occupy a benefice which Cardinal du Bellay had assigned him in the Abbey de St. Maur des Fossés, to Montpellier to take his degree of Doctor of Medicine. Sixteen letters, written by him during this sojourn to the Bishop of Maillezais, are extant, and appear in the English edition of his works (Bohn's; the translation by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Motteux), having been first published a hundred years after his death. He went direct to Montpellier, where he took his degree in May, being fifty-four years old, and gave public lectures on anatomy, &c., for about a year, although he was not a professor. L. Jacob, Bibliophile (Paul Lacroix), to whose very full Memoir, prefixed to his edition of Rabelais, I am much indebted, says, on the authority of Kuhnholtz: “The faculty, nevertheless, placed his portrait among those of the professors, and this original portrait, which was painted about this time, represents Rabelais with a bearing noble and majestic, regular features, fresh and ruddy complexion, fine beard of a pale gold, intelligent (spirituelle) expression, eyes full of both fire and sweetness, air gracious though grave and thoughtful."

Rabelais seems to have then gone to Paris, where he practised medicine, but did not fulfil the other conditions of the Papal brief which gave him security, not renouncing the secular habit nor submitting to conventual discipline. The Cardinal du Bellay had returned to France, and obtained a well-deserved preponderance in the Royal Council, and he enjoined Rabelais to enter upon the functions of the canonry, in the convent of St. Maur des Fossés, to which he had been appointed. The other canons opposed his

admission, on the ground that he remained under the censure of the Church for apostasy, the bulls of absolution being cancelled by his non-compliance with their conditions. Accordingly, he had to address another application to the Pope, which, like the first, is extant, for confirmation of the previous absolution. and indulgences. As it was recommended by the cardinal, and supported by friends in Rome, it seems to have been granted without difficulty; and Rabelais, assuming the Benedictine habit, installed himself, with his books and scientific instruments, in the said convent of St. Maur, where, more than a century after his death, his room was still shown to strangers, as was also, at Montpellier, the house he had lived in. He loved this residence, which, in his epistle to Cardinal de Chastillon, he terms "Paradise of salubrity, amenity, serenity, commodity, delights, and all honest pleasures of agriculture and country life." The Cardinal du Bellay, who also liked the place, equally favourable for study and health, erected a magnificent mansion there in the Italian style, adorned with sculptures and surrounded by gardens; and Rabelais was always a welcome guest. But he was not the man to confine himself to the convent when the Papal brief gave him permission to practise medicine, as a work of charity, wherever he pleased. He kept travelling about, sojourning now in one town, now in another; he visited the friends of his youth, Antoine Ardillon at Fontenay-le-Comte, Geoffroi d'Estissac at Legugé or l'Ermenaud, Jean Bouchet at Poitiers, André Tiraqueau at Bordeaux, where he had been appointed Councillor to the Parliament. He frequently stayed a while at Chinon, where he still had relatives.

B

The vineyard he seems to have lost at the death of his father, but the hotel of the Lamprey remained to him, and he reserved in it a modest room for himself, which was respected long after his death. In the editions of Le Duchat, we are told, there are several engravings showing the hotel and the room as they were at the end of the seventeenth century. But he lived most of all with one or other of the brothers Du Bellay, his old and leal comrades of the convent of La Basmette, and all distinguished men. Besides the cardinal, there were Martin du Bellay, LieutenantGeneral of Normandy (and real King of Yvetot, by his marriage with Elizabeth Chenu, proprietor of that principality), who was then writing memoirs of his negotiations and campaigns; René du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, the youngest, an ardent student of the physical sciences; and Guillaume du Bellay, Seigneur de Langey, a great captain and diplomatist, who also was writing memoirs in Latin. In this work it has been supposed that he was assisted by Rabelais, who in his own name printed a work on the same subject (of which not a copy is known to exist), as appears by a quoted title: Stratagems, that is to say Prowesses and Ruses of War of the Valiant and very Celebrated Chevalier Langey, &c. Translated from the Latin of Fr. Rabelais by Claude Massuan. (Lyons, 1542.)" Jean du Bellay, the cardinal, was not only a real statesman and powerful orator, but an elegant poet in Latin, and a large-minded man, interested in all matters of literature, science, and philosophy, and so liberal in his ideas that, Churchman and cardinal as he was, he corresponded with Melancthon on the most cordial terms.

The beneficent genius of Panta

gruelism was right bountiful to Rabelais when it secured him such life-long friends as these.

He was staying with Guillaume du Bellay, at the end of 1542, when the veteran, who was lieutenantgeneral of the armies of the king in Piedmont, being warned by his spies of a secret intrigue of Charles V. against Francis I., did not hesitate to start at once, in spite of his great age, his infirmities, and the rigour of the season, to acquaint the king with what was passing. On leaving Lyons, carried in a litter, since he was not able to ride on horseback, he soon felt so ill that he was compelled to stop, and knew that his end was at hand. His death and the circumstances attending it made a profound impression on Rabelais, who loved and esteemed him; it is spoken of three times in "Pantagruel," and always with an unmistakable seriousness. In Book iv., chap. xxvi., Epistemon says: "We have had experience of this lately at the death of that valiant and learned knight, Guillaume du Bellay, during whose life France enjoyed so much. happiness that all the world had her in envy, all the world sought her friendship, all the world feared her. From the day of his death it has been the scorn of all the world for a very long time." And in chap. xxvii., Pantagruel himself first speaking: "This we saw several days before the departure of that so illustrious, generous, and heroic soul of the learned and valiant chevalier of Langey, of whom you have spoken.'—‘I remember it,' said Epistemon, and still my heart shudders and trembles within its membrane when I think of the prodigies, so various and horrific, which we saw plainly five or six days before his departure; so that the lords D'Assier, Chemant, Mailly the one

eyed, Saint Ayl, Villeneufue la Guyart, Master Gabriel, physician of Savillan, Rabelais, Cohnau, Massuan, Maiorici, Bullon, Ceren, called Bourgemaistre, Françoys Proust, Ferron, Charles Girard, Françoys Bourré, and many more friends, followers, and servants of the deceased, all dismayed, regarded each other in silence, without saying a word, but all indeed reflecting and foreseeing in their minds that soon France would be deprived of a chevalier so perfect and necessary to her glory and protection, and that the heavens claimed him as due to them by natural propriety."" Mark the long array of honourable witnesses, all well known, and all named for legacies in the will of Du Bellay, Rabelais himself having fifty livres a year till such time as he should hold livings worth at least three hundred livres per annum. And again, in Book iii., chap. xxi., the noble Pantagruel, speaking here also: "I will but remind you of the learned and valiant Chevalier Guillaume du Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the hill of Tarana, the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age [the sixty-third], and of our computation 1543, according to the Roman reckon. ing. The three or four hours before his death he employed in vigorous speech, tranquil and serene in mind, predicting to us what in part we have since seen come to pass, and in part we expect to come; although at the time these prophecies seemed to us somewhat incredible and strange, as we discerned no present cause or sign portending what he foretold." These serious testimonies of a writer who was anything but superstitious, and who burlesqued the astrologers with infinite scorn, are certainly trustworthy. He perhaps wrote the epitaph