of Tournelles, the good man’s house being situated in the gardens of St Paul, was not a stone’s throw distant from the court.  He soon found himself in the presence of Queen Catherine, Madame Diana, whom she received from motives of policy, the king, the constable, the cardinals of Lorraine and Bellay, Messieurs de Guise, the Sieur de Birague, and other Italians, who at that time stood well at court in consequence of the king’s protection; the admiral, Montgomery, the officers of the household, and certain poets, such as Melin de St. Gelays, Philibert de l’Orme, and the Sieur Brantome.

Perceiving the good man, the king, who knew his wit, said to him, with a smile, after a short conversation—­

“Hast thou ever delivered a sermon to thy parishioners of Meudon?”

Master Rabelais, thinking that the king was joking, since he had never troubled himself further about his post than to collect the revenues accruing from it, replied—­

“Sire, my listeners are in every place, and my sermon heard throughout Christendom.”

Then glancing at all the courtiers, who, with the exception of Messieurs du Bellay and Chatillon, considered him to be nothing but a learned merry-andrew, while he was really the king of all wits, and a far better king than he whose crown only the courtiers venerate, there came into the good man’s head the malicious idea to philosophically pump over their heads, just as it pleased Gargantua to give the Parisians a bath from the turrets of Notre Dame, so he added—­

“If you are in a good humour, sire, I can regale you with a capital little sermon, always appropriate, and which I have kept under the tympanum of my left ear in order to deliver it in a fit place, by way of an aulic parable.”

“Gentlemen,” said the king, “Master Francis Rabelais has the floor of the court, and our salvation is concerned in his speech.  Be silent, I pray you, and give heed; he is fruitful in evangelical drolleries.”

“Sire,” said the good vicar, “I commence.”

All the courtiers became silent, and arranged themselves into a circle, pliant as osiers before the father of Pantagruel who unfolded to them the following tale, in words the illustrious eloquence of which it is impossible to equal.  But since this tale has only been verbally handed down to us, the author will be pardoned if he write after his own fashion.

“In his old age Gargantua took to strange habits, which greatly astonished his household, but the which he was forgiven since he was seven hundred and four years old, in spite of the statement of St. Clement of Alexandra in his Stromates, which makes out that at this time he was a quarter of a day less, which matters little to us.  Now this paternal master, seeing that everything was going wrong in his house, and that every one was fleecing him, conceived a great fear that he would in his last moments be stripped of everything, and resolved to invent a more perfect