Nantes, and are now returning, as we best may, by easy journeys.  Yea, but, said Grangousier, what went you to do at Saint Sebastian?  We went, said Sweer-to-go, to offer up unto that sanct our vows against the plague.  Ah, poor men! said Grangousier, do you think that the plague comes from Saint Sebastian?  Yes, truly, answered Sweer-to-go, our preachers tell us so indeed.  But is it so, said Grangousier, do the false prophets teach you such abuses?  Do they thus blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as to make them like unto the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind,—­as Homer writeth, that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks by Apollo, and as the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievous gods.  So did a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay, that Saint Anthony sent the fire into men’s legs, that Saint Eutropius made men hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish.  But I punished him so exemplarily, though he called me heretic for it, that since that time no such hypocritical rogue durst set his foot within my territories.  And truly I wonder that your king should suffer them in their sermons to publish such scandalous doctrine in his dominions; for they deserve to be chastised with greater severity than those who, by magical art, or any other device, have brought the pestilence into a country.  The pest killeth but the bodies, but such abominable imposters empoison our very souls.  As he spake these words, in came the monk very resolute, and asked them, Whence are you, you poor wretches?  Of Saint Genou, said they.  And how, said the monk, does the Abbot Gulligut, the good drinker,—­and the monks, what cheer make they?  By G—­ body, they’ll have a fling at your wives, and breast them to some purpose, whilst you are upon your roaming rant and gadding pilgrimage.  Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraid of mine, for he that shall see her by day will never break his neck to come to her in the night-time.  Yea, marry, said the monk, now you have hit it.  Let her be as ugly as ever was Proserpina, she will once, by the Lord G—­, be overturned, and get her skin-coat shaken, if there dwell any monks near to her; for a good carpenter will make use of any kind of timber.  Let me be peppered with the pox, if you find not all your wives with child at your return; for the very shadow of the steeple of an abbey is fruitful.  It is, said Gargantua, like the water of Nilus in Egypt, if you believe Strabo and Pliny, Lib. 7, cap. 3.  What virtue will there be then, said the monk, in their bullets of concupiscence, their habits and their bodies?