hold 
 any benefices which might be conferred upon him. But 
 although he calls the abbey a " paradise of salubrity, 
 amenity, serenity, conversation, delights of all honourable 
 kinds, agriculture and the country life," he does not 
 appear to have been able to rest in it long, for we find 
 him in 1543 at St Symphorien, near Lyons (where he 
 witnessed the death of Guillaume du Bellay), at Chinon, 
 Liguge, Angers, and perhaps in Normandy. 
 
 During this period Eabelais was busy with his Third 
 Book. It was necessary to obtain the royal sanction for 
 its publication. And here he had to risk offending the 
 prejudices of the king, whose moods as regards heresy 
 were capricious. Three at least of the social circle of 
 Lyons were dead — Dolet, strangled and burned; Des- 
 periers, a suicide ; Marot, a half - starved wanderer in 
 Piedmont. Great caution was necessary. Eabelais was 
 fortunate in pleasing the king, who, before granting 
 permission, caused the work to be read to him. The 
 first two books pleased him so greatly that he gave 
 permission for a new edition of them, and for the publi- 
 cation of the third. As regards the issue of a new 
 
44 RABELAIS. 
 
 edition, that was by no means advisable. Rabelais found 
 his safety in declaring that the impieties which his ene- 
 mies saw in the earlier editions were due to the ignorance 
 or malignity of printers. Much safer to let this general 
 defence stand without spoiling it by a corrected edition. 
 The permission was signed in September 1545. The 
 Third Book appeared in 1546. 
 
 The favour of the king, of Margaret, of the Guises, 
 the Chatillons, the Du Bellays, seemed to promise firm 
 and steady support for the future. But in 1547 the 
 king died, and a reaction against liberty of thought 
 began immediately. A violent attack was made on 
 Rabelais. They even printed what they called a speci- 
 men of the unpublished Fourth Book, which perhaps 
 they had stolen, or perhaps invented. Rabelais, by no 
 means inclined to martyrdom, hastened to find safety in 
 flight. He got to Metz, where, in comparative freedom 
 from anxiety, he practised medicine and waited. But 
 meantime he found himself in grievous want, and 
 wrote to the Cardinal du Bellay for assistance. The 
 Cardinal had his own affairs to think of; he had lost 
 Court favour ; like his brother Cardinal, Odet de 
 Chatillon, he was suspected of liberal tendencies ; and, 
 not feeling safe in such a conflagration of fanaticism, 
 he withdrew to Rome, whither, in 1548, he called his 
 old friend. Presently there occurred the birth of Henry 
 the Second's eldest son. Great rejoicings were held in 
 Rome by the Cardinal du Bellay. Rabelais wrote an 
 account of the festivities to the Cardinal de Lorraine, 
 which is preserved under the title of ' Sciomachie.' 
 It was a stroke of policy instigated by Du Bellay, who 
 next year returned to Paris with him. The Cardinal 
 
RESIGNS HIS LIVINGS. 45 
 
 de Lorraine received the author of the description of 
 the fete favourably, and presented him with the living 
 of Meudon. 
 
 But the attacks of his enemies did not cease with the 
 restoration to safety. From both sides, Catholic and 
 Protestant, cries came that the book ought to be sup- 
 pressed, and its author burned. Calvin was as hostile 
 as the Sorbonne. Eabelais in vain dedicated the Fourth 
 Book to Odet de Chatillon. In spite of the royal per- 
 mission, he did not dare to proceed beyond the eleventh 
 chapter. There the Book broke short off. This was 
 in 1549. Between two and three years passed, Eabe- 
 lais during this time living quietly at Meudon, where, 
 according to the traditions collected on the spot by 
 Antoine Leroy, only one generation after, he preached, 
 catechised the children, welcomed his friends, and led an 
 exemplary life. 
 
 Then a very singular thing happened. On February 
 the 19th, 1552, a fortnight before the Parliament al- 
 lowed the sale of the book, Eabelais resigned not only 
 the living of Meudon, where he resided, but also that of 
 Jambet, in the diocese of Le Mans, where the duties 
 had been discharged by a vicaire. Why did he resign ? 
 We know nothing, and are therefore perfectly free to 
 conjecture the reasons of his resignation. Perhaps it 
 was not altogether a voluntary act. Perhaps he felt that 
 he was growing old : yet there is no hint or tradition of 
 failing health, and he was not yet more than seventy. 
 Perhaps he was touched with a sense of the incongru- 
 ity of his position in the Church when considered with 
 certain chapters in the new book. Perhaps he was ob- 
 liged to give up the benefices before the Parliament 
 
46 RABELAIS. 
 
 would let the work be sold. Perhaps he took a pension 
 from each on retiring. 
 
 Now, most certainly, no Parliament at that tim»" 
 would have authorised the sale of any heretical book ai 
 all ; if it licensed the Fourth Book, it must have been as 
 a harmless work. We might just as well expect Convo- 
 cation to say to Bishop Colenso, " Give up your mitre, 
 and then we will encourage the sale of your book." 
 
 It is best to believe that the old man, now that life 
 was drawing to its close, now that his friends were dead, 
 dispersed, and in exile, discerned at last the wickedness 
 of continuing to say masses, which were to him empty 
 forms, in the cause of a Church which was full of 
 absurdities and corruptions. This seems borne out by 
 the spirit of the last Book, which was written, I believe, 
 in the short interval of a year — all that was left him for 
 work after his resignation. The Fifth and last Book was 
 found in manuscript, but wanting the author's correc- 
 tions. It is not certain who was the editor, and here we 
 need not inquire. It first appeared in 1562, and as we 
 now have it, in 1564. 
 
 His Fourth Book out, his Fifth Book finished, though 
 not yet corrected — the possessor of a name which made 
 priests and monks writhe, and all other men applaud ; a 
 great physician, a great botanist, a great anatomist, and 
 a great linguist, — Eabelais waited for the end. He might 
 reasonably hope now to die in his bed. In fact, amid 
 the stories that are told of his last words, the one thing 
 certain is that he died in his bed from natural causes, 
 not by the efforts of the monks. As for these stories — 
 how he died making an irreverent pun, how he said he 
 was going to seek a grand peut-etre, and so on — we may 
 
HIS DEATH. 47 
 
 dismiss them. I should have been inclined to believe 
 that Rabelais, like all Frenchmen, made an edifying end, 
 fortified by the rites of the Church, but for a verse of 
 , Tahureau, who died only two years after Rabelais, and 
 ought to have known the facts of his death. The learned 
 doctor, Rabelais, he says, lies under this tomb : — 
 
 " Even in death he made a mock of those 
 Who at his death most mourned." 
 
 He died in Paris, in the Rue des Jardins, parish of St Paul. 
 They buried him at the foot of a tree which preserved his 
 name at least to 1660. As soon as he was dead, friends 
 and enemies alike began to weave, invent, and attribute 
 stories to him. The name of Rabelais was in itself an 
 invitation to all the world to shoot rubbish over it until 
 the life of this great writer became a string of silly, old, 
 and pointless anecdotes, from which it has only been 
 rescued by the labours of the most recent biographers. 
 
 The book was there, too, for all sorts of follies to be 
 said and written about it : of these the making of 
 " keys " was perhaps the most foolish. Men proved 
 that Pantagruel was Francis the First, Henry the 
 Second, Antoine de Bourbon, or anybody else. They 
 assigned to every character a historical origin, careless of 
 the fact that neither in character nor in events was there 
 any resemblance. The book, it is true, teems with 
 allusions local, contemporary, and personal. But Panta- 
 gruel, Panurge, and Friar John had no more real exist- 
 tance than Autolycus or Captain Bobadil. 
 
 Epitaphs, too, began to be written as soon as the breath 
 was out of his body. They prove how great a place he 
 held in the minds of his contemporaries, 
 
48 RABELAIS. 
 
 He had offended the poet Joachim du Bellay, a natural 
 eon of one of the illustrious brothers, when they were at 
 Rome together with the Cardinal. It is not difficult to 
 guess the cause of offence. Joachim, a poet who has left 
 a great deal of verse which does not permit itself to be 
 read, and two or three poems of considerable sweetness 
 and delicacy, was above all, a pedant and innovator in 
 language, and a writer who placed form before every- 
 thing. But Rabelais had no sympathy with art of this 
 kind. His eminently practical nature only saw subject 
 for ridicule in the things about which the school founded 
 by Ronsard were so proud, and so deeply in earnest. 
 They could not but be angry with a man who held 
 them up to derision. As soon as the writer of this 
 highly offensive parody was dead, Joachim, like all 
 pedants and prigs, a creature of small nature, took his 
 miserable revenge. He wrote an epistle in which Rabelais 
 is made to confess that he owned no God except sleep 
 and gluttony, love and wine : that he was a physician 
 in pretence, his real business being to make men laugh. 
 
 Then Ronsard had his turn. He, as well as Joachim, 
 was jealous of Rabelais, and hated him. Rabelais was 
 popular, — Ronsard was left alone and forgotten ; Rabelais 
 laughed, — Ronsard groaned and sneered. Rabelais rolled 
 out his teaching in the copious mother-tongue, which Ron- 
 sard was perpetually trying to alter and improve. Rabe- 
 lais was loved, Ronsard was neglected. Accordingly, lit* 
 wrote an epitaph " d'un Biberon." " If anything should 
 grow from his grave, it must be a vine. . . . Never 
 did the sun rise too early but he had been drinking ; 
 never did night fall too late to see him drinking still. 
 
 . . The fellow drank night and day." 
 
EPITAPHS. 49 
 
 And so, that there should be no mistake about who 
 was meant, he goes on : — 
 
 " He sang Gargantua's might of yore ; 
 The mare he rode, the mace he bore : 
 And great Panurge, and of the place 
 Where dwell the Papimanic race, 
 And how they talked and how they dressed, 
 And Friar John and all the rest — 
 The combats, and the honour due 
 To Pantagruel's valiant crew. . . . 
 O stranger, when thou passest here, 
 With cups, not tears, salute his bier ; 
 Erect a tomb with flagons crowned, 
 Spread hams and sausages around ; 
 Fitter for him these tributes are 
 Than lilies fresh and roses rare." 
 
 Baif, more good-naturedly, wrote : — 
 
 " O Pluto, Eabelais receive, 
 That thou, the king of those who grieve^ 
 Among the sad and weeping crew 
 Mayst show at last a laugher too." 
 
 Such, so far as can be made out, was the life of 
 Rabelais. We go on to consider the nature and contents 
 f his great work. 
 
 f.u. — vm. 
 
50 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 THE GIANT OF TOURAINE. 
 
 Gargantua was the great giant whose exploits were re- 
 membered by the old women, and told to the children. 
 Especially was his memory dear to the Tourangeaux, 
 the Angevins, and the Poitevins. 1 Eabelais heard about 
 him as he clung to his mothers apron at the low door- 
 way of the house in the Rue de la Lamproie, or wandered 
 with her among the vines of La Deviniere. The school- 
 boys of Seuilly knew all about him ; the giant was heard 
 of at La Baumette ; and if the monks at Fontenay-le- 
 Comte listened to the talk of the town children, thev 
 would learn how Gargantua once loved to sit upon the 
 ciock-tower of their church with one foot on the spire 
 of Niort and the other on that of Lucon. Now, as each 
 of these spires was a good twenty miles from Fontenay, 
 it will be seen that Gargantua was no common giant. 
 It was he, indeed, who set up the great dolmen at 
 Poitiers, and the 'pi&rre couverte of Saumur. When he 
 scraped the mud off his shoes he made great mounds 
 and hills, which are still standing to witness if the story 
 
 1 See Recherches sur Gargantua en Poitou avant Rabelais. Phi 
 M. L. Desaivre. Niort : ISfiP. 
 
THE GIANT OF TOURAINE. 5* 
 
 lies. You may find his boots at Chatillon-sur-Seine — 
 they are now the Monts Jumeaux. His spoon and hip 
 clogs are to be seen in the He d'Oleron, and his soup- 
 tureen is still shown at Verdes. 
 
 He was a giant who devoured everything. Once he 
 drank at a ford and swallowed six bullocks, the cart 
 laden with wood which they were dragging across the 
 river, and the rustic who drove them. Another time he 
 swallowed a ship loaded with gunpowder, and suffered 
 in consequence from a colic, which could only be cured 
 by blowing up the powder. He was a giant advanced 
 in years, had long white hair, and wore an immense 
 beard. Sometimes he carried a basket on his back, and 
 by throwing out the contents he made hills and mounds. 
 Learned men and antiquarians have interested themselves 
 in Gargantua, the great throat giant. 1 He has been shown 
 to be a solar myth, the Moloch to whom the Gauls offered 
 human sacrifices, the Baal whose solstitial fires are still 
 lit in Western Ireland and in Western France on the 
 eve of St John. But to Rabelais, who knew nothing 
 about the solar myth, he was simply the giant whose 
 colossal figure had filled his childish imagination. And 
 when, inspired by some whim, whether of disappointment 
 or not, he resolved to write a popular book, he took the 
 giant of Touraine for a peg, and produced, writing it at 
 a single heat, the l Grandes Chroniques Gargantuines.' 
 
 It has already been explained that the " Chronicles "' 
 were subsequently rewritten. They have been published 
 by M. Paul Lacroix, together with a volume called 
 'Chronicles Admirables,' which is an imitation of the 
 former, with plagiarisms from " Pantagruel." Except 
 
 1 Compare gargote, gargouiik, and the argot gargue for bouche. 
 
52 RABELAIS. 
 
 as an example of an author's first and hasty treatment, 
 the " Chronicles " do not repay perusal. 
 
 The " Gargantua," which now stands as the First Book 
 in the published works, is in reality the Second. The 
 lubberly schoolboy giant of the " Chroniques " had in 
 his son "Pantagruel" a wise, prudent, and far-seeing 
 king. Pleased with the humanity of his hero, Eabelais 
 proceeded to give him a more worthy ancestry ; and with 
 this object, while still preserving some of the giant 
 machinery, he substituted for the ' Chroniques Gargan- 
 tuines ' the " Gargantua," certainly the freshest, if not the 
 most vigorous and the richest in ideas, of all the books. 
 It was written at the age, according to the usual reck- 
 oning, of forty -nine; but he had only been in the 
 world for eight years. In other words, he brought 
 to bear upon "Gargantua" the learning of middle age 
 and the freshness of youth. Let it always be insisted 
 upon that Eabelais was ever, so to speak, an outsider. 
 The contrasts, the follies, the confusions of his most 
 remarkable and distracted age were clearly visible to one 
 who had not grown up in the midst of them, who came 
 from the seclusion of a convent, and found himself sud- 
 denly plunged into a world which hitherto he knew only 
 by hearsay. 
 
 1 The very Horrific Life of the great Gargantua, father 
 of Pantagruel/ begins with a dixain addressed to his 
 readers. Eabelais's verse is not his strong point. It 
 concludes with the often-quoted lines — 
 
 " Better is it to write of laughter than of tears, 
 For laughter belongs to man." 
 
 The author's prologue follows, — a mixture of learning, 
 
PREFACE. 53 
 
 ostentatiously paraded after the manner of Rabelais, and 
 of spontaneous unaffected merriment and mirth. 
 
 He addresses himself especially to the illustrious com- 
 pany of drinkers. He invites them, in considering his 
 book, to remember those little boxes, once in use among 
 the Greeks, which they called " Sileni." They were 
 fashioned in all kinds of shapes — grotesque and fanciful, 
 attractive or repulsive. Yet, within, they were full of 
 precious things — balm, ambergris, amomon, musk, civet, 
 and jewels. Or they may remember Socrates, likened by 
 Alcibiades to one of these Sileni. He was ugly in per- 
 son, ridiculous in his carriage, simple in manners, poor in 
 fortune, rustic in apparel, yet always laughing, always 
 drinking, always telling stories, " always," says Rabelais, 
 "dissimulating his divine wisdom." And under this 
 rugged exterior there were found virtues of the rarest — 
 courage invincible, a sobriety without parallel, certain 
 content, perfect assurance, and incredible contempt for 
 all that men so much struggle after. 
 
 The author's book, in the same way, is to be seriously 
 considered. It is not the hood which makes the monk. 
 " Did you ever see a dog coming across a marrow-bone ? 
 If you have, you have been able to note with what de- 
 votion he regards it, with what care he guards it, with 
 what fervour he holds it, with what affection he breaks 
 it, and with what diligence he sucks it. ... In 
 imitation of the dog it becomes you to be wise, to appre- 
 ciate and esteem those fair books of lofty aim, easy to 
 follow, hard to encounter. Then by curious lessons and 
 frequent meditation, to break the bone and to suck the 
 
 marrow." 
 
 We are perfectly justified, therefore, in taking Rab*- 
 
54 EABELAIS. 
 
 lais at his word, and expecting to find a purpose in his 
 madness, a meaning behind the extravagances of the 
 surface. It is proposed in the following analysis to sup- 
 press the extravagances as much as possible. In doing so, 
 the mirthfulness of the author, it is true, will disappear. 
 This is not always a subject of regret ; and yet Eabelais 
 without his gaiety is not the real Eabelais. Above all, 
 before all, he is essentially Vhomme qui rit 
 
 As for the genealogy of Gargantua, that, he says, appa- 
 rently regarding the book of Pantagruel's father as nat- 
 urally following that of the son, may be found in the 
 ' Grande Chronique Pantagmeline.' With the genealogy, 
 in an ancient tomb of bronze, were discovered the verses 
 which he calls the " Fanfreluches Antidotees." These 
 verses seem to be pure mystification and nonsense, per- 
 haps written in ridicule of the famous quatrains of 
 Nostradamus, whom, as a physician, Eabelais probably 
 knew and certainly respected, but whom, as a prophet, 
 he was bound to deride. It is noteworthy that Nostra- 
 damus, who had passed through the medical school of 
 Montpellier with the highest credit, and afterwards lec- 
 tured there, was at this time practising medicine and 
 writing his prophetic quatrains in Provence. He issued, 
 too, a prophetic almanac, which no doubt Eabelais had 
 in his mind when he published his " Prognostication." 
 It would be pleasant to contrast the frank and mirthful 
 figure of Eabelais with the solemn visage of this sixteenth- 
 century " Sludge the Medium ; " but it cannot be done 
 here. 
 
 Gargantua was the son of Grandgousier — " a ton rail- 
 lard in his time, who loved to drink neat as much as 
 any man who then was in the world, and willingly 
 
THE REVEL. 55 
 
 would eat salt meat " — and Gargamelle, his wife, 
 daughter to the king of the Parpaillos. It would appear 
 that Grandgousier was a Tourangeau by birth, and that 
 he lived in or near the town of Chinon, because, on the 
 day of his son's birth, he had invited to drink with him 
 the good folk of Seuilly, Cinais Marcay, La Roche. 
 Clermault, Coudray-Montpensier, and other places, all 
 of which lie around that illustrious city, to a feast of 
 tripes with immeasurable drink. Then comes the propos 
 des buveurs (the drinkers' talk), which makes up a whole 
 chapter, in which Rabelais abandons himself to the 
 joviality of a pen almost too faithful. 
 
 " Then began flagons to go, hams to trot, goblets to fly, 
 cups to tinkle. Draw, reach, turn, mix : hand it me with- 
 out water. So, my friend ; whip me off this glass gallantly ; 
 produce me your claret, a weeping glass. A truce with 
 thirst. Ha ! false fever, wilt thou not begone ? . . . Ventre 
 Saint Quenet ! let us talk of drinking. . . . Which was 
 first, thirst or drinking ? Thirst : for who in the days of 
 innocence would have drunk without thirst ? Drinking : 
 because privatio prcesupponit habitum. . . . The stone called 
 asbestos is not more inextinguishable than the thirst of my 
 paternity. Appetite conies in eating, said Angeston, but 
 thirst goes away in drinking. Remedy against thirst ? It 
 is the exact opposite of that against the bite of a dog. Al- 
 ways run after the dog and he will never bite you ; always 
 drink before thirst and it will never reach you. . . . White 
 wine — pour out all, pour out : pour here, pour there — fill 
 up, my tongue is peeling. To you, comrade, with joy, with 
 joy. La ! la ! la ! it is all swallowed up. O Lachryma 
 Christi ! It is wine de la Deviniere — it is divine wine. 
 O the lovely white wine ! by my soul it is nothing less than 
 wine of taffetas ! " 
 
 While they were thus drinking and making merry the 
 
56 KABELAIS. 
 
 child Gargantua was born. The first words uttered by 
 the infant were not, like those of other children, " Mies, 
 mies ! mies ! " but " A boyre / a boyre / a boyre ! " as if 
 inviting the whole world to drink, and so loud that he 
 was heard by the whole country of Beauce and Bibarais. 
 In this book, as in " Pantagruel," we are with giants, 
 and have to remember the necessities of the gigantic 
 nature. Gargantua, for instance, requires, to provide 
 him with milk, seventeen thousand nine hundred and 
 thirteen cows — Rabelais ever loves to be accurate ; the 
 carriage in which he is taken abroad must be drawn by 
 oxen ; each of his shirts took 900 ells of Chatelheraut 
 linen, besides 200 for the gussets : the rest of his attire 
 consumed a proportionate quantity of stuff. His colours 
 were white and blue ; the former signifying joy, gladness, 
 and delight — the latter signifying heaven and heavenly 
 things. This mystic meaning of the colours requires a 
 whole chapter to itself full of learned reference. As a baby, 
 the infant giant very early showed remarkable qualities. 
 
 " It did one good to see him, for he was a fine boy with 
 about eight or ten chins, and cried very little. If it happened 
 that he was put out, angry, vexed, or crossed — if he fretted, 
 if he wept, if he cried — if drink were brought him he would 
 be restored to temper, and suddenly become quiet and joy- 
 ous. One of his governesses told me that at the very sound 
 of pints and flagons he would fall into an ecstasy, as if he 
 were tasting the joys of Paradise ; and upon consideration of 
 this, his divine complexion, they would every morning, to 
 cheer him up, play with a knife upon the glasses, on the 
 bottles with their stoppers, and on the pint-pots with their 
 lids, at the sound whereof he became gay, would leap for jcy, 
 and would rock himself in the cradle, lolling with his head, 
 and raonochordising with his fingers." 
 
EDUCATION. 57 
 
 We may pass over the rest of Gargantua's infancy. 
 We next come to his education, in which Gargantua is 
 no longer a giant, but an ordinary prince. He was at 
 first intrusted to a learned doctor called Tubal Holo- 
 fernes, who spent five years and a quarter teaching him 
 to say his A B C backwards. This useful branch of 
 knowledge achieved, the tutor proceeds to spend thirteen 
 veal's over Donat's Latin Grammar, and certain collec- 
 tions of moral sayings and verses belonging to the old 
 methods of education. Thirty -four years more were 
 spent in these pursuits, after which Tubal Holofernes 
 fortunately died. Then he was confided to one Jobelin 
 Bride, who pursued the same methods, by which the 
 young giant grew more ignorant every day. Grandgousier, 
 in despair at seeing his son grow up so heavy, ignorant, 
 and loutish, consults his friend the Viceroy of Papeli- 
 gosse (country of Laugh-at-the-Pope), who presents to 
 the king a young page named Eudemon, the pupil of 
 one Ponocrates. This boy, neat and trim in apparel — ■ 
 Eabelais always lays great stress on neatness of dress — 
 with an assured bearing, but with youthful modesty, 
 addresses Gargantua, who all the time hangs his head 
 like a boor, in an oration of pure and elegant Latin. 
 Grandgousier is so angry at the contrast between the two 
 boys that he orders poor old Jobelin Bride to be 
 instantly executed, — a sentence commuted, by the inter- 
 cession of the viceroy, into the penalty of taking as much 
 drink as he could carry. It is then resolved that the 
 boy shall be placed under the charge of Ponocrates, and, 
 with Eudemon, shall travel up to Paris. 
 
 Having been serious for two chapters, we go back to 
 pure burlesque, and the exploits of Gargantua the giant 
 
58 RABELAIS. 
 
 on his mare. She was as big as six elephants ; she was 
 brought by sea in three carricks and a brigantine. 
 With the whisking of her tail she laid low a whole 
 forest. Mounted on her back, Gargantua rode to Paris, 
 and was received with great admiration by the Parisians, 
 who, says Rabelais, are more easily drawn together by 
 a fiddler or a mule with bells than by an evangelical 
 preacher — a peculiarity which they still preserve. The 
 young giant rewarded their admiration by carrying away 
 the bells of Notre Dame, to hang round the neck of his 
 mare. To recover these bells the Parisians sent their 
 most esteemed orator, Maitre Janotus de Bragmardo, 
 who came, like the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, duly 
 preceded by three bedells, and followed by six Masters 
 of Arts — Artless Masters — "Maistres Inerts," Rabelais 
 calls them. His oration is a parody on the pretensions 
 of the old-fashioned scholars, the ostentatious parade of 
 bad Latin, and the learned discourses of doctors. The 
 bells are restored, and the orator rewarded. Then we 
 leave the realms of the miraculous and become human 
 again. Gargantua ceases to be a giant, and Rabelais 
 develops — it is the best, the wisest, the most useful chap- 
 ter of his book — his theory of what the education of a 
 prince should be. 
 
 And first, what it was before Ponocrates, a scholar of 
 the new type, took Gargantua in hand. 
 
 The pupil begins by getting up between eight and 
 nine o'clock — according to Scripture authority, " Vanum 
 est vobis ante lucem surgere " (" It is but lost labour 
 that ye haste to rise up early "), Ps. cxxvii. 2 — and, with- 
 out wasting time over combing his hair, sits down at 
 once to an enormous breakfast. This despatched, he 
 
THE OLD METHODS. 59 
 
 goes to church, where he hears " six-and-twenty or thirty 
 masses." After the masses, they bring him a cartload 
 of rosaries, with which he says as many paternosters as 
 sixteen hermits could have done in the time. Then 
 comes a poor half-hour of study ; but his heart is in the 
 kitchen. At dinner he eats as much as he can carry, 
 and drinks without stint, holding that the limits of 
 drinking are when the cork of the drinker's shoes 
 swells up half a foot. Dinner over, they play cards and 
 all sorts of games. Rabelais actually enumerates two 
 hundred and seventeen. Then he sleeps for two hours. 
 When he wakes, he says a few more paternosters, and 
 goes to see rabbits ferreted or caught in snares. Then 
 he has supper, with more drinking and more card- 
 playing, and so to bed. 
 
 This is such an education as the old regime would be- 
 stow on a young prince. First and foremost are the 
 duties owed to the Church ; and that these may be the 
 more deeply impressed, masses and Ave Marias and 
 paternosters are multiplied. Also, since the ignorance 
 of princes makes the power of priests, care is taken that 
 no real knowledge shall be taught. ISTor have his 
 teachers even the sense to see that their pupil should 
 be drilled in manly exercises. Nothing is taught at all : 
 he is left to the brute instincts of his nature ; he eats, 
 drinks, gambles, and sleeps, without a thought of any- 
 thing noble, or anything even useful. Now mark the 
 contrast when Ponocrates changes all. 
 
 Gargantua is now brought daily into the company 
 of learned men, by discoursing with whom he may be 
 led to desire improvement and knowledge. He gets up 
 at four in the morning. While they are dressing him 
 
60 RABELAIS. 
 
 a page reads aloud a chapter of Holy Scripture ; then 
 prayer is offered, and his master expounds the meaning 
 of the chapter they have read, and repeats the lessons 
 of the preceding day, after which his pupil deduces for 
 himself conclusions bearing on the practical conduct of 
 life. They then read for three hours ; playing at tennis 
 follows for as long as they like to play, which is until 
 they are thoroughly well exercised. If there is any 
 spare time before dinner, they spend it in recalling 
 something of the morning's study. During dinner there 
 is read some pleasant history of warlike actions ; after 
 which they discourse on the nature and properties of all 
 that may be on the table, with references to Athenaeus, 
 Pliny, and other ancient authors, so that in a short time 
 Gargantua knows as well as any physician all that the 
 ancients had said on these things. Cards are brought in 
 after dinner, not for gambling, but for the purpose of 
 learning the science of numbers ; with these are diagrams 
 and geometrical figures for the study of geometry and 
 astronomy. Then they sing part-songs, or play music, 
 Gargantua, for his own part, understanding how to play 
 on the lute, the spinet, the German flute, the violin, 
 and the sackbut. Recreation ended, there follow 
 three more hours of study. Then come riding, tilting, 
 and exercises under the direction of Gymnast. An 
 amazing description follows, with all the exact extrava- 
 gances with which Rabelais loved to illustrate a point 
 and show his encyclopaedic knowledge, of Gargantua's 
 athletic prowess and powers. Next, they botanise in 
 the meadows. At supper, the lesson read at dinner is 
 continued. Then more singing and playing, with feats 
 of legerdemain. Sometimes they spend the whole even- 
 
THE NEW METHODS. 61 
 
 ing in their games; at other times they pay visits to 
 learned men or travellers. And if it is a clear full 
 night when they go to bed, they mount to the top of 
 the house to observe the stars and learn the courses of 
 the planets. 
 
 Then, with his master, Gargantua briefly recapitulated 
 what he had learned during the day. 
 
 " When they prayed unto God the Creator, adoring Him 
 and ratifying their faith towards Him, and glorifying Him 
 for His boundless goodness ; and after rendering thanks to 
 Him for all the past, they recommended themselves to the 
 Divine mercy for all the future." 
 
 This was for fair weather ; for rainy days a different 
 course was followed, for then they cut wood, bottled 
 hay, threshed the corn, practised painting and sculpture, 
 visited workshops and factories, went to hear lectures, to 
 see mountebanks, jugglers, and quacks, and used "greater 
 temperance in eating and drinking." 
 
 Sometimes, however, they would take holiday, and 
 spend it at Gentilly, St Cloud, or the Bois de Boulogne, 
 dancing, fishing, trapping birds, drinking healths, and 
 sporting. During these country excursions they would 
 remind each other of what Virgil, Hesiod, or Politian 
 had said of the country life. 
 
 Observe that the education which Rabelais prescribes 
 for a young prince embraces every kind of knowledge, 
 and every sort of exercise. No trade or handicraft is 
 too humble for him to learn and practise. No single 
 moment of the day is left unemployed ; no faculty of 
 the body or the mind is left untrained ; play is rational, 
 and confined within fair limits ; study is real, and yet 
 
62 RABELAIS. 
 
 not excessive — six hours a-day does not seem too much 
 for books ; no time is wasted over services, masses, and 
 rosaries ; all the religious training is the exposition of a 
 chapter of the Bible, with prayers ; and there are no vain 
 disputations according to the forms of a barbarous logic. 
 
 Can there be, one reflects, a more sensible, a more 
 rational method, of education? All is orderly, as be- 
 comes the training of a gentleman; nothing is immo- 
 derate : and even the games are made to serve some end 
 of education. What end in education, we might ask, is 
 served by the immoderately long hours given to foot- 
 ball and cricket ? What boy in modern England, where 
 half the day seems given up to games, or in modern Ger- 
 many, where all the day seems given up to books, is so 
 well educated as the pupil of Ponocrates % Eabelais was 
 not only before his age in the sixteenth century, he is 
 even before the age of the nineteenth. 
 
 The education of Gargantua, which one hopes had 
 approached completion, is interrupted by the war with 
 King Picrochole. 
 
 Like all great wars, this sprang from a very small 
 cause — nothing more than a squabble between certain 
 cake-bakers of Lerne l and certain shepherds, subjects 
 of Grandgousier. The Lerne people complain to their 
 king Picrochole, who instantly, and without further 
 debate or consideration, commands the ban and arriere- 
 ban to be sounded through all the country, that all his 
 vassals, of whatever condition, should come with what 
 arms they have to the great Place before his castle. 
 
