Three good giants

by Franqois Rabelais

  '' That's the very beast to carry my son to Paris ! With her, all things will go well.

  He will be a great scholar one of these days."

  The next day, after breakfast, the party started on their journey. First, there was Gargantua on his gigantic mare, and Avearing boots which his father had just given him, made out of the skin of the red deer; then his new teacher, Ponocrates; then his servants, among whom was the young page, Eudemon party. In the and laughing

  There never was a gayer highest spirits, loudly, they jogged on, day after day, until they reached a point just above the City of Orleans. At this point, they found a

  GARGANTUA'S MARE

  great forest thirty-five leagues long and seventeen wide, or thereabout. The forest was very fertile in some ugly insects, known as gadflies and hornets. These flies were so large and so fierce, and so sharp-tongued and so poisonous besides, that they were the terror of all the poor horses and asses which had to pass through the forest. But Gargantua's Mare was equal to both flies and hornets. She resolved to avenge all her kindred, even though they were mere dwarfs, which had ever suffered from gadflies and hornets, and which, if she did not help them, would continue to suffer from them. The moment she got well into the forest, and the gadflies began to plague her, she first shook her tail slowly and lazily to see whether or not it was in good working order. This did not in the least frighten the insects, which kept on plaguing and stinging her more than ever. Then it was that she loosed that tail of hers to the right and the left. So well did she do this, whisking it wildly here and there, far up in the air and low down on the ground, that she whipped down the bisfffest trees, one after the other, with a crash that made the hearts of the others tremble within their very bark, with all the ease that a mower cuts down the grass. So well did she do her work that, since she passed through that forest, there never has been seen in it a single tree or a single gadfly, or a single hornet, for the whole wood on that day became the open country, and has been open country ever since.

  When Gargantua, who hadn't noticed what his Mare had been doing, saw this, he only laughed, while he said to Ponocrates in his old-time French : — " Je trouve beau-ce I " which, translated freely into English, would mean : — "I find this fine."

  And, from that day to this, the country above the City of Orleans, in France, has been called La Beauce.

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE PARISIANS LAUGH AT GARGANTUA. HE TAKES HIS REVENGE BY STEALING THE GREAT BELLS OF NOTRE-DAME.

  THE first thing Gargantua did, on reaching Paris, was to make a resolve that he and his people should have a gay time. Some days after, when they had all rested well and had feasted until they were full of good eating and drinking, Gargantua started on a stroll through the town to find what was to be seen. The Paris Gargantua saw was not the Paris of to-day, — not nearly so mighty a city as it has since become. But its people then were every bit as fond of merry-making and of seeing shows as they are now. One who lived in those days, and who boasted that he knew the Parisians better than they did themselves, says that they were so silly and so stupid by nature that it only took a rope-dancer, dancing on his rope, or a Merry-Andrew playing at his tricks, or a bawler of old scraps, or a blind fiddler, or a hurdy-gurdy in the market-place, to appear, to draw a bigger crowd than the holiest and most eloquent preacher. Now, a Giant like Gargantua was himself such a show as the people of Paris had never before set their silly eyes on. Of course they swarmed around him with staring eyes and open mouths, pushing against him here, and knocking against him there, in their strong desire to see as much of him as they could. They troubled him almost as much as the flies and hornets of La Beauce had troubled his mare. Some, bolder than the rest, even ran in and out between his leers as he strode along; the street. At first, Gargantua took the crowd good-naturedly enough. By and by, he began to think that all this

  GARGANTUA ENTERS PARIS.

  squeezing and tickling were getting just a little tiresome. He looked around in a helpless sort of way, until, by good luck, his eyes fell on the tall towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, near by. " Ha ! ha ! that's the very place for me," he cried, and, without further ado, resting one hand on the top of the roof to steady himself, he went whizzing with a great leap past the statues of Adam and Eve, that looked wonderingly out from their stony niches. The idle crowd was afraid to follow Gar-gantua; but it stood packed up close together in the open space which surrounded the old church, gazing at him as he went through the air, and wondering all the time what the Giant was going to do with their famous towers. It was not long before they found out. No sooner was he on the roof than Gargantua caught sight of the great tanks filled with water which were then to be found there. Chuckling to himself, he cried : " Xow for some fun ! I shall pledge this good people of Paris in a glass of wine." Up he caught one of the tanks, poised it for a moment in the air, and then shouting out: " To your health, good folks!" tipped it just a bit. Down poured its water in a full stream. Then he threw the tank after it. Quick, before one could think or breathe, the others followed. So sudden was the down-pour of water that the people thought a tremendous water-spout, in passing over their city, had burst upon them. Two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen persons were drowned on that day by the water, or crushed by the tanks, or killed by being run over by those seeking to escape. Those who were lucky got away as fast as they could. In less than three minutes the square was empty, for the water, as it rolled out into the streets, washed all the dead away.

