Chapter 4

But above all, his great bounty and liberality did him the greatest service: and yet, as he behaved himself wisely in time of distress, so when he thought himself a little out of danger, tho it were but by a truce, he would disoblige the servants and officers of his court by mean and petty ways which were little to his advantage; and as for peace, he could hardly endure the thoughts of it. He spoke slightingly of most people, and rather before their faces than behind their backs; unless he was afraid of them, and of that sort there were a great many, for he was naturally somewhat timorous. When he had done himself any prejudice by his talk, or was apprehensive he should do so, and wished to make amends, he would say to the person whom he had disobliged, "I am sensible my tongue has done me a good deal of mischief; but on the other hand, it has sometimes done me much good: however, it is but reason I should make some reparation for the injury." And he never used this kind of apologies to any person but he granted some favor to the person to whom he made it, and it was always of considerable amount.

It is certainly a great blessing from God upon any prince to have experienced adversity as well as prosperity, good as well as evil, and especially if the good outweighs the evil, as it did in the King our master. I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in in his youth, when he fled from his father and resided six years together with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, were of great service to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees of his indiscretion, and made sufficient reparation for his folly and error by regaining those he had injured. Besides, I am very confident that if his education had not been different from the usual education of such nobles as I have seen in France, he could not so easily have worked himself out of his troubles: for they are brought up to nothing but to make themselves ridiculous, both in their clothes and discourse; they have no knowledge of letters; no wise man is suffered to come near them, to improve their understandings; they have governors who manage their business, but they do nothing themselves: nay, there are some nobles who tho they have an income of thirteen livres, will take pride to bid you "Go to my servants and let them answer you," thinking by such speeches to imitate the state and grandeur of a prince; and I have seen their servants take great advantage of them, giving them to understand they were fools; and if afterward they came to apply their minds to business and attempted to manage their own affairs, they began so late they could make nothing of it. And it is certain that all those who have performed any great or memorable action worthy to be recorded in history, began always in their youth; and this is to be attributed to the method of their education, or some particular blessing of God....

Of all diversions he loved hunting and hawking in their seasons; but his chief delight was in dogs. In hunting, his eagerness and pain were equal to his pleasure, for his chase was the stag, which he always ran down. He rose very early in the morning, rode sometimes a great distance, and would not leave his sport, let the weather be never so bad; and when he came home at night he was often very weary, and generally in a violent passion with some of his courtiers or huntsmen; for hunting is a sport not always to be managed according to the master's direction; yet in the opinion of most people, he understood it as well as any prince of his time. He was continually at these sports, lodging in the country villages to which his recreations led him, till he was interrupted by business; for during the most part of the summer there was constantly war between him and Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and in the winter they made truces; so that he had but a little time during the whole year to spend in pleasure, and even then the fatigues he underwent were excessive. When his body was at rest his mind was at work, for he had affairs in several places at once, and would concern himself as much in those of his neighbors as in his own; putting officers of his own over all the great families, and endeavoring to divide their authority as much as possible. When he was at war he labored for a peace or a truce, and when he had obtained it he was impatient for war again. He troubled himself with many trifles in his government which he had better have left alone: but it was his temper, and he could not help it; besides, he had a prodigious memory, and he forgot nothing, but knew everybody, as well in other countries as in his own.

And in truth he seemed better fitted to rule a world than to govern a single kingdom. I speak not of his minority, for then I was not with him; but when he was eleven years he was, by the advice of some of the nobility and others of his kingdom, embroiled in a war with his father, Charles VII, which lasted not long, and was called the Praguerie. When he was arrived at man's estate he was married, much against his inclination, to the King of Scotland's daughter; and he regretted her existence during the whole course of her life. Afterward, by reason of the broils and factions in his father's court, he retired into Dauphiny (which was his own), whither many persons of quality followed him, and indeed more than he could entertain. During his residence in Dauphiny he married the Duke of Savoy's daughter, and not long after he had great disputes with his father-in-law, and a terrible war was begun between them.

His father, King Charles VII, seeing his son attended by so many good officers and raising men at his pleasure, resolved to go in person against him with a considerable body of forces, in order to disperse them. While he was upon his march he put out proclamations, requiring them all as his subjects, under great penalties, to repair to him; and many obeyed, to the great displeasure of the Dauphin, who finding his father incensed, tho he was strong enough to resist, resolved to retire and leave that country to him; and accordingly he removed with but a slender retinue into Burgundy to Duke Philip's court, who received him honorably, furnished him nobly, and maintained him and his principal servants by way of pensions; and to the rest he gave presents as he saw occasion during the whole time of their residence there. However, the Dauphin entertained so many at his own expense that his money often failed, to his great disgust and mortification; for he was forced to borrow, or his people would have forsaken him; which is certainly a great affliction to a prince who was utterly unaccustomed to those straits. So that during his residence at the court of Burgundy he had his anxieties, for he was constrained to cajole the duke and his ministers, lest they should think he was too burdensome and had laid too long upon their hands; for he had been with them six years, and his father, King Charles, was constantly pressing and soliciting the Duke of Burgundy, by his ambassadors, either to deliver him up to him or to banish him out of his dominions. And this, you may believe, gave the Dauphin some uneasy thoughts and would not suffer him to be idle. In which season of his life, then, was it that he may be said to have enjoyed himself? I believe from his infancy and innocence to his death, his whole life was nothing but one continued scene of troubles and fatigues; and I am of opinion that if all the days of his life were computed in which his joys and pleasures outweighed his pain and trouble, they would be found so few that there would be twenty mournful ones to one pleasant.

MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME

Born in France in 1492, died in 1549; sister of Francis I; married in 1509 Due d'Alençon, and later Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre; assumed the direction of government after the death of the King in 1554; wrote poems and letters, the latter published in 1841-42; her "Heptameron" modeled on the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, published in 1558 after her death, its authorship perhaps collaborative.

OF HUSBANDS WHO ARE UNFAITHFUL[10]

A little company of five ladies and five noble gentlemen have been interrupted in their travels by heavy rains and great floods, and find themselves together in a hospitable abbey. They while away the time as best they can, and the second day Parlamente says to the old Lady Oisille, "Madame, I wonder that you who have so much experience do not think of some pastime to sweeten the gloom that our long delay here causes us." The other ladies echo her wishes, and all the gentlemen agree with them, and beg the Lady Oisille to be pleased to direct how they shall amuse themselves. She answers them:

[Footnote 10: From the "Heptameron," of which a translation by R. Codrington appeared in London in 1654.]

"My children, you ask of me something that I find very difficult,--to teach you a pastime that can deliver you from your sadness; for having sought some such remedy all my life I have never found but one--the reading of Holy Writ; in which is found the true and perfect joy of the mind, from which proceed the comfort and health of the body. And if you ask me what keeps me so joyous and so healthy in my old age, it is that as soon as I rise I take and read the Holy Scriptures, seeing and contemplating the will of God, who for our sakes sent His son on earth to announce this holy word and good news, by which He promises remission of sins, satisfaction for all duties by the gifts He makes us of His love, passion and merits. This consideration gives me so much joy that I take my Psalter and as humbly as I can I sing with my heart and pronounce with my tongue the beautiful psalms and canticles that the Holy Spirit wrote in the heart of David and of other authors. And this contentment that I have in them does me so much good that the ills that every day may happen to me seem to me to be blessings, seeing that I have in my heart, by faith, Him who has borne them for me. Likewise, before supper, I retire, to pasture my soul in reading; and then, in the evening, I call to mind what I have done in the past day, in order to ask pardon for my faults, and to thank Him for His kindnesses, and in His love, fear and peace I repose, assured against all ills. Wherefore, my children, this is the pastime in which I have long stayed my steps, after having searched all things, where I found no content for my spirit. It seems to me that if every morning you will give an hour to reading, and then, during mass, devoutly say your prayers, you will find in this desert the same beauty as in cities; for he who knows God, sees all beautiful things in Him, and without Him all is ugliness....

"I beg you, ladies," continues the narrator, "if God give you such husbands,[11] not to despair till you have long tried every means to reclaim them; for there are twenty-four hours in a day in which a man may change his way of thinking, and a woman should deem herself happier to have won her husband by patience and long effort than if fortune and her parents had given her a more perfect one." "Yes," said Oisille, "this is an example for all married women."--"Let her follow this example who will," said Parlamente: "but as for me, it would not be possible for me to have such long patience; for, however true it may be that in all estates patience is a fine virtue, it's my opinion that in marriage it brings about at last unfriendliness; because, suffering unkindness from a fellow being, one is forced to separate from him as far as possible, and from this separation arises a contempt for the fault of the disloyal one, and in this contempt little by little love diminishes; for it is what is valued that is loved."--"But there is danger," said Ennarsuite, "that the impatient wife may find a furious husband, who would give her pain in lieu of patience."--"But what could a husband do," said Parlamente, "save what has been recounted in this story?"--"What could he do?" said Ennarsuite, "he could beat his wife."...

[Footnote 11: That is, unfaithful husbands.]

"I think," said Parlamente, "that a good woman would not be so grieved in being beaten out of anger, as in being contemptuously treated by a man who does not care for her, and after having endured the suffering of the loss of his friendship, nothing the husband might do would cause her much concern. And besides, the story says that the trouble she took to draw him back to her was because of her love for her children, and I believe it."--"And do you think it was so very patient of her," said Nomerfide, "to set fire to the bed in which her husband was sleeping?"--"Yes," said Longarine, "for when she saw the smoke she awoke him; and that was just the thing where she was most in fault, for of such husbands as those the ashes are good to make lye for the washtub."--"You are cruel, Longarine," said Oisille, "and you did not live in such fashion with your husband."--"No," said Longarine, "for, God be thanked, he never gave me such occasion, but reason to regret him all my life, instead of to complain of him."--"And if he had treated you in this way," said Nomerfide, "what would you have done?"--"I loved him so much," said Longarine, "that I think I should have killed him and then killed myself; for to die after such vengeance would be pleasanter to me than to live faithfully with a faithless husband."

"As far as I see," said Hircan, "you love your husbands only for yourselves. If they are good after your own heart, you love them well; if they commit toward you the least fault in the world, they have lost their week's work by a Saturday. The long and the short is that you want to be mistresses; for my part I am of your mind, provided all the husbands also agree to it."--"It is reasonable," said Parlamente, "that the man rule us as our head, but not that he desert us or ill-treat us."--"God," said Oisille, "has set in such due order the man and the woman that if the marriage estate is not abused, I hold it to be one of the most beautiful and stable conditions in the World; and I am sure that all those here present, whatever air they assume, think no less highly of it. And forasmuch as men say they are wiser than women, they should be more sharply punished when the fault is on their side. But we have talked enough on this subject."

FRANÇOIS RABELAIS

Born in Touraine in 1495, died in Paris in 1553; educated at an abbey and spent fifteen or more years as a monk; Studied medicine in 1530 and practised in Lyons; traveled in Italy; in charge of a parish at Meudon in 1550-52; composed almanacs and edited old medical books; published "Pantagruel" in 1533 and "Gargantua" in 1535, the success of which led to several sequels, the last appearing in the year of his death.

I

GARGANTUA IN HIS CHILDHOOD[12]

Gargantua, from three years to five, was nourished and instructed in all proper discipline by the commandment of his father, and spent that time like the other little children of the country,--that is, in drinking, eating, and sleeping; in eating, sleeping, and drinking; and in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed in the mire, blackened his face, trod down his shoes at heel; at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and willingly run after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to his father. He sharpened his teeth with a slipper, washed his hands with his broth, combed his head with a bowl, sat down between two stools and came to the ground, covered himself with a wet sack, drank while eating his soup, ate his cake without bread, would bite in laughing, laugh in biting, hide himself in the water for fear of rain, go cross, fall into dumps, look demure, skin the fox, say the ape's _paternoster_, return to his sheep, turn the sows into the hay, beat the dog before the lion, put the cart before the horse, scratch where he did not itch, shoe the grasshopper, tickle himself to make himself laugh, know flies in milk, scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away, pull at the kid's leather, reckon without his host, beat the bushes without catching the birds, and thought that bladders were lanterns. He always looked a gift-horse in the mouth, hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall, and made a virtue of necessity. Every morning his father's puppies ate out of the dish with him, and he with them. He would bite their ears, and they would scratch his nose. The good man Grangousier said to Gargantua's governesses:

[Footnote 12: From Book I, Chapter XI, of "The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel." The basis of all English translations of Rabelais is the work begun by Sir Thomas Urquhart and completed by Peter A. Motteux. Urquhart was a Scotchman, who was born in 1611 and died in 1660. Motteux was a Frenchman, who settled in England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and was the author of several plays. This translation has been called "one of the most perfect that ever man accomplished." Other and later versions have usually been based on Urquhart and Motteux, but have been expurgated, as is the case with the passages given here. An earlier version of "Pantagruel," published in London in 1620, was ascribed to "Democritus Pseudomantio."