 1 It is useless to point out how often Rabelais helps himself to 
 names of places that he knows. Lerne is a little village seven miles 
 from Chin on, 
 
FRIAR JOHN. 63 
 
 The army thus hastily summoned is quickly collected, 
 and immediately sets out upon an invasion of Grand- 
 gousier's territory, all marching in loose and undis- 
 ciplined order, pillaging, cattle-lifting, beating down the 
 trees, and committing every kind of outrage. 
 
 Presently they come to Seuilly, where the people were 
 ill with the plague, but where none of Picrochole's army 
 took any hurt — " which is a most wonderful case ; 
 because the priests, curates, preachers, physicians, sur- 
 geons, and apothecaries who went to visit, to cure, to 
 preach unto and admonish the sick, were all dead with 
 the infection. Whence comes this to pass, my masters % 
 I beseech vou to think of it." 
 
 The town being pillaged, they proceed to the abbey, 
 but find the gates made fast against them. Then the 
 main army under Picrochole go on to the Ford called the 
 Gue* de V^de, leaving seven companies of foot and two 
 hundred lancers, who began to break down the walls of 
 the close in order to destroy the vines. The monks, not 
 knowing what to do, decide in meeting of the chapter 
 to make a procession with prayers, contra hostium in- 
 sidias. One would think it was rather too late to pray 
 against the enemy when he was already tearing and 
 rooting up the vines. 
 
 " Now there was in the abbey a cloister monk named 
 Friar John des Entommeures, young, gallant, frisk, lusty, 
 adroit, bold, venturous, resolute, tall, thin, wide-mouthed, 
 long-nosed, a quick despatcher of hours, a fine hurrier of 
 masses, and fair accomplisher of vigils ; in a word, a true 
 monk, if ever there was since the monking world went monk- 
 ing in monkery ; for the rest, a clerk to the teeth in matter 
 of breviary. This monk, hearing the noise that the enemies 
 
64 EABELAIS. 
 
 made in their vineyard, ran out to see what they were 
 doing ; and on perceiving that they were cutting the grapes, 
 in which lay all their hopes of next year's drink, returns 
 to the choir of the church, where the rest of the monks, 
 all dismayed, were singing — 'ini...im...pe...e...e...tum... 
 turn. ..turn in...in...in...i...mi...mi...corum.' 'Well sung, 
 indeed ! ' he cries. ' Why don't you sing " Farewell, baskets, 
 vintage-time is over " % Devil take me if they are not all 
 in our close, cutting away canes and grapes so well that for 
 the next four years, par le corps de Dieu ! there will not be 
 so much as a gleaning in it ! Ventre Saint Jacques, what 
 shall we poor devils drink all the while % Seigneur Dieu, da 
 mihi potum.' 
 
 " Then cried the claustral Prior, * What doth this drunk- 
 ard here ? Let him be haled to prison ! Thus to trouble 
 the divine service ! ' ' But/ quoth the monk, l let us take 
 care that the service of wine be not troubled. You yourself, 
 my lord Prior, love to drink of the best ; so does every good 
 man ; that is a monkish proverb. But these responses that 
 yon chant here are out of season. Listen, all of you. Those 
 who love wine, follow me ! . . . Ventre Dieu ! the goods 
 of the Church ! ' 
 
 " Thus saying, he laid down his long gown, and seized the 
 staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of an apple- 
 tree, as long as a lance, the full grasp of the fist, and orna- 
 mented with Jleurs de lys, nearly effaced. Thus he issued, clad 
 in a fair jacket, making a scarf of his frock, and with this staff 
 of the cross fell vigorously upon the enemy, who, without 
 order, ensign, trumpet, or drum, were grape-gathering in the 
 close. For the cornets and colour-bearers had laid down 
 their standards by the sides of the walls ; the drummers had 
 knocked out the heads of their drums, in order to fill them 
 with grapes ; the trumpets were loaded with bunches. He 
 charged them so rudely, without crying ' ware,' that he over- 
 threw them like pigs, striking at random in the old fashion 
 of fence. And of some he beat out the brains ; of others he 
 broke the arms and the legs ; of others he dislocated the 
 
FRIAR JOHN'S VICTORY. 65 
 
 spondyles of the neck ; of others he broke the veins, smash- 
 ed the nose, poked out the eyes, clave the mandibles, drove 
 the teeth down their throats, broke their shoulder-blades, 
 and barked their shins. If any one offered to hide himself 
 among the thickest vine-branches, he broke his backbone 
 and laid him flat like a dog. If any offered to escape by 
 flight, he made his head fly in pieces by the lambdoidal 
 suture. If any one climbed into a tree, thinking thus to be 
 in safety, he impaled him with his staff. Some cried on St 
 Barbe ; others on St George ; and some on St Nitouche ; 
 others, again, on Our Lady of Cunault, of Laurette, of Lenon, 
 of Riviere. Some offered vows to St James ; some to Cadou- 
 in ; some to St John of Angely ; some to St Eutrope of 
 Saintes, to St Mexme of Chinon, to St Martin of Candes, 
 to St Clouand of Sinais, to the relics of Jourezay, and a 
 thousand other pretty little saints. Some died without 
 speaking, others spoke without dying. Some cried aloud 
 * Confession : confession : confiteor miserere ; in raanus.' So 
 great was the cry of the wounded that the prior of the abbey 
 came out with all his monks. Then, when they perceived 
 the poor people thus stretched flat among the vines and 
 wounded to death, confessed some of them. But while the 
 priests amused themselves with confessing, the little monk- 
 lings ran to Brother John, and asked him how they could 
 aid him. To which he replied that they should cut the 
 throats of those who were knocked down. Thereupon, leav- 
 ing their capes under a trellis, they proceeded to finish off 
 and cut the throats of them whom he had already wounded. 
 . . . Thus by his prowess were discomfited all those of 
 the army who had entered into the close, to the number of 
 13,622, without counting women and children." 
 
 To be sure, the enemy had entered the vineyard with 
 only seven companies of foot and two hundred lancers. 
 
 Meantime, Grandgousier, now grown old, and desirous 
 of taking his rest, is dismayed to hear of the unpro- 
 voked and wanton invasion of the territory by his old 
 
 *\0. — VIII. E 
 
66 KABELAIS. 
 
 friend and ally. But he will not call his people together, 
 nor try the chance of war, until he has first tried peace \ 
 and, on the advice of his council, he sent his Master of 
 Requests to ask by what right or title Picrochole had 
 thus broken the peace. At the same time, he writes a 
 letter to Gargantua, his son, asking him to come, at this 
 strait, and succour his people. The letter of the old king 
 is plain, straightforward, and dignified. 
 
 The oration of the ambassador to King Picrochole is 
 an imitation of Cicero's orations, full of classical indig- 
 nation and correct invective. The mission fails. Then 
 Grandgousier, resolved that there should be no possible 
 charge open against himself, offered recompense a hundred- 
 fold for the attack upon the cake-bakers. 
 
 And then occurs the splendid dream of universal 
 conquest. 
 
 Three of King Picrochole s nobles, coming to him 
 respectfully bareheaded, offer to make him the most 
 fortunate, the most chivalrous prince that ever reigned 
 since the death of Alexander of Macedon. 
 
 " ' Sire, this is our plan. You will leave here a small gar- 
 rison. . . . You will divide your army into two. You will 
 with the one half fall upon and defeat Grandgousier. Prom 
 him you will get money in heaps, for the clown has plenty. 
 We say clown, because a truly noble prince never has a 
 penny. To look after the treasury is the act of a clown. 
 With the other half you will overrun and take Saintonge, 
 Angoumois, and Gascony. You will seize on all the ships 
 at Bayonne, and coasting along Gallicia and Portugal, will 
 take and pillage all the maritime places. Spain will yield, 
 and the Mediterranean will be known by the name of the 
 Picrocholinal Sea. That passed, Barbarossa yields himself 
 your slave.' 
 
picrocholf/s dream. 67 
 
 "'I will give him quarter,' Picrochole interrupts with 
 complacency. 
 
 " ' Certainly, so that he be baptised,' say the counsellors. 
 
 " ' Then you will take by force the kingdoms of Tunis, 
 Hippos, Algiers, Bona, Corona, and, in short, the whole o. 
 Barbary. Meantime you will have laid your hand on Ma- 
 jorca, Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, and the other isles in the 
 Ligurian and Balearic Seas. Following up on the left, you 
 will have taken Southern Gaul, Provence, the land of the 
 Allobroges, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, and then bon jour to 
 Rome As for the Pope, he is already dead with fright.' 
 
 " ' I shall not kiss his slipper,' says Picrochole the Con- 
 queror." 
 
 They go on to take Italy, Naples, Sicily, Malta, 
 Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Palestine. 
 
 11 ' I shall rebuild the Temple of Solomon,' cries Picrochole. 
 
 " ' Not yet — not yet. Wait a little. Do not be too hasty 
 in your enterprises. What said Augustus ? Festina lente. 
 You have first to gain Asia Minor, Caria, Lycia, Cilicia, Lydia, 
 Phrygia, Mysia, and all the country to the Euphrates.' 
 
 " * Why, 5 cried the king, * we are all mad ! what shall we 
 drink in these deserts ? ' 
 
 " ' We have already provided for that. On the Syrian seas 
 you will have 9014 ships laden with the best wine. They 
 disembark at Jaffa, where we have collected 220,000 camels 
 and 1600 elephants, that you captured hunting in Lydia. 
 You have also the whole caravan of Mecca. Surely you 
 have wine enough.' 
 
 " * But,' said Picrochole, ' we did not drink it fresh.' " 
 
 Already the future is the past, and he has in his 
 imagination crossed these thirsty deserts. 
 
 Meantime the rest of his army has not been itlle. 
 They have conquered the whole of Europe, and are iievr 
 at Constantinople. 
 
68 RABELAIS. 
 
 "'Let us go,' cried the king ; 'let us go at once and join 
 them. I will be Emperor of Trebizonde. Shall we not 
 kill all these dogs of Turks and Mohammedans 1 ' 
 
 "'Of course you will, and you will give their lands to 
 those who have served you honourably.' 
 
 " ' It is just,' he said. ' I give you Caramania, Syria, and 
 all Palestine.' 
 
 " ' Ah, sire ! it is too good of you. "We thank you. God 
 make you always prosper ! ' " 
 
 The drama is interrupted by an old soldier, who asks 
 what they are going to do when the world is conquered. 
 It is, of course, the old story. " We will then sit down 
 and rest," said Picrochole. " Would it not be better to 
 rest at once 1 " 
 
 Meantime Gargantua, a giant again, is speeding on his 
 great mare to his father's help. With him are his friends, 
 Gymnast, Eudemon, and company. On the way Gymnast 
 very cunningly kills Captain Tripet of the enemy's army ; 
 Gargantua tears up a whole tree for lance and club, re- 
 ceives cannon-balls as if they were grape-kernels, and 
 entirely destroys the castle at the Ford of Vede, and 
 stops up the river with dead bodies of the enemy. Then 
 he arrives at his father's castle, where they have a grand 
 feast, the menu of which is preserved for us by the 
 author. An accident, which might have been attended 
 with serious consequences, befell six pilgrims who were 
 unfortunately hiding in the salad, and w r ould have been 
 swallowed by Gargantua, but that they stuck in his 
 teeth. How they escaped, what further misfortunes 
 overtook these pilgrims, and how they consoled them- 
 selves, may be sought in the original text. The supper 
 meanwhile goes on. Friar John is sent for, and being 
 
HATRED OF MONKS. 69 
 
 invited to sit and drink, proves himself as good at feast- 
 ing, and at the Rabelaisian talk which accompanies it, 
 as in defending vineyards. It is during these propos de 
 table that Eabelais delivers one of his most vigorous 
 attacks on monks. 
 
 Why, they ask Friar John, are monks avoided by all 
 the world ? 
 
 " ' If you understand why a monkey in a family is always 
 mocked and worried you will understand why monks are 
 abhorred of all, both old and young. The monkey does not 
 watch the house like a clog ; he does not drag the cart like 
 the ox ; he gives no wool like the sheep ; he does not carry 
 burdens like the horse. ... So with the monk. He 
 does not cultivate the soil like the peasant ; he does not 
 guard the land like the soldier ; he does not heal the sick 
 like the physician ; he does not teach like the evangelical 
 doctor or the schoolmaster ; he does not import goods and 
 necessary things like the merchant.' 
 
 " * But the monks pray for all,' objects Grandgousier. 
 
 " ' Nothing less,' says Gargantua. ' They only annoy the 
 neighbourhood with ringing their bells. 
 
 « t Truly,' says Friar John, ' a mass, a matin, and a vesper 
 well rung are half said. They mumble great store of legends 
 and psalms, of which they understand nothing ; they count 
 plenty of paternosters and Ave Marias without thinking and 
 without understanding, and that I call mocking God, and not 
 making prayers. But God help them, if they pray for us, 
 and not for fear of losing their fat soups. 
 
 >r> 
 
 The next ten chapters are occupied in great part with 
 the exploits of this jolly monk, and the great victory 
 over King Picrochole. Friar John sends Gargantua to 
 sleep by reading the breviary, wakes them all up in the 
 night for drink, says his hours, not after the rules of 
 Paris or of Rome, but that of Fecamp, which is three 
 
70 RABELAIS. 
 
 psalms and three lessons, or nothing at all, if you prefer ; 
 prefers his own rules to any, because " the hour was made 
 for man, and not man for the hour ; " his own, indeed, 
 are like stirrups — long or short, as you please. Says the 
 monk, " Short prayer reaches heaven, long drinking 
 empties bottles." Gargantua is sometimes giant, some- 
 times man, in the war which follows. But he is always 
 a wise, humane, and noble prince. Everything is to be 
 paid for ; he will have no outrages or abuses committed 
 by his soldiers ; and he freely dismisses all his prisoners 
 with a convoy to take them to their homes. One re- 
 members how, at this very time, Coligny, colonel of the 
 French infantry, was introducing discipline for the first 
 time among his rude and disorderly soldiers. 
 
 The soldiers rewarded, the prisoners released, and the 
 men who had instigated and promoted the war punished 
 by being made to work at the new printing-press, Gar- 
 gantua proceeds to bestow honours and substantial gifts 
 upon his friends. And for Friar John he builds the 
 Abbey of Thelema 
 
fl 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE ABBEY OF THELEMA. 
 
 The character of Friar John, which may be gathered 
 from the story of his exploits in the vineyard, makes 
 him the very last man in the world to create the Abbey 
 of Thelema. Of this, however, Rabelais was careless. 
 The abbey had to be created somehow, because it was 
 in his mind. The Friar was ready to his hand, and he 
 confided its foundation to him, albeit unworthy. 
 
 This Abbey of Thelema is one of the most graceful and 
 most noble fancies that ever entered into the brain of man. 
 It forms a fit pendant to the scheme of education which 
 its founder drew up for a young prince. The Order of 
 Thelema is a society composed entirely of young people 
 living together in the freedom of gentlehood, unrestricted 
 by any conventional and useless rules. They are to 
 learn, by watching the wishes and wants of each other, 
 how to live ; they are to be occupied all day in study, 
 in manly exercises, or in the acquirements of womanly 
 accomplishments ; they are to be entirely free from the 
 petty cares and anxieties of the ignoble life ; they are to 
 live in accordance with the laws of nature, and are there- 
 fore to be exempt from disease. The abbey itself is a 
 
72 RABELAIS. 
 
 miracle of architecture. It is to be the house of the 
 highest expression of art, refinement, and luxury. When 
 the monks and sisters have learned all that the Society 
 is able to teach they may leave it, two by two, and go 
 forth into the world, examples for all men and women 
 to follow. 
 
 Friar John was offered the Abbey of Seuilly — we are 
 still in the neighbourhood of Chinon — which he refused ; 
 then that of St Florent, or Bourgueil — also close to 
 Chinon — or both, if he liked. But again he refused. 
 "How," he asked, "am I, who cannot rule myself, to 
 rule others 1 But," he adds, " if you think I have done 
 you, or may henceforth do you, good service, give me 
 leave to found an abbey after my own mind." 
 
 Gargantua thereupon made him a grant of land upon 
 the river Loire on which he might establish his monas- 
 tery. It was instituted for an order of monks and nuns 
 whose rules should be the opposite of those of all other 
 orders. Between them, Gargantua and the excellent 
 Friar arranged their plan. 
 
 First, as all other convents are walled round, this must 
 be without wall of any kind. 
 
 " Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in this world 
 whereof the custom is, that if any women, even honourable 
 and modest women, come in, the ground is swept over which 
 they have passed, it was ordained, that if any man or woman 
 belonging to a religious order should by chance enter, all the 
 rooms should be thoroughly cleansed through which they 
 had passed. And because in the monasteries of the world 
 all is compassed, limited, and regulated by hours, it was 
 decreed that here there should be neither clock nor dial, but 
 that according to opportunities and occasions should be con- 
 ducted all their work. For. said Gargantua, the greatest 
 
RULES OF THE ABBEY. 73 
 
 loss of time that he knew was to count the hours. What 
 good comes of it ? And the greatest dotage in the world was 
 to govern himself by the sound of a bell, and not by the dic- 
 tation of judgment and common-sense. 
 
 "Item, Because at that time they put no women into nun- 
 neries but such as were either purblind, lame, crooked, ill- 
 favoured, misshapen, lunatic, senseless, or corrupt ; nor any 
 men but those who were either sickly, low-born, simple, 
 or good-for-nothing ; therefore was it ordained that here 
 should be admitted no women who were not fair, well- 
 featured, and of sweet disposition — nor any men who were 
 not comely, personable, and well-conditioned. 
 
 "Item, Because in the convents of women men come not but 
 privily and by stealth, it was enacted that here there should 
 be no women in case there be not men, nor any men in case 
 there be no women. 
 
 "Item, Because both men and women who are once received 
 into religious orders have been constrained after the year of 
 probation to stay in them all the days of their life, it was 
 ordered that all whatever, men or women, admitted within 
 this abbey, should have full leave to depart in peace and con- 
 tentment, whenever it should seem good to them to do so. 
 
 " Item, That, considering how religious men and women do 
 ordinarily take the three vows of chastity, of poverty, and of 
 obedience, it was ordered that here they might be honour- 
 ably married, that they might be rich, and that they might 
 live at liberty. As regards the legitimate age, the women 
 were to be admitted from ten till fifteen, and the men from 
 twelve till eighteen." 
 
 The preliminaries being agreed upon, the building was 
 at once commenced. In the description of the building, 
 Rabelais, who, like Victor Hugo, never touches a subject 
 of which he is not master, has given so minute an account 
 of a great and magnificent building, that architects have 
 succeeded in reproducing the plan and elevation which 
 
74 RABELAIS. 
 
 Eabelais had in his head. Greater descriptive power has 
 never been shown than so to set forth a building as to 
 enable a draughtsman nearly three hundred and fifty- 
 years later to represent on paper exactly such a building 
 as the author pictured. Suffice it to say that the abbey 
 was conceived in the spirit of the greatest luxury and 
 magnificence. Stately fountains, spacious galleries, tilt- 
 yards, riding-courts, theatres, swimming-baths, the garden 
 of Deduit, or Delight, by the river-side, a labyrinth, tennis 
 and ball courts, orchards planted with fruit-trees, a park 
 full of deer, butts for guns, crossbow, and archery, stables, 
 a falconry, a " venery," where beagles and hounds were 
 kept, and outside the abbey rows of houses in which 
 dwelt, for the convenience of the fraternity, all sorts of 
 handicraftsmen, such as goldsmiths, lapidaries, jewellers, 
 embroiderers, tailors, gold-drawers, velvet-weavers, tapes- 
 try-makers, upholsterers, and others who worked for the 
 monks and nuns of the new order. 
 
 No novelist or romance -writer has ever conceived a 
 more delightful abode than the Abbey of Thelema, or a 
 more splendid and magnificent foundation. 
 
 " All their life was spent, not by laws, statutes, or rules, but 
 according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose 
 when they thought good ; they ate, drank, worked, slept, 
 when the desire came to them. No one woke them up ; none 
 forced them to eat, drink, or to do any other thing what- 
 ever. So had Gargantua established it. In their rule there 
 was but this one clause — 
 
 FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS 
 
 (Do what you will) ; 
 
 because men who are free, well born, well bred, and con- 
 versant with honourable company, have naturally an instinct 
 
THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 75 
 
 which prompts them to virtuous actions and withdraws 
 them from vice. This is called honour. ... By this 
 liberty they entered into a laudable emulation to do all ol 
 them what they saw pleased one. If one of them, either a 
 monk or a sister, should say ' Let us drink/ they would all 
 drink. If any one of them said ' Let us play,' they all played. 
 If one said ' Let us go and take our pleasure in the fields/ 
 they all went. ... So nobly they were taught that there 
 was not one among them but could read, write, sing, play 
 upon musical instruments, speak five or six languages, and 
 compose in them either in verse or in measured prose. 
 Never were seen knights more valiant, more gallant, more 
 dexterous on horse or foot, more vigorous, more active, more 
 skilled in the use of arms, than were these. Never were seen 
 ladies so proper, so handsome, less whimsical, more ready 
 with hand, with needle, or with every honest and free 
 womanly action, than were these. For this reason, when 
 the time came that any man of the said abbey, either at 
 the request of his parents or from some other cause, had a 
 mind to go out of it, he carried along with him one of the 
 ladies, namely, her whom he had chosen before for his mis- 
 tress, and they were married together. And if they had 
 formerly lived in Thelema in good devotion and amity, they 
 continued therein, and increased it to a greater height in 
 their state of matrimony : so that they entertained that 
 mutual love till the end of their days just as on the very 
 first day of their wedding." 
 
 The dream of the abbey is abandoned as soon as set 
 down. We hear no more of it. Friar John, when we 
 meet him again, has forgotten it. Certainly, this coarse 
 biberon of a monk was not the man to be the head of an 
 abbey in which gentlefolk alone were to be admitted ; 
 but an objection of this kind may be taken to most of 
 the Rabelaisian episodes : the author conceives vividly 
 in portions, but imperfectly as a connected whole. There 
 
76 RABELAIS. 
 
 is nothing more outrageous in making Friar John propose 
 the Abbey of Thelema than there is in making the wise 
 and valiant Gargantua comb cannon-balls out of his hair 
 and pick pilgrims out of his teeth. But the abbey ! 
 Would that we could have heard more of it ! Would that 
 the time were yet arrived when young men and maidens 
 could live together in the sacred and honourable frater- 
 nity imagined by this prophet of a perfected humanity ! 
 
 The description of the abbey appears to me the noblest 
 dream of the sixteenth century, where so many things 
 seemed possible, and men's minds rose to such grand con- 
 ceptions. It is a vision which should have come to 
 some great poet and been wedded to immortal verse. In 
 this monastery, which is the world at its best, there is 
 to be no ugliness or deformity, either moral or physical ; 
 there are to be no stupid rules, no chains of custom or 
 convention — every one's conscience is to be his guide ; 
 there are no chapels, no masses, no beads, no bells — every 
 brother communicates alone in his cell with his God ; 
 there are no fasts ; there is none of the degrading servi- 
 tude to law which troubles the outside world. It is a 
 society of scholars, students, and artists, gentle all, living 
 together according to the rules of nature, restrained by 
 common-sense, honour, and the love of God, continuously 
 learning to respect more and more the mysteries of that 
 inconceivable marvel, which we call creation, by study 
 and mutual love ; advancing always by the road of 
 unselfish labour to the higher life which mostly, to us of 
 darkened spirit, seems so unattainable. They are always 
 genial, cheerful, and thoughtfid for each other. There 
 are none of the feastings and revellings which do very 
 well for the court of Grandgousier and the common people, 
 
LOVE THE END. 77 
 
 The damoiseaux and damoiseUes of Thelema do not think 
 of feasting. Their thoughts, like those of Eabelais when 
 he wrote these chapters, are set on higher things. Love 
 among them is free, and marriage the natural outcome of 
 their life. All is noble; all is delightful; all is ele- 
 vated ; all is well-bred and worthy ; and, to crown every- 
 thing, from a Rabelaisian point of view, there is not a 
 priest in the place 
 
76 
 
 CHAPTER TV 
 
 THE YOUTH OP PANTAGRUEI* 
 
 The Second Book, as it is generally called, has so many 
 points of resemblance with the first, and is yet in most 
 respects so greatly inferior, that it is like a rough draft 
 from which the finished picture has been made. There 
 is the same horrific birth of the young giant, but there 
 are no propos des buveurs. The infancy and childhood of 
 the prince are described as in the 'Gargantua,' but without 
 the elaboration and reckless mirth which we find there. 
 In place of the careful scheme of education and its 
 strongly accentuated contrasts with the old methods, we 
 have only a letter, remarkable indeed, and containing the 
 germs of the system afterwards worked up by its author. 
 Pantagruel goes to Paris, like his father; just as Gargantua 
 listened to the florid harangue of Master Janotus, so does 
 Pantagruel listen to the pleadings of advocates. Like 
 Gargantua, he changes idle and dissolute habits for a life 
 of study and industry j like him, he wages war and is 
 victorious. There is more of the giant in Pantagruel 
 than in Gargantua ; there is less wisdom ; there is even, 
 careless of Art as Rabelais always is, less skill in con- 
 struction. The main point of difference is that in Pan- 
 
BIRTH OF PANTAGRUEL. 79 
 
 tagroel we are first introduced to Parmrge, who is left 
 out of this chapter because he deserves one all to himself. 
 In one of those years of antiquity in which everything 
 happened which never can happen, when the month of 
 March had no Lent and the middle of August fell in 
 May, and in one week in which, by reason of its being 
 leap-year, and a certain variation from their courses of 
 both sun and moon, there were three Thursdays, there hap- 
 pened a miracle in the matter of medlars, which grew to so 
 enormous a size that three of them filled a bushel. Great 
 was the delight of the folk in eating of these medlars, 
 but strange was the effect produced. For all those who 
 ate them began to swell — some in the eyes, some in the 
 shoulders, some in the head, and some all over — so that 
 they became giants. Of this last tribe came, through a 
 long race of ancestors, including Goliath, Cacus, Enceladus, 
 Briareus, Antaeus, and Fierabras, the great Pantagruel. 
 Gargantua, his father, was four hundred fourscore forty- 
 and-four years of age at the birth of his son, — observe 
 that we have here nothing to do with the wise and valiant 
 Gargantua, but only with the giant of the ' Grandes 
 Chroniques.' The boy was born in a time of drought. 
 His mother died in childbirth, so that the good Gargan- 
 tua was distracted between joy at the birth of so goodly 
 a son and grief at the death of his wife. 
 
 "'Shall I weep?' he said. 'Yes; for why? My wife, so 
 good, is dead, who was the most this and the most that who 
 ever was in the world. Never shall I see her ; never shall I 
 get such another. It is to me a loss inestimable. . . . 
 Ah, Badebec! my mignonne, my friend, my darling; never 
 shall I see thee. Ah, poor Pantagruel ! thou hast lost thy 
 good mother, thy sweet nurse, thy lady beloved,' , v ♦ 
 
80 RABELAIS. 
 
 And so saying he wept like a cow, but suddenly burst into 
 laughing like a calf, when Pantagruel came into his mind. 
 ' Ho, my little son ! ' he said, ' how lovely thou art ! and 
 much am I beholden to God for giving me so fair a son — 
 so joyous, so smiling, so jolly. Ho ! ho ! ho ! how glad I am ! 
 Let us drink; let us abandon melancholy; bring the best; 
 rinse the glasses, lay the cloth, and turn out the dogs ; blow 
 up the fire, light the candle, hold my gown, for I will put 
 myself in doublet, the better to entertain the gossips.' " 
 
 The child is called Pantagruel, from the Greek 7ravra, 
 and a word " in the Hagarene language" meaning thirsty. 
 In his infancy he is fed with the milk of 4600 cows, 
 which is boiled for him in a great vessel made by the 
 united efforts of all the braziers of Saumur, Villedieu 
 of Normandy, and Bramont in Lorraine ; and they served 
 the boiled milk in a bell, which may still be seen at 
 Bourges. The child was so strong that they bound him 
 with chains, one of which is that now lying between the 
 two towers of La Rochelle. 
 
 After many exploits possible only to giants, and per- 
 haps hardly important enough to be remembered among 
 themselves, the boy is sent to school at Poitiers. Here 
 he erects the "Pierre levee," or raised stone, which 
 still stands at a short distance from the town. He 
 makes but a short stay at Poitiers, going from that place 
 a round of visits to all the university towns of France. 
 Starting from La Rochelle, he took ship to Bordeaux. 
 Here he saw the mariners playing at chuck-farthing on 
 the quay. From Bordeaux he went to Toulouse, where 
 he learned to dance, and would have stayed longer but 
 that he saw them binning three professors alive, and, in 
 fear lest such a death might happen to himself, he de- 
 parted and went to Montpellier, where he found excellent 
 
THE UNIVERSITIES. 81 
 
 wine of Mirevaux and jovial company. Nevertheless 
 he went on to Avignon, where he fell in love, and was 
 dragged away by his tutor Epistemon. Thence to Val- 
 ence, to Angers, to Bourges, and to Orleans. 
 
 It has been supposed that Eabelais himself made this 
 round. There is no occasion for any such theory. We 
 know already that he lived at Liguge, close to Poitiers, 
 at Montpellier, and at Angers ; we have shown that he 
 most probably met Clement Marot at Bourges. Valence 
 is near Montpellier ; Orleans is not far from Bourges. 
 As regards Toulouse and Bordeaux, which are not in- 
 cluded in the Babelaisian itinerary, we may observe 
 that his remarks are quite general, and might be made 
 without knowing the places. Bordeaux was a place of 
 shipping : sailors everywhere gamble for pence. Toulouse 
 was infamous to every scholar for the shameful burning 
 of Jean Caturce, professor of law, for heresy. Of this 
 deed of cruelty Eabelais would hear all the details from 
 his friend Dolet, who had the courage to denounce the 
 act when a young man of only twenty. It was at 
 Orleans that Pantagruel met a Limousin scholar who 
 talked the new Latinised French which Eonsard and his 
 friends were endeavouring to introduce. 
 
 The language of clerks and scholars of the middle ages 
 was Latin, so that had the student whom Pantagruel 
 saluted answered in that tongue, there would have been 
 nothing extraordinary, but he answered in the new 
 pedantic jargon, consisting of Latin words with French 
 terminations, thus : — 
 
 * ' My friend,' asked Pantagruel, ' whence comest thou ? ' 
 " The scholar answers him, ' From the alme, inclyte and 
 celebre academy, which is vocitated Lutetia.' 
 
 F.C. — VIII. F 
 
82 RABELAIS. 
 
 " ' What is the meaning of this ? ' asked Pantagruel, arton- 
 ished at these unknown sounds. 
 
 " ' He means/ answered his friends, ' from Paris.' 
 
 "'And how,' continued Pantagruel, 'how do you spend 
 your time there, you students of Paris ? ' 
 
 " ' We transfretate the Sequane at the dilucul and crepus- 
 cul : we deambulate by the compites and quadrives of the 
 urb ; we despumate the Latial verbocination ; and, like 
 verisimilar amorabons, we captat the benevolence of the 
 omnijugal, omniform, and omnigenal feminine sex. We 
 cauponisate in the meritorious taberns of the Pineapple, the 
 Castle, the Magdalene, and the Mule, fair vervecine spatules 
 perforated with petrosil. If by fortune there be rarity or 
 penury of pecune in our marsupies, and they are exhausted 
 ot ferruginean metal, for the shot we demit our codices, and 
 vestiments opignerated, prestolating the Tabellaries to some 
 of the penates and patriotic lares.' 
 