  Garsrantua, who was a good-hearted Giant, little knew what mischief he had done. After he had emptied all the tanks, and thrown them away, he ceased to think about the people. He had only gone on the roof to rid himself of the buzzing and nudging of the crowd; and, not hearing any more from them, he set about amusing himself. When he caught sight of the great bells of Notre Dame, a happy idea struck him. He would set them to ringing and pealing ! Ah, how he was charmed J their notes were so soft, so rich, so mellow, so tender, so golden ! He wanted to have the bells about him all the time. Just then he thought: " These Parisians deserve a lesson for their bad manners, and

  I am going to revenge myself." So he at once began to pick up the bells, one after the other, as if they were so many buckets. When he had gathered them all, he leaped down from the roof and strode across the city in the direction of his hotel. Once there, a merry thought came to him, which made him drop the bells and clap

  THE CITY WAS EXCITED

  his thighs with a sound that brought all the good wives of Paris — or those that remained after the affair of the tanks — to their windows.

  '' Ho ! ho ! ho ! I have it now ! I shall keep my beautiful bells to please my father, and pay the Parisians, all at the same time. I send my mare home to-morrow. Every little donkey nowadays wears a collar with jingling bells. My Mare shall carry at her neck the bells of Notre Dame ! "

  Gargantua went straight to the stable where his Mare had already found her fodder, and, with great care, while Gymnaste, his squire, held the candle, placed the bells of Notre Dame, one by one, around her neck. The city was greatly excited at the loss of the bells ; and, the next day, there came a long line of grave, black-robed men who proved to him in learned speeches that the holy church of Notre Dame had a right to her own bells. Gargantua, now that all the excitement had passed, felt that he had done a very silly thing, and could only say that the bells were not lost; but that if their worships would go to the stable, they would find them still hanging from the neck of his great Mare. After further talk, and much good drinking, the grave, black-robed men — who, if the whole truth were to be told, were not a little afraid of the Giant—picked up heart to say : " Give us back our bells, and we shall bind ourselves to give your Mare free grazing in the forest of Biere, so long as Your Highness honors us with your presence."

  Gargantua was very willing to accept this offer. The bells were taken back in great state to Notre Dame, where — God bless them ! — they may be seen, and heard too, when t
he sun shines and when the rain falls, to this very day.

  CHAPTER X.

  PONOCRATES, THE NEW TEACHER, DESIRES GARGANTUA TO SHOW HIM HOW HE USED TO STUDY WITH OLD MASTER HOLOFERNES.

  GARGANTUA was a good son, as we have already seen. He knew that he had been sent to Paris to learn Latin. So, after a few days of pleasure, he dutifully offered to begin a course of study with his new teacher, Po-nocrates. But Ponocrates himself was just a little curious to know how old Master Holofernes had managed to teach his big pupil so as to leave him, after fifty-three years, ten months, and ten days, just as much a booby as he had found him. "Let Your Highness," Ponocrates said, " do precisely as you used to do with your old master." And Gargantua, greatly relieved, as you may imagine, began to live in Paris the very life he used to live at home. And this is the way he lived. He woke up between eight and nine o'clock every morning, whether it was light or not. The first thing he did after waking was to make a tent of the sheets of the bed, raising one of his tall legs as the centre-pole and watching how the big sheet fell on either side. After the tent was brought down, Gargantua would begin to gambol and roll around in his bed, to stand on his head, to twist his huge limbs in every sort of twirl, and to turn any number of somersaults, single, double, treble, and quadruple, in a way that would make one of our modern acrobats turn green with envy. After that he would rise and dress himself according to the season. But, in the old home days, he generally wore a large robe of rough cloth, lined with fox-skins, and so he brought out of his trunk the very garment itself, looking rather worn and shabby. The next thing was to comb his head with a " German comb," which was the name given in those days to the easiest way of combing, since it meant a comb made by the four fingers and the thumb. For old Master Holofernes had always enjoined this habit on him, saying that it _._. was a waste of time for him to smooth his hair in any other way, and with any better co

  Being now dressed, Gargantua went through a series of performances which — considering that they came from a Giant — must have been very startling, indeed. He gaped, stretched, coughed, spit, groaned, sneezed, hiccoughed, and then, with a broad smile, declared himself ready to breakfast on fried tripe, grilled steaks, colossal hams, magnificent roast, and a noble soup. All this feast was made hot with mustard, