Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was borne a very melancholy sound as of harmoniums, hymns, organ-pianos, psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most hateful to the Muses.  Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the chattering of his teeth:  ’May I never drink if here come not the Coqcigrues!’ and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired.  But thereon the others began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his cowardice.  ‘Here am I!’ cried Brother John, ’well-armed and ready to stand a siege; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed-in and surrounded with great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams, tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies, pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine, Burgundy, wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary.  A fig for thy Coqcigrues!’

But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather army, of physicians, each armed with laryngoscopes, stethoscopes, horoscopes, microscopes, weighing machines, and such other tools, engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de Pourceaugnac!  And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him, ‘Abstain!  Abstain!’ And one said, ’I have well diagnosed thee, and thou art in a fair way to have the gout.’  ‘I never did better in my days,’ said Brother John.  ’Away with thy meats and drinks!’ they cried.  And one said, ‘He must to Royat;’ and another, ‘Hence with him to Aix;’ and a third, ‘Banish him to Wiesbaden;’ and a fourth, ‘Hale him to Gastein;’ and yet another, ’To Barbouille with him in chains!’

And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrote prescriptions for him like men mad.  ‘For thy eating,’ cried he that seemed to be their leader, ‘No soup!’ ‘No soup!’ quoth Brother John; and those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the winter solstice, grew white as lilies.  ’Nay! and no salmon nor any beef nor mutton!  A little chicken by times, but periculo tuo!  Nor any game, such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor any cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor eau de vie; and avoid all sweets.  No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind.’  ‘Then what may I eat?’ quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles of his sandals.  ’A little cold bacon at breakfast—­no eggs,’ quoth the leader of the strange folk, ’and a slice of toast without butter.’  ‘And for thy drink’—­ (’What?’ gasped Brother John)—­’one dessert-spoonful of whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner.  No more!’ At this Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of a hill, such as Taygetus or Erymanthus.