 " * What devilish language is this 1 ' cries the astonished 
 Pantagruel; ' I think thou art some kind of heretic/ 
 
 " ' My Lord, no, for libentissimally, as soon as it illucesceth 
 any minutule slice of the day, I deniigrate into one of these 
 fair architected minsters, and there irrorating myself with 
 lustral water, I mumble off certain missic precations of our 
 8acrificul8, and submurmurating my horary precules, I ab- 
 sterge my anime from its nocturnal inquinations. I revere 
 the olympicols. I latrially venere the supernal astripotent. 
 I dilige and redame my proxims. I observe the decalogical 
 precepts, and according to the facultatule of my vires, I do 
 not discede from them one unguicule. Nevertheless it is 
 veriform, because Mammon doth not supergurgitate anything 
 in my locules, that I am somewhat rare and lent to superero- 
 gate the elemosynes to those egents who hostially queritate 
 their stipe.' " 
 
 By the aid of a Latin dictionary this rigmarole may 
 be made out. It is a parody of the new French sought 
 to be introduced by Ronsard and his friends. We have 
 
LIBRARY OF ST VICTOR. 83 
 
 seen that the school never forgave Rabelais, but nursed 
 their wrath till the time came for writing malicious 
 epitaphs. 
 
 Pantagruel in a rage takes him by the throat with a 
 clutch so tremendous that the unhappy scholar was ever 
 after afflicted with a continual desire to drink, which, 
 unhappily, brought him to an early grave. " A work of 
 divine vengeance," says Rabelais, " showing us that we 
 should, as said Augustus, shun unknown words with as 
 much heedfulness as pilots of ships use to avoid rocks 
 at sea." 
 
 From Orleans, after spoiling all the wine of the city 
 by carrying the big bell of St Aignan through the 
 streets, young Pantagruel travels to Paris, which he con- 
 siders a good place to live in, but bad to die in. "While 
 there he visited the " great and stately " library of St 
 Victor, an unfortunate collection of medieval scholastic 
 books at which the new scholars were never tired of 
 scoffing. Rabelais gives the catalogue at length. 
 
 It must be owned that a list of titles, written to 
 satirise and bring into deeper contempt than that in 
 which they already languished the books on which 
 former generations had spent their lives and labours, 
 does not offer much prospect of amusement to the 
 modern reader, and yet the extravagance, the overflow- 
 ing imagination, and the boundless copiousness dis- 
 played in the list, have preserved the humour of this old- 
 fashioned catalogue, so that the old monastic collection 
 of rubbish known as the Library of St Victor seems 
 familiar to us who have never seen and laughed at it. 
 Many of the titles, and those not the least absurd, are 
 titles of real books, copies of which may still be found 
 
84 RABELAIS. 
 
 forgotten and dust-covered in corners of old libraries. 
 The following are among the least extravagant : — 
 
 The Mustard-pot of Penitence. 
 
 The Boots of Patience. 
 
 The Keverend Father Lubin's Three Books de cro- 
 quendis lardonibus. 
 
 The Spectacles of Kome-Trampers. 
 
 Majoris de modo faciendi boudinos. 
 
 The Pleasures of Monastic Life. 
 
 The Potations of Potative Bishops. 
 
 Godemarre of the Five Mendicant Orders. 
 
 Merlinus Coccaius de patria diabolorum. 
 
 Pantona decretorum. 
 
 Beda de optimitate triparum. 
 
 The Mummery of Ghosts and Will-o'-the- Wisps. 
 
 The Chimney-Sweeper of Astrology. 
 
 While at Paris, Pantagruel addressed himself seriously 
 to study, and received a letter from his father Gargantua, 
 which is a most grave and serious exhortation to study, 
 and a most eloquent eulogium on learning. It is not the 
 king who speaks, it is the author who for thirty years 
 has been learning incessantly, who has never ceased from 
 congratulating himself on being born in a time so favour- 
 able to scholars, and in days no longer, as those of the 
 previous generation, still "in darkness, and still feeling 
 the infelicity and calamity of the Goths." Observe that 
 while in the finished scheme Gargantua is stated vaguely 
 to have studied six hours a-day, in this earlier letter the 
 very subjects are prescribed. 
 
 " That which I now write unto thee is not so much that 
 thou shouldst live in a course of virtue as that thou shouldst 
 rejoice in so living and having lived, and shouldst cheer thy- 
 
GARGANTUAS LETTER. 85 
 
 self up with the like resolution for the future. To the per- 
 fection of this undertaking thou mayest easily remember 
 that I have spared nothing, but have helped thee as if I had 
 no other treasure in the world, only to see thee once in my 
 life absolute and perfect, as well in virtue, honesty, and 
 valour, as in all liberal knowledge, and so to leave thee after 
 my death as a mirror representing the person of myself, thy 
 father ; and if not so excellent and altogether as I wish thee 
 to be, yet such indeed is my desire. . . . When I studied, 
 the time was not so convenient to letters as it is at present, 
 and T had not the same abundance of teachers as you have 
 had ; dark too were the times, and feeling still something of 
 the infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who brought de- 
 struction upon all good literature. But, by divine goodness, 
 light and dignity have been in my age restored to letters. 
 Now is every kind of teaching revived — languages intro- 
 duced — Greek, without which it is a shame that any one 
 should call himself a scholar, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Latin. 
 Correct and elegant printed books are in use, — an invention 
 of divine inspiration, just as, on the other hand, artillery is 
 of diabolical inspiration. All the world is full of scholars, of 
 learned tutors, and of rich libraries ; and henceforth it will 
 be no longer possible to find in place or in company one who 
 is not trained in Minerva's workshop. . . . Wherefore, 
 my son, I admonish thee that thou employ thy youth in 
 profiting by study and by virtue. I mean, and I desire that 
 thou learn the languages perfectly : first Greek, as Quin- 
 tilian desires ; secondly, Latin ; and then thirdly, Hebrew 
 for the Holy Scriptures ; and Chaldee and Arabic likewise, 
 and for the forming of thy style in Greek after Plato, and in 
 Latin after Cicero. Let there be no history which thou 
 shalt not have ready in thy memory, in which thou wilt be 
 aided by the geographies of those who have written on this 
 subject. Of the liberal arts, Geometry, Arithmetic, and 
 Music, I gave thee some taste when thou wert yet a little 
 boy of five or six years. Proceed further in the remainder. 
 As for Astronomy, study all the rules thereof. Pass by, 
 nevertheless, divining astrology, and the art of Lully, as 
 
86 KABELAIS. 
 
 being nothing else bnt abuses and vanities. As for the Civil 
 Law, of that I would have thee to know the texts by heart, 
 and then to compare them with Philosophy. 
 
 " Now, in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, 
 I would have thee give thyself curiously, that there be no 
 sea, river, nor fountain, of which thou dost not know the fishes ; 
 all the fowls of the air ; all the trees and shrubs of the forest ; 
 all the herbs of the earth ; all the metals that are hidden with- 
 in the bowels of the earth ; the precious stones of all the east 
 and south. Let nothing of all these be unknown to thee. 
 . . . And at some hours of the day begin to visit the Holy 
 Scriptures: first, in Greek, the New Testament, with the 
 Epistles of the Apostles ; and the Old Testament in Hebrew. 
 In brief, let me see thee an abyss of knowledge : for, from 
 henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, 
 thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study ; thou 
 must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, 
 the better whereby to defend my house and to succour our 
 friends in all their needs against the assaults of evil-ioers." 
 
 This is the first time in " Pantagruel " — that is, in the 
 whole work chronologically — that Rabelais is really 
 serious. Considering that six important chapters in 
 "Gargantua" are devoted to the question of education, it 
 is manifest how strongly the necessity of a more enlight- 
 ened system was impressed upon his mind. It is worthy 
 of note, too, that this complex and encyclopaedic education 
 is not designed to fit a man for the office of professor, 
 scholar, or divine, but is proposed as an introduction to 
 the active and practical duties of a prince. Nothing fits 
 a man for the administration of affairs, Rabelais would 
 have said, so much as the accumulation of knowledge. 
 The prejudice which in all countries exists against states- 
 men who are also philosophers is founded in the distrust 
 of speculative philosophy. Compare, however, tlte in- 
 
FIKST SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 87 
 
 junctions in Gargantua's letter with the curriculum in- 
 stituted by Ponocrates. The former foreshadow the prac- 
 tical good sense of the latter. One feels that a prince so 
 brought up, so trained in all the wisdom of ancients and 
 moderns, so practised in all bodily exercises, so drilled 
 to consider no mechanical industry unworthy of his 
 study, has received all that can be done for one who has 
 to rule as well as to reign. The rest depends upon nat- 
 ural ability. 
 
 It may be objected, of course, that it is utterly im- 
 possible for such a king as Gargantua, who has behaved 
 like the foolish giant that he was, in the matter of the 
 death of his wife and the birth of his son, to write such 
 a letter. Such incongruities, however, are entirely after 
 the manner of Eabelais. "When he wrote " Gargantua " 
 as an introduction to " Pantagruel " he forgot in exactly 
 the same way the blubbering and emotional giant in the 
 first chapter of the latter, and gave the young Gargantua 
 such a training as should have made him the wisest and 
 the best of princes — such a prince as the world has 
 prayed for since kings were first invented. 
 
 Panurge, the incomparable Panurge, who is introduced 
 at this point, demands a chapter to himself. On one 
 point, however, we must be clear. Panurge, large as 
 is the part he plays in the book, is not the hero of 
 Rabelais. The hero, whether of "Gargantua" or of 
 "Pantagruel," is always the king. He it is who, by 
 right of his exalted position and his virtues, occupies 
 the greatest space on the canvas. Whenever there is 
 danger of his being forgotten he is restored, by the 
 simplest trick in the world, as the central figure. He 
 becomes a giant again. 
 
88 RABELAIS. 
 
 We need not delay over the case which Pantagruel 
 is called upon to hear and decide, just as Gargantua 
 (p. 58) heard the appeal in the case of the bells. It is 
 a parody on the interminable pleadings, the inability to 
 state a case clearly, which belonged to the courts of law. 
 The case referred to the decision of Pantagruel had been 
 considered by the Parliament of Paris, the Grand Council. 
 and professors of France, England, and Italy. Aftei 
 forty-six weeks of deliberation they could make nothing 
 of it. And as for the documents and papers connected 
 with the case, they amounted in all to four donkey-loads. 
 These, however, Pantagruel burns, and orders the case to 
 be set forth de novo. 
 
 It has been found possible in our time to present a 
 parody on the procedure of courts. It is never, and in 
 no country, difficult to present what seems to be hardly 
 a caricature of the advocate's long-winded pleadings 
 and a judge's capricious, arbitrary, and opinionated in- 
 terruptions. But pedantry in its pseudo-classical form 
 has long since left both bar and bench. Counsel and 
 judge no longer rely upon a fancied analogy between 
 a mythological case in Ovid and a real case of modern 
 law. It will therefore be well to dismiss both the argu- 
 ments and the decision. This Pantagruel delivers in a 
 style corresponding to that of the advocates. Neither 
 pleading nor decision is for three lines together intelli- 
 gible. Yet so great was the rapture of the counsellors 
 and other doctors of law, and so much were they ravished 
 with admiration at the wisdom of a prince so young, that 
 they fell into a trance for the space of three hours, and 
 would have so continued until the present day had not 
 certain good people brought vinegar and rose-water to 
 
pantagruel's campaign. 89 
 
 
 bring them round again " to their former understandin, 
 for -which God be thanked everywhere." 
 
 While Pantagruel was living in great joy and happi- 
 ness at Paris, diverted by the tricks of Panurge — as yet 
 Friar John does not appear upon the scene — he learned 
 that his father has been translated to the land of the 
 fairies, and that the Dipsodes, taking advantage of there 
 being no king, had invaded his country of Utopia, and 
 besieged the city of Amaurotes. The prince instantly 
 sets out, accompanied by all his suit, to repel the in- 
 vaders. They take ship at Honfleur — in " Gargantua " 
 the kingdom of Utopia is in or about Touraine — and sail 
 to the Canary Islands, to Madeira, and by Senegal, round 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and after passing the islands of 
 Nowhere and Nothing, arrive at the port of Utopia, at 
 three leagues' distance from the city of the Amaurotes. 
 
 The enemy, under the command of Anarchus and his 
 captain, Loupgarou, with three hundred giants, are dis- 
 persed ; there is a combat between Loupgarou and Pan- 
 tagruel, in which the former is slain with all his giants. 
 It is singular, but quite after the manner of Eabelais, to 
 find in the midst of the maddest extravagance a most 
 solemn and grave prayer offered by Pantagruel immedi- 
 ately before the battle. 
 
 The victory was dashed at first with mourning for 
 Epistemon, who was found with his head cut off, but 
 the body was warm. Panurge undertook to restore him. 
 This he effected by the simple method of putting the 
 head on again very carefully, and sewing it round with 
 fifteen or sixteen stitches. As soon as Epistemon began 
 to breathe, they gave him a large glass of strong white 
 wine, after which he grew rapidly well, save for a little 
 
90 RABELAIS. 
 
 hoarseness during the next three weeks, and a dry cough 
 for which the only remedy was continual drinking. 
 
 As soon as he was sufficiently recovered he told the 
 story of what he had seen in the nether regions. 
 
 A descent into Hades is no new thing in literature. 
 There are the purely poetical descents, as those of Virgil, 
 JEne&s, and Dante; the medieval stories, meant to be 
 taken literally, like that of St Patrick's cave on Lough 
 Derg, where was the entrance to Purgatory ; the medieval 
 stories which are satirical ; the many classical stories, 
 especially that to which Rabelais is most largely indebted, 
 the ' Necyomancie ' of Lucian. According to the ex- 
 perience of Epistemon, things have been grossly misre- 
 presented. The wicked are not treated with the cruelty 
 usually believed ; they are only transformed into some 
 new conditions of life which shall form the greatest con- 
 trast to their former grandeur. Alexander the Great, 
 for instance, is a journeyman tailor who gains a poor 
 livelihood by darning and repairing old clothes ; Xerxes 
 bawls mustard along the street ; Sylla is a ferryman ; 
 Cyrus has become a cowkeeper ; Priam vends old rags ; 
 Lancelot of the Lake skins dead horses ; King Baldwin 
 of Jerusalem is a churchwarden ; Pope Alexander the 
 Sixth is a ratcatcher ; Trajan fishes for frogs ; Nero very 
 appropriately plays a fiddle along the streets ; Cleopatra 
 retails onions, and Dido mushrooms. On the other 
 hand, the philosophers, and those who had been in this 
 world beggars, are there great people, — among them 
 Epistemon saw Diogenes, dressed in purple and with a 
 great golden sceptre ; and Epictetus, gallantly apparelled 
 after the Erench fashion, sitting under a pleasant arbour, 
 dancing and singing with gentlewomen. 
 
CONCLUSION ?F THE BOOK. 91 
 
 As for the captive Anarchus, it is suggested that he 
 had better be taught such an art as will be useful to him 
 in the next world, since that is regulated by contraries. 
 They therefore dress him in rags, teach him to hawk 
 green sauce about the street, and marry him to an old 
 lantern-woman. 
 
 It is a pity that the book did not stop here. But 
 Rabelais unfortunately remembers, which we would fain 
 forget, that he has a giant to deal with, and Pantagruel 
 has to support the character. A story is borrowed from 
 Lucian's * True Voyage,' which does service for the occa- 
 sion. There is nothing in it but pure extravagance, and, 
 together with the chapter which follows, is tedious. 
 
 Rabelais here concludes the First Book of "Pantagruel." 
 He promises to follow it up with a crowd of adventures 
 for the Second Book. Needless to say, not one of his 
 promises are kept. 
 
 " If you say to me, Master, it would seem that you are not 
 very wise in writing for us these flim-flam stories, and plea- 
 sant fooleries, — I reply to you, that you are not much wiser 
 to spend your time in reading them. Nevertheless, if you 
 read them for your pastime, as in manner of pastime I made 
 them, you and I are more worthy of pardon than a great 
 rabble of pretenders and hypocrites who disguise themselves 
 like monks to deceive the world. For while they give the 
 common people to understand that they are busied about 
 nothing but contemplation and devotion in fastings and 
 maceration of the flesh, on the contrary, they make good 
 cheer. Et Curios simulant, sed Bacchanalia vivunt. . . . Fly 
 from these men, abhor and hate them as much as I do, and 
 upon my word you will find the benefit of it. And if you 
 desire to be good Pantagruelists — that is to say, to live in 
 peace, joy, health, making yourselves always merry — never 
 trust men who always peep through one hole." 
 
92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PANURGE. 
 
 The Third Book of this romance appeared with the 
 king's privilege in 1546, thirteen years after the First of 
 " Pantagruel." In 1547 Francis died; and, as we have 
 seen, the reaction set in. But the mischief was done ; 
 the Sorbonne could not make the people forget what 
 they had read ; and this was nothing less than the most 
 spirited hook of modern literature. Other writers had 
 nobler themes; no others had more fitting objects of 
 satire. Others, men like Erasmus, DAubigne, and Von 
 Hutten, attacked, each in his own way, the follies of the 
 age. No one except Babelais, and he only in this Third 
 Book, attacked with the light laugh of one who ridiculed 
 without bitterness, and preserved at the same high level 
 his good temper, his good spirits, and his verve. In this 
 Book he feels the fulness of his strength ; he discards his 
 troublesome giant machinery ; Pantagruel assumes the 
 external proportions of a man ; and the author, proud of 
 his work and himself, drops the anagram of Alcofribas 
 Kasier, and assumes his own name. I call this chapter 
 " Panurge," because the book, save for one brief episode, 
 is entirely occupied with the adventures and exploits of 
 that hero 
 
PREFACE. 93 
 
 In the preface to this volume, Babelais compares him- 
 self with Diogenes, who, when the Corinthians, threat- 
 ened with instant attack from Philip, began in the 
 greatest haste to prepare for battle, girded up his cloak, 
 tucked up his sleeves, and carried his tub outside the 
 city, where, in great vehemency of spirit, he began 
 
 " To turn it, veer it, wheel it, frisk it, jumble it, shuffle it, 
 huddle it, tumble it, hurry it, jolt it, justle it, overthrow it, 
 evert it, invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it, 
 bump it, batter it, knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock 
 it, shake it, toss it, throw it, overthrow it, upside down, 
 topsy-turvy, tread it, trample it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, 
 ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it, resound it, stop it, shut it, 
 unbung it, close it, unstopple it. . . . Which when his 
 friends had seen, and asked him why he did so toil his body, 
 perplex his spirit, and torment his tub, the philosopher's 
 answer was that, not being employed in any other charge by 
 the Kepublic, he thought it expedient to thunder and storm 
 it so tempestuously upon his tub, that, amongst a people so 
 fervently busy, and earnest at work, he alone might not seem 
 a loitering slug and lazy fellow." * 
 
 This needs no explanation, far less the exhortation to 
 drink which follows in the maddest Rabelaisian. Let 
 us at once proceed to the first chapter. "Having de- 
 spatched this point, let us return to the barrel, with 
 ' Up, my lads, to the wine.' " 
 
 Let us remark that the rollicking merriment, the 
 exuberance of animal spirits, which lights up these 
 pages, belongs to a man of sixty-three. At that age 
 there is no note of sadness or disappointment. The 
 writer is as full of hope as any boy of twenty, and as 
 full of gaiety. There was one reason, at least, as we 
 
 1 Urquhart's Translation. 
 
94 RABELAIS. 
 
 have seen, why the youthful heart of Rabelais was pro- 
 longed to sixty — his youth only began at forty. He 
 had had no time as yet to feel the bitterness of dis- 
 appointment ; he still believed in men, in the future, in 
 the glorious prospects of liberty and learning. When, 
 six years later, he comes forward with his Fourth Book, 
 we shall see that he has been aged, not by years, which 
 could destroy the powers of his body but not his cheer- 
 fulness, but by the failure of things he had looked for, 
 by the judicial murder of friends, and by the shadow of 
 that impending conflict — Eabelais had little sympathy 
 with either side — which was to end in the annihilation 
 of free thought in his country. 
 
 Pantagruel, having fairly conquered the Land of 
 Dipsodie — one wonders why Rabelais took the trouble 
 to revive that old story — transported a colony of 
 Utopians to people and cultivate the country, most 
 of which was a desert, and to retain the rebellious 
 natives within the bounds of obedience. As for his 
 own people, he had no fear that they would depart from 
 their fidelity ; for indeed the Utopians sucked in loyalty 
 with their mothers' milk, so humane and so mild was 
 the government of their king. After only a few days of 
 conversation with their new friends, the Dipsodes became 
 as loyal and as good subjects, regretting only that they 
 had not sooner arrived at the knowledge of the good 
 Pantagruel. 
 
 " You will note therefore here, my drinkers, that the true 
 way of holding and preserving countries newly conquered is 
 not, as has been the erroneous opinion of certain tyrannical 
 spirits, to their own loss and dishonour, by pillaging, forcing, 
 oppressing, ruining, vexing, and governing with rods of iron. 
 
PANURGE. 95 
 
 . . . Osiris, the great king of the Egyptians, conquered 
 the whole earth, not so much by force of arms, as by easing 
 the people of their troubles, teaching them how to live well 
 and healthily, with good laws, affability, and benefits." 
 
 This advice belongs to that kind of moral teaching 
 which nobody disputes. It would be admitted to be 
 good by every country under the sun. And yet we 
 continue to read of Poland, Circassia, and other places. 
 If no good teaching is to be abandoned until the world 
 at large has incorporated it in its daily and habitual 
 life, then these maxims of Rabelais may still be con- 
 sidered useful to remember. 
 
 His conquests thus fairly set in order, Rabelais was 
 able to return to the Panurge whom he had created 
 thirteen years before, and who had been growing in his 
 brain until this one creation threatened to overshadow all 
 the rest. And, in fact, except the stately figure of the 
 king, who is always present, the stage is henceforth 
 chiefly occupied by Panurge and Friar John. 
 
 The incomparable Panurge appears, then, first in the 
 earlier Book. The manner in which Pantagruel meets 
 him is in this wise : — 
 
 " One day Pantagruel, walking without the city towards 
 the Abbey of Saint Antoine, conversing and philosophising 
 with his people and certain scholars, met a man fair ol 
 stature and well proportioned in all the members of his body, 
 but piteously wounded in several parts, and in such miser- 
 able guise that he seemed to have escaped from the dogs, or 
 rather resembled an apple -picker of Le Perche. When 
 Pantagruel saw him yet afar off, he said to his assistants, 
 ' See you yon man who comes by the road of the Charen- 
 ton Bridge ? By my faith, he is only poor by fortune. I 
 assure you, from his physiognomy, that Nature has produced 
 him of rich and noble lineage.' " 
 
96 RABELAIS. 
 
 He then accosts the stranger, with his princely conrtesy, 
 and offers him assistance. Panurge, for it is he, answers 
 successively in German, Arabic, Italian, English, Bis- 
 cayan, Breton, Spanish, Danish, Hebrew, Greek, and 
 Latin. " Dea ! my friend," cried Pantagruel, at last, 
 " can you not speak French V " Yes, very well, sir," 
 replied the stranger. " It is, thank God, my maternal 
 and natural tongue, for I was born and brought up in 
 Touraine, the Garden of France." 
 
 Taken into Pantagruel's household, and refreshed by 
 a long rest, with copious eating and drinking, Panurge 
 proceeds to tell the story of his escape from the Turks, 
 " without one word of falsehood : " — 
 
 " The rascal Turks had broached me on a spit, larded like 
 a rabbit, for I was so thin that otherwise my flesh would have 
 made bad eating, and in this manner they began to roast me 
 alive. Now while they were roasting me I recommended my- 
 self to the grace divine, having in remembrance the good 
 Saint Lawrence ; and I trusted continually in God, that He 
 would deliver me from that torment, which was done very 
 strangely. For . . . the roaster by the divine will fell fast 
 asleep. . . . Then I took between my teeth a brand by 
 the end where it was not burned, and I threw it into his lap ; 
 and another I threw as well as I could under a camp-bed 
 near the chimney, on which was the straw mattress of master 
 roaster. Immediately the fire caught the straw, and from 
 the straw the bed, and from the bed the ceiling, which 
 was covered with fir. But the good thing was that the fire 
 which I threw into the rascal roaster's lap burned his gown, 
 so that he started up and cried at the window as loud as he 
 could, ' Dal baroth ! Dal baroth ! ' which means Fire ! Fire t 
 Then he came straight to me, to throw me into the fire, and 
 to that purpose cut the bandages off my hands and feet. But 
 the master of the house, hearing the cry of fire, and smelling 
 the smoke of the street when he was walking with other 
 
THE ESCAPE OF PANURGE. 97 
 
 Bashaws and Musafys, ran as hard as he could to give help 
 and carry off the valuables. 
 
 " As soon as he arrived, he seized the spit on which I was 
 spitted, and killed my roaster stiff and dead. True it is that 
 in drawing the spit from me I fell to the ground near 
 the gridirons, and my fall did me a little harm, but not 
 much, for the larding of bacon saved me. Then, my Bashaw 
 seeing that the case was desperate, and that his house was 
 burned without remission, and all his property lost, gave 
 himself up to all his devils, calling nine times on Grilgoth, 
 Astaroth, Rappalus, and Gribouillis. 
 
 " Seeing which, I had more than five pennyworth of fear, 
 thinking, should the devils come and carry off the madman, 
 would they be likely sort of people to carry me off too ? So 
 I made the sign of the cross, crying dyios ddduaros o Qeos, and 
 none came. Seeing which, my villain Bashaw tried to kill 
 himself with my spit ; but it was not sharp enough, and 
 push as hard as he would, he profited nothing. Then I 
 came to him, saying, * Master, you lose your time ; you will 
 never kill yourself this way : perhaps you will do yourself 
 some harm of which you will languish all the days of your 
 life among the doctors. Now, if you like, I will kill you 
 right off, so that you will feel nothing at all. You may 
 trust me, for I have killed plenty of folk who felt themselves 
 all the better for it afterwards.' 
 
 " * Ah ! my friend/ he said, ' do it, I pray thee, and I will 
 give thee my purse with 600 seraphs in it, and diamonds 
 and rubies of the finest.' 
 
 " ' Where are they ? ' asked Epistemon. 
 
 " l By St John ! ' said Panurge, ' they are far enough off 
 now if they keep on travelling.' But ' where are last year's 
 snows 1 ' That was all that Villon of Paris cared to ask. 
 
 " ' Go on,' said Pantagruel, ' that we know how you treated 
 your Bashaw.' 
 
 "'As an honest man,' said Panurge, * I do not lie in one 
 single word. I bound him with an old pair of pantaloons 
 that I found half burned, and I tied him up hands and feet, 
 
 F.C. — VIII. O 
 
98 RABELAIS. 
 
 so that he could not even kick. Then I passed my spit 
 through his throat, and hanged him up on two iron hooks. 
 Then I lit a great fire below him, and flamed up my lord, 
 resting the spit as they do to herrings hanging in the chimney 
 to be dried. Then I took his purse and a little javelin, and 
 ran away. When I came down into the street, I found every- 
 body running with water to put out the fire. And seeing me 
 thus half roasted, they naturally had pity on me, and threw 
 water over me, and joyously refreshed me. . . . And note 
 that this roasting entirely cured me of a sciatica to which 
 I had been subject more than seven years, on the side on 
 which my roaster let me burn when he went to sleep. Thus 
 did I escape, gallant and gay, et vive la rotisserie ! ' " 
 
 These and other experiences of Panurge are narrated 
 in a spirit of pure gaiety and reckless extravagance. The 
 fun is, it must be confessed, of the brutal order; but 
 what can we look for in the sixteenth century ? In fact, 
 that kind of jocularity which is aroused by the suffer- 
 ings, humiliation, or even the death, of one's friends, 
 forms the staple of the Eabelaisian fun, just as it does in 
 the " Fabliaux " of his predecessors, and the " Contes " 
 of his contemporaries. As regards the adventure I have 
 just quoted, it was entirely in the spirit of the time. It 
 seemed quite natural to the readers of Kabelais that a 
 Turk should hang up a Christian to be roasted alive, and 
 equally natural that the Christian should turn the tables 
 upon his torturer. 
 
 Attached to the household of Pantagruel, Panurge be 
 gins over again, with as keen a relish as if he were •till 
 a student, the tricks and pranks of his former life. It 
 would be an excellent contribution to the many lost or 
 unwritten chapters of fiction, were some one to recon- 
 struct the earlier years of Panurge. We shall never 
 
PANURGE. 99 
 
 know how or why he fell among the Turks ; we might, 
 indeed, from the subsequent development of his char- 
 acter, be led to conjecture that he had never left the 
 limits of France at all, and invented the whole story to 
 please the good-natured and wonder-loving prince who 
 was to entertain him. It is not difficult to make such a 
 reconstruction. Eliminate from the confessions of Villon 
 those egarements in the direction of burglary, fraud, and 
 pillage, which led that poet to misery and his compan- 
 ions to Montfaucon — preserve the poverty, the reckless- 
 ness, the makeshift -life, the debts, the carousing and 
 singing, the wanderings in the heart of Paris, the chats 
 with the market-women of the Halles, and the troop of 
 comrades all subject to the same malady — 
 
 " Lack of money is grief without its like." 
 
 Then read the story of the struggles of those two poor 
 scholars, Amyot and Guillaume Postel. See how a 
 pauper managed to get learning : mark the noble enthu- 
 siasm for learning. Graft upon the turbulence of Villon 
 the ardour of Amyot, — and you have the history which 
 Rabelais has withheld from us of Panurge's earlier years. 
 Panurge, at the time of his introduction to Panta- 
 gruel, was of a middle stature, neither too great nor too 
 little; his nose was slightly aquiline, made like the 
 handle of a razor; he was about five-and-thirty years 
 of age : a gallant and proper man in his carriage. He 
 had sixty -three ways of finding money at need. Of 
 these his favourite method was some way of secret thiev- 
 ing. "An evil-doer, a cheat, a drinker, a vagabond, a 
 libertine if ever there was one in Paris : " 
 
 " For all the rest, the beat son in the world." 
 
100 RABELAIS. 
 
 Besides the tricks which he played for his livelihood, he 
 was continually contriving some new device against the 
 sergeants of the watch. On one occasion he got together 
 three or four rustics, made them drink like Templars in 
 the evening, then took them out to the College of Na- 
 varre, where he waited till the watch were coming up the 
 street. Then they took a tumbrel and drove it as hard 
 as they could down the hill, so that the poor watch 
 were tumbled over each other like pigs. At another 
 time he laid a train of gunpowder at a certain place 
 where the watch were to pass, firing it at the moment 
 they were coming. " Thus his delight was to see their 
 grace in running away, thinking that St Anthony's fire 
 was in their legs." He took also enormous pleasure in 
 playing tricks upon the Masters of Arts and Doctors of 
 the university, into whose hoods he would drop loath- 
 some and evil -smelling compounds. He loved to whip 
 the pages whom he met in the street carrying wine to 
 their masters. In his coat, which contained six-and- 
 twenty little pockets, were sharp penknives for cut- 
 ting purses; bottles of verjuice, which he threw in 
 people's eyes ; burs stuck with goose-feathers, which he 
 dropped on the head and robes of honest people ; little 
 horns and quills full of fleas, which he poured down 
 the necks of young ladies as they knelt in church ; 
 hooks and crochets, with which he secretly hooked 
 together men and women in church, especially those 
 who were well dressed ; squibs with tinder, and matches 
 for lighting them; burning-glasses with which (always 
 at church) he drove people nearly mad; needle and 
 thread, by means of which a good many tricks are 
 possible ; a bottle of oil, with which he would smear 
 
THE CRAFT OF PANURGE. 101 
 
 the dresses of those who were especially well dressed : 
 and powder, with which he made ladies sneeze for four 
 hours together without stopping, a thing which mightily 
 amused him. 
 