Rabelais, by common, consent, has a place among the greatest prose writers of the world. In his knowledge of human nature and his literary excellence, he is often ranked as inferior only to Shakespeare. As an exponent of the sentiments and atmosphere of his own time, we find in him what is found only in a few of the world's greatest writers. That he has not been more widely read in modern times, is attributed chiefly to the extraordinary coarseness of language which he constantly introduces into his pages. This coarseness is, in fact, so pervasive that expurgation is made extremely difficult to any one who would preserve some fair remnant of the original.]

"Philip, King of Macedon, knew the wit of his son Alexander, by his skilful managing of a horse;[13] for the said horse was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventure to ride him, because he gave a fall to all his riders, breaking the neck of this man, the leg of that, the brain of one, and the jawbone of another. This by Alexander being considered, one day in the hippodrome (which was a place appointed for the walking and running of horses), he perceived that the fury of the horse proceeded merely from the fear he had of his own shadow; whereupon, getting on his back he ran him against the sun, so that the shadow fell behind, and by that means tamed the horse and brought him to his hand. Whereby his father recognized the divine judgment that was in him, and caused him most carefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highly renowned above all the philosophers of Greece. After the same manner I tell you, that as regards my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth participate of some divinity,--so keen, subtle, profound, and clear do I find him; and if he be well taught, he will attain to a sovereign degree of wisdom. Therefore will I commit him to some learned man, to have him indoctrinated according to his capacity, and will spare no cost."

[Footnote 13: The famous horse Bucephalus is here referred to.]

Whereupon they appointed him a great sophister-doctor, called Maître Tubal Holophernes, who taught him his A B C so well that he could say it by heart backward; and about this he was five years and three months. Then read he to him Donat, Facet, Theodolet, and Alanus _in parabolis_. About this he was thirteen years, six months, and two weeks. But you must remark that in the mean time he did learn to write in Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books,--for the art of printing was not then in use. After that he read unto him the book "De Modis Significandi," with the commentaries of Hurtebise, of Fasquin, of Tropditeux, of Gaulehaut, of John le Veau, of Billonio, of Brelingandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more than eighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that at the examination he would recite it by heart backward, and did sometimes prove on his fingers to his mother _quod de modis significandi non erat scientia_. Then did he read to him the "Compost," on which he spent sixteen years and two months, and that justly at the time his said preceptor died, which was in the year one thousand four hundred and twenty.

Afterward he got another old fellow with a cough to teach him, named Maître Jobelin Bridé, who read unto him Hugutio, Hebrard's "Grécisme," the "Doctrinal," the "Parts," the "Quid Est," the "Supplementum"; Marmoquet "De Moribus in Mensa Servandis"; Seneca "De Quatour Virtutibus Cardinalibus"; Passavantus "Cum Commento" and "Dormi Securé," for the holidays; and some other of such-like stuff, by reading whereof he became as wise as any we have ever baked in an oven.

At the last his father perceived that indeed he studied hard, and that altho he spent all his time in it, he did nevertheless profit nothing, but which is worse, grew thereby foolish, simple, doted, and blockish: whereof making a heavy regret to Don Philip des Marays, Viceroy of Papeligose, he found that it were better for him to learn nothing at all than to be taught such-like books under such schoolmasters; because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness, and their wisdom but toys, bastardizing good and noble spirits and corrupting the flower of youth. "That it is so, take," said he, "any young boy of the present time, who hath only studied two years: if he have not a better judgment, a better discourse, and that exprest in better terms, than your son, with a completer carriage and civility to all manner of persons, account me forever a chawbacon of La Brène."

This pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that it should be done. At night at supper, the said Des Marays brought in a young page of his from Ville-gouges, called Eudemon, so well combed, so well drest, so well brushed, so sweet in his behavior, that he resembled a little angel more than a human creature. Then he said to Grangousier, "Do you see this child? He is not as yet full twelve years old. Let us try, if it pleaseth you, what difference there is betwixt the knowledge of the doting dreamers of old time and the young lads that are now."

The trial pleased Grangousier, and he commanded the page to begin. Then Eudemon, asking leave of the viceroy, his master, so to do, with his cap in his hand, a clear and open countenance, ruddy lips, his eyes steady, and his looks fixt upon Gargantua, with a youthful modesty, stood up straight on his feet and began to commend and magnify him, first, for his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge; thirdly, for his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily beauty; and in the fifth place, sweetly exhorted him to reverence his father with all observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up. In the end he prayed him that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst the least of his servants; for other favor at that time desired he none of heaven but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service.