“Ah! monsieur,” replied the old fellow, “ere long I shall be in another land.”

“God’s truth!  Mr. Scribbler,” said the constable (whose son, as everyone knows, had treacherously deserted Mademoiselle de Piennes, to whom he was betrothed, to espouse Diana of France, daughter of the mistress of certain high personages and of the king), “who made thee so bold as to slander persons of quality?  Ah, wretched poet, you like to raise yourself high; well then, I promise to put you in a good high place.”

“We shall all go there, my lord constable,” replied the old man:  “but if you are friendly to the state and to the king you will thank me for having warned him against the hordes of Lorraine, who are evils that will devour everything.”

“My good man,” whispered Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, “if you need a few gold crowns to publish your fifth book of Pantagruel you can come to me for them, because you have put the case clearly to the enemy, who has bewitched the king, and also to her pack.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said the king, “what do you think of the sermon?”

“Sire,” said Mellin de Saint-Gelais, seeing that all were well pleased, “I had never heard a better Pantagruelian prognostication.  Much do we owe to him who made these leonine verses in the Abbey of Theleme:—­

  ’"Cy vous entrez, qui le saint Evangile
    En sens agile annoncez, quoy qu’on gronde,
    Ceans aurez une refuge et bastile,
    Contre l’hostile erreur qui tant postille
    Par son faux style empoisonner le monde.’”

 [’"Should ye who enter here profess in jubilation
    Our gospel of elation, then suffer dolts to curse! 
    Here refuge shall ye find, and sure circumvallation
    Against the protestation of those whose delectation
    Brings false abomination to blight the universe.’”]

All the courtiers having applauded their companion, each one complimented Rabelais, who took his departure accompanied with great honour by the king’s pages, who, by express command held torches before him.

Some persons have charged Francis Rabelais, the imperial honour of our land, with spiteful tricks and apish pranks, unworthy of his Homeric philosophy, of this prince of wisdom of this fatherly centre, from which have issued since the rising of his subterranean light a good number of marvellous works.  Out upon those who would defile this divine head!  All their life long may they find grit between their teeth, those who have ignored his good and moderate nourishment.

Dear drinker of pure water, faithful servant or monachal abstinence, wisest of wise men, how would thy sides ache with laughter, how wouldst thou chuckle, if thou couldst come again for a little while to Chinon, and read the idiotic mouthings, and the maniacal babble of the fools who have interpreted, commentated, torn, disgraced, misunderstood, betrayed, defiled, adulterated and meddled with thy peerless book.  As many dogs