 One of his methods of getting money was by the 
 purchase of indulgences. These could only be obtained 
 by depositing certain alms in boxes kept in the churches 
 for the purpose. Panurge piously put in a small coin 
 and drew out a great one, so that after the morning's 
 round among the churches he would find himself in pos 
 session of " ten or twelve " little bags full of money. 
 But although he had threescore and three ways of find- 
 ing money, he had two hundred and fourteen of spend- 
 ing it, so that he was continually poor. 
 
 Panurge first exhibits that craftiness of his, which 
 amounted to genius, in the great controversy which he 
 maintained with the English philosopher, who disputed 
 only by signs. His name was Thaumast, "the won- 
 derful," and he had left England and his friends to see 
 Pantagruel, after the example of the Queen of Sheba, 
 who came from the utmost borders of the East to see 
 Solomon; or that of Anacharsis, who travelled from 
 Scythia to see Solon ; or that of Plato, who went to 
 Egypt to see the Magicians; or that of Apollonius of 
 Tyana, who travelled all the way to India to see Hiar- 
 chas; or those many studious persons who came to 
 Rome in order to converse with Livy. But Thaumast 
 proposed not only to confer, but to dispute with Panta- 
 gruel. For the first and only time that accomplished 
 prince fell into a serious doubt as to his own powers ; 
 and after reading all the books carefully, enumerated by 
 the learned author, which treat of signs, be consented" to 
 
102 RABELAIS. 
 
 Panurge's advice, and intrusted the conduct of the con- 
 test much to him. 
 
 The story is not new — little except Panurge, Friar 
 John, Pantagruel, and the Divine Bottle is new in 
 Rabelais — but it is told in the best style of the author. 
 The disputants are not to speak. They begin, at least 
 Thaumast begins, by a solemn asseveration that his de- 
 sire is not to dispute contentiously, but solely to resolve 
 doubts and to pursue truth. 
 
 " Everybody then taking heed, in great silence, the Eng- 
 lishman lifted his two hands separately, clenching the ends 
 of his fingers in the form that at Chinon they call the fowl's 
 tail. Then he struck them together by the nails four times. 
 Then he opened them and struck one flat upon the other 
 with a clash once ; after which, joining them as above, he 
 struck twice, and four times afterwards on opening them. 
 Then he placed them, joined and extended, the one above 
 the other, seeming to pray God devoutly. 
 
 " Panurge suddenly moved his right hand in the air, 
 placed the right-hand thumb at the right-hand nostril, hold- 
 ing the four fingers stretched out and arrayed in parallel 
 lines with the point of the nose, 1 shutting the left eye en- 
 tirely, and winking with the right, making a profound de- 
 pression with eyebrow and eyelid. Next, he raised aloft the 
 left with a strong clenching and extension of the four fingers 
 and elevation of the thumb, and held it in line directly 
 corresponding with the position of the right, the distance 
 between the two being a cubit and a half. This done, in the 
 like manner he lowered towards the ground both hands, and 
 finally held them in the midst as if aiming straight at the 
 Englishman's nose. ' And if Mercury,' said the Englishman. 
 1 You have spoken, mask/ cried Panurge." 
 
 1 " Estenduz et serrez par leur ordre en ligne parallele a la pinnti 
 du nez." This is difficult to understand. Rabelais means, jterhaps, 
 that- the line formed by joining the tips of the three last fingers 
 was par^lkl with tbe >ii\e ,of the nose. 
 
THAUMAST. 103 
 
 We need not follow in further detail the steps of this 
 wonderful controversy, in which all that the outsiders 
 understood was, that for every sign exhibited by Thau- 
 mast, Panurge had another more complex and more 
 mystic. The Englishman at last confesses himself 
 beaten. 
 
 " My lords, well may I now utter the words of the Gos- 
 pel, ' Et ecce plusquam Salomon hie!' You have here an in- 
 comparable treasure before you, in the person of the Lord 
 Pantagruel, whose renown has drawn me from the very end 
 of England to confer with him on certain insoluble problems, 
 whether of magic, alchemy, cabala, geomancy, and philo- 
 sophy. But at present I am indignant with renown, which 
 seems to me envious against him, for it does not report the 
 thousandth part of the worth that is in him. You have seen 
 how his disciple alone has contented me, and has told me 
 more than I asked ; he has opened up to me abundantly, and 
 at the same time solved, other iD estimable doubts. In which, 
 I can assure you, that he has disclosed the true well and 
 abyss of an encyclopaedia, and that in a way of which I 
 thought I should never find a man who knew the first ele- 
 ments — namely, when one disputed by signs without saying 
 a word or half a word. But presently I shall write down all 
 that we have said and resolved, so that it may not be thought 
 that we have been fooling. And you may judge what the 
 master would have been, seeing that the disciple has dis- 
 played such powers. Car non est discipulus super magistrum. 
 . . . On departing from there, Pantagruel took Thaumast to 
 dine with him. And you may believe that they drank un- 
 buttoned. Blessed lady ! how they drank ! And the flagons 
 went, and they called out, ' Draw, give, page, wine, reach, in 
 the devil's name, reach.' Not one but drank twenty or thirty 
 hogsheads. And do you know how 1 Sicut terra sine aqua ; 
 for it was summer weather, and all the more were they 
 thirsty. With regard to the exposition of the propositions 
 advanced by Thaumast, and the signification of the signs 
 
104 KABELAIS. 
 
 which they used in disputing, I would set that forth accord- 
 ing to their relation the one to the other ; but they tell me 
 that Thaumast has printed a great book in London, wherein 
 he explains the whole, leaving nothing omitted." 
 
 Such, certain details omitted, is Panurge in the First 
 Book of Pantagruel. When, thirteen years later, the 
 author again takes up the character, we find him still 
 consistent with his first conception. Panurge in the last 
 three books is the same as in the first. The figure of 
 Pantagruel loses almost altogether its gigantic proportions, 
 and assumes the likeness of a great and wise king. Friar 
 John, lightly sketched in " Gargantua," becomes human. 
 New characters are introduced. Panurge alone remains 
 the same, only the hand of the limner is firmer, the features 
 of his creation are clearer, the figure more distinct. Such 
 as he was at the beginning, and as we have drawn him 
 from the first account, so he remains. What the author 
 intended to delineate we will consider in the last chapter. 
 
 Let us now continue the history as given in the Third 
 Book. 
 
 While Pantagruel was arranging for the government 
 of his newly conquered territory, Dipsodie, he made 
 Panurge Lord of Salmigondin, an estate producing a rev- 
 enue of 6,789,106,789 royals certain, besides a varying 
 income arising from periwinkles and locusts, which might 
 amount to 2,435,768 or 2,435,769 gol&moutons every year. 
 
 Panurge at once began to dissipate and spend this 
 princely property, insomuch that within fourteen days he 
 had squandered the whole revenue for the next three whole 
 years. He built no monasteries, founded no colleges, 
 endowed no hospitals, he simply threw it all away in 
 feasting, cutting down woods, burning great trunks for 
 
THE PRAISE OF DEBT. 105 
 
 the sake of the timber, borrowing money, buying dear, 
 selling cheap, and eating his corn in the blade. In 
 fourteen days — a short fortnight — he wasted three years' 
 revenue ! Was there ever such splendid prodigality % 
 
 Pantagruel, advised of this extravagance, gently re- 
 monstrates with his follower, and tells him that if he 
 continues to live at this rate it will be impossible, or at 
 least extremely difficult, to make him rich. " Rich ! " cries 
 Panurge. " Was that your intention? Have you taken 
 thought how to make me rich in this world 1 Think to live 
 joyously. Let no other care, no other thought be received 
 in the sanctosacred domicile of your celestial brain. . . . 
 As for economy, everybody talks about it, but few know 
 what it is." He goes on to defend his spendthrift habits, 
 it is prudence, he says, to borrow, because who knows 
 how long the world will last 1 It is an act of commu- 
 tative justice to buy dear, on credit — and sell cheap, 
 for ready money. It is an act of distributive justice 
 to provide feasts and entertainments for young people. 
 It is an act of fortitude to cut down great forests, the 
 dens and strongholds of wolves and wild beasts, brigands 
 and murderers. It is an act of temperance to eat the 
 corn while it is still in the blade. As for being out of 
 debt, that will come with the Greek calends. Then 
 follows the famous eulogy of debt, the most eloquent 
 speech of all those made by Panurge, and the one in 
 greatest harmony with his character. 
 
 " The Lord forbid that I should be out of debt ! After that, 
 indeed, I should find no one to lend me a penny. Do you 
 continually owe money to somebody. By him will God be 
 always prayed to grant you a good, long, and happy life ; 
 and fearing to lose his debt, he will always speak well of yon 
 
106 BABELAIS. 
 
 in every company, will continually acquire for you new 
 creditors, so that by them you may make payment, and with 
 other people's earth you may fill up his ditch. When of 
 old, in Gaul, by the institution of the Druids, the servants, 
 slaves, and bondsmen were all burned alive at the funerals 
 and obsequies of their lords and masters, had they not fear 
 enough that their lords and masters should die ? For, per- 
 force, they were to die with them. Believe me, your credi- 
 tors, with a still more fervent devotion, will beseech the Lord 
 that you may live, and will fear that you may die. . . . 
 Dea ! in this one respect [of debts] I esteem myself worship- 
 ful, reverend, and formidable. For, against the opinion of 
 all philosophers who say that out of nothing ariseth nothing, 
 I, having nothing, nor any primary matter, have become 
 a maker and creator. What have I created? — so many fair 
 and jolly creditors. . . . Think you how glad I am 
 when every morning I find myself surrounded by these 
 creditors, so humble, so serviceable, and so copious of 
 reverences. And I note how, if I bestow a more cheerful 
 countenance to one than to another, the rascal thereupon 
 thinks that he will be the first despatched, and valueth my 
 smiles at the rate of ready money. ... I have all my 
 lifetime held debt to be as an union and bond of the heavens 
 with the earth, an unique cement of the human race ; yea, of 
 such efficacy, that the whole human race would perish with- 
 out it." 
 
 He goes on to represent a world in which there should 
 be no debts and no debtors. It is a fine and striking 
 picture of the interdependence of all things in the 
 universe. The planets will no longer follow their 
 courses. Jupiter, in no way connected with Saturn, will 
 thrust him out of his place ; Saturn and Mars will unite 
 and throw everything into confusion ; Mercury, beholden 
 to no one, will cease to serve any ; Venus will no longer 
 lend, and therefore will cease to he venerated ; the 
 
UNIVERSAL DEBT. 107 
 
 moon will remain dark — why should the sun lend her 
 his light, or the earth his heat 1 The stars, which will 
 no longer he fed with exhalations — " proved hy Hera- 
 clitus, the Stoics, and Cicero to he their natural nourish- 
 ment" — will cease to rain their friendly influence upon 
 mankind ; water will not he made of the earth ; the air 
 shall not be made of water ; fire shall not he made of 
 air. There shall he no rain, no light, no seasons, no 
 wind. As for mankind, the earth will be no better than 
 a vast dog-kennel ; one man will not salute another ; one 
 man will not help another — why should he % nobody has 
 lent him money. Faith, hope, charity, will be banished 
 — men will become as wolves. 
 
 On the other hand, let us consider what sort of a world 
 would that be in which every one lends and every one 
 borrows. 
 
 "Oh, what harmony will there be among the regular 
 motions of the skies ! Methinks I hear it as well as ever 
 Plato did. What sympathy between the elements ! How 
 Nature will delight in her works and productions! Ceres 
 charged with wheat, Bacchus with wine, Flora with flowers, 
 Pomona with fruits, Juno with her serene, healthful, and 
 delightful air. I am lost in the contemplation. Among 
 men, peace, love, affection, fidelity, repose, banquets, feast- 
 ing, joy, gladness, gold, silver, small money, chains, rings, 
 merchandise will run from hand to hand. No lawsuits, no 
 war, no contention ; none will be usurer there, none miserly, 
 none frugal, none refusing to lend. Great heavens ! will it 
 not be the age of gold — the Saturnian reign ? the idea of 
 the Olympic regions, in which all other virtues cease, charity 
 alone reigns, rules, dominates, and triumphs ? All shall be 
 good, all shall be fair, all shall be just. happy world! O 
 folk of the happy world — twice, thrice, and four times 
 happy! Methinks I am already there.* 
 
108 RABELAIS. 
 
 And then he shows, speaking as a physician and an 
 anatomist, how in the microcosm — the little world of the 
 human body — all the members work for each other, one 
 to the other looking for support and sustenance, and this 
 in no niggardly spirit, but joyfully and eagerly. No 
 doubt, as in his astronomy so in his anatomy, modern 
 science finds Rabelais in error. Yet the leading thought 
 is just and true, and to his generation, at least, it was 
 new. 
 
 " Nature hath created man only for lending and borrow- 
 ing : the harmony of the skies is no greater than that of her 
 own governance. The intention of the founder of this 
 microcosm is to entertain in it the soul, which has been 
 placed in the body as guest, and the life. The life consists 
 in the blood : blood is the seat of the soul ; wherefore one 
 labour alone exercises the world — namely, to make blood 
 continually. In this forge all the members are in their own 
 office, and their hierarchy is such that incessantly one bor- 
 rows from the other, one lends to the other, one is debtor to 
 the other. The material suitable to be transmuted into 
 blood is given by nature : it is bread and wine. All kinds 
 of aliment are comprised in these two. To procure them, to 
 prepare them, to cook them, the hands toil, the feet walk, 
 and carry the whole machine. The eyes lead all ; the appe- 
 tite gives warning to administer the food ; the tongue tries 
 it ; the teeth chew it ; the stomach receives and digests it. 
 What joy, think you, exists among these officers when they 
 see this rivulet of gold, this blood, which is others' sole 
 maintenance 1 No greater is the joy of alchemists when, 
 after long labours, great care and expenses, they see the 
 metals transmuted in their furnaces. . . . Vertuguoy ! I 
 drown, I am lost, I stray, when I enter into the profound 
 abyss of this world, always lending, always owing. Believe 
 that it is a divine thing to lend, an heroic virtue to owe." 
 
 It is characteristic of Rabelais to find this solid and 
 
THE METHOD OF RABELAIS. 109 
 
 serious teaching rising out of the fact that Panurge is 
 a spendthrift. It is equally characteristic that such a 
 discourse is inconsistent with the other sayings and 
 doings of the speaker. In the same way Friar John, the 
 burly, ignorant monk, was permitted to be the founder 
 of the glorious Abbey of Thelema. 
 
 The chapters on debt illustrate the parable in the pro- 
 logue to " Gargantua" (p. 53). The writer has a thought ; 
 he does not state it in so many words — that is not his 
 plan — he looks at it from different points of view, plays 
 with it, decorates it with all possible illustrations of 
 classical learning, science, and playful fancy, and leaves 
 it as a riddle to be guessed by his readers. There is no 
 great difficulty in guessing his riddles. Just as the 
 planets rule and depend upon each other, and by this 
 dependence the cosmic order is maintained ; just as the 
 organs of the body depend upon each other, and by this 
 dependence life is preserved, — so men, in the social world, 
 depend each upon the other, and owe their lives, their 
 wealth, their service, to the sacred cause of humanity. 
 Did Comte teach more 1 Yet the beauty and excellence 
 of Eabelais must be judged in reference to the time. 
 The chapters on debt and interdependence, not even 
 now commonplace, were as fresh and sweet to his con- 
 temporaries, weary with the controversies and confusions 
 of the time, as a draught of cold water to a traveller in 
 the desert. 
 
 The discourse on debt finished, we at once proceed to 
 the great question, in the solution of which the rest of 
 the book is almost entirely occupied. It is a question 
 which, as we shall presently see, involves far more than 
 is at first eight apparent, for it is, in this beginning, 
 
110 RABELAIS. 
 
 only a doubt into which Panurge falls, as to whether he 
 shall marry. 
 
 He began by fretting over the loss of his debts, which, 
 we are told, were all paid off, and one day presented 
 himself before Pantagruel in a complete change of 
 costume. He now wore a long plain gown, of coarse 
 brown cloth. He had assumed an ear-ring in which, 
 instead of a jewel, was a black flea, richly set and 
 encased; and he had tied, after the fashion of certain 
 lawyers and doctors, a pair of spectacles to his cap. He 
 explains that, as he is now out of debt, he intends to be 
 as unpleasing in outward appearance as he possibly can 
 be. His long coat, made after the fashion of a toga, and 
 copied from the sculptures in Trajan's column, means 
 that he longs to be at rest, and that he is weary of buff 
 coats and the carrying of arms. And having donned 
 the garb of peace, he inclines to take a wife. 
 
 " ' My lord/ said Panurge, with a profound sigh, ' you 
 have now heard my deliberation, which is about marriage. 
 I beseech you, for the affection which you have for a long 
 time borne me, give me your advice thereupon.' 
 
 " ' Then,' answered Pantagruel, ' seeing you have so decreed 
 and taken deliberation upon it, there is no need of any further 
 talk. Remains only to put it into execution.' 
 
 " ' Yea but,' quoth Panurge, * I would be loath to act in 
 the matter without your counsel.' 
 
 " ' It is my judgment also,' said Pantagruel, ' and I advise 
 you to it.' 
 
 " ' Nevertheless,' said Panurge, ' if you thought that my 
 better plan were to remain as I am, without undertaking 
 cases of novelty, I should like better not to marry.' 
 
 " Said Pantagruel, ' Then do not marry.' 
 
 " ' Nay,' continued Panurge, ' would you have me to remain 
 
MARRY OR NOT MARRY? Ill 
 
 lonely as I am all my life without conjugal company? You 
 know it is written Vce soli! — a single person never has such 
 solace as one sees between married folks.' 
 
 " * Then marry, in the name of God,' 3aid Pantagruel !" 
 
 This pleasantry is imitated from half-a-dozen different 
 forms of the same story. It is found in one form among 
 the stories of Poggio, and another in a sermon of the 
 preacher Raulin, and since the time of Rabelais it has 
 been repeatedly recast, especially by Moliere in the 
 "Mariage Force" and by Colin d'Harleville. 
 
 " Give me your counsel, I pray, 
 
 On a difficult point to decide : 
 
 I think, but with doubt, about taking a bride : 
 Shall I marry her — yea or nay ? 
 'Good gossip, my counsel is — yea.' 
 
 But suppose that the wife — as she may — 
 Should turn out a scold or a shrew : 
 One would rage then — but what else to do ? 
 
 Advise me, my friend, the best way. 
 
 * Good gossip, my counsel is — nay. 
 
 >» 
 
 Panurge complains that this kind of advice does not 
 advance his decision. Then Pantagruel suggests that 
 recourse should be had to the sortes VirgiUance } and in 
 support of this counsel enumerates a long list of leading 
 eases in which this kind of oracle is proved to have 
 foreshadowed the future in a very remarkable manner. 
 The most striking are the stories of Alexander Severus, 
 who, trying his fortune at the lottery, chanced upon the 
 line — 
 
 " Tu regere imperio populos, Komane, memento : " 
 and that of Pierre Amy, the ex-monk of Fontenay, who, 
 
112 KABELAIS. 
 
 with Kabelais, as we have seen, was encouraged to escape 
 from the cloister by reading the line — 
 
 u Heu ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus a varum." 
 
 They threw their dice in order to find what line in the 
 page to take. The dice gave the numbers five, six, and 
 five, which made sixteen in all. Accordingly they open 
 the book at random and take the sixteenth line : it is — 
 
 " Nee Deus hunc mensa, Dea nee dignata cubile est." 
 
 This verse is interpreted by Pantagruel and Panurge in 
 a manner wholly opposite. Not being able to agree, 
 they consult the oracle a second time and read — 
 
 " Membra quatit, gelidusque coit formidine sanguis." 
 
 Pantagruel interprets the ominous prophecy of the 
 husband, that his wife will beat him ; Panurge, of the 
 wife, that the husband will cudgel her if she vex him. 
 Then a third time thev consult the book : — 
 
 " Fcemineo pradae, et spolioruni ardebat amore." 
 
 "This portends," said Pantagruel, "that she will steal 
 your goods and rob you. Hence, according to the three 
 lots, will be your foolish destiny : your wife will be 
 unfaithful to you, you will be beaten, and you will be 
 robbed." Panurge, on the other hand, reads the oracles 
 in an entirely opposite sense. Seeing that they cannot 
 agree on the interpretration of the sortes Virgilianoe, 
 Pantagruel advises divination by dreams, as a thing 
 sanctioned by high authorities. And here for the first 
 lime we observe that Friar John is one of the company 
 of Pantagruel. He is not introduced : we are not told 
 when he left the service of Gargantua; the author 
 
THE SIBYL. 113 
 
 merely remembers him, and makes him break into the 
 conversation. 
 
 Panurge dreams that he has married a charming and 
 beautiful wife, with whom his joy was incomparable. 
 But while she flattered and caressed him, kissing him, 
 and laying her hands upon his neck, she made pretty 
 little horns upon his forehead, taking great pains to fix 
 them there, as he remembered; and then the dream 
 changed, and he became a tabor and she an owl. 
 
 Panurge himself interprets this dream to signify that 
 by his marriage he will be furnished with plenty of all 
 manner of goods. A different interpretation, which may 
 easily be guessed, is adopted by his friends. 
 
 The Sibyl of Panzoust (a parish in Poitiers) is next 
 consulted, with an equally vague and uncertain result. 
 Every oracle in turn gives rise to a profusion of illustra- 
 tions, anecdotes, and classical quotations. After the 
 Sibyl follows divination by means of a deaf and dumb 
 man, Naz-de-cabre by name. This is a reminiscence of 
 Thaumast. The description of signs in which one can 
 discern no meaning is tedious. Perhaps a dying poet — 
 poets, we are told, generally become prophets when they 
 draw near their latter end — may throw some light upon 
 Panurge's future. And here Rabelais, after his fashion, 
 becomes in the midst of his maddest vein grave and 
 serious : — 
 
 " For as we, being upon a pier, and seeing afar off mariners 
 and other travellers upon the ships on the high seas, consider 
 them in silence only, and pray for their prosperous arrival ; 
 but when they approach the haven, then both with words 
 and gestures we salute and congratulate them because they 
 have arrived, as we ourselvep, to a port of safety. Just so the 
 
 F.C. — VIII. H 
 
114 RABELAIS. 
 
 angels, heroes, and good demons, according to the doctrine of 
 the Platonics, when they see mortals near unto death, as to a 
 sure and salutary port, a port of repose and tranquillity, 
 beyond the troubles and solicitudes of the world, salute 
 them, console them, speak with them, and begin to com- 
 municate unto them the art of divination. . . . Let me 
 only commemorate the learned and valiant knight, Guillaume 
 du Bellay, late Seigneur of Langey, who died at the Mount 
 of Tarara in the climacteric, or 63d year of his age, on 
 the 10th of January 1543. The three or four hours before 
 his decease he spent in vigorous speech, in tranquil and 
 serene judgment, foretelling what we have since seen in part, 
 and in part expect to arrive. Yet how absurd and strange 
 seemed his prophecies at that time because there appeared 
 no cause or any prognostic sign of what he predicted." 
 
 There chanced at the time that one Raminagrobis, 
 a poet, well stricken in years, lay a-dying. To him 
 Panurge, accompanied by Epistemon and Friar John, 
 repaired in haste. The poet, like the other oracles, gave 
 forth a doubtful response in the words of a rondeau equi- 
 voque, which Rabelais appropriates from the poems of 
 Guillaume Cretin. The good old bard, who is thinking 
 of anything rather than of marriage, dismisses his visitors 
 with words of solemn caution against priests and monks. 
 Rabelais is serious again in the presence of Death the 
 Conqueror : — 
 
 • 
 " Go, my sons, under the care of the Great God of the 
 
 Heavens, and let me be troubled no more with this affair, nor 
 
 with any other. I have this day, being the last of May and 
 
 of myself, turned out of my house with great fatigue and 
 
 difficulty a heap of villanous, unclean, and pestilent beasts, 
 
 black, variegated, dun, white, ash-coloured and spotted, who 
 
 would not let me die at my ease, but called me away from 
 
 the sweet meditation in which I was reposing, contemplating, 
 
RAM1NAGR0BIS. 115 
 
 seeing, and already touching and tasting the happiness and 
 felicity which the good God has prepared for His faithful 
 and elect in the other life and state of immortality. Turn 
 aside from their path ; be not like unto them." 
 
 Never was writer more full of incongruities. We 
 have this speech of the dying poet in which the author, 
 not for the first time, pours out his ill-restrained hatred 
 of priests and monks, between two pages of the wild- 
 est extravagance. Panurge, partly perhaps because the 
 words of the poet were too plain and easy to be read, 
 manifests the most lively indignation at such an attack 
 on the props and pillars of the Church. He is always, 
 however, orthodox, as becomes so great a sinner. Episte- 
 mon, for his part, smooths and explains away the speech. 
 The poet, he says, was very far indeed from meaning to 
 attack the mendicant friars and monks. He was simply 
 execrating flies, wasps, fleas, and other vermin. But 
 Panurge knows better. He gets, however, small comfort, 
 or encouragement from the rimes equivoques of poor old 
 Raminagrobis, and turns in despair at the failure of so 
 many oracles to his friend Epistemon, who enumerates 
 with great show of learning the oracles frequented by the 
 ancients, and laments that they have all grown dumb. 
 
 " But," says Panurge, " in the Ogygian islands Saturn, 
 bound with fair chains of gold, dwells within a rock of 
 gold, nourished with divine ambrosia and nectar brought 
 daily from the heavens by birds — presumably the same 
 ravens" — Panurge is not strong in early Christian 
 history — " which sustained St Paul, the first hermit, in 
 the wilderness. He foretells to every one what his lot 
 will be. Let us go to him." But Epistemon is of 
 opinion that the thing is a manifest fable, and suggests 
 
116 RABELAIS. 
 
 that Herr Trippa, the greatest living professor of astro- 
 logy, geomancy, chiromancy, and other like sciences, is 
 in the neighbourhood, and might be consulted. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Rabelais in Herr Trippa 
 has Cornelius Agrippa von Netterheim in his mind. Not 
 that Herr Trippa is absolutely identical with Cornelius. 
 As well think that the physician of the fiction, Eondibilis, 
 later on, is identical with the real physician Rondelet ; but 
 the name suggests a comparison which, in a few points, 
 will be found to hold good. Cornelius Agrippa, Professor 
 of Hebrew, theology, philosophy, medicine, astrology, 
 magic, and many other things, the author of the work 
 on the ' Vanity of Human Science,' the friend of Luthei 
 and Melancthon, who yet was never a professed Pro- 
 testant, might fairly be compared, point for point, with 
 Rabelais. He was more learned, but there were subjects 
 in which Rabelais was greater than he. Agrippa under- 
 stood astrology — which included a great deal more than 
 the calculations of nativities — but Rabelais was a better 
 anatomist. He was a reader of natural science, but 
 Rabelais was a better botanist. He was a Hebraist, but 
 Rabelais had read more Greek. Like Rabelais, he led a 
 wandering life ; like him, he was dependent on patrons' 
 wealth. Rabelais and Agrippa failed to secure adequate 
 support, and died in comparative poverty. They were 
 born within three years of each other, but Agrippa died 
 in 1535, eleven years before this book was published. 
 The dates of Agrippa's employments — he entered the 
 service of Margaret of Austria in 1528, while Rabelais 
 was still an unknown student at Liguge — prevent us from 
 supposing the two men to have been friends, acquaint- 
 ances, or rivals ; but he occupied during his life a much 
 
HERR TRIPPA. 117 
 
 greater place in men's thoughts than Eabelais as yet had 
 gained, though he has now become a mere name and 
 shadow of a name. His character has been summed 
 up in the words, " Contemnit, scit, nescit, deftet, ridet, 
 irascitur, insectatur, carpit omnia, ipse philosophus, 
 daemon, heros, deus et omnia." 
 
 Panurge then pays a visit to Herr Trippa. The 
 philosopher's first conclusion, from an examination of 
 the face and hand, was portentously unfavourable to 
 married happiness. This conclusion was confirmed by 
 an appeal to the planets ; whereupon, Panurge taking this 
 kind of prophecy with an ill grace, not to say with 
 temper, Herr Trippa proceeded to offer him any other 
 kind of divinations he might prefer. This is another 
 opportunity for Eabelais to show his learning. He 
 knows all the superstitions of all ages, and proceeds to 
 enumerate them with the contempt of a physicist, and the 
 joy of a scholar who has found out such an opportunity 
 of displaying his knowledge. Among them are pyro- 
 mancy, or divination by fire ; aeromancy, by air ; hydro- 
 mancy, by water ; lecanomancy, by inspection of a dish ; 
 catoptromancy, by looking into a mirror ; coscinomancy, 
 by a sieve — " with a sieve and a pair of scissors you shall 
 see devils ; " alphitomancy, by barley ; aleuromancy, by 
 flour ; astragalomancy, by knuckle -bones; tiromancy, 
 by cheese ; giromancy, by circles ; sternomancy, by the 
 breast; libanomancy, by frankincense; gastromancy, or 
 ventriloquism; cephalomancy, by roasting the head of 
 an ass on burning coal ; ceromancy, by the dropping of 
 wax into water ; capnomancy, by smoke ; axinomancy, 
 by the throwing of the axe; onymancy, by the finger- 
 nail — " but you must have oil and wine ;" tephramancy, 
 
118 RABELAIS. 
 
 by ashes ; botanomancy, by plants — " I have here some 
 sage-leaves which will do for us " — sicomancy, by fig- 
 leaves; ichthyomancy, by fish; choiromancy, by pigs; 
 cleromancy, by the bean ; anthropomancy, by inspection 
 of human entrails ; sibylline stichomancy, by the verses 
 of sibyls; onomatomancy, by the letters of the name; 
 alectryomancy, by the cock. 
 
 " I shall draw a circle here, and shall divide it in your 
 sight into four-and-twenty equal portions. Upon each one 
 I shall draw a letter of the alphabet ; in each letter I shall 
 place a grain of barley ; then I shall let go a young cock 
 across the circle. You will see, believe me, that he will eat 
 up the grains upon the letters so as to declare the future in 
 the married state as prophetically as happened under the 
 Emperor Valens when he was in perplexity to know the 
 name of his successor, for the foreseeing and alectryomantic 
 cock spelt out for him the letters e.E.O.A. Would you like 
 te know the future by the art of aruspicium, or that of ex- 
 tispicium — by augury, by the flight of birds, by the song of 
 divining birds, by the movements of the sacred ducks ? 
 Would you like to learn from necromancy 1 I will raise you 
 up suddenly any dead man you like, just as Apollonius of 
 Tyana raised Achilles, and the Pythoness did in the presence 
 of Saul : the dead man shall reveal to us the whole, neither 
 more nor less than, at the invocation of Erictho, a dead man 
 revealed to Pompey all the progress and issue of the battle 
 of Pharsalia. Or, if you are afraid of the dead, as is common 
 to all who are unfortunate in marriage, I will simply use 
 sciomancy, or divination by means of a shade." 
 
 Here Panurge boils over. This parade of learning, 
 with the constant assumption that his marriage will be 
 unlucky, is too much for him, and he curses the magician. 
 
 The advice of Friar John, who is next consulted, may 
 be passed over. One thing may be remarked, that the 
 
APPEAL TO THE KING. 119 
 
 w^arhy mvnk has lost nothing by being transported from 
 the court of Gargantua to the following of the heir-ap- 
 parent. He is as lusty an animal, as full of spirits and 
 vigour, as outspoken, and as straightforward as when he 
 seized the cross made out of an apple-tree and slew King 
 Picrochole's men in that surprising manner, all to defend 
 the next year's vintage. 
 
 The appeal to oracles, sibyls, dying poets, and astro- 
 logers having so far signally failed, Pantagruel, whose 
 patience in this knotty matter is beyond all praise, re- 
 marks that as everything in the world consists of soul, 
 body, and worldly goods, and as the guard of these three 
 we have appointed the divine, the physician, and the 
 lawyer — nothing could be better than to take the advice, 
 in turn, of three distinguished members of these profes- 
 sions. It is about this point that we begin to suspect 
 Panurge's curiosity of marriage to be developing itself 
 unconsciously, in the mind of the author, into a philoso- 
 phical curiosity to discover a solution to a far broader 
 question, or rather group of questions. This is quite in 
 the manner of Rabelais. 1 Can man foretell the future by 
 aid of nature? Are there in this world laws constant 
 and absolute which men can learn, and having learned 
 them, can predict what will happen 1 ? Is what we call 
 chance the working of some hidden force 1 Can we com- 
 pel this unknown force to yield up its secrets 1 Can we 
 get any help, or information, or comfort from the unseen 
 world % Panurge tries first, for his petty personal affairs, 
 the old methods, the sortes Virgiliance, the interpreta- 
 tions of dreams, the sibyl's leaves, the words of a dying 
 man, the astrologer, with his countless plans of super- 
 
 1 See Fleury's Rabelais, ii. 69 et seq. 
 
120 RABELAIS. 
 
 stitious divination. Alas ! there is no response ; the 
 oracles are dumb : what we do get is uncertain, rambling, 
 and of manifold interpretation. From the wisdom of 
 the ancients he turns, by Pantagruel's directions, to the 
 wisdom of the moderns, and consults the theologian, 
 the physician, and the lawyer. 
 
 " Therefore," said Pantagruel, " on the next ensuing Sunday 
 let us have for our divine the godly father Hippo thadeus, for 
 physician our honest Master Rondibilis, and for legist our 
 friend Bridlegoose. Nor will it be amiss if we enter upon the 
 Pythagorean tetrade, and for a fourth that we have our faith- 
 ful philosopher Trouillogan, seeing that only the perfect 
 philosopher, and such a philosopher as is Trouillogan, is able 
 to answer positively on all doubts which may be proposed 
 to him. Carpalim, give orders that we may have all four to 
 dinner on Sunday next." 
 
 The theologian is first invited to give an opinion. 
 The future, however, which he holds forth is clogged 
 with the conditional if. He will be happy in his 
 marriage if he marry a good and honourable wife, if he 
 comport himself as a good husband should, and if both 
 husband and wife stand perpetually in awe of the divine 
 commandments. 1 Panurge takes no comfort from this 
 modified assurance of happiness, and turns to the doctor, 
 Rondibilis. 
 
 The learned physician, in whose name and grave dis- 
 course we may permit ourselves to recognise one Guillauine 
 Rondelet, an eminent physician of Montpellier, advises 
 Panurge to divert his thoughts from the contemplation 
 of marriage by the five methods recommended in ancient 
 
 1 Those who love literary parallels may compare Desperiers on the 
 efficacy of prayer in the ' Cymbalum MundL' 
 
DOCTOR RONDIBILIS. 121 
 
 authors. Foremost among them he places deep and 
 continuous study. Here, again, Eabelais allows his 
 imagination free and worthy play, and pronounces a 
 panegyric on study which seems almost inspired. 
 
 " Contemplate the form of a man intent upon some study. 
 You will see that all his natural faculties are suspended, all 
 exterior sensation has ceased ; you will think him no longer 
 living in himself, but rapt away in ecstasy ; you will own 
 that Socrates was in no way wrong when he said that 
 philosophy is nothing else than a meditation on death. 
 Perhaps that is the reason why Democritus blinded him- 
 self, esteeming the loss of sight less than the diminution of 
 his contemplations, which he felt to be interrupted by the 
 wandering of his eyes. Therefore is Pallas, goddess of wis- 
 dom, guardian of students, called a virgin ; therefore are the 
 Muses virgins ; therefore remain the Graces in eternal maiden- 
 hood ; and I remember to have read how Cupid, being asked 
 by his mother why he did not assail the Muses, replied that 
 he found them so pure, so modest, and so continually occu- 
 pied, that he unbent his bow, closed his quiver, and extin- 
 guished his flambeau, through shame and fear of hurting 
 them. Then he took off the bandage from his eyes the better 
 to see them, and to hear their pleasant chants and poetic odes. 
 In this he took the greatest pleasure possible, so that often 
 he found himself ravished by their beauty and their graces, 
 and was lulled to sleep by their harmonies. So far was he 
 from wishing to assail them or to distract them from their 
 studies." 
 
 Besides a second discourse, garnished in the Rabelaisian 
 style with classical illustrations, reminiscences, and anec- 
 dotes, Panurge is nothing forwarded by the doctor. There 
 remains the philosopher Trouillogan ; and here the author 
 suddenly remembering Gargantua, and neglecting the 
 fact that he had already long since been consigned to 
 
122 KABELAIS. 
 
 Fairyland, makes him unexpectedly enter the hall, fol- 
 lowed by Ponocrates. He is no more a giant, but a wise 
 and accomplished sovereign, who drinks gravely to the 
 health of the company, and listens to the discussion. 
 The philosopher evades every question, and will return 
 a direct answer to no single point. He pleases Gar- 
 gantua, however, who leaves the company with many 
 compliments. 
 
 Judge Bridlegoose, who should have been consulted 
 next, is unavoidably absent, having to attend a higher 
 court than his own in order to give reasons for a certain 
 judgment. Six chapters are devoted to this famous case. 
 The judge, now an old man, has decided in his official 
 capacity upwards of four thousand cases, his decisions 
 having, for the most part, been accepted as just and 
 proper. It is therefore a very hard thing for him to be 
 summoned in his old age to defend and explain his 
 judgment. 
 
 " For all excuse, he replied nothing more than that he was 
 become old, and his sight was not so good as it had been ; 
 alleging the various miseries and calamities which age brings 
 with it. Therefore it was that he did not see the number of 
 the dice so clearly as in the past time. Whence it might be 
 that just as Isaac, being old and seeing imperfectly, took 
 Jacob for Esau, so he, in the decision of the case in question, 
 might have taken a four for a five, especially as at this time 
 he made use of his small dice." 
 
 In point of fact the good old judge has never used any 
 other method in his decisions than to throw the dice, a 
 plan which, in all simplicity, he believes to be that fol- 
 lowed by all his brethren. Chance has always ruled his 
 verdict. Yet he reads, examines, notes, and makes 
 
JUDGE BRIDLEGOOSE. 123 
 
 abstracts of the whole mass of the pleadings and docu- 
 ments handed in with every case. " But why," asks the 
 president, " do you not at once throw your dice, and 
 have done with it ?" " Because it is well," replies the 
 judge, "to proceed according to form in all judicial 
 matters; because, also, the labour of reading the docu- 
 ments is good for health ; and because, at its first ap- 
 pearance in court, a new case is generally an unformed, 
 crude thing, which requires time, the pleadings of many 
 lawyers, and the accumulations of much documentary 
 evidence, before it assumes its true proportions." The 
 judge shows cause for his method by a copious mass of 
 legal and classical illustration. His learning, his memory, 
 and his knowledge of procedure set off the simple com- 
 placency with which he explains his plan. Every kind of 
 case he shows may be so decided. For important causes 
 big dice should be employed; for minor ones, smaller; 
 because "semper in obscuris quod minimum est se- 
 quimur." You must throw first for the defendant and 
 then for the plaintiff. In criminal cases, even when the 
 prisoner has been taken red-handed, the method is appli- 
 cable, after the prosecutor has taken a good long sleep, 
 and brought evidence of that fact. Pantagruel begs that 
 the judge may be acquitted in consideration of forty years' 
 good service, during which time he has delivered many 
 excellent judgments and attained so high a reputation 
 for impartiality — "that envy itself could not be so 
 impudent as to accuse him of any act worthy of re- 
 prehension." 
 
 The wisdom of the moderns, as well as that of the 
 ancients, has failed. Suppose we try a fool, the great 
 fool Triboulet. 
 
124 RABELAIS. 
 
 " Panurge on his arrival gave him a pig's bladder, well 
 filled and resounding by reason of peas which were within. 
 Then he gave him a gilt wooden sword ; then a little pouch 
 made of a tortoise-shell ; then a bottle with wicker-work 
 filled with Breton wine, and a quarter of a hundred of 
 apples. 
 
 " Triboulet girded on the sword and the pouch, took the 
 bladder in his hand, ate some of the apples, and drank up 
 all the wine. Panurge looked at him curiously and said, 
 * I have never yet seen any fool who would not drink wil- 
 lingly and in long gulps/ Then he set forth his affair in 
 rhetorical and elegant phrases. Before he had finished, 
 Triboulet gave him a great blow with his fist between his 
 shoulders, handed him back the bottle and flirted him on 
 the nose with the bladder, saying for his only answer while 
 he shook his head, 'By the Lord, Lord, a mad fool, war* 
 monk, bagpipe of Buzangay ! ' n 
 
 This remarkable oracle sets them all thinking. Pan 
 tagruel, most learned of princes, shows by illustration 
 from ancient history how the shaking of the head is 
 a frequent if not a universal concomitant of oracular 
 utterance. Heliogabalus, wishing to be thought inspired, 
 went shaking his head : the Maenads, priestesses of 
 Bacchus, the priests of Cybele, Roman women at the Bac- 
 chanalian festivals, all shook their heads : and Plautus 
 held Charmides was in a rapt ecstasy because he shook 
 his head. Therefore the utterances of Triboulet must 
 be taken seriously. For his own part, he interprets 
 them as a discouragement of marriage. Panurge differs 
 from this reading. It is to be observed that in the 
 whole of his search after oracular direction, Panurge 
 always interprets the obscure words into an encourage- 
 ment to marry. 
 
THE ORACLE OF THE BOTTLE. 125 
 
 "Let me not," he says, "imprudently desire to be exempt 
 from the dominion of folly. Everybody is a fool. Solomon 
 says, that infinite is the number of fools. Out of infinity 
 nothing can be deducted ; to infinity nothing can be added. 
 Aristotle proves that. A fool, and a mad fool, I should be, 
 if, being a fool, I should not esteem myself a fool. And the 
 rest of Triboulet'8 words make in my favour. He says to 
 my wife, 'Ware monk {moyne). 1 He means the sparrow 
 (moineau) that will be her pet, like that of Lesbia. Then 
 he means that she will be rustic and agreeable, as a fair 
 bagpipe-player of Buzancay. The truthful Triboulet knows 
 my natural and internal affections ; for I declare that I 
 love the gay and dishevelled shepherdesses far more than 
 the great ladies of the court, with their perfumes and rich 
 attire. The sound of the rustic pipes pleases me more than 
 the droning of lutes, rebecs, and courtly violins. He gave 
 me a blow with his fist on my shoulders. Very well, let it 
 be for the love of the Lord and deduction from the pains of 
 purgatory. He did not do it out of malice ; he thought he 
 was beating some page ; he is benevolent in his folly. I 
 pardon him with all my heart. He flirted me on the nose. 
 That means that there will be little plays between my wife 
 and me, as happens among all new-married folks." 
 
 One course remains : to try the oracle of the Divine 
 Bottle — la Dive Bouteille. It can be reached by a long 
 and perilous voyage in unknown seas and among islands 
 little visited. The dangers of the expedition make it the 
 more attractive to Pantagruel. That great traveller, Xeno- 
 manes, will act as their guide and interpreter. Epistemon, 
 Carpalim, Eusthenes (Knowledge, Dexterity, Strength) 
 will accompany the party. An immense fleet is gathered 
 at St Malo, although at the beginning of the work we 
 were supposed to be in Dipsodie, far beyond the Cape of 
 Good Hope. The ships are laden with every kind of 
 
126 KABELAIS. 
 
 provision. Then comes a long digression, in which, under 
 a description of the herb Pantagruelion or hemp, Rabe- 
 lais exhausts himself, if that were possible, in eulogy of 
 industry, commerce, and human ingenuity applied to 
 peaceful purposes. To be provided with goodly store of 
 this kind is to be fortified with determination and cour- 
 age. It is a roundabout method of praising the qualities 
 which most advance the world, but it is the author's 
 method. And when he describes the herb and its pro- 
 perties, he speaks as a botanist as well as a moralist. 
 All being ready at last — Ho for the Dive Bouteille I 
 
127 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE DIVINE BOTTLE. 
 
 "We are now to set forth upon the strangest voyage on 
 which ever company of adventurers were engaged. We 
 are to sail over unknown seas, and to land on unknown 
 islands. We shall encounter strange perils, and fall among 
 strange people. We shall light upon wondrous customs : 
 we shall meet with perilous adventures. Everywhere we 
 shall find the people exactly the same as in Erance, fol- 
 lowing the same customs, speaking the same tongue, 
 wearing the same attire, occupied with the same super- 
 stitions, and beset with the same prejudices : everywhere 
 there will be illustrations as well as contrasts of the life 
 we have left behind us : everywhere we shall find the 
 same pretence at a reply, and the same dead silence to 
 the question which lies in Pantagruel's mind, and is 
 obscurely figured in Panurge's doubt. Is there, anywhere, 
 or has there ever been any voice, any echo, any reply 
 from the silent world 1 
 
 We sail in quest of truth. What we discover we shall 
 learn later on. 
 
 Meanwhile we are not going to tell the world what 
 we are in search of. Sufficient for them to know that 
 
128 RABELAIS. 
 
 Panurge still wears his long cloak of russet brown, with 
 the spectacles in his cap, and the flea in his ear, in token, 
 first, of his desire to marry and lead a peaceful life — and 
 secondly, of his grave doubts as to the prudence of the 
 step; and that we are bound for the Oracle of the Bottle, 
 where his doubts may be resolved. 
 
 Many strange voyages were made in the old days 
 when the majipa mundi was still open to the imagina- 
 tion of geographers; when the coast of America was 
 supposed to be the coast of India ; when the Ogygian 
 Islands lay four days' sail from Albion, and the Fortunate 
 Islands were somewhere in mid- Atlantic. The most 
 famous of the voyages, and that to which the narrative 
 of Rabelais owes most, is the { True History ' of Lucian. 
 There was also the voyage of St Brandan, who landed on 
 the frontiers of hell, passed Judas floating on a red-hot 
 rock, and visited the island where Adam and Eve, yet 
 sinless, once dwelt. There were the Argonauts of the 
 pseudo Orpheus, of Apollonius Rhodius, and of Valerius 
 Flaccus, from the first of which Rabelais borrows the 
 island of the Long-lived, to which we shall presently 
 come. There was, in those days of early discovery, 
 nothing too marvellous to be believed, nothing impossible 
 to be found on this great globe. And just as in his First 
 Book Rabelais burlesques with flashes of serious purpose 
 the romantic times of chivalrous adventure, so now with 
 keener insight and firmer hand, with a more definite 
 aim, he burlesques the stories of travel and discovery. 
 Meantime, beneath each new extravagance lies hidden 
 some parable which those may read who have the eyes. 
 Unhappily we must not linger as we voyage in this 
 marvellous archipelago. 
 
THE- SAILING OF THE FLEET. 129 
 
 It is a goodly company which starts upon this voyage. 
 There is Panurge, attired according to his vow, half 
 afraid, but anticipating scenes of mirth and mischief. 
 There is Friar John, burly and confident, mindful of 
 his former prowess. There are Epistemon, Eusthenes, 
 Carpalim, Rhizotomus, Gymnast, and Xenomanes the 
 traveller : there is, at the head of all, the wise and grave 
 Prince Pantagruel. 
 
 There were twelve ships composing the fleet, but these 
 were supplemented by a like number of triremes — 
 Rabelais cannot lose a single opportunity of airing his 
 learning — row - barges, galleys, and feluccas, all stored 
 with plenty of the herb Pantagruelion. The admiral's 
 ship, so to speak, was the Thalamege, which carried for 
 ensign, hoisted in her stern, a bottle half silver half gold. 
 The other ships bore drinking-vessels, funnels, goblets, 
 and so forth, for their ensigns, so that " there was not a 
 man, however sad, melancholy, and in the dumps, even 
 if he were Heraclitus the weeper, but seeing this noble 
 convoy of ships and their devices, must have been seized 
 with new joy, and confessed that the travellers were all 
 honest topers." 
 
 Before setting sail, the officers gathered on board the 
 Thalamege, where Pantagruel made them a short exhorta- 
 tion, and said prayers, after which they sang a psalm — 
 " When Israel went out of Egypt " — it was one of the 
 psalms translated by Marot, and it was then the fashion 
 of the Court at Paris to sing them, a fashion which lasted 
 a very little while. Then they held a feast, at which, of 
 course, plenty of wine was consumed. And this was 
 the cause that no one became sea-sick, a thing which 
 could not otherwise have happened, although every- 
 
 F.C. VIII. I 
 
130 RABELAIS. 
 
 body had been "eating quinces, citron -peel, juice of 
 pomegranates, sweet or sour, or keeping long diet, or 
 plastering their stomachs with paper, or otherwise doing 
 what foolish physicians prescribe to those who go to 
 sea." 
 
 They started due west in the latitude of Olonne. For 
 the first two days they discover nothing, but on the 
 third they make an island called Nowhere (Medamothy 
 = Mrj&afjioOi), whose king is Philophanes, absent for 
 the marriage of his brother Philotheamon. This is the 
 land of show and ostentation. It was the day of the 
 great fair, and Pantagruel's company bought pictures and 
 strange animals. Here Pantagruel receives a letter from 
 his father, and sends him back word by pigeon-express 
 that all is going well with the expedition. On the fifth 
 day, having again set sail, they discover a merchantman 
 to windward, and on bearing up and hailing her, find 
 the ship to be full of passengers from Lantern Land, 
 whither they are going ; and they are told that there is 
 to be a general chapter of the Lanterns about the latter 
 end of July — it was then the fourteenth of June — which 
 they might witness if they got to Lantern Land in time. 
 As we hear nothing more about this chapter of Lanterns, 
 probably Rabelais forgot all about it. He writes care- 
 lessly, as we have had many opportunities of observing, 
 promises recklessly, and thinks nothing of forgetting a 
 promise, or leaving a thing half told. The chapter of 
 Lanterns refers perhaps to the Council of Trent, perhaps 
 to some council of Protestants at Geneva or La Eochelle. 
 
 It would appear, though it is not so stated, that Pan- 
 urge, Epistemon, and Friar John went on board the 
 ship, because it was on this occasion that occurred the 
 
THE SHEEP-MERCHANT. 131 
 
 famous adventure of the sheep. The story is borrowed 
 from Folengo, an Italian author, contemporary with 
 Eabelais, — like him an ex-monk, and like him a writer 
 of burlesque stories. The 'Histoire Maccaronique de 
 Merlin Coccaye,' a French translation of Folengo's 
 'Macaronics,' in which this tale is told, has been pub- 
 lished in the ( Bibliotheque Elzevirienne.' 
 
 It began with a quarrel between one Dindenault, a 
 sheep-merchant of Taillebourg, and Panurge. The latter, 
 readier with his tongue, exasperates the drover, who 
 would have killed him, but his sword providentially 
 stuck in the scabbard. Panurge, always an unblushing 
 coward, runs away bawling for help. The quarrel is 
 made up, but Panurge nourishes a dream of revenge, 
 which he presently puts into execution. He pretends 
 that he wishes to buy one of the drover's rams: after 
 bargaining, which is sufficiently comic, but too long, 
 he succeeds in agreeing upon the price, and buys the 
 ram: — 
 
 " On a sudden, — I do not know how — the thing was unex- 
 pected, and I had not time to consider it, — Panurge, without 
 saying another word, throws his ram, crying and bleating, into 
 the sea. All the other sheep crying and bleating with like 
 intonation, began to throw themselves and to leap into the 
 sea after him in file. The rush was who would first leap after 
 his companion. Nor was it possible to keep them, for you 
 know that the nature of the sheep is always to follow the 
 leader wherever he goes, wherefore Aristotle (lib. ix. de 
 Histor. Anim.) calls him the most foolish animal in the 
 world. The merchant, in consternation at seeing his sheep 
 perish and drown before his eyes, tried with all his might 
 to stop and prevent them. But all in vain. All, one after 
 the other, leapt into the sea and were drowned. Lastly, he 
 seized a strong and large ram by the fleece on the deck oi 
 
132 RABELAIS. 
 
 the ship, thinking to hold him back and so to save the rest ; 
 but the sheep was so strong that he carried the merchant 
 into the sea with him and he was drowned, just as the sheep 
 of Polyphemus the one-eyed Cyclop carried out of the cavern 
 Ulysses and his companions. In like manner acted all the 
 other shepherds and drovers, taking some by the horns, others 
 by the legs, and others by the fleece, but they were all in 
 the same way carried into the sea and drowned miserably. 
 Panurge, meanwhile, standing by the ship's kitchen, with an 
 oar in his hand, not to help the drovers but to prevent them 
 from climbing up into the ship, and escaping death, preached 
 eloquently to them, reminding them in rhetorical phrases ot 
 the miseries of this world, the happiness of the next, affirm- 
 ing that happier are the dead than those who live in the 
 vale of misery, and to each one promising a fair cenotaph and 
 honorary sepulchre on the very top of Mont Cenis ; wishing 
 them, nevertheless, in case that to live still would not vex 
 them, and drowning was not to their fancy, the happy chance 
 of meeting with a whale, which, after the example of Jonah, 
 should give them up safe and sound in some land of satin 
 on the third day." 
 
 This story is a fair sample of fifteenth and sixteenth 
 century humour. It is far better told, of course, than 
 most of the stories which were so plentiful at the time. 
 But the point, the joke of the thing, is typical. It turns 
 on the death, or the wounding, or the suffering of the 
 discomfited. Over and over again, in the facetious 
 literature of the period, torture, mutilation, disgrace, and 
 death mark the "place where the laughter comes in." 
 Rabelais affords another example in the story which he 
 presently tells of Villon's trick on Brother Tappecoue 
 (see p. 134). 
 
 Continuing their course, the voyagers arrive presently 
 at Ennasin, a triangular island whose inhabitants have 
 
PROCURATION ISLAND. 133 
 
 noses like the ace of clubs. They are all related to each 
 other, but there are none of the ordinary terms of rela- 
 tionship among them, and they address each other with 
 strange conceits. This is the country of those who 
 follow after every affected habit. 
 
 After the island of Ennasin, they touch at the isle 
 of Chely or Lips, which is the land of ceremonies, 
 idle talk, and lip-service. The greatest courtesy is, of 
 course, observed, by the king towards Pantagruel and 
 his company. 
 
 If Lip island is the place where a meaningless polite- 
 ness is everything, the next land they touch, that of 
 Procuration, is the land of litigation and chicane. It is 
 a country all blurred and blotted, so that one hardly 
 knows what to make of it. On landing, the travellers 
 were met by a number of " Procultous et Chicqanous," 
 Pettifoggers and Catchpoles, who neither invited them 
 to eat or drink, but with many scrapes and cringes put 
 themselves at the strangers' service, for a consideration. 
 The interpreter explains that they live by being beaten. 
 " At Rome an infinite number of people gain their 
 livelihood by poisoning, stabbing, and murdering; the 
 Catchpoles earn theirs by being thrashed ; so that if they 
 are long without being beaten, they, with their wives 
 and children, would be starved." One would have 
 thought that here, at least, there was no occasion to 
 parade the monks. But Rabelais thinks otherwise. The 
 way is as follows : — 
 
 u When a monk, priest, usurer, or advocate intends to 
 injure any gentleman of the country, he sends one of these 
 Catchpoles to visit him. Catchpole cites him, serves a 
 summons upon him, outrages him, and insults him inipu- 
 
134 RABELAIS. 
 
 dently, following his record and instruction ; so that the 
 gentleman, unless he is paralytic or more stupid than a tad- 
 pole, is constrained to bastinado him, to lay his sword about 
 his head, or, still better, to throw him out of the window 
 of his castle. That done, Catchpole is rich for four months, 
 just as if beatings with a stick were his simple harvest. For 
 he will have his pay from the usurer, monk, or priest, and 
 from his assailant damages, sometimes so great and excessive 
 that the gentleman may lose his whole estate by them, with 
 the risk of rotting miserably in prison, just as if he had 
 struck the king." 
 
 " I know," said Panurge, " an excellent remedy for 
 this." 
 
 And then he tells the story how the Seigneur de 
 Basone* gave such a lesson to a Catchpole, that ever 
 afterwards the office in his neighbourhood fell into dis- 
 respect. The story includes that of Villon's trick on 
 Brother Tappecoue, already referred to. 
 
 " Francois Villon, in his old age, retired to St Maixent, in 
 Poitou, under the protection of a good man, abbe of the said 
 place. There, in order to amuse the people, he undertook 
 to play the Passion in the action and language of the coun- 
 try. The parts distributed, the players rehearsed, the stage 
 prepared, he told the mayor and sheriffs that the mystery 
 would be ready for the fair at Niort ; only they had to find 
 dresses fit for the personages represented. The mayor and 
 sheriffs gave orders to meet the case. Villon, in order to 
 dress an old peasant who was going to play God the Father, 
 asked Friar Stephen Tappecoue, sacristan to the Cordelier 
 monks of the place, to lend him a cope and stole. Tappecoue 
 refused, alleging that, by the provincial statutes, it was 
 rigorously forbidden to lend or give anything to play-actors. 
 Villon replied that the statute only concerned farces, mum- 
 meries, and dissolute games, and that he had seen the thing 
 done as he proposed at Brussels and elsewhere. Tappecoue, 
 
BROTHER TAPPECOUE. 135 
 
 notwithstanding, told him peremptorily that he must provide 
 himself elsewhere if he pleased, but must hope for nothing 
 from his sacristy. Villon reported this to the players as a 
 great abomination, adding that God would shortly revenge 
 himself, and make a signal example of Tappecoue. 
 
 " On the following Saturday he had notice that Tappecoue, 
 on the mare belonging to the convent, was gone to make a 
 collection at St Ligaire, and that he would be coming back 
 about two o'clock in the afternoon. At that time, therefore, 
 he made the exhibition of his devilry through the streets and 
 markets. The devils were all caparisoned in skins of wolves, 
 calves, and sheep, rigged with sheep's heads, bulls' horns, 
 and great kitchen-hooks, girt round with broad leathern 
 belts, from which there hung big cows' bells and mules' 
 bells, with a horrific din. Some held in their hands black 
 sticks filled with fusees ; others long lighted firebrands, on 
 which, at the street corners, they threw resin-powder, from 
 which came terrible flame and smoke. After having led 
 them thus, with contentment of the people and dreadful 
 fright of children, he finally took them to banquet at a 
 tavern outside the gate on the road to St Ligaire. 
 
 " Arrived at the tavern, he perceived afar off Tappecoue, 
 as he was coming back from making his collection, and cried 
 to his devils, — 
 
 * Hie est de patria, natus de gente belistrS, 
 Qui solet antiquo bribas portare bisacco.' 
 
 " ' Par la mort Dieu,' cried the devils ; ' he would not lend 
 a single cope to God the Father. Let us frighten him.' 
 
 " ' It is well said,' replied Villon ; * but hide every man 
 until he passes, and charge your fusees and firebrands.' 
 
 " Tappecoue arrived at the place. All started out into the 
 road before him, throwing fire from all sides over him and 
 on his mare, beating their drums, and roaring like devils, 
 ' Hho ! hho ! hho ! brourrrs, rrrourrrs, rrrourrrs ! hou, hou ! 
 hho ! hho ! hho ! Friar Stephen, what do you think of us 
 for devils ? ' 
 
 " The mare in a fright began to trot, to run, to gallop, to 
 
136 KABELAIS 
 
 back -jump, and to jerk, insomuch that she threw Friar 
 Tappecoue, though he held fast by the saddle with all his 
 might. ... So was he dragged by the mare, continually 
 multiplying her kicks, and jumping over hedges, bushes, and 
 ditches in terror, in such wise that she smashed all his head, 
 so that his brain fell out near the cross Hosanna. Then 
 the arms fell in pieces, one here, one there ; the legs in like 
 manner ; then . . . she arrived at the convent, bringing 
 nothing home with her but his right foot and a twisted shoe. 
 " Villon, seeing that what he had hoped for had happened, 
 said to his devils, ' You will play well, messieurs les diables 
 — you will play well, I assure you. Oh, how well you will 
 play ! I defy the devilry of Saumur, of Doue, of Montmor- 
 illon, of Langes, of St Epain, of Angers, — even, by the Lord ! 
 of Poitiers, in case they should be compared with you. Oh, 
 how well you will play ! ' " 
 
 This pleasing incident in the life of Villon is not only 
 remarkable for the feeling and kindly nature of joke 
 customary at the time, but is also a very good specimen 
 of the Rabelaisian story. There are fifty such in the 
 book, of which most do not permit themselves to be 
 reproduced. It is impossible to say how much truth 
 there is in the story. Villon in the fifteenth century 
 resembles Rabelais in the sixteenth in one respect, and 
 one only. Round his name, as round that of Rabelais, 
 there gathered an infinite number of stories. 
 
 Friar John, in order to observe for himself the marvel- 
 lous customs of Procuration, went ashore armed with a 
 bag of money, and, meeting a shoal of Catchpoles, asked 
 who would be soundly beaten for twenty ducats ? They 
 all volunteer with one consent. 
 
 " Friar John singled out one, a red-nosed Catchpole who 
 wore a great silver ring on his right thumb. When he had 
 "bosen him, I perceived that they nil murmured ; and I 
 
BEATING OF THE CATCHPOLE, 137 
 
 heard a tall, young, thin Catchpole, a good and clever clerk, 
 and according to public report a worthy fellow in the eccle- 
 siastical courts, making complaint and murmuring because 
 the same Red-nose carried away all the practice, so that if 
 there were but some poor thirty bastinadoes to be got, he 
 would certainly pocket eight-and-twenty and a half of them. 
 But all these complaints and murmurings proceeded from 
 mere envy. Friar John so unmercifully belaboured Red-nose, 
 front and back, sides, legs, and arms, head and all, with a 
 mighty cudgelling, that I thought he was beaten to death. 
 Then he gave him the twenty crowns. Up jumped the 
 rascal, as jolly as a king or two. The rest cried out to 
 Friar John, ' Sir, Friar devil, if it pleases you to beat some 
 of us cheaper, we are all at your command. We are all at 
 your service — bags, papers, pens, and all/ Whereupon Red- 
 nose cried out against them with a loud voice — c Fete Dieu ! 
 You will come into my market ! You will take away and 
 seduce my clients ! I summon you all.' Then he turned 
 with smiling and joyous face to Friar John. * Reverend 
 father in the devil, — Sir, if you have found me good stuff, 
 and it please you to take your pleasure in beating me again, 
 I will content myself with half the just price. Don't spare 
 me, please.' " 
 
 After the island of Procuration, they arrive at those 
 of Tohu and Bohu — Ruin and Desolation. This had 
 lately been devastated by the giant Bringuenarilles, who 
 habitually lived on windmills, and who had devoured 
 everything, including the frying-pans, kettles, and pots. 
 In other words, the country had been pillaged and ruined 
 in the course of war. 
 
 Let us pause for a moment to remark that here occurs 
 a marked and great chango, not only in the character of 
 the places visited, but also in the spirit of the narrative. 
 There is at last an end of the unforced and natural 
 gaiety with which, up to this point, the story bubbles 
 
138 RABELAIS. 
 
 over. Henceforth the merriment is artificial, and the 
 satire keen and bitter. We laughed over the island of 
 Foolish Conceits, over that of Ostentation, of Lip-service, 
 and of Procuration. We learned nothing there to help 
 us in our quest. But we were only at the beginning of 
 our voyage ; we expected no help from the follies and 
 affectations of men : now, however, we advance a step 
 farther, and after passing through a mighty storm, find 
 ourselves among those who pretend to read for men a 
 message from the unseen world. And we shall sail 
 among these people until the oracle itself is reached. 
 This transition takes place in the middle of the Fourth 
 Book. It will be remembered (see p. 45) that the 
 earlier chapters of this Book were published by them- 
 selves first, as a tentative step : they are the inoffen- 
 sive chapters. Before the whole could be published, 
 the writer took the precaution, as we have seen, of strip- 
 ping himself of his Church preferments. And because 
 these chapters, with the last Book — the posthumous 
 Book — carry on the story without a break, I have for 
 the purposes of this work considered all together as one 
 Book, and called it the " Quest of the Divine Bottle." 
 
 After leaving certain islands which are only named 
 and not visited, they espy nine sail which came spooning 
 before the wind : they were full of monks, — Jacobins, 
 Jesuits, Capuchins, Hermits, Austins, Bernardins, Egna 
 tins, Celestins, Theatins, Amadeans, Cordeliers, Carmel- 
 ites, Minims, and other religious saints bound for the 
 Council of Chesil (which is, in Hebrew, the star which 
 announces storm), there to sift and quibble new articles 
 of faith against the heretics. Panurge is delighted, in 
 his orthodox way. at the sight of so many blessed 
 
THE GREAT STORM. 139 
 
 fathers, and presently sends them a present of hams, 
 sausages, and other things which promote thirst and 
 lead to the drinking of wine. But Pantagruel becomes 
 melancholy, as foreseeing the terrible storm which is 
 about to fall upon them. I do not understand whether 
 Eabelais intends the storm to follow naturally on the 
 mere passage of a shipload of monks, or whether the 
 lands to which the ships are now steering are surrounded 
 by a belt of storm and tempest. Later on, we are told 
 that when one of the Macreons (to whose isle they are 
 steering) dies, the air is full of storms. The incident of 
 the storm, like the story of Dindenault and the sheep, is 
 borrowed from Folengo. As regards the description, it 
 makes up in energy what it lacks in reality. In other 
 words, Eabelais had never seen a storm at sea. 
 
 " Pantagruel having first implored the aid of the Great 
 God his Preserver, and made public prayer in fervent de- 
 votion, by the advice of the pilot held firmly to the mast. 
 Friar John was stripped to the shirt to help the sailors ; so 
 also were Epistemon, Ponocrates, and the rest. Panurge 
 alone sat on the deck weeping and lamenting. Friar John, 
 seeing him, cried out, ' By the Lord ! Panurge the calf ; 
 Panurge the blubberer ; Panurge the coward. You would do 
 much better to help us here than to sit there crying like a 
 cow ! ' { Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous ! ' replied Panurge. ' Friar 
 John, my friend, my good father, I drown — my friend, I 
 drown. It is all over with me, my spiritual father, my 
 friend — it is all over. The water has got into my shoes by 
 way of my collar. Bous, bous, bous, paisch, hu, hu, hu ! 
 I drown, Bebe bous, bous, bobous bobous, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho ! 
 Zalas ! Zalas ! now I am like a forked tree, with my heels up 
 and my head down. Would to God that I were now in the 
 ark of those blessed fathers whom we met this morning, so 
 devout, so fat, so joyous, and so full of grace. Holos, bolos, 
 
140 RABELAIS. 
 
 holos, zalas, zalas ! this wave of all the devils (mea culpa Deus) 
 — I mean this wave of the Lord, will overwhelm our ship. 
 Zalas ! Friar John, confession. Here I am on my knees. 
 Confiteor, your sacred benediction.' ' Thousand devils ! ' 
 cried Friar John. ' Do not let us swear,' said Panurge. 
 ( To-morrow as much as you please.'" 
 
 But they presently, and after several chapters, pass 
 through the storm, and Panurge pulls himself together : — 
 
 " ' All goes well,' he cries. * Vogue la galere ! — only Friar 
 John does nothing. His name is Friar John Do-nothing, and 
 he looks on while I am toiling and working for this good 
 man, the sailor, first of his name. As for me, I have no 
 fear. I am called William the Fearless. So much courage 
 have I, and more. I do not mean sheep's courage. I mean 
 wolfs courage, murderer's assurance. I fear nothing but 
 danger.' " 
 
 The land at which they arrive is one of the islands of 
 the Macreons, or the Long-lived. There are many islands 
 in this archipelago, but only one inhabited. The rest are 
 overrun with wood and desert. Macrobius, the oldest 
 of their chief men, entertains Pantagruel and his crew 
 hospitably, and takes those who wish it to see the 
 curiosities of the island. These consist of ancient 
 temples, obelisks, pyramids, monuments, tombs with 
 inscriptions in known and unknown characters. 
 
 The good Macrobius thus explains the mystery of the 
 forest : — 
 
 u Pilgrim friends, this island is one of the Sporades of the 
 ocean. In former times rich, frequented, wealthy, populous, 
 and full of traffic ; but now, by course of time and on the 
 decline of the world, poor and desolate, as you see. In this 
 dark forest before you, above seventy-eight thousand para- 
 sangs long and broad, is the dwelling-place of the demons 
 
THE ISLAND OF THE MACREONS. HI 
 
 and heroes who are grown old. We believe that one of 
 them died yesterday, for the comet which we saw for three 
 or four days before shines no longer, and at his death arose 
 this terrible storm ; for while they are alive, all happiness 
 attends both this and the adjacent islands, and at sea is a 
 settled calm and serenity. At the death of any one of them 
 we commonly hear in the forest loud and mournful lamenta- 
 tions. We see on land pestilence, disasters, and calamities ; 
 in the air storms and darkness, and at sea tempest and 
 hurricanes." 
 
 Pantagruel remarks that the heavens, joyful as it 
 were for the approaching reception of those blessed 
 souls, make bonfires with comets and blazing meteors, 
 which, at the same time, serve as a prognostication to 
 us that in a few days one of those venerable souls is 
 to leave her body and this terrestrial globe. 
 
 " I am willing to believe what Macrobius has told us ot 
 the comet seen in the air for certain days before the death 
 [of the demigod]. For such souls are so noble, so precious, 
 so heroic, that the heavens give a signification of their death 
 beforehand. And just as the prudent physician, seeing by 
 certain signs his patient enter upon the way of death, warns 
 the wife, children, relatives, and friends some days before 
 the impending death, so that in the short time which remains 
 they may admonish him to set order in his household, to ex- 
 hort and bless his children, to recommend the state of widow- 
 hood to his wife, to declare what will be necessary for the 
 maintenance of his wards, and so be not surprised by death 
 without taking due thought for his soul and for his house : 
 in like manner the benevolent heavens, as if joyous at the 
 reception of these blessed souls, seem to hold forth fires of 
 joy by means of comets and meteors, which they wish to be 
 for men a sure and certain prognostic and prediction, that 
 within a few days these venerable souls will leave their 
 bodies and the earth. . . . Thus, by such comets, tl e 
 
142 RABELAIS. 
 
 silent heavens say, c Mortal men, if you wish to know any- 
 thing from these happy souls, to learn anything touching the 
 welfare of yourselves or of the state, make haste to ask them 
 and to have their answer. For the end and catastrophe of 
 the comedy approaches. This moment passed, you will re- 
 gret them in vain.' 
 
 " ' But,' asks Friar John, c are these heroes and demigods 
 mortal ? ' 
 
 '" Some think,' replies Pantagruel, ' that the life of a demi- 
 god reaches to 9720 years, but I am of opinion that all in- 
 tellectual souls are exempted from the scissors of Atropos. 
 They are all immortal, whether they be of angels, of demons, 
 or human." 
 
 Then follows, with other grave and thoughtful matter, 
 the weird story, taken from Plutarch, of the death of the 
 great god Pan. 
 
 It must be owned that this island of Macreons is 
 obscure. Who are these demigods, and what does Ra- 
 belais mean by their death and the storm which fol- 
 lows? 
 
 Most of the proposed interpretations of this riddle are 
 too foolish to be considered for a moment. The follow- 
 ing solution only half satisfies one. It is, however, 
 thoughtful, and well worthy of Rabelais. 1 
 
 The demigods, lingering among ruined temples and 
 tombs, in a dark and obscure forest, surrounded by a 
 simple folk who know nothing of the past, but yet re- 
 gard their mysterious neighbours with awe and wonder, 
 are the philosophers, historians, and poets of the ancient 
 world. They lie there, neglected and forgotten. Their 
 death is nothing but the passage from obscurity into the 
 light of the Renaissance, and as each in turn emerges 
 
 1 Fleury, vol. ii. p. 154. 
 
QTJARESME-PREN ANT. 143 
 
 into the upper air, he produces his own effect upon the 
 world by upsetting old prejudices, introducing new ideas, 
 and, in a sense, causing storms, revolutions, and dis- 
 asters. " I would not," says Eabelais, speaking in the 
 mouth of Pantagruel, " have missed the sufferings of the 
 storm were I also to have missed the relation of those 
 things." Rage of ignorant monks, persecution of ortho- 
 dox doctors, misrepresentation, calumny, — all these may 
 be cheerfully incurred by those who have the key — in 
 Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew — to the brave teaching 
 of the great men of old. 
 
 Leaving the land of the long-lived, they* set sail, re- 
 freshed and newly victualled. Presently Xenomanes 
 the traveller points out, quite visible on the horizon, 
 the island of Tapinois (" Sly - land "), where reigns 
 Prince Quaresme-prenant, the personification of Lent. 
 But Xenomanes advises Pantagruel not to attempt 
 a landing on the island on account of the cold re- 
 ception and meagre fare he will receive there. And 
 here Rabelais pours out the vials of his wrath on the 
 enforced fasting of Lent. The season of Lent was to 
 the esprits forts of the time exactly what the pinch of 
 incense was to the early Christians — the outward and 
 visible sign of conformity. It was also, for the orthodox, 
 the chief weapon of persecution. They must fast — fast 
 openly before men, and even privately, for fear of spies, 
 or they must burn. It was one of the charges brought 
 against Dolet, and figuring in the indictment along with 
 the heavier accusation of blasphemy and atheism, that 
 he had broken the laws of Lent. It was on a similar 
 charge that Marot had to fly. 
 
 " Do not go ashore," said Xenomanes. " You will onlv 
 
Ui RABELAIS. 
 
 see a great devourer of grey peas ; a great hay bottler ; 
 a mole-catcher, deceiver of folk blinded by ignorance ; a 
 standard-bearer of the ichthyophagists " — because Lent 
 is the season for fish; " grinder of ashes " — because Lent 
 begins on Ash Wednesday ; " flogger of children " — be 
 cause Lent is a sad and sour season ; " father and foster- 
 father of physicians " — because the imposition of this 
 long fast is the cause of so many diseases, swarming with 
 pardons and indulgences; "a very honed man, a good 
 Catholic, and of great devotion. 
 
 He weeps, this cheerful Prince Quaresme-prenant, three- 
 fourths of the day, and assists at no weddings. He lives 
 on things that are salt and without nourishment ; and as 
 for his clothes, he wears " grey and cold, nothing before, 
 nothing behind, and sleeves to match." 
 
 Xenomanes, after promising that they may possibly 
 meet this devout Christian at the land of the Chitterlings 
 — his sworn enemies — continues to describe his appear- 
 ance, manners, and customs, in a long list which lasts 
 for three chapters, so joyfully does Rabelais pour out hia 
 indignation at this superstition. 
 
 " His memory is like a scarf ; 
 His common-sense is as the buzzing of bees ; 
 His imagination like a peal of bells ; 
 His understanding like a torn breviary ; 
 His will like three nuts in a dish ; 
 His judgment like a shoeing horn ; 
 His thoughts like a flight of starlings ; 
 His ideas like snails crawling out of strawberries; 
 His reason like a three-legged stool." 
 
 With six columns of mad similitudes, and then half a 
 page of wild absurdity. 
 
THE HARMONY OF NATURE. 145 
 
 "What is yet more strange, he works, doing nothing, and 
 does nothing though he works ; he corybantises sleeping, and 
 sleeps corybantising — that is, with his eyes open like the hares 
 of Champagne, for fear of being surprised by the Chitter- 
 lings, his ancient enemies ; he eats nothing fasting, and fasts 
 eating nothing ; he drinks in imagination, swims on the top 
 of steeples, dries his clothes in ponds, fears his own shadow 
 and the cries of fat kids, and plays with his own belt." 
 
 This description reminds Pantagruel of an apologue 
 which he has read somewhere, and of which Eabelais 
 leaves the application to the reader. 
 
 " Physis, which is Nature, had two daughters called Beauty 
 and Harmony. Antiphysis, who is always in opposition to 
 Nature, produced two daughters, named Abnormal and Dis- 
 cordant. Their heads were round like a ball, and not gently 
 compressed on both sides in human shape. Their ears stood 
 pricked up like the ears of an ass ; their eyes sticking out 
 of their heads, were placed upon bones like heels, without 
 eyebrows, hard like crab's eyes ; their feet were round like 
 tennis-balls; their arms and hands turned behind towards 
 the shoulders ; and they walked on their head, turning con- 
 tinually round like a wheel, topsy-turvy, heels over head 
 their feet in the air. 
 
 "Yet Antiphysis extolled her offspring, and strove to 
 prove that their shape was handsomer and neater than that of 
 the children of Physis, saying that thus to have spherical 
 heads and feet, and to walk in a circular manner like a 
 wheel, had something in it of the perfection of the divine 
 power, which makes all things eternally turn in that 
 fashion ; and that to have our feet in the air and the head 
 below was to imitate the Creator of the universe — the hair 
 being like the roots and the legs the branches of man : for 
 trees are better planted by their roots than they would be 
 by their branches. ... As for the arms and hands, she 
 pretended to prove that they were more justly turned to- 
 wards the shoulders, because that part of the body ought not 
 
 F.C. VIII. K 
 
146 EABELAIS. 
 
 to "be without defence while the forepart is duly fenced with 
 teeth, which a man can use to defend himself against attack 
 as well as to chew with. Thus she drew all fools and sense- 
 less persons into her opinion, and was admired by all brain- 
 less persons, and those bereft of common-sense." 
 
 The offspring of Antiphysis are all those who would 
 impose laws of life contrary to those of nature, as is 
 done especially by the priests and monks of the Church. 
 The children of nature are the beauty and harmony of 
 all her laws, in the discovery and obedience of which 
 alone may be found the perfection of life. 
 
 The next land made is the Isle Farouche — Wild 
 Island — inhabited by the deadly enemy of Prince 
 Quaresme-prenant, the Chitterlings. Pantagruel would 
 have attempted a reconciliation between the foes, but 
 was dissuaded by Xenomanes, who pointed out the im- 
 possibility of ever bringing them to an understanding, 
 so great is their mutual hatred. Four years before, it 
 is true, there was some kind of truce, but since the 
 Council of Chesil (Council of Trent) the old enmity has 
 been revived with tenfold bitterness. 
 
 While they talk the Chitterlings are discerned half a 
 league off, marching on them, in number forty-two thou- 
 sand or thereabouts. Pantagruel calls a hasty council of 
 war, and Epistemon thinks they may be coming out in 
 force merely as a friendly welcome ; but the Prince — ho 
 is never so far surprised or hurried as to neglect his clas- 
 sical illustrations — after reciting a few passages from 
 history, in which he shows that the pretence of a friendly 
 welcome has often been made the excuse for a treacher- 
 ous attack, sends Gymnast and Carpalini to fetch soldiers 
 from the ships. Panurge volunteers to go instead of 
 
THE BATTLE WITH THE CHITTERLINGS. 147 
 
 Gymnast. " By the frock that I wear," cries Friar John, 
 " you want to get out of the fight, and wiU not come 
 back. It is no great loss ; he would do nothing here but 
 blubber, lament, cry, and dishearten the brave soldiers." 
 " I will certainly come back, my ghostly father," says 
 Panurge, making off as fast as he could. " Only take 
 care that the Chitterlings do not board the ships. While 
 you fight I wiU pray God for your victory, after the ex- 
 ample of the chivalrous captain Moses, leader of the 
 people of Israel." 
 
 Pending the arrival of the soldiers, the excellent 
 Prince Pantagruel discourses on the ancient practice of 
 foretelling by names, with a digression on dreams. Then 
 the army of Chitterlings arrive, and at once show that 
 they have come with hostile intent. The victory is won 
 by Friar John at the head of a band of valiant cooks, 
 and all the Chitterlings would have been destroyed but 
 for the arrival of a flying hog, at sight of whom the 
 Chitterlings aU fell upon their knees in adoration, for 
 this was carnival. Peace was made with the queen of 
 the island, which became tributary to the great Gar- 
 gantua, and the expedition went on its way. 
 
 The madness of the Isle Farouche, and the Chitterling 
 battle, are supplementary to the description of Sly-land 
 and King Quaresme-prenant. Sly-land may be taken 
 for the country of the fanatical Catholics, while Wild 
 Island is that of the equally fanatical Protestants. 
 Eabelais and his friends loved neither side. Next to 
 these islands is placed that of Kuach or Wind, in which 
 the people nourish and feed themselves wholly on wind : 
 the poor by means of fans ; the rich by windmills, 
 beneath which, on days of banquet, they sit and regal* 1 
 
U8 RABELAIS. 
 
 themselves, discussing the different varieties and qualities 
 of breezes just as topers talk of wines. 
 
 An island whose inhabitants live by inhaling the 
 wind 1 ? This opens out a wide field for interpretation. 
 Those people who are carried away by false and foolish 
 hopes, by fond enthusiasms, by promises which have 
 and can have no foundation, the students of astrology 
 and alchemy, the casuists and metaphysicians of the old 
 school, the teachers of new religions, — any of these, and 
 a thousand more, may stand for Rabelais's people of the 
 land of Ruach. But considering that we are in a theo- 
 logical archipelago, we may perhaps assume that the 
 people in this island — a quiet, reflective, and gentle race 
 — represent that small school of religious and specula- 
 tive men who gathered principally about the little Court 
 of Marguerite — Lefevre d'Etaples, Roussel, Briconnet, 
 and their friends — who thought to keep religion free from 
 theology, and taught their flocks that a life of personal 
 holiness was the only walk with God. For this school — 
 gentle, amiable, and pure-minded as it was — the practical 
 Rabelais had little sympathy but plenty of respect. 
 
 The next place is that of Papefigues — Pope-fig-land — 
 which had once been rich and prosperous, but was now 
 poor and miserable. The reason of the decay was that, 
 shortly before, some of them, making an expedition to 
 the neighbouring island of Papimanie, did, on the ex- 
 hibition of the Pope's picture for the adoration of the 
 people, make a gesture of contempt, crying, "Afig foi 
 it!" In revenge for this insult the people of Papimanie 
 invaded Pope -fig -land and put to death all the men, 
 sparing only the women and children. This leads up to 
 a story of how a young and ignorant devil was cheated 
 
ISLAND OF PAPIMANIE. 149 
 
 by a rustic of that country. It may be read in La Fon- 
 taine's ' Tales.' While the narrative gives Rabelais an- 
 other opportunity of deriding Catholic fanatics, we may 
 again note that he shows no sympathy with the Protest- 
 ants. That the islanders of Pope-fig-land are now poor, 
 miserable, and persecuted, is a natural return for their 
 stupidity in laughing at the Pope when they were not 
 strong enough to fight his worshippers. 
 
 Pantagruel makes but a short stay in this desolate 
 country, and proceeds to the blessed island of Papimanie. 
 As soon as the anchor was dropped a boat put off from 
 shore, in which were four persons — a monk, a falconer, a 
 lawyer, and a vine-dresser, representing the Church, the 
 landowners, the law, and agriculture, the four estates of 
 mankind — and hails the ship. 
 
 " ' Have you seen him, travellers ? Have you seen him ?' 
 
 fl ' Seen whom 1 ' asks Pantagruel. 
 
 " < Him.' 
 
 " ' Who is he, then V cries Friar John. ' Par la mort bceuf, 
 I will smash him ' — thinking it was some robber, murderer, 
 or church-breaker. 
 
 " ' How then V they cry. ' Is it possible that you do not 
 know the Unique one ? We mean — He that is.' 
 
 " ' He that is,' returned Pantagruel, ' is God who in such 
 words revealed Himself unto Moses. We never saw Him, 
 nor can He be beheld by mortal eyes.' 
 
 " ' We do not mean that Supreme God,' they reply, ' who 
 rules in heaven. We speak of the God who lives on the 
 earth.' 
 
 " ' Surely they mean the Pope,' says Carpalim. 
 
 " * Yes, yes,' cries Panurge ; ' oh yes, I have seen three 
 of them — much better am I for the sight.' 
 
 " * thrice and four time3 happy people ! ' they cry. ' You 
 are welcome, and more than welcome.' " 
 
150 RABELAIS. 
 
 They then learned that, in honour of their having seen 
 the Pope, they were going to he received with great and 
 special honour. In fact, the whole country came out to 
 meet them in solemn procession, the four who had been 
 in the boat crying out, " They have seen him ! they have 
 seen him ! they have seen him ! " and all the crowd 
 kneeled before the strangers shouting, " happy men ! 
 most happy!" and that for a quarter of an hour; 
 while the schoolmaster magisterially flogged the boys, 
 so that they might remember the joyful occasion ; and 
 the Bishop of the island, Homenas by name, made 
 haste to salute them with all episcopal splendour, his 
 crosses, banners, standards, and holy-water pots. 
 
 The Bishop wanted to kiss their feet, but this Panta- 
 gruel would not allow. He then invited them to go to 
 Church, after which they would feast. In the porch 
 hangs a book above the reach of ordinary men, but Pan- 
 tagruel — he is no longer a giant, but only, like Saul, a 
 head and shoulders taller than his companions — can 
 reach it. The book is gilt, covered with precious stones, 
 and hung up in the porch by two massive chains of gold. 
 It is the Book of the Decretals, a collection of all the 
 Bulls addressed to the faithful since the origin of the 
 Papacy, on which, especially on those which are for- 
 geries, the Popes base their claim for temporal sove- 
 reignty, and the right of political dictation. Pantagruel 
 protested, as he handled it, that the mere touch of the 
 book made him long mightily to go forth and beat one or 
 two sergeants, provided, he adds piously — because this 
 kind of beating was ecclesiastically forbidden — they are 
 not tonsured. Homenas informs them that, like the 
 image of Cybele, that of Diana of Tauris, the ancile of 
 
THE DECRETALS. 151 
 
 Numa Pompilius, and the oriflamme of France, this Book 
 of Decretals came straight down from heaven, having 
 been written by the hand of an angel. And because 
 they have actually seen the Pope, the Bishop will allow 
 them to see and kiss the Decretals on the inside, but 
 after three days' fast. 
 
 "' Venerable man,' said Panurge, 'we have seen plenty of 
 Decretals on paper, on parchment, and on vellum, written 
 by hand, and printed from type. It is not at all necessary 
 that you give yourself the trouble to show us this. We are 
 contented with the goodwill, and we thank you for it.' 
 
 " ' Nay,' replied Homenas, * but you have not seen this 
 one, written by the angels. Those of your country are only 
 transcripts of ours, as we find written by one of our ancient 
 Decretal scholiasts. For the rest, I entreat you not to con- 
 sider my trouble. Only consider if you will confess and 
 fast just three pretty little days.' 
 
 " ' As for confessing/ said Panurge, ' we consent to that 
 very willingly. Only the fasting does not suit us ; for we 
 have fasted so long on board that the spiders have spun 
 webs across our teeth. See this excellent Friar John ' — here 
 Homenas courteously embraced him — ' the moss is growing 
 in his throat for want of moving and exercising his chops.' 
 
 " ' It is true,' said Friar John, ' I have fasted so long that 
 I am grown humpbacked.' 
 
 ' Let us enter the church, then,' answered Homenas ; ' mid- 
 day is past, but I will say you a low and dry mass.' 
 
 " ' I would rather,' said Panurge, ' have one washed down 
 by some good Anjou wine. Push on, then.' 
 
 " The mass done, the Bishop drew a bundle of keys from 
 a trunk near the high altar. With them he opened thirty- 
 two key-holes, fourteen padlocks, and an iron window, 
 strongly barred, above the high altar. Then with great 
 mystery he covered himself with wet sackcloth, and drawing 
 a curtain of crimson cloth showed us a portrait, painted badly 
 enough according to my opinion. Then he touched it witb 
 
152 RABELAIS. 
 
 a long stick, and made all of us kiss the part of the stick 
 which had touched the image. 
 
 " ' What think you of this image 1 ' asked the Bishop. 
 
 " ' It is the likeness of a Pope/ said Pantagruel ; i I know 
 him by the tiara, the furred amice, the rochet, and the 
 slipper.' 
 
 " ' You are right,' replied the Bishop. * It is the picture 
 of that good God on earth, whose coming we devoutly wait, 
 and whom we hope one day to see in this country. happy 
 wished-for, and most expected day ! and happy, most happ\ 
 you, whose propitious stars have so far favoured you, that 
 you have seen the living and real face of this God on earth ! 
 By the single sight of his picture we obtain full remission 
 of all the sins which we remember, and a third part, with 
 eighteen -fortieths besides, of the sins which we have for- 
 gotten. But, indeed, we only see it on annual holidays.' " 
 
 After church they go to dinner, when the service is per- 
 formed by young girls clad in white albs with flowers in 
 their hair. These serving-maids sing an anthem in honour 
 of the holy Decretals, after which the excellent Bishop 
 falls into an ecstasy over the divinely inspired book. 
 
 The good old Bishop S He is a type of the honest 
 narrow-minded believer. He has entire faith in his 
 nostrums. He has pictured a world all peace and tran- 
 quillity, full of good things to eat and drink, inhabited 
 by a race of sheep-like mortals, who follow and obey, 
 content to be well fed and well housed. The priest's 
 idea of man has ever been as of a drove of sheep. We 
 are to be as ignorant, as docile, as peaceful as the flock 
 of bleating wethers ; we are to have as little care as they 
 for anything except plentiful grass, sunshine after shear- 
 ing, and safety in the fold from the wolf. And the 
 distinguishing mark of the priest in all ages, in all re- 
 ligions, and in all countries, is that he can never think 
 
BISHOP HOMENAS. 153 
 
 of himself except as a shepherd. The great Shepherd in 
 the mind of Bishop Homenas and other prelates, priests, 
 and monks of his creed, is not the Lord of Christen- 
 dom, but the Pope of Eome. 
 
 The guests of the good Bishop proceed to tell stories 
 which, to any but an enthusiast, would have seemed 
 lacking in reverence towards that sacred book of the 
 Decretals. 
 
 Ponocrates relates how a gold-beater at Montpellier 
 used a book of Decretals to beat gold between the leaves, 
 and how the gold-leaf was all torn and spoiled. 
 
 "Divine vengeance ! " says Homenas. 
 
 Eudemon — it is a very long time since we have heard 
 of this excellent young man — tells how an apothecary of 
 his acquaintance turned a set of the Decretals into waste 
 paper. Everything that he wrapped in them became 
 corrupted and spoiled. 
 
 " Mark," said the Bishop, " an effect of divine justice ! " 
 
 Carpalim remembers how a tailor of Paris cut up a 
 set of Clementine Decretals into patterns and measures. 
 All the coats, gowns, hoods, cloaks, cassocks, jerkins, 
 jackets, caps, capes, doublets, or farthingales cut accord- 
 ing to these measures were hopelessly ruined. 
 
 " Heavenly wrath ! " says Homenas. . 
 
 Gymnast relates that at Cahusac, a shooting -match 
 being held, one of the leaves of a set of Decretals was set 
 up to be shot at for the white. No one could hit the 
 mark. Nay, it was plainly seen by some that a bolt, 
 making straight for the centre, turned aside just before 
 reaching it, and shot exactly seven feet four inches wide 
 of it towards the bakehouse — Eabelais is nothing unless 
 he can give exact particulars. 
 
154 RABELAIS. 
 
 " Miracle ! " cried Homenas, in a rapture, — " miracle ! 
 Come girls, wine here. Gentlemen, I perceive that you 
 are sound Christians." 
 
 Ehizotomus has his experience with the rest, although 
 a modest man as a rule, for he hardly speaks except on 
 this occasion. He was once acting farces and interludes 
 at a wedding, and to make masks, he, with his young 
 companions, took the leaves of an old Sextum and made 
 holes in them for the eyes and nose. Would you believe 
 it 1 When they took off the masks they were all smitten 
 with some disease. One had smallpox, one the measles, 
 one boils, and another lost his teeth. 
 
 " Miracle ! " shouted his lordship the Bishop, — 
 " miracle ! " 
 
 Presently the Bishop falls into more rapturous discourse 
 on the catholicity of France, which sends at least 400,000 
 ducats a year to Borne. It is all done by the Decretals. 
 No other book ever written could draw so much money 
 from the country. Yet these devilish heretics refuse to 
 acknowledge the virtue of a book which has such power. 
 
 The next adventure is the well-known and often- 
 repeated story of the Frozen Words. The story was 
 taken by Babelais from the ' Cortigiano ' of Castiglione. 
 It has been reproduced in the Travels of Munchausen. 
 
 The party were all junketing, tippling, discoursing, and 
 telling stories, when Pantagruel suddenly interrupts them 
 by asking them whether they did not hear voices about 
 them in the air. This was indeed the case. Nothing 
 was to be seen, and yet they were in the midst of sounds 
 and voices of men, women, children, and horses. Panurge, 
 in a great fright, clings for protection to Friar John. 
 Pantagruel refers to Aristotle and Plato, and suggests 
 
THE FROZEN WORDS. 155 
 
 they may be somewhere near the head and lyre of 
 Orpheus, which was thrown into the Hebrus and floated 
 out to sea, as far as the island of Lesbos, where the head 
 still continued uttering doleful cries, the lyre, stirred by 
 the wind, playing an accompaniment. He is wrong, 
 however. It is only that they have sailed within the 
 confines of the Frozen Sea, where a twelvemonth or so 
 before there had been a great battle between two native 
 tribes, and as the war took place in winter, the noise of 
 the conflict, with the discharge of the guns, the neighing 
 of horses, and the cries of the wounded, naturally froze, 
 and were only now beginning to melt. This episode, 
 like those of the great sea -monster, and the island of 
 wind, admits of almost every kind of interpretation. It 
 seems to me that it is simply told as an amusing story. 
 
 We come next to an island which is rugged, craggy, 
 and barren. The voyagers land with difficulty, and with 
 a great deal of trouble climb up the rocky sides, and 
 find themselves, to their great surprise, when they reached 
 the top, on a mountain so fertile, so pleasant, and so 
 healthful, that they think they must have arrived at the 
 Earthly Paradise. 
 
 This place is ruled by the great Gaster, First Master of 
 Arts in the world. And here follows a most ingenious 
 and most pleasantly worked out apologue. 
 
 Gaster, the stomach, which must be kept daily sup- 
 plied, represents Necessity, the cause of all inventions, 
 the first Master of Arts. 
 
