542 



UAKKI.AIS 



teriw were at that or at any period willing to 

 accept any lad who wanted to exchange a life of 

 servitude and hanl labour for one of ease. Not at 

 all. Interest was required for the admission 

 of a boy : in gome houses he must be of rood birth, 

 in others he uui-t have shown abilities beyond the 

 common. Rabelais, in fact, had no choice at all 

 but to become a monk if he could get into some 

 convent, and he entered the house of Fontenay le 

 ('unite because it was the only convent which 

 offered to receive him. 



By this time the Franciscan contempt of learn- 

 ing nad undergone some modification. It does not 

 appear that Rabelais was hindered by the brethren 

 in his studies. On the contrary, he had access to 

 a large and well -furnished library, whether outside 

 the house or in it is not known, and he read all the 

 books that he could get ; acquiring Greek, Hebrew, 

 and Arabic ; studying all the Latin authors within 

 his reach, French of the 13th and 14th centuries, 

 books of medicine, astronomy, botany, mathe- 

 matics everything in the omnivorous fashion of 

 his time, when every scholar with a good memory 

 wished to become a Doctor Unirrraaiu. He had 

 companions in his ardour for learning, especially 

 one Pierre Amy, a brother-monk. Also, the rules 

 of the Franciscan*, far less severe than those of the 

 Cistercians, permitted the monks to go outside the 

 house, anil in the little town of Fpntenay Rabelais 

 found a friend, A in 1 re Tiraqueau, lieutenant-general 

 of the bailiwick, lawyer, scholar, and writer. Also 

 his early and life-long friend, Geoffrey d'Estissac, 

 Bishop of Muillezais, lived chiefly in his chateau of 

 Ermenaud, close to Fontenay. 



Many silly stories have been attributed to 

 Rabelais in these years. They all tend to show 

 him in the light of a monkey, mischievous and 

 impish. We may dismiss them as childish ; not, 

 however, that we are to regard him now a priest 

 as a person grave and serious, charged with the 

 sense of his sacred rcs|M>nsil>ilities and nis vows: to 

 be a priest in the 16th century is not quite the same 

 thing as to be a clergyman in the 19th. Rabelais 

 was at all times a mirthful man, more given to 

 laughter than to tears, and if he did not play silly 

 tricks upon the brethren he certainly laughed at 

 them. We find him corresponding with the great 

 Bude, as one scholar with another. He is on terms 

 of intimacy with Tiraqneau and his brethren 

 learned in the law. He is on terms of friendship 

 with Bishop D'Estissac. Evidently a monk of 

 repute and distinction, he is far above the heads 

 of his nameless and obscure brethren of the mon- 

 astery. Then we hear of trouble and panoontion. 

 The Franciscan jealousy of the old learning has 

 been transformed into jealousy of the new learning. 

 The brothers take their books away from Rabelais 

 and Amy perhaps lay the pair by the heels in the 

 <-um '-lit prison. 



When they were released a loathing of the 

 convent fell upon these two scholars. What to do? 

 They opened the Book of Oracles Virgil and 

 chanced upon the following line : 



Heu I fuge crudclM torru, fuge llttiui avamm ! 



What could this mean but a direct injunction to 

 escape? They obeyed the oracle and fled they 

 ran away. Rabelais, returning to the world, was 

 p.i -t forty years of age. He seems to have sought 

 tint prut I'M -lion <>f liis friend Bishop D'Estiswie, oy 

 whom In; wax received. Through him, or iH-rhaiw 

 through the kind otlices of Cardinal l>u liellay. lie 

 obtained the ]x>pc's jtermission to pass from the 

 Franciscan to the Benedictine order. But he was 

 in nohurry to enter another cloister. He remained 

 at Ligug with the bishop for six years. It is said 

 that during this period he took a small country 

 living, hut this is doubtful. Most likely he passed 



the whole time in study. Perhaps he paid visits to 

 Paris and Bourges. He made the acquaintance of 

 Marot, who wrote a sonnet for him. Hi- reading 

 had now ceased to be encyclopaedic : iU special 

 aims may be inferred from the fact that on the 

 17th day of September 1530 he entered the uni- 

 versity of Mont IM-II ier as a student. That he was 

 already known as a scholar is also proved by the 

 fact that two months afterwards he was excused 

 the undergraduate course of three years, was 

 admitted to the Bachelors degree, and allowed to 

 lecture on Hippocrates and Galen. He dissected 

 publicly before the students, and left the university 

 in the year 1532, returning in 1537 to take the 

 Doctor's degree. 



In 1532 Rabelais went to Lyons to get his 

 first book, Jjippocratit et Galeni libri aliquot, 

 published. He remained there as physician to 

 the hospital. At this time Lyons was as great 

 an intellectual centre as Edinburgh about the 

 beginning of the 19th century. Here the great 

 printer Gryphe had his workshop, and issued no 

 fewer than three hundred books, including the 

 I .at in Bible of 1550, remarkable for its correctness 

 and for the beauty of ita type, and the comment- 

 aries of the unfortunate scholar Dolet, in two folios 

 of 1800 columns each, and only eight errata for the 

 whole work. Round this printer was gathered a 

 company of scholars and poets called the Sociftf 

 Angilique, a company or broad thought and 

 advanced opinions. As regards religious opinions, 

 it must be remembered that to the scholars of that 

 period the Christian religion meant little more than 

 the Roman ritual and the Roman discipline. They 

 had no idea of Christianity apart from the suner- 

 stitions they derided. It is not fair to call them 

 at heist s : they had adopted the vague but hopeful 

 agnosticism of Cicero : they would not, being 

 scholars, wholly die : they would, after death, be 

 allowed still to watch the advance of learning. 

 Men, for example, who were physicist*, like Rabe- 

 lais, would worship the Creator of the vast and 

 wonderful cosmos. Dolct represents the scholars 

 of Lyons, Desperier* the poets, Rabelais the 

 men of science. All three despised and hated the 

 Church of Rome. Two of them felt the heavy 

 hand of the church in life, the third after death. 

 Dolet was strangled and burned at the stake; 

 Desperiers, starving and despairing, fell upon his 

 sword ; Rabelais, dying peacefully, has been 

 assailed ever since as a minoon and' a reveller in 

 foulness and filth. 



It was at Lyons that Rabelais began the famous 

 book, or series of books, by which he will for ever 

 be remembered. In the year 1532 he brought out 

 The Great and Inestimable Chronicles of the Grand 

 and Enormous Giant Gargantua. Every Ton ran - 

 gean knew this good giant. Rabelais had heard 

 about him while a child. It was he who set up the 

 lol men nt Poi tiers and the Durrreeonivrfe of Sauinur. 

 When he scraped the mud from his shoes he made 

 hills, which may still be seen. He drank at a ford 

 and swallowed six bullocks, a loaded cart, and the 

 driver. Once he swallowed a ship laden with gun- 

 ]mwder. In fact, Rabelais, who never invented 

 anything, but embellished and adorned everything, 

 diil not invent ( iargantua. In the sequel or second 

 Ixiok, I'uniiiijniil, the author departed from his first 

 plan : ho no longer wrote pure burlesque : serious 

 ideas are wt forth side by side with overwhelming 

 nonsense, ainl the reader steps from unbridled fain-y 

 into regions of sense ninl wisdom. In order to make 

 the lirst l>ook corres|x>nd with the second, Rabelais 

 wrote it all over again, with the result that it is 

 fuller of sense and wisdom than the second. Both 

 bcMiks had a prodigious success. They were pub- 

 lished under the anagram of Alcofrihas Nasier. 



At the same time he began his almanac, whieli 



