Part One: How Gargantua Learned His Latin

Of all the giants that ever lived, the fattest and the jolliest was good old King Grangousier. From morning till night, and around again from night till morning, there was nothing but one continual banquet at his palace. Whenever you might happen in, there were always pigs roasting, puddings steaming, spits turning, pies baking, chickens broiling, jellies hardening, cakes frying, cooks stirring, butlers pouring, and pages running to and fro with platters. There was always, in fact, such a cloud of savory odors streaming out of the palace that the people for miles around did nothing but eat the air.

In the midst of all the bustle sat King Grangousier at the head of his table, singing and laughing, and letting out his belt at the end of each course. And the best of it was that there was no one so rich and no one so poor that he was not invited to sit down too and eat and drink and laugh and sing as much as he was able. Prince and pauper, beggar and baron, all flocked together about Grangousier’s board.

“Eat, eat, my good people,” Grangousier would cry, beaming down at his small guests. “Here, boy, bring puddings, pheasants, capons,—and chitterlings for the lady. Fill up the glasses. Fall to, comrades! Eat before you’re hungry; drink before you’re thirsty,—that’s the palace rule.”

And it must be said for Grangousier that he followed his own rule very well. Every day he grew broader and rounder and bulgier; and as for his chins, some said there were nine, and some that there were ten, but anyway there was a cascade of them that fell down over the royal shirt frills.

And so, when one day the hearty old king was blessed with a son, no one was in the least surprised that the youngster was the biggest, lustiest, thirstiest baby that ever was born. His baby carriage was a great wooden cart as big as a house, drawn by a hundred oxen. And it took seven thousand, nine hundred and thirteen cows to supply him with milk.

The very moment he was born, in fact, instead of crying, “Mie, mie, mie!” like other babies, he shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Drink, drink, drink!”

When father Grangousier heard _that_, his joy nearly choked him so that he could just gasp out in his queer old French, “Que grand tu as!”—by which he meant, “What a big throat you have!”

And all the lords and neighbors who were feasting with him, clapped their flagons on the table and vowed that the baby could not have a better name.

“Here’s to Prince Que-grand-tu-as!” they cried.

Now, the very oldest of the king’s old neighbors, who I am afraid was a little tipsy, shouted the toast out after the others, and in his haste, slurred the four words together. So it happened that the young giant was named for all time: GARGANTUA.

Up to the time he was five years old, Gargantua was educated much like the other children of the kingdom, in

Drinking, eating, and sleeping; Eating, sleeping, and drinking; Sleeping, drinking, and eating.

From dawn till dark he was continually full of frolic. He would roll about in the mud; slide down the palace towers; run after hawks and eagles with a net, as other children chase butterflies. When his playmates ran about with their paper whirligigs, he would pick up a convenient windmill and go charging down with it across the kingdom.

Best of all he liked his horses. To make a good rider of him, his father had built a great horse of wood as high as a church. Across its back Gargantua would throw himself, and make it trot, jump, amble, gallop, or pace just as he liked. Of a huge post he made himself a hunting-nag; and of a beam, a work-horse. Besides these he had ten or twelve poles that did for race-horses, and seven great boards that were horses for his coach. All of them he kept in his own room, tied securely to his bed.

One day Lord Breadinbag, the Duke of Free-meal, and the Earl of Dry-throat, with all their followers, came to visit King Grangousier. With so many guests all at once, the palace was crowded, and in the stables for the visitors’ horses there was not a stall to be had.

Lord Breadinbag’s steward and his first gentleman-of-horse came on Gargantua just as he was sliding down off the palace roof. “Aha!” thought they, “we can find out from _him_ where the king’s own stables are.”

“Good prince,” said the steward, “can you show us where the giant horses are kept?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Gargantua, “come with me.”

And taking them both by the hand, he dragged them after him up the great staircase of the palace. Through a long hall he led them up into a tower.

“This is some trick!” gasped the gentleman-of-horse. “The stables are never at the top of the house.”

As for the poor steward, he was too breathless to reply. “You—never—can—tell,” he panted. “Things—so—odd—in—these—giants’—countries.”

But Gargantua kept on dodging around corners and dashing up staircases, and there was nothing for it but to stumble after. Finally he flung open his bedroom door.

“Here are my great horses!” he cried. “Here is my roan, here is my bay, here is my race horse!” And with that he gave a lash at the beams and poles.

As soon as the steward and the gentleman-of-horse got their breath, they laughed indeed, and fairly tripped over each other in rushing downstairs to tell the joke in the banquet hall.

When Grangousier heard it, he roared till his chins shook again. “The young rogue!” he bellowed. “The rascal! If he is old enough to be up to mischief, he is old enough to go to SCHOOL!”

From that moment Gargantua’s fate was sealed. The next day an old schoolmaster named Tubal Holofernes came to teach him his letters. Now, Master Holofernes was a little, wizened man whom Gargantua could have lifted up in one of his big hands. Standing on the ground he had to shout through a trumpet to reach Gargantua’s ears. So, in order to get on faster with the teaching, Grangousier had him lifted up on one of the wooden horses, and ordered Gargantua to stand quietly alongside.

“A, B, C,” Holofernes would shout into his pupil’s tremendous ear. And Gargantua, who thought the whole thing a fine new game, would roar the letters out gaily after him.

So well did he learn them, in fact, that by the time he was ten years old, he could say the whole alphabet by heart backwards, to the immense delight of his father and all the banqueters.

“And now,” cried Grangousier, fairly bursting with pride and pudding, “he must be at his Latin.” For the truth of it was Grangousier did not know a word of Latin himself, and so he was determined that his son should be a great scholar.

Gargantua did not mind in the least. It meant new playthings for him. For, since there were no printed books in those days, Gargantua had first of all to learn to write books of his own. So Grangousier had made for him a great blank book about an acre square, a pen-holder as long as the pillar of Enay, and a horn that would hold a whole black lake of ink.

Master Holofernes would stand on the writing-desk and make his little, correct letters down in one corner of the book. Then Gargantua would take his pen and splash and scrawl and scratch in great lines and arcs all over the huge pages. Each letter Gargantua made, in fact, was so big that poor Holofernes had to look at it through a reducing glass to see the whole of it at once. All this took some time of course, but Grangousier was hugely pleased when, in thirteen years, six months and two weeks after he began, Gargantua could make any letter in the alphabet.

Then began the Latin. For thirty-four years Master Holofernes read to him out of the most learned books, and Gargantua was supposed to write down, in his own, every word that he heard. But by this time, I am sorry to say, Gargantua was a little tired of study, and though he scribbled busily enough, instead of writing Latin words, he drew pictures of elephants and camels and lions and tigers. And old Master Holofernes, who did not look over the work with the glass till long after, was none the wiser. As for King Grangousier and his friends, Gargantua had one Latin piece that he could recite either backwards or forwards for them, and they all vowed that his learning was wonderful.

Everything was going happily enough when one day there came a guest to Grangousier’s table who knew something about Latin. When he saw how much Gargantua had learned in all his years of study, his eyes twinkled.

“How would it be,” said he to Grangousier, “if to-night I should bring Eudemon, a young neighbor of mine, to talk Latin with Gargantua?”

Grangousier laid down his fork and vowed that it was the very best plan he ever had heard.

So, that evening Eudemon came,—an ordinary-sized boy about twelve years old. Pulling off his cap and bowing politely to all the company, he began immediately in the best Latin to thank Grangousier for allowing him to come to the palace, and then to tell Gargantua how glad he was to have the chance of talking with him.

When Gargantua heard that torrent of Latin of which he could not understand a single word, he grew so red that he had to hide his face in his cap, and stood there as dumb as a cow. As for Master Holofernes, he sneaked quietly out of the back door of the palace, and ran away as fast and as far as his legs would carry him.

For the first time in his life Grangousier was angry.

“_What!_” he bellowed, glaring at Gargantua and trembling in all his chins. “Not a word to say for yourself! Well then, well then, _well then_, not a minute longer do you stay here! Off to Paris with you, and get some sense put into your great, stupid head!”

The very next day Gargantua, with Eudemon and several other boys of the neighborhood, set out for Paris in charge of a new tutor named Ponocrates. Now, Ponocrates was not so very big, but somehow or other Gargantua knew by looking at him that it would not be wise to be drawing lions and tigers while _he_ was reading Latin.

And partly because Ponocrates was that kind of man, and partly because Gargantua was thoroughly ashamed of himself, he went to his new master as soon as they got to Paris. “How do you wish me to begin?” he asked quite humbly.

Wise old Ponocrates looked at him kindly. “Suppose, at first,” he said, “you do just as you used to at home.”

Nothing could have pleased Gargantua better. The next morning he began as usual, by getting up about nine o’clock. He never bothered much about dressing, for his one idea was to get to breakfast as soon as possible. So, he scrambled into a shabby old suit lined with fox skins which was easy to put on, and smoothed his hair with a “German comb,”—which meant, that he ran his fingers through his great, tousled locks. Then yawning and stretching his arms, he jumped down over a whole staircase in his eagerness to get to breakfast.

Once there, he made short work of seven or eight hams, a dozen rashers of bacon, a huge bowl of chopped meat, and an acre of bread and gravy. After that he was ready for a walk through Paris to get up an appetite for dinner. Coming home a little early, he sat down for half an hour to study, to satisfy his conscience. But, while his eyes were on his book, his mind was down in the kitchen, peeping into the great steaming pots.