 " We were obliged to do reverence and honour, and sweai 
 allegiance to that chivalrous king, for he is imperious, 
 rigorous, blunt, hard, and inflexible : you cannot make him 
 believe anything, you cannot represent anything to him, or 
 
156 RABELAIS. 
 
 persuade him of anything. He does not hear : as the Egyp- 
 tians said that Harpoerates, the god of silence, had no mouth, 
 so Gaster was created without ears, like the image of Jupiter 
 in Crete. He only speaks by signs, but those signs are more 
 readily obeyed by every one than the statutes of praetors, or 
 the commands of monarchs ; neither will he admit the least 
 hindrance or delay in his summons. You say that when a 
 lion roars, all the beasts round about, as far as his roar can 
 be heard, tremble. It is written, it is true. I have seen it. 
 I assure you, that at Gaster's command all the heavens 
 tremble, and all the earth shakes : his command is called, 
 * Do this at once, or die ! ' 
 
 " What company soever he is in, none dispute with him for 
 precedence or superiority : he still goes first, though kings, 
 emperors, or even the Pope, were there. Every one is pressed, 
 every one labours to serve him ; and in recompense, he does 
 this good to the world, that he invents all arts, all machines, 
 all trades, all engines, and all crafts. . . . When his 
 regent Penia (Poverty) takes a journey, wherever she goes 
 all parliaments are shut up, all edicts suspended, all orders 
 are vain. She is subject to no law ; she is exempt from all 
 law. All shun her, in every place choosing rather to expose 
 themselves to shipwreck at sea, and to pass through fire, 
 over mountains, and across gulfs, than be seized by her. 
 
 "By the institution of nature, bread has been assigned 
 him for provision and food, with this blessing of heaven 
 added, that he should never want the means of procuring 
 and keeping bread. 
 
 " At the beginning he invented the smith's art and hus- 
 bandry to cultivate the ground, that it might yield him corn ; 
 he invented arms and the art of war to defend corn ; medi- 
 cine and astrology, with the necessary mathematics, in order 
 to keep corn for many years in safety from the injuries of the 
 air, destruction by beasts, and robbery of thieves ; he in- 
 vented watermills, windmills, handmills, and a thousand 
 other engines to grind corn and to turn it into meal ; leaven 
 to make the dough ferment, salt to give it a flavour ; fire to 
 bake it, and clocks and dials to mark the time of its baking. 
 
GREAT GASTER. 157 
 
 It happened that grain failed in one country ; he invented 
 the means of carrying it thither out of another country. 
 He invented carts and waggons more commodiously to carry 
 him ; since the seas and rivers hindered his march, he in- 
 vented boats, galleys, and ships to navigate sea and rivers, 
 and from distant nations to bring corn or to convey it thither. 
 Thieves and robbers stole from the fields the corn and bread : 
 — he invented the art of building cities, forts, and castles, 
 to lock it up and keep it in safety. On the other hand, 
 finding no corn in the fields, and hearing that it was kept 
 in castles and watched with more care than even were the 
 golden apples of the Hesperides, he invented the art of beat- 
 ing down and demolishing forts and castles, battering-rams-, 
 ballistas, and catapults. And seeing that sometimes all these 
 tools of destruction were baffled by the cunning subtilty of 
 fortifiers, he invented cannon, field -pieces, and culverines, 
 which hurl iron, leaden, and brazen balls, some of them out- 
 weighing huge anvils. And this he effected by means of a 
 most dreadful powder, by whom Nature herself is amazed, 
 and has confessed herself outdone by Art." 
 
 There are other inventions and discoveries of this 
 great monarch, but these are due rather to Babelais's 
 extensive reading, and to his firm belief that classical 
 books cannot lie, than to any practical knowledge which 
 he had of them. For instance, Pliny's herb ethiojris, 
 which opens all locks ; the remora, which is able to stop 
 in her course the greatest ship ever launched ; that 
 nameless herb which has the power of drawing out the 
 heaviest wedge, however firmly planted in an oak ; the 
 dittanv, which makes the arrows fall from the sides of 
 wounded deer; the plant which will draw rain from 
 heaven, and that which will keep the rain from falling, 
 — of all these things we may say, as the country squire 
 said of Gulliver, that we do not believe one word. 
 
158 RABELAIS. 
 
 Rabelais, however, on the faith of Pliny, a naturalist 
 like himself, with the enormous additional advantage 
 of being a classic, does seem to believe these things. 
 
 Among the people of this Earthly Paradise were two 
 sorts of folk whom Pantagruel excessively disliked. 
 These were the Engastrimyths, who were ventriloquists, 
 and deluded the people by pretending to be soothsayers ; 
 and the Gastrolaters, who worshipped a god consisting 
 chiefly of head and mouth, called Manduce (manducare, 
 to chew). They were accustomed to offer banquets to 
 this god, just as in other religions prayers and incense 
 are offered. Rabelais pleases himself with an account of 
 one of these banquets, or rather with giving the menu, 
 which is, after the Rabelaisian fashion, in many columns, 
 and embraces every kind of dish — flesh, fish, or fowl. 
 It is pleasant to consider that the choice of dishes open 
 to a chef of the sixteenth century were as great as those 
 of the present day. Under the soothsayers and guzzlers 
 we may be permitted to see once more the hood of the 
 monk. 
 
 After leaving the land of Maitre Gaster, they were 
 becalmed off an island called Chaneph, or Hypocrisy, 
 where dwelt, according to Xenomanes, hypocrites, holy 
 mountebanks, sham saints, hermits, and such — all of 
 them living on alms. 
 
 After this they pass by the land of Thieves, where 
 Friar John wished to land in order to make a clearance 
 of the whole population; but Pantagruel would not 
 allow it. The Fourth Book, which would fitly have 
 ended with the adventure of King Gaster, concludes 
 with a story of Panurgic cowardice. 
 
 The Fifth and last Book was, as we have seen, pub- 
 
THE FIFTH BOOK. 159 
 
 lished ten years after the death of Rabelais. Its author- 
 ship has been disputed. The internal evidence, how- 
 ever, seems to me to point with certainty to the master's 
 hand. It may very well be that portions are not his ; 
 and it is quite clear that the whole wants the author's 
 revision. 
 
 We have seen that the frolic, merriment, and abandon 
 of the Third Book are greatly lacking in the Fourth. Yet 
 even here Rabelais writes in cheerful, even sometimes 
 in jovial mood. It is different with the chapters which 
 form the Fifth Book. Here the old man is bitter and 
 angry. The last runnings of the noble barrel are clear 
 and sound as the first, but they have lost their sparkle. 
 Death stared him in the face ; the world looked blacker 
 than ever; superstition was more powerful and more 
 cruel ; the extension of classical knowledge had brought 
 as yet no alleviation of human misery; priests and 
 monks were as rapacious, as exacting, as stupidly dog- 
 matic as in the good old days when, at forty years of 
 age, he burst into the world, prepared to see all man- 
 kind become suddenly as wise, as eager for common 
 sense, as zealous for learning, as ardent for reform, as 
 himself. 
 
 The supposed editor was a certain Jean Turquet. At 
 the head of the Book were four lines — 
 
 " Doth Kabelais in the dark grave lie ? 
 His soul still lives : he brings again 
 Another book : grim fate in vain 
 Cut short his days : he cannot die." 
 
 This quatrain is signed by the anagram, Nature Quite, 
 in which the name of Jean Turquet is easily distinguish- 
 
160 RABELAIS. 
 
 able. Henry Stephen is supposed to have assisted in 
 the publication, but without any valid reason that one 
 can discover. 
 
 The Book continues the voyage without any break. 
 
 On the fourth day after leaving the Isle of Thieves, 
 land was seen. The pilot — it is remarkable that not 
 only Xenornanes the traveller, but also the pilot, is quite 
 familiar with these unknown seas— announces that it is 
 the He Sonnante, or Isle of Ringing ; and indeed they 
 began to hear a confused jangling as of many bells all 
 rung at once. Some of them suggested that it was 
 Dodona with its caldrons, or the portico called Hepta- 
 phone in Olympia, or the eternal murmur of the Colossus 
 raised on Memnon's tomb, or the din which used to be 
 heard round a sepulchre at Lipara, one of the iEolian 
 islands. Pantagruel thought that it might be the 
 swarming of bees, the neighbours having turned out 
 with pans, kettles, and basins to call them back. As 
 the vessel drew nearer, they thought they could discern 
 the singing of men. Pantagruel was of opinion, under 
 these doubtful circumstances — it does not occur to any 
 one to consult the pilot, who, as he knew the name of 
 the island, would probably know something more about 
 it — that they should first send the pinnace to a small 
 rock whereon was a hermitage. The hermit was a 
 certain Braguibus, a man from Poitou — it does not 
 appear how he got there — who made them fast for four 
 days before he would admit them upon the island. 
 Having happily got tln-ough the four days' penance, they 
 started with a letter of introduction to see the chief of 
 the island, a Master iEdituus, who was old and bald, 
 with a nose well illuminated, and a face of crimson. 
 
&D1TUUS. 161 
 
 But he made the whole party welcome, on the recom- 
 mendation of the hermit, and gave them dinner. 
 
 The inhabitants of the island, iEdituus proceeds to tell 
 Pantagruel, were originally Siticines — that is, musicians 
 and singers at funerals — but as everything in nature 
 is subject to change, they had become birds. When 
 this transformation took place, they went into cages and 
 stayed there. 
 
 " The cages were spacious, rich, and of admirable archi- 
 tecture. The birds were large, fair, and polite, resembling 
 the men in my country. They ate and drank like men ; 
 they digested like men ; they slept and snored like men ; in 
 short, at first sight you would have said that they were men. 
 However, they were not men at all, as j^Edituus informed us ; 
 assuring us, at the same time, that they were neither secular 
 nor lay men : certainly their plumage puzzled us ; for some 
 were all over white, others all black, others grey, others black 
 and white, some red, and others blue and white : it was a 
 beautiful sight to see. The males he called clergaux, 
 monagaux, prestregeaux, abbegaux, evesgaux, cardingaux, and 
 papegaut, who is unique in his kind. The females he named 
 clergesses, monagesses, prestregesses, abbegesses, evesgesses, car- 
 dingesses, papegesses. . . . 
 
 " We asked Maitre JEdituus, seeing the multiplication of 
 these venerable birds in all these kinds, why there was only 
 one papegaut? He replied that such was the first institu- 
 tion and fatal destiny of the stars ; that, without marriage, 
 of the clergaux were born the prestregaux and monagaux. Of 
 the vrestregaux were born the evesgaux, of these the beautiful 
 cardingaux, and the cardingaux, unless prevented by death, 
 ended in papegaut. When the papegaut dies, another rises 
 in his stead out of the whole brood of cardingaux. So 
 that there is in that species an individual unity with a 
 perpetuity of succession, neither more nor less than in the 
 Arabian phcenk. 
 
 F.C. — VIII L 
 
162 RABELAIS. 
 
 " We then asked what moved these birds to be continually 
 chanting and singing ? He answered that it was the bells 
 which hung on the top of their cages. Then he said to us, 
 ' Will you have me make these monagaux, whom you see 
 hooded with a bag, sing like any wood-larks ? ' He then 
 rang the bell six times ; and the monagaux began to run, 
 and the monaga,ux began to sing. Said Panurge, ' If I ring 
 this bell, could I make these other birds with the red- 
 herring plumage sing ? ' ' Just in the same way,' returned 
 iEdituus. Panurge rang, and suddenly these birds ran 
 together and began to sing, but their voices were hoarse and 
 displeasing." 
 
 It is needless, surely, to explain that the He Sonnante 
 is the Church ; that the cages are monasteries and con- 
 vents; that the clergaux, monagaux, and the rest, are 
 clergy, monks, priests, bishops, and cardinals ; and that 
 the bells over the cages are the chapel bells, at sound of 
 which they rush to say the office of the hour. 
 
 " * Since/ said Pantagruel, * you have told us how tue 
 papegaut is begotten of the cardingaux, and so on, I would 
 gladly know whence you have the clergaux, from whom they 
 all spring.' 
 
 " ' They are all birds of passage,' replied iEdituus. * They 
 come to us from the other world — part from a marvellous 
 country called Jour-sans-pain (Breadless-day), and part from 
 another called Trop-d'itieux (Too -many -of- them). From 
 these two countries flock hither, every year, these clergaux, 
 leaving their fathers, mothers, friends, and relations. The 
 way is this : When in any noble house of the latter country 
 there are too many children, male or female, so that if the 
 inheritance were to be divided equally among all (as reason 
 wills, nature orders, and God commands), the house would 
 come to nothing, the parents pack them off to this island. 
 Generally they are hunchbacked, one-eyed, cripples, maimed , 
 gouty, ill-shapen. and a useless burden on the earth.' ' tTial; 
 
THE SINGING-BIRDS. 163 
 
 interrupted Pantagruel, * is a custom entirely contrary to 
 the institutions formerly observed in the reception of the 
 Vestal Virgins ; by which, as is attested by Labeo Antistius, 
 it was forbidden to elect to this dignity any maiden who had 
 any defect in her soul, any diminution in her senses, any blot 
 or blemish, however secret or slight, in her body.' * I won- 
 der,' said iEdituus, in continuation, 'whether the mothers over 
 there really bear their children for the customary time, seeing 
 that they cannot endure them at home for nine years, gener- 
 ally not for seven, before they put on them a shirt over their 
 frock, cut off some of their hair from their heads, with certain 
 magic and expiatory words, and turn them into birds such 
 as you see them here. This is doubtless the reason why the 
 females, clergesses, monagesses and abbegesses, instead of singing 
 fine and pleasant songs, such as used to be sung to Osiris, lift 
 up dismal and angry chants as they did to the demon Ari- 
 manian, and continually curse parents and friends who trans- 
 formed them into birds.' " 
 
 While they ane conversing they observe a number of 
 birds of a very different plumage. Their feathers were 
 as changeable as the skin of the chameleon, but all of 
 them had under the left wing a mark like a vertical line 
 falling in a horizontal line (that is, a cross), but the 
 mark was in different colours. These are gourmandeurs 
 (a very bad pun on commandeurs), and though they 
 cannot sing, they can devour. These are the knightly 
 orders. 
 
 When they have seen all that iEdituus has to show, 
 he invites them to a four days' feast. Friar John asks 
 whence comes the plenty and overflowing of all good 
 things in this island, where no one sets his hand to the 
 plough or tills the land, or does anything 1 " It comes," 
 replies iEdituus, " from all the other world, except some 
 part of the northern regions, which will, ere long, have 
 
164 KABELAIS. 
 
 reason to rue their refusal to continue their contributions. 
 . . . And as for the fine time we have in this world, 
 that is nothing compared with that we shall have in the 
 other. The Elysian fields will be the least that can fall 
 to our lot. Come, in the meantime, let us drink." 
 
 At midnight, when they were in bed, this worthy 
 representative of the Church wakes them with the offer 
 of more drink, reproaching them with sloth in the matter 
 of drinking, and before dawn he rouses them again for 
 an early snack. After that they made but one meal, 
 which lasted all day. 
 
 On the third day of this continual and stupendous 
 feed Pantagruel asked if they could not see the Papegaut 
 himself. iEdituus, after some difficulties, conducted 
 them in great secrecy and silence to the cage in which 
 the Papegaut sat perched, accompanied by two little 
 cardingaux and six fat evesgaux. Panurge, the irrepres- 
 sible, likens him to a hoopoe. " Hush !" cries iEdituus, 
 " if he once hears you blaspheming thus, you are lost. 
 Do you see within the cage a basin 1 ? Thunder, bolts 
 and lightning, devils and tempests, will come forth of it, 
 by which you will be in one moment sunk a hundred 
 feet underground." " Better drink and be merry," said 
 Friar John. Then they return, but on their way they 
 spy a fat old ewtgaut sitting asleep and snoring, while 
 near them sings unheeded a buxom abbegesse. Panurge 
 takes a stone to knock the senseless bird off its perch, 
 but iEdituus restrains him. 
 
 "Hold, my friend. Strike, murder, kill all kings and 
 princes of the world by treason, by poison, any way you 
 please; take down the angels from the heavens, and for 
 all you shall have pardon of the Papegaut. But touch not 
 
MEANING OF THE BIRDS. 165 
 
 one of these sacred birds, if you love life, happiness, your 
 relations and your friends living and dead. Even those who 
 are born after you will suffer for it. Remember the basin. 5 
 
 " ' Let us rather drink, then/ said Panurge. 
 
 "'He speaks well, Master iEdituus,' said Friar John. 
 1 While we are looking at these devils of birds we do nothing 
 but blaspheme, but while we are emptying the bottles and 
 the flagons we do nothing but praise the Lord. Let us then 
 go drink.' " 
 
 And so they take leave of L'De Sonnante. Had there 
 been by this time left a shadow of doubt of the hatred 
 in which Rabelais held ecclesiastical institutions, this 
 chapter would be enough to dissipate that doubt. The 
 chief office of the Church is to console, fortify, and 
 encourage the dying, and to say masses for the dead. 
 Therefore Rabelais represents the birds to have originally 
 been singers at funerals. Certainly in the next page he 
 forgets this statement and assigns another origin, but 
 that is his way. The birds in the cages, the monks and 
 nuns, priests, bishops, cardinals, and the great Pope him- 
 self, recruited from all the world, kept well fed and fat 
 by all the world, armed with thunder and lightning 
 (kept in a basin), held sacred from all violence, leading 
 lives of pure gluttony and selfish indulgence, without 
 a hint of religion, morality, learning, or work of any 
 kind, are the Church as Rabelais conceived it, knew it, 
 and drew it after an experience of seventy years. Not 
 one redeeming feature, no possibility in his mind that 
 this dead and rotten superstition ever had or would again 
 put forth green shoots and umbrageous branches. The 
 world is crushed, cries the old man bitterly, by the 
 Church. Humanity is enslaved by priests. 
 
 Tn three days they reach the uninhabited Island of 
 
166 RABELAIS. 
 
 Tools, in which the trees bear mattocks, pickaxes, spades, 
 sickles, scythes, swords, daggers, poniards, &c. They 
 make no long stay here, but proceed to the Island of 
 Play, which is sandy, barren, and unhealthy. It is 
 also so lean that the rocks stand out of the ground like 
 bones appearing through the skin. The pilot showed 
 them two square rocks made of bone, which had six 
 equal sides. These are dice. Twenty -one devils live 
 there. Twenty-one devils are the number of the dice 
 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21). More wrecks have happened 
 about these square rocks, and a greater loss of body and 
 goods, than about the Syrtes, Scylla and Charybdis, and 
 all the gulfs and whirlpools in the world. In this island, 
 too, is carried on a great trade with relics and consecrated 
 rubbish. Why Rabelais should have placed the relic 
 traffic in this island of Play does not appear. Perhaps 
 he did not, and it may have been an addition of his 
 editor, or a mere note of his own got into the wrong 
 place. An island of relics and holy bones would have 
 been amusing. They arrive next at the island of Con- 
 demnation. We have already had satires on the admin- 
 istration and practice of civil law. We now come to 
 criminal justice. 
 
 The judges are called Chats Fourres — Furred Cats — 
 and they are thus described by a beggar sitting outside 
 the court : — 
 
 " They grip all, devour all, pollute all ; they burn, bury, 
 quarter, behead, murder, imprison, waste, and ruin all with- 
 out distinction of right or wrong. Among them vice is 
 called virtue ; wickedness, piety ; treason, loyalty ; robbery, 
 liberality. Plunder is their motto, and when acted by them, 
 is approved of all men, except the heretics ; and they do all 
 
THE FUKRED CATS. 167 
 
 this with authority, sovereign and irrefragable. ... If 
 ever plague, famine, war, fire, earthquakes, inundatiorB, or 
 other judgments befall the world, do not attribute them to 
 the aspects and conjunctions of the planets — to the tyranny of 
 kings — to the impostures of lying zealots of the cowl, heretics, 
 and false prophets — to the villany of usurers, clippers, and 
 coiners — to the ignorance, impudence, and imprudence of 
 physicians and surgeons ; but charge them, wholly and solely, 
 to the inexpressible and incredible wickedness which is con- 
 tinually practised in the den of these Furred Cats." 
 
 Panurge and Friar John — Pantagruel refuses to land 
 at this detestable port — speedily find themselves arrested 
 and brought before the principal judge, Grippeminaud. 
 Over his seat is the image of an old woman in spectacles, 
 holding in her right hand the scabbard of a sickle, and 
 in her left a balance. The scales of the balance were a 
 pair of velvet pouches. The one was full of gold, and 
 outweighed the other, which was empty and long. 
 Grippeminaud bullies, swears, and rages at them. Then 
 he asks them a riddle, and in the end he lets them go, 
 having imposed a fine of all the gold pieces in Panurge's 
 purse. 
 
 The riddle, the want of coherence, the absence of 
 Rabelaisian detail in the description, the lack of merri- 
 ment, the invective, all together make one believe that 
 the chapters on the " Chats Fourres " were not written 
 by Rabelais at all ; or at least that they are, as they stand, 
 little else than the first rough draft, which he had no 
 time to work up. As they stand, they read like a bad 
 dream. We are as glad as Panurge to get out of that 
 island and sail away, in a chapter called " How we 
 passed beyond, and Panurge nearly got killed." In this 
 island the people are all boon companions like leather 
 
168 RABELAIS. 
 
 bottles (outres), who grow so fat that they are fain to 
 cut and gash themselves, otherwise their skins would 
 burst. In fact they all die by the bursting of the skin. 
 There is nothing to show how Panurge was nearly killed, 
 and the chapter has apparently no connection with any- 
 thing that precedes or follows. Whether it is written by 
 Rabelais or not, it is certainly unfinished, and probably 
 out of place. 
 
 Just as a mighty tempest overtook the travellers before 
 they arrived at the island of the Macreons, so they meet 
 with another before arriving at the island of Metaphysics 
 and Philosophy. The description of this second storm is, 
 however, a sad falling off from that of the first. 
 
 They then make the island of the Apedefts, which is 
 a very dull chapter of doubtful authenticity on tax-col- 
 lectors and financiers. 
 
 After getting through the storm, they run ashore on 
 some sands, from which they are released by the aid of 
 a ship which fortunately passes by. She is laden with 
 drums, and among the passengers is a certain astrologer 
 named Cotiral. Being asked whom they have on board, 
 Cotiral says that they are astrologers, fortune-tellers, al- 
 chemists, rhymers, poets, painters, projectors, mathe- 
 maticians, clock-makers, and others, all subjects of Queen 
 Quinte. He then proceeds by means of floating drums 
 to draw off the ships from the sand, and sets them afloat 
 again. Shortly after they arrive at the port of Matseo- 
 techny — Vain Art — in the kingdom of Queen Ente- 
 lecheia (Perfection), or Quintessence, abridged into 
 Quinte\ After the formality of putting the visitors 
 through a kind of ordeal, resembling that of the Gilead- 
 ites when they slew the men of Ephraim, the Captain of 
 
ENTELECHEIA. 169 
 
 the Queen's Guard led them with great ceremony into 
 the presence of the Queen. 
 
 Queen Quintessence (called Queen Whims by Mot- 
 teux), who was then about eighteen hundred years of 
 age, having been born in the time of Aristotle, was 
 handsome, tall, and as fair a queen as hand could 
 make. She was also still in the bloom and pride of 
 youth. Just then, attended by her ladies and gentle- 
 men, she was engaged in curing the sick ; and as other 
 kings cure scrofula by a touch, so this sovereign heals 
 all disorders by merely playing on the organ. 
 
 "While we were examining this wonderful organ, the 
 leprous were brought in ; she played them some kind of 
 tune, and they were immediately cured. Then those who 
 were poisoned were had in, and she played them one song, 
 and up they got. Then came on the deaf, the blind, and the 
 dumb, and they received the same treatment." 
 
 The strangers were so overcome by this astonishing 
 spectacle that they all — even Pantagruel, who up to the 
 present point has shown no astonishment at anything, 
 and Panurge, who has shown no reverence for anything 
 — fall prostrate and senseless. On their recovery, the 
 Queen addresses them in high - flown and classical 
 language : — 
 
 "The honestv which scintillates in the circumference of 
 your persons makes me a certain judgment of the virtue 
 latent in the centre of your spirits : and the sight of the mel- 
 lifluous suavity of your eloquent reverences, persuades me 
 easily that your hearts nourish no kind of vice or any sterility 
 of liberal and lofty science, but that they abound in various 
 rare and peregrinic disciplines, which at present it is the 
 easier, according to the usages of the vulgar imperite, to 
 desire them to meet with ; which is the reason why f , mistress 
 
170 RABELAIS. 
 
 by the past over any private affection, am now unable to 
 contain myself from uttering the trivial worldly words — ■ Be 
 welcome, yea, thrice welcome.' " 
 
 As they answer nothing, the Queen concludes that 
 they are disciples of Pythagoras. She then has them 
 conveyed to a room, where they are nobly entertained ; 
 she herself, who eats nothing but abstractions, second 
 intentions, transcendent prolepsies, and such other light 
 philosophical food, dining apart. 
 
 After dinner, they observe how, with the ladies and 
 princes of her court, the Queen is accustomed to sift 
 time with a fine, large, blue silk sieve ; and how she has 
 revived ancient classical sports and dances. And then 
 they are shown how the Queen's servants occupy them- 
 selves in good works : one cured toothache by the simple 
 process of removing the stump, and letting it dry in the 
 sun ; one cured fevers by hanging a fox-tail in the left 
 hand of the patient ; one with a wonderful contrivance 
 turned the house out of window; one cured all con- 
 sumptive patients, however weak and wasted they might 
 be, by the simple process of turning them into monks 
 for three months ; and " we were assured that if they did 
 not grow fat and plump in the monastic state of life, 
 they never would be fattened in this world, either by 
 nature or by art." 
 
 The greatest benefactor, however, was he who restored 
 to women their youth and beauty, and gave back to the 
 most decrepit and the most wrinkled the graces and 
 charms of sixteen. It is not stated what method he 
 employed. Panurge asked him if he could restore old 
 men in the same way. He could not ; but it was always 
 possible, he said, for old men to become young by one 
 
FOLLIES OF PHILOSOPHERS. 171 
 
 of the newly-made young women falling in love with 
 him. 
 
 Others of the Queen's officers made black men white 
 by rubbing them with the bottom of a basket. 
 
 Others sheared asses, and thus gut long-fleece wooL 
 
 Others gathered grapes off thorns, and figs off thistles. 
 
 Others taught cows to dance. 
 
 Others out of nothing made great things, and made 
 great things return to nothing. 
 
 Others cut fire into steaks with a knife. 
 
 Others drew water with a fish-net. 
 
 Others on a large grass plot exactly measured hov* 
 far flame can go at a hop, step, and a jump, and told us 
 that this was exceedingly useful for the ruling of king- 
 doms, the conduct of armies, and the administration of 
 commonwealths. 
 
 Two sat in a tower and guarded the moon from wolves. 
 
 In the evening they have a royal supper, and after 
 supper there is a ball in the manner of a tournament, 
 which is an exact description of the game of chess. 
 And when the tournament was over, Queen Quintessence 
 suddenly vanished away and was no more seen. 
 
 There is, so far, in the last Book, no mention of the 
 purpose with which the voyagers had set out. The 
 question of Panurge appears to have been entirely cast 
 aside. But we shall find that it has not been forgot- 
 ten, and that the kingdom of Entelecheia has its place. 
 It is almost needless to explain that the island repre- 
 sents the absurdities of the scholastic philosophers, the 
 waste of time over work which can have no useful re- 
 sult, the vain pretences of sciolists, and the vanity of 
 false philosophy. 
 
172 RABELAIS. 
 
 So they get them away from the port of Mataeotechny, 
 and make in two days the island of Roads (Odes = 0S01). 
 In this remarkable place all the roads are moving. The 
 author recognises many old friends among them — Bourges 
 highway going with the deliberation of an abbot, the 
 old road between Peronne and St Quentin, and so on 
 Pantagruel is not astonished at these things, — nothing is 
 strange in a world where so many strange things happen. 
 Seleucus, he reminds his companions, says that the earth 
 itself moves round on its poles, and not the heavens at 
 all, which we think are moving ; just as, on the river 
 Loire, we think the trees and the shore are moving, 
 though this is only an effect of the boat's motion. 
 
 What is the meaning of the roads which move ? The 
 allegory is clumsy and far-fetched, because there can 
 be but one meaning. The roads which carry us along 
 by their own movement represent the wave of ideas by 
 which we are borne along. 
 
 Next we come to the He des Esclots — the island of 
 wooden clogs — where is a monastery newly founded of 
 an order called the Humming or Mumbling Friars. 
 There were already the Minor and the Minim Friars, 
 and to get at a greater depth of humility, it seemed as if 
 there could be nothing left but the Mumbling Friars. 
 These pious brethren wore shoes as round as basins ; 
 they shaved their chins and the back part of their heads ; 
 to show that they despised fortune, they carried a razor 
 at their waists ; the flap of their cowls hung forward in- 
 stead of backwards ; the hind part of their heads was 
 always uncovered, so that they could go backwards or 
 forwards ns they pleased. Their way of living was this : 
 about owl-light they would boot and spur each other ; 
 
THE MUMBLING FRIARS. 17 
 
 D 
 
 then, the least they could do was to sleep and snore. 
 And when they slept they wore spectacles ; and the reason 
 was, that as the Day of Judgment is to take men un- 
 awares, they were to be always booted, spurred, and pro- 
 vided with their spectacles in readiness. They rose at 
 morn ; and their first exercise, after they had taken off 
 their boots and spurs and spectacles, was to go into the, 
 cloisters and yawn altogether by signal. Then they 
 went in procession, mumbling their psalms as they go. 
 We need not stay to decide their mode of living and 
 their diet, which are set forth in great detail. Every 
 useless absurdity that can be devised is pressed into the 
 service of this unlucky fraternity as a rule of the Order. 
 Epistemon takes another opportunity, after learning all 
 these rules, of inveighing against the observance of 
 Lent. 
 
 " All distempers are sowed in Lent. It is the true semi- 
 nary and native bed of all diseases. Nor does it only weaken 
 and corrupt bodies, but also drives souls mad and uneasy. 
 For then the devils do their best, and drive a subtle trade, 
 and the tribe of canting hypocrites comes out of their holes. 
 It is then term-time with them ; then they hold high-day 
 with their sessions, stations, pardons, confessions, whippings, 
 and anathematising8. . . . 
 
 "'Is not this fellow/ Panurge asks of Brother Fredon- 
 fredonnant - fredondille, who had overheard Epistemon, 'a 
 rank heretic?'" 
 
 The worthy brother answers only in monosyllables : — 
 
 "'Much/ 
 
 " * Ought he not to be burned V 
 
 "' Ought' 
 
 " • And as much as possible V 
 
 "'Yes.' 
 
174 RABELAIS. 
 
 " ' "Without any parboiling 1 ' 
 " l None.' 
 
 "'How should he be roasted?' 
 "'Alive.' 
 
 "'Till at last he be?' 
 "'Dead.' 
 
 " ' What has he made you 1 * 
 "'Mad.' 
 
 " ' What do you take him to be V 
 "'Fool.' 
 
 " ' First, how would you have him served ?' 
 " ' Burned.' 
 
 " ' Some have been served so ? ' 
 "'Many.' 
 
 " ' And the number of those who are to be warmed thus 
 hereafter is ? ' 
 " ' Great.' 
 
 " ' How many of them do you intend to save ? ' 
 '« ' None.' 
 
 " ' So you would have them all burned ? ' 
 "'All.'" 
 
