there were dances, concerts, banquets, sarabands, music, joyous songs, and epithalamia.  The rats had broken open the pots, and uncovered the jars, lapped the gallipots, and unpacked the stores.  The mustard was strewn over the place, the hams were mangled and the corn scattered.  Everything was rolling, tumbling, and falling about the floor, and the little rats dabbled in puddles of green sauce, the mice navigated oceans of sweetmeats, and the old folks carried off the pasties.  There were mice astride salt tongues.  Field-mice were swimming in the pots, and the most cunning of them were carrying the corn into their private holes, profiting by the confusion to make ample provision for themselves.  No one passed the quince confection of Orleans without saluting it with one nibble, and oftener with two.  It was like a Roman carnival.  In short, anyone with a sharp ear might have heard the frizzling frying-pans, the cries and clamours of the kitchens, the crackling of their furnaces, the noise of the turnspits, the creaking of baskets, the haste of the confectioners, the click of the meat-jacks, and the noise of the little feet scampering thick as hail over the floor.  It was a bustling wedding-feast, where people come and go, footmen, stablemen, cooks, musicians, buffoons, where everyone pays compliments and makes a noise.  In short, so great was the delight that they kept up a general wagging of the head to celebrate this eventful night.  But suddenly there was heard the horrible foot-fall of Gargantua, who was ascending the stairs of his house to visit the granaries, and made the planks, the beams, and everything else tremble.  Certain old rats asked each other what might mean this seignorial footstep, with which they were unacquainted, and some of them decamped, and they did well, for the lord and master entered suddenly.  Perceiving the confusion these gentleman had made, seeing his preserves eaten, his mustard unpacked, and everything dirtied and scratched about, he put his feet upon these lively vermin without giving them time to squeak, and thus spoiled their best clothes, satins, pearls, velvets, and rubbish, and upset the feast.”

“And what became of the shrew-mouse?” said the king, waking from his reverie.

“Ah, sire!” replied Rabelais, “herein we see the injustice of the Gargantuan tribe.  He was put to death, but being a gentleman he was beheaded.  That was ill done, for he had been betrayed.”

“You go rather far, my good man,” said the king.

“No sire,” replied Rabelais, “but rather high.  Have you not sunk the crown beneath the pulpit?  You asked me for a sermon; I have given you one which is gospel.”

“My fine vicar,” said Madame Diana, in his ear, “suppose I were spiteful?”

“Madame,” said Rabelais, “was it not well then of me to warn the king, your master, against the queen’s Italians, who are as plentiful here as cockchafers?”

“Poor preacher,” said Cardinal Odet, in his ear, “go to another country.”