Even at that, he was at the table playing tunes on the glasses with his knife and fork long before dinner was served. When it did begin, four of his servants took their places on the table in front of him. And while Gargantua ate his usual number of steaks, hams, roasts, tongues, and sausages, they shoveled mustard down his great throat.

When every platter was clean, Gargantua leaned back in his chair and cried, “Spread the carpet!”

Down climbed the four servants from the table. Three of them unrolled a huge rug, while the other brought in trays piled high with checkers, chessmen, cards, and dice. Then the fun began. Gargantua and his friends started in on the two hundred and fifteen games they liked best. That afternoon they played:

Flaying the Fox, Charming the Hare, Trudge, Pig, Pinch without Laughing, Riding the Wild Mare, The Whirligig, Rogue and Ruffian, I Take you Napping, The Hobgoblin, Climb the Ladder, Billy, and Gunshot Crack.

By that time Gargantua’s great head was nodding, and before the cards were shuffled again, he was stretched out on the floor fast asleep. About five o’clock he rubbed his great eyes open, and calling his friends, dashed out, mounted his horse and rode away to see a rabbit-catching just outside of Paris.

By supper-time, Gargantua had forgotten entirely about his Latin, his new tutor, and the reason why he had been sent to Paris. His mind was on the good supper and all the games they could play before midnight. His great fork flew from plate to mouth, and back again from mouth to plate. And between gulps he roared out his favorite song, while all his friends beat time on the table with their knives:

“One, two, three, four! Much to eat and maybe more: Five, six, seven, eight! Polish platter, polish plate:—”

Just an instant Gargantua paused for breath, when suddenly a new voice, brisk and decisive, took up the refrain:

“Nine, ten!—Finish then! Now for knowledge, gentlemen.”

Gargantua stopped, mouth agape, with a whole pudding poised on his fork. That was a new ending to the song, and there just inside the opened door, stood the singer,—Master Ponocrates!

But Ponocrates did not hesitate. He poured out a black liquid from a bottle into a great spoon, and striding up the table to Gargantua, dashed it into his open mouth.

For all the time Gargantua had been eating and playing, Ponocrates had been looking on. And when he saw what Gargantua’s habits were, he knew that it would take more than a new course of study to change them. So he had gone to Doctor Theodore, a famous physician of Paris, and got from him a medicine which should make Gargantua forget his old ways entirely.

So well did it work, that hardly had Gargantua swallowed it when he laid down his fork and looked wonderingly at the table as if he were trying to make out what all the puddings and pastries were there for.

“And now,” said Ponocrates, “you will oblige me, young gentlemen, by starting off to bed. I want clear heads for to-morrow’s study.”

Gargantua was the first one up from the table; and before eight o’clock had struck, he was asleep for the first time in his life without dreaming of banquets.

Early next morning a new kind of life began for him. For Ponocrates had laid out such a course of study that he should not lose a single hour of the day. At four o’clock he was called; and while he was being rubbed down after his bath, a page read the Latin lesson aloud to him. As he dressed, Ponocrates would come in to explain the hard points; and after a day or two Gargantua himself could repeat the lessons off by heart. And all the time he would be carefully parting his hair with a real comb instead of a German one, and never thinking of breakfast at all. Indeed after a few more doses of the black medicine, Ponocrates had to remind him that it was time to be eating or he would rush off to the schoolroom as soon as he was dressed.

After breakfast Ponocrates talked for three hours in Latin, and then, as the boys began to look a trifle sleepy, sent them out for a game of tennis till dinner-time. After dinner they would sing for a while, and then get at their Latin books again for three hours more. And after six months of _that_, Eudemon himself could not outdo Gargantua in talking Latin. He thought in it, dreamed in it, and was as anxious to be at his book as he was before to be at his dinner.

Even when he swam, of an afternoon, down the river Seine, he took a book in one hand, and holding it up dry out of the water, read aloud from it, all the way, in a voice to split your ear-drums. Coming out of the water, he laid the book on the bank and dried himself off by leaping over trees and houses, and vaulting over churches, pricking his hand on the steeples.

But that was not the end of his day. For then came his lessons with Squire Gymnast, who taught him to leap nimbly from one great galloping horse to another; to shatter a thick stone tower with one thrust of his huge lance; and to hold two lead weights each weighing eight hundred and seventy thousand pounds above his head for three-quarters of an hour. Last of all he would stand with his arms folded, in an open field, and dare the whole French army to move him with crowbars.

But one day as the soldiers ranged themselves, ten to a bar, ready to pry at Gargantua’s great boots, there came a pelting of hoofs across the turf. Another moment, and a rider, shouting and spurring, burst in among them to Gargantua’s very feet.

“Your Royal Highness,” he cried, “your father, King Grangousier, sends for you!”

That was enough for Gargantua. The French crowbars rattled to the ground like toothpicks, as he sprang leaping over the army to saddle his great mare.