 We arrive next at the last station but one before we 
 come to Lantern Land. It is the island of Satin, a 
 most delightful and charming country, where everything 
 is found which only exists in fable, fiction, and poetry. 
 There the travellers found unicorns, the golden fleece, 
 the chameleon which lives on air, three hydras, fourteen 
 phoenixes, the skin of Apuleius's golden ass, centaurs, 
 the remora which stops the course of ships, sphinxes, 
 creatures with fore -feet like hands and hind -feet like 
 men's feet ; " leucrocutes," which have necks, tails, and 
 breasts like a lion, legs like a stag, the mouth up to the 
 ears, with two teeth, one above and one below. These 
 are creatures which speak with human voices, and when 
 
HEARSAY. 175 
 
 they do they say nothing : there are also many other 
 curious and interesting animals. 
 
 A little higher up is the country of Tapestry, where 
 they see unheard-of splendours — Triton winding his sil- 
 ver shell instead of a horn, and also Glaucus, Proteus, 
 Nereus, and a thousand other gods and sea-monsters. 
 They take everything to he real, so artfully constructed 
 is the tapestry. And then they come across a most 
 remarkable tribe of people. These are gathered round an 
 old man, diminutive and monstrous, called Hearsay. 
 His mouth was slit up to his ears, and in it were seven 
 tongues, each of them cleft into seven parts. And he 
 was chattering and talking with the whole seven at once. 
 He had as many ears all over his body as Argus had eyes, 
 and was as blind as a mole, and palsied in the legs. 
 
 "About him stood an innumerable number of men and 
 women, gaping, listening, and hearing very intently, and 
 among them I saw one who held a map of the world and 
 explained everything summarily and in short aphorisms, so 
 that they all grew learned in a trice, and would most talk of 
 a world of prodigious things, the hundredth part of which 
 would take up more than a man's whole life to learn. 
 
 "Among the rest, of the Pyramids, of the Nile, of Babylon, 
 of the Troglodytes, of the pigmies, of the cannibals, of the 
 Hyperborean mountains, of all the devils, and everything 
 by hearsay." 
 
 Leaving the island of Hearsay and of Tradition, they 
 steer over straight for Lantern Land, the land of light 
 and truth. 
 
 Before we arrive there and learn the oracle of the 
 Bottle, let us briefly recapitulate the principal events of 
 this remarkable voyage. We must remember, first, what 
 
17$ RABELAIS. 
 
 it was they were in search of. An idle doubt, the vagary 
 of a busy, restless mind, suggests the first inquiry, " Shall 
 Panurge be married 1 " What answer is given by the 
 oracles, the astrologers, the wise men, the witches, whom 
 he consults 1 None. Is there, then, no voice from the 
 unseen world which directs the course of men? No 
 narrower issue than this is present to the mind of Panta- 
 gruel. In search of an answer, he leads his followers on 
 this long voyage among undiscovered islands. We see 
 the island of Pretence and Ostentation; the island of 
 Lip-service and Hollow Politeness; the islands of 
 Confusion and Desolation, where war has lately been : 
 the island of the Long-lived, where in dark forests, 
 among the ruins of the ancient temples, dwell the 
 great men of old ; the island of Tapinois, where Quar- 
 esme-prenant is described, with the follies of Lent; 
 the island of the Chitterlings; that of Smoke and 
 Windy Doctrine; that of Pope-fig-land ; that of Papi- 
 manie ; the country of great King Gaster, the He Son- 
 nante, the islands of Tools, of Gambling, of the Furred 
 Cats, of the Tax-farmers, of Queen Entelecheia, of Roads, 
 of Sabots, of Mumbling Friars, and of Legendary Animals 
 and Things. We have made the acquaintance of certain 
 persons whom we shall not easily forget — Quaresine- 
 prenant, Bishop Homenas, Gaster, iEdituus, Grippe- 
 minaud, and Queen Entelecheia. We have seen the 
 development of the principal characters in the book — 
 Pantagruel, Panurge, and Friar John — and we have 
 learned a great deal. We are prepared for the oracle, 
 whatever it may be, by the warnings we have received 
 and the lessons which our adventurers have taught us. 
 It is a vain thing to look for advice, aid, or information 
 
RECAPITULATION. 177 
 
 from magic, divination, sorcery, or astrology. If we want 
 to find truth we must ourselves search for it. Armed 
 with store of the herb Pantagruelion, which means 
 courage, patience, and hope, we must aim at simpli- 
 city, avoiding pretence, conceit, affectation. The justice 
 of the world is generally chicanery ; its wars are due to 
 ambition; vain and idolatrous are the superstitions of 
 the Roman Catholics, who ignorantly adore the Pope ; 
 stupid, useless, and mischievous are the religious orders, 
 with their rules which mean nothing, their ignorance, 
 their gluttony, and their licentious lives. The justice of 
 the world is often administered by cruel and rapacious 
 judges, scholastic subtilties, men childish, and lead to no 
 result. If, then, there is in the world no religion, no 
 justice, no truth, no honesty, nothing real, nothing what 
 it pretends to be, what remains for men ? So far, there 
 is nothing, but to lay in good store of Pantagruelion, that 
 potent herb, and to hope for the oracle of the Divine 
 Bottlet 
 
 F.C. — YTH 
 
178 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ORACLE OF THE BOTTLE. 
 
 The Divine Bottle is within its temple, which occupies 
 one of the islands of Lantern Land, a country whose 
 inhabitants consist entirely of lanterns, lamps, cressets, 
 and candlesticks. The travellers were fortunate in 
 arriving at the time when the Lanterns were holding 
 their provincial chapter. They were introduced to the 
 Queen by two Lanterns of honour — namely, those of 
 Aristophanes and of Cleanthes. Panurge, the great 
 linguist, set forth briefly to the Queen, in Lantern lan- 
 guage, the causes of their visit. Her Majesty was clothed 
 in virgin glass, the Lanterns of the blood-royal in imita- 
 tion diamonds, transparent stones, horn, paper, and oiled 
 cloth. The Cressets were dressed in like manner, ac- 
 cording to the antiquity of their houses. Among them, 
 and occupying a distinguished place, were the Lanterns 
 of Epictetus and Martial. At supper they were all 
 sumptuously regaled with great candles, the Queen alone 
 having a wax candle. The next day the Queen gave 
 them the choice among the most illustrious lanterns for 
 a guide. 
 
 The idea of Lantern Land is taken from Lucian : but 
 
LANTERN LAND. 179 
 
 its meaning is obvious. We are in the land of light, 
 where truth will be made manifest to us. 
 
 It is not without endless ceremonies and precautions 
 that the party are initiated into the mysteries of the 
 Dive Bouteille. Preceded by the Lantern which guides 
 them, they first pass through a vast vineyard, in which 
 are all sorts of vines, bearing fruit, flowers, and leaves 
 all the year round. Then they were ordered to eat, 
 every man, three grapes, to put vine -leaves in their 
 shoes, and to take a green vine-branch in their left hands. 
 At the end of the vineyard was an arch, on which was 
 sculptured the trophy of a drinker, consisting of all 
 kinds of drinking-glasses, and everything that stimulates 
 thirst, such as hams, tongues, cheese. The arch opened 
 into a covered way, whose roof was formed by the inter- 
 laced branches of vines loaded with clusters of different 
 colours, and ending in three ivy- trees, the leaves of 
 which they were directed to gather and make into 
 "Albanian" hats — that is, a kind of turban. 
 
 Then they went through an underground vault, the 
 walls of which were coarsely painted with a dance of 
 women and satyrs, which reminded Eabelais, who now 
 himself formed one of the party, of the " painted cave " 
 at Chinon. The cave remains to this day, deeply 
 quarried in the yellow stone of the great rock behind 
 the town, but there are no traces of any painting. 
 
 Here they were challenged by the Grand Flask, 
 governor of the Divine Bottle, accompanied by a troop 
 of temple-guards, all being French bottles. Seeing that 
 the party were crowned with ivy and carried the thyrsus, 
 and were conducted by the illustrious Lantern, he gave 
 orders that they should be led to the Priestess Bacbuc, 
 
180 RABELAIS. 
 
 Lady of Honour to the Bottle and Pontiff of all the 
 mysteries. They continue to descend ; the way is long ; 
 there is no light but that given by the Lantern ; Panurge 
 falls into a deadly fear, and entreats to be taken back ; 
 Friar John and the Lantern reassure him. After a 
 hundred and eight steps — the number is symbolic — of 
 the dark staircase, they come to a portal of fine jasper, 
 on the face of which was written, in letters of gold, 
 rv otva) aXrjOeia. — in wine is truth. The two doors were 
 of Corinthian brass, curiously wrought. Here the 
 Lantern informed them that she could go no further, 
 advised them to obey the injunctions of the Priestess 
 Bacbuc, to keep their heads, to have no fear, and to 
 trust her for their return. She then opened the gates, 
 which proved to be covered on the inside with steel, 
 and to move backwards and forwards by the power of 
 two loadstones, on one of which was written — 
 
 " Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt." 
 The fates lead the willing and drag the unwilling. 
 
 and on the other — 
 
 " Toutes choses se meuvent en leur fin." 
 All things move towards their end. 
 
 They entered the temple, the pavement, roof, and walls 
 of which are all most curiously adorned with mosaic- 
 work. On the floor were represented flowers, grapes, vine- 
 branches, snails, and little lizards, so true to life that 
 they could not forbear walking carefully for fear of 
 getting their feet entangled. The work on the walls 
 represented the army of Bacchus, with his maenads and 
 satyrs, who were commanded by Silenus and Pan. After 
 
THE TEMPLE. 181 
 
 the representation of his army came that of the battle 
 in which the god destroyed the Indian army; and 
 finally his triumph, with, at the far end, a prospect of 
 the land of Egypt. 
 
 The temple was illuminated by a wonderful lamp, the 
 description of which occupies a chapter. Under the 
 lamp was a fair " fantastic" fountain, at which they were 
 met by the Priestess Bacbuc herself with joyous and 
 laughing face, and accompanied by her suite. The foun- 
 tain was constructed of pure alabaster, about two and 
 a half feet high, being on the outside a regular heptagon, 
 and within a perfect circle. On each side was placed a 
 pillar, whose disposition and height signified the approxi- 
 mate proportion of the circumference to the diameter of a 
 circle. The pillars were of those precious stones assigned 
 by the Chaldeans to the seven planets — sapphire, hya- 
 cinth, diamond, ruby, emerald, agate, and syenite. Upon 
 them stood images of Saturn, in lead ; of Jupiter, in 
 brass ; of Phoebus, in gold ; of Mars, in Corinthian brass ; 
 of Venus, in copper ; of Mercury, in fixed quicksilver ; 
 and of Luna, in silver. Above these pillars rose a cupola, 
 within which were figured the twelve signs of the zodiac, 
 the twelve months of the year, the two equinoxes, the 
 ecliptic line, and the fixed stars about the antarctic pole. 
 
 They are invited to drink of this fountain, and find 
 that its waters taste of any kind of wine which they 
 fancy — hence it is called the Fantastic Fountain. 
 
 Then Bacbuc, taking Panurge, who desired the oracle 
 of the Bottle, dressed him and prepared him for the 
 sacred rite. He was attired in a gaberdine, his head 
 wrapped round with a hood, gloves were put upon him, 
 he was tied round with three bagpipes, his face dipped 
 
182 BABELAIS. 
 
 three times in the fountain, he was sprinkled with flour, 
 he was muffled with a filter, and three cock's feathers 
 were fixed in it. Thus accoutred, he was iuade to jump 
 three times, to sit upon the ground seven times, while 
 Bacbuc read strange conjurations in the Etruscan tongue 
 from a hook of ritual which one of her niystagogues car- 
 ried for her. 
 
 Then she led him by the right hand through a golden 
 gate out of the temple, and into a round chapel built of 
 transparent stone, and of richer workmanship than even 
 that chapel built by Theodoric at Eavenna. Within it 
 was another heptagonal fountain, in the midst of which 
 stood the Divine Bottle. It was of oval shape, all of 
 pure, fine crystal. 
 
 And then they sang the song of invocation. 
 
 The translation subjoined is not much more rough than 
 the original 
 
 " Bottle divine, 
 
 O'ercharged and full 
 
 With fate and fear : 
 
 I here incline 
 
 One ear too dull 
 
 Thy voice to hear. 
 My heart hangs now on thee : 
 Thy heavenly liquor, fair to see, 
 By the great victor-God's decree 
 The fates and future holds contained. 
 O wine divine, far, far from thee enchained 
 Are falsehoods, lies, pretence, and fond deceits ; 
 Blessed has the soul of Noah since remained, 
 Because he made us sinners know thy sweets. 
 The answer give whereat all doubt retreats. 
 So may no drop, or white or red, 
 Of thee be wasted, lost, or shed. 
 
THE ORACLE. 183 
 
 Bottle divine 
 O'ercharged and full 
 With fate and fear : 
 I here incline 
 One ear too dull 
 Thy voice to hear." 
 
 This finished, Bacbuc threw something into the foun- 
 tain which caused the water to boil violently. Panurge 
 listened with his one ear in silence. Bacbuc was on her 
 knees. Presently from the bottle issued a noise such 
 as that of a swarm of young bees, or as that of a bolt 
 from an arbalist, or that of a sudden shower. And 
 then was heard from the bottle the word " Trincq." 
 
 " ' The bottle is broken,' cried Panurge, in amazement — 
 1 or it is cracked, at least.' 
 
 " Then Bacbuc arose and took Panurge gently by the arm, 
 saying to him, * Friend, render thanks to heaven, as reason 
 obliges you. Now have you promptly heard the word of 
 the Divine Bottle. I say, the word, more joyous, more divine, 
 more certain than any that I have heard since first I began 
 to minister at this most sacred oracle. Rise and let us go to 
 the Chapter, where we shall find the interpretation of this 
 fair word.' 
 
 " ' Let us go,' said Panurge, ' in the name of God. I am 
 as wise as I was last year.' " 
 
 The Chapter is a flask, of which Panurge drinks, and 
 straightway falls into a Bacchic madness, in which Friar 
 John joins him out of sympathy, and they rhyme in 
 mad verse, Panurge still thinking of his original per- 
 plexity. Then the priestess dismisses them. 
 
 " Here below, in these circumcentral regions, we establish 
 as the sovereign good not to take and receive, but to impart 
 and give ; and we reckon ourselves happy, not if we take 
 
184 RABELAIS. 
 
 muck of others' goods, but if we are always imparting and 
 giving of our own to others. . . . Go, friends, in the 
 protection of that intellectual sphere of which the centre is 
 everywhere and the circumference nowhere, which we call 
 God. And when you go back to your own country, bear 
 testimony that under ground are all great treasures and 
 admirable things. . . . All philosophers and ancient 
 sages, the more surely and pleasantly to accomplish the 
 road of divine knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom, have 
 esteemed two things necessary — the guidance of God, and 
 the friendship of men. Now go, in the name of God ; and 
 may He be your guide ! " 
 
 This is the end of the Book, and these are the last words 
 of the Oracle of the Bottle. 
 
 What does it mean ? Panurge said, at the end of it, 
 that he was no wiser than before. No answer has been 
 given to his question, if he is to marry or no. None 
 has been given to that far wider question which fills 
 the mind of Pantagruel, whether there is, or ever has 
 been, any voice from the world beyond the grave. The 
 great, wise prince has tried every mode of divination, has 
 consulted every oracle, has quoted every classical author, 
 has conversed with every priest who pretends to super- 
 natural power. He finds nothing but silence, pretence, 
 and hypocrisy. Everywhere in the world, in the motion 
 of the planets, in the wondrous mechanism of the body, 
 he finds the work of the divine hand, the design of the 
 divine mind ; but to all his prayers, all his cries, all his 
 yearnings, there is silence. The truest wisdom is in the 
 " divine word " of the Bottle — drink. 
 
 The meaning of the oracle, as expounded by the 
 priestess, seems plain. In it we see the creed of Rabelais. 
 He differed from the theologians and the speculative 
 
THE CREED OF RABELAIS. A 85 
 
 scholars of his time in two most important respects. 
 He did not, like Calvin, Luther, and Roussel, take his 
 stand upon the New Testament. He did not, like 
 Dolet and Desperiers, take Cicero for an evangel. He 
 was, in the first place and before all, a student of 
 Nature, a man of science ; and, in the second, a scholar. 
 The Gospel was associated in his mind with the 
 degradation of the cloister ; it belonged to monkery. 
 When he emerged, he left it behind him in the stern 
 religious light of the monastery chapel, and never cared 
 to look at it again. He built up his own religion for 
 himself. God is everywhere: this man's mind was 
 filled with the omnipresence, the perfection, the order, 
 the benevolence of God. Not only in times of danger, 
 but as an act of daily duty, does his wise prince 
 supplicate and revere God the Creator; while in the 
 harmony of the stars, and in the admirable mechanism 
 of the body, Rabelais, astronomer, physicist, and an- 
 atomist, saw not only a physical order of which human 
 intellect can grasp only portions, but he deduced also, 
 by analogy, the laws which should govern societies 
 and individuals. The conduct of life should be ruled, 
 had we the knowledge, in strict accordance with the 
 laws of nature. It is man's first duty to acquire 
 knowledge, to give and impart knowledge, like the in- 
 habitants of Lantern Land : there is nothing in all the 
 world worth having but knowledge, and especially phy- 
 sical science. Let every man possess his soul with cheer- 
 fulness ; let him eat ; let him drink ; let him enjoy the 
 golden sunshine and the purple wine; let him sing, 
 laugh, and talk with his fellows ; let him exhort and 
 be exhorted continually to study, to the practice of 
 research, to patience, and to charity ; let him have faith 
 
186 KABELAIS. 
 
 in the Divine Creator. Live according to the laws of 
 the world. Nature laughs. God rules in sunshine. 
 
 And about the soul 1 and about a future world ? Go 
 ask your oracles, says Rabelais, and see what answer 
 they will give. But the good God, who has created this 
 wondrous cosmos, who gives us His continual grace to 
 nake us love learning and each other, reigns. Let us trust 
 Him, because there is none other that fighteth for us. 
 
 Attempts have been made to prove that Rabelais was 
 a Christian. To suppose this is, in my mind, not only 
 seriously to misunderstand the spirit of his book, but that 
 of his time. The scholars of France at this period, the 
 men with whom he associated, were Christians only in 
 name, and when no danger of martyrdom appeared immi- 
 nent. Let us again insist that Rabelais came out of his 
 cloister at forty. While the great Revolt was slowly 
 preparing in men's minds, he had remained untouched 
 by any of the influences which brought about religious 
 change; or, if touched at all, then individually and 
 separately, as one who rediscovers in his cell something 
 of what has already been discovered and made known 
 in the outer world. He came, a Frenchman of forty and 
 a stranger, into France, whose religion was tottering, 
 whose educational methods were superannuated, whose 
 doctors, advocates, and preachers were pedantic, whose 
 judges were corrupt, and whose ignorance was enormous. 
 He came as a stranger and outsider, and looked on 
 everything as those who had been brought up in the 
 midst of this state of things could not look. Though 
 from time to time he might be drawn in the direc- 
 tion of Geneva, it was but a momentary temptation. 
 The only Christianity, unfortunately, which he knew, 
 was that of the monastery : he could not but know that 
 
THE FAITH OF RABELAIS. 187 
 
 there is nowhere, whether in history or in the Book on 
 which Christianity rests, the least foundation for the 
 sacerdotal pretensions and superstitious structures which 
 he confused with the religion of Christ. He ceased 
 to vex his soul about the rival schools. He created a 
 new religion for himself, the religion which in his time 
 a man of science might he expected to create. 
 
 Trust in the Lord of all power, the eternal Father, 
 the Creator, the Architect of the world, whose benevo- 
 lence is shown by His works. Trust in Him, work 
 out your own life for the good of others, enjoy and be 
 happy, as becomes a grateful mortal. That seems to me 
 the creed, that the secret, that the key to Rabelais. 
 After all, it is the practical creed of every Frenchman of 
 the present day, save those unfortunates whose mothers 
 clap a shirt over their little frocks, cut a round place in 
 their hair, and mumble certain incantations over their 
 unhappy heads, which turn the poor children into mona- 
 gauXy clergaux, evesgaux, or cardingaux, to live in a cage, 
 sing when the bell rings, and pretend to conjure. 
 
 It is impossible to avoid a comparison, in the matter 
 of religion, between Lucretius and Eabelais. Both were 
 profoundly impressed with the order and magnificence 
 of creation, both were deeply indignant with the religious 
 abuses of the day — 
 
 " Tantum religio possit suadere malorum ! " 
 
 Both had the same thing to offer in its place — physical 
 science. But Rabelais superadds the trust and faith in 
 the Creator which was wanting in Lucretius. Both, at an 
 interval of fifteen hundred years, anticipated the nine- 
 teenth century in its rest less discontent of old beliefs, its 
 fearless questioning, its advocacy of scientific research. 
 
188 RABELAIS. 
 
 It has been found impossible in this short volume to 
 trace the sources of the Eabelaisian stories. The Master, 
 like Moliere and like Shakespeare, gets his materials wher- 
 ever he can : he seldom invents. Why, indeed, should 
 he invent 1 He had those works of the ancients which, 
 to the people for whom he wrote, were sealed books ; he 
 could draw upon these as much as he pleased. There 
 were Lucian, Plutarch, and Aristophanes, treasuries for 
 illustration, suggestion, and imitation ; there were Plato, 
 Virgil, Horace, Martial, and Seneca to furnish him with 
 quotation ; there were Italians like Cortigiano, Boccacio, 
 and Folengo ; there were Pierre Pathelin, Villon, and the 
 rest of his countrymen of the fifteenth century. The 
 sources of apologue, story, and illustration belong to such 
 a critical edition of Eabelais as it is to be hoped some 
 Englishman may yet be found to give to the world. 
 But he must give ten years to the task. It is not too 
 much to say that Rabelais has never yet been " edited " 
 at all 
 
 He wrote for the people; he wrote so that in parts 
 scholars only should be able to read between the lines. 
 Panurge, for instance, saw nothing in the response of the 
 Bottle but an injunction to drink. Let those who are 
 \vorthy learn the true meaning of the oracle. But he 
 wrote in a glorious hope and confidence that the number 
 of those who would read with understanding was in- 
 creasing day by day. He hoped and had faith in the 
 future of the world. He believed in the development 
 and growth of man. We, of little faith, who have 
 reached levels of liberty far higher than any Rabelais 
 dreamed of, who tremble at the signs of any little im- 
 pending reaction, may think of what the world was in 
 his time, of what it is now, and take hope again with 
 
THE HOPE OF RABELAIS. 189 
 
 shame and abasement. Is it not a good thing to he 
 strong of heart 1 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the main idea in the mind 
 of Rabelais, to show, by the new light of recently dis- 
 covered learning, what the world could be made, is ob- 
 scured by his method of treatment. No doubt an allegory 
 penetrates and is understood, where a treatise would not 
 be intelligible. But the allegory winds and turns with 
 so many digressions, and with so little apparent sequence, 
 until we come to the famous Voyage, that it is difficult 
 always to follow the thread. Nor do I think that at the 
 beginning, in the First Book of "Pantagruel," he designed 
 more than a running satire on certain institutions. And 
 the whole breadth of his purpose is not fully apparent 
 until the Third Book. It is true, also, that a treatise 
 developing his ideas directly would have led him most 
 certainly, whither he had the greatest reluctance to go, to 
 the stake. Therefore he readily accepted the disguise of 
 parable. Further, to make this parable the more agree- 
 able to all classes of men, he stuffed it full of all manner 
 of jests, buffooneries, and things which it was a shame 
 for so wise a man to write. There is no excuse for the 
 great sin of Rabelais. To speak of the taste of the age 
 is nonsense. In no age, however corrupt, have the 
 highest minds consented to make men of low tastes 
 laugh. Erasmus, for instance, was his contemporary, 
 and Erasmus may be almost read in a boy's school. 
 But Rabelais liked buffoonery. He acted in a farce at 
 fifty, after he had been lecturing and publicly demon- 
 strating in his university. His love of buffoonery is 
 a charge brought against him as an undoubted fact 
 by his contemporaries — not one of those traditions, like 
 
190 RABELAIS. 
 
 those attaching to his life and death, which grew tip 
 in the course of years. When he died, Ronsard and 
 Du Bellay, worshippers of form and pedants in words, 
 brought separately against the dead man the only charge 
 open to them, that he was fond of wine, feasting, and 
 mirth. "Laugh," says Joachim du Bellay, "if you 
 wish to please my soul." 
 
 His ready wit, his extraordinary good spirits, his de- 
 light in the society of other men, laid him open, no 
 doubt, to the accusation of buffoonery and gluttony. To 
 those of us who would be blind to his faults, he is 
 that rarest of human beings — a man who has deeply 
 studied, who is perpetually thinking over, the problems 
 of life and death, birth, growth, and decay; who per- 
 ceives the many disappointments inevitable at every step 
 of civilisation ; who feels the silence of the universe ; who 
 ardently desires fuller knowledge, more light, — and yet 
 who maintains to the end of life the cheerfulness and 
 the hope of youth. There is no malice in the old man 
 at the close of his long life, save when he speaks of those 
 monks and priests who alone hindered the realisation of 
 his dream, as they still hinder it. If the soul of Rabe- 
 lais is permitted to watch the course of events, he must 
 be sad at heart, and growing daily more sad, to mark 
 how, while the centuries roll on, the falsities over which 
 his soul grew angry know no abatement, and continue to 
 produce their poisonous fruit for the destruction of the 
 human race. 
 
 In Pantagruel we have the type of the wise, calm, and 
 courageous king. He is terrified by no storms, he is 
 equal to all emergencies, he is moved by no unworthy 
 passions of ambition and conquest. It is good when such 
 a king can be produced by education, that a country 
 
THE TYPES OF RABELAIS. 191 
 
 should be ruled by a sovereign. The courtiers of the 
 king, Epistemon, Eusthenes, and the rest, are the type, 
 as their names denote, of Wisdom, Strength, Patience, 
 and Dexterity. He has no priest about him at all, and 
 does not feel the want of a priest. With him are 
 two followers who represent the lower forms of human 
 nature. Friar John is ignorant, courageous, and full of 
 animalism. Although a monk, he has no piety, learning, 
 or industry. He is a good man spoiled by the indul- 
 gence of animal instincts and obedience to profitless rule. 
 The other, Panurge, is, I believe, the careful portrait 
 of a man without a soul. He is full of cleverness and 
 learning. He is full of wit and intelligence. But he 
 has no soul. That part of humanity which gives us 
 sympathy, generosity, dignity, nobility, is deficient in 
 him. He is an animal, but a reasoning animal. He is 
 what a monkey might be, coidd a monkey be so trained. 
 To him, as to Friar John, the oracle of the Divine 
 Bottle conveys nothing beyond the simple meaning of 
 the word — " drink." 
 
 Each of his minor characters has got a small but well- 
 defined part to play. The good Bishop Homenas, wor- 
 shipper of the Pope, is the type of the old-fashioned 
 ignorant priest. Judge Bridlegoose illustrates the uncer- 
 tainty of the law, since his decisions, pronounced entirely 
 by chance, have given universal satisfaction. Ponocrates, 
 who comes from Laugh-at-the-Pope Land, is the type 
 and model of a wise tutor ; and so on with all the rest. 
 
 In the education of Gargantua we have a scheme of 
 education which has never been equalled, and which is 
 far before our own time, as it was far before the time of 
 Rabelais. But as solitary education is not desirable, he 
 gives us the plan of his Abbey of Thelema, in which 
 
192 RABELAIS. 
 
 courtesy and gentlehood are the only laws, and hon- 
 ourable love the natural end of the association of young 
 men and maidens. In the wars with Picrochole and 
 Anarchus, Rabelais insists on discipline and good order 
 when as yet there was no discipline, as we understand it, 
 in any army save that recently introduced by Coligny. 
 He shows how ^Necessity is the greatest of all benefac- 
 tors of the human race; he keeps constantly before his 
 readers the wondrous order of the universe, and teaches 
 how men, societies, and nations should imitate the 
 mutual dependence of every part of creation; he sings 
 the praises of fortitude, patience, and industry under the 
 allegory of the herb Pantagruelion ; he speaks with the 
 rapture of a prophet of the delight of study. 
 
 All this, and more, he taught, and was the first to 
 teach. But, one hears, he is a buffoon — he is always 
 mocking, and always laughing. That is perfectly true. 
 He laughs at the pretensions of Pope, cardinal, bishop, 
 and priest; he laughs at monkery and monks; he mocks 
 at the perpetual iteration of litanies ; he laughs at the 
 ignorance and superstitions which he thinks are about to 
 vanish before the new day of modern learning ; he laughs 
 at the ambition of kings who dream of universal con- 
 quest ; he laughs at the Chats Fourres, the Furred Cats 
 of the law; he laughs at the false eloquence of doctors, 
 and the sham learning of advocates; he laughs at the 
 impotent attempts of Ronsard and his followers to change 
 suddenly the noble language of France. 
 
 If to laugh at things mischievous or foolish is to be 
 condemned, then let us condemn Rabelais. He does not 
 laugh at religion, as he conceived religion ; or at kings, 
 as kings might be ; or at physicians, who were like unto 
 
THE FAULTS OF RABELAIS. 193 
 
 himself rather than unto Nostradamus, the predicter ; or 
 at any good thing, or valuable institution. 
 
 There are three things in Eabelais to he deplored or 
 condemned. The first has been already sufficiently al- 
 luded to. The second is, that there are no women in 
 the book. From the force of long habit, from his thirty 
 years of the cloister, he looked on life entirely from the 
 man's point of view. No women at all, except poor 
 Badebec, the priestess Bacbuc, a hag or two, and Queen 
 Entelecheia. Yet in the Abbey of Thelema he shows 
 that he could form a right conception of the part which 
 women should take in that fuller life of which he there 
 dreamed. 
 
 The third and most deplorable of all is the effect 
 which his book produced upon the prospects of the 
 Reformation in France. It was at that time all import- 
 ant that, as in England, the scholars should range them- 
 selves on the Protestant side. Eabelais refused to do 
 this. More, he set an example which deterred other 
 scholars, and kept them, in sheer impatience, in the 
 enemy's camp. Had that assemblage of scholars which 
 met together in banquet after the acquittal of Dolet 
 gone boldly over to the camp of Geneva, and drawn with 
 them the nobler spirits of the Sorbonne, the wavering 
 king would have hesitated no longer; France might 
 have followed the example of England, and created a 
 Gallican Church in which, as here, freedom of thought 
 and utterance might slowly win its way. 
 
 One last word on the style of Eabelais. He was a 
 
 child of the people, coming from that part of France 
 
 where the language is the purest and most copious. He 
 
 used that language as no other French writer has been 
 
 f.c. — VIII. N 
 
194 RABELAIS. 
 
 able to use it, showing what a copious, flexible, and 
 delicate instrument it is. He is not a conscious artist ; 
 he is careless of form; he often allows most excellent 
 situations to be, so to speak, wasted; he repeats his 
 ideas when he can improve them ; his imagination sees 
 clearly, with absolute distinctness, down to every detail, 
 what he describes ; he is more careful than even Victor 
 Hugo himself to describe exactly; he heightens the 
 vividness of his pictures by the enumeration of every 
 detail, sparing us none ; and he is always cheerful, with 
 a spontaneous gaiety of soul, for ever bubbling up like a 
 full spring upon a hillside. More than this, he is al- 
 ways sensible, and he is always full of hope. 
 
 Cheerful, light-hearted, full of good sense, of faith, 
 hope, and charity, an advocate of all good things, an 
 enemy of all hypocrisies ; and yet he has written so that 
 those who read him have to show a reason why they 
 read him, so that those who praise him have to explain 
 why they praise him, so that no woman can ever read 
 him, and so that priests have just cause to condemn 
 him, independently of his derision and mockery of their 
 pretensions. The pity of it I 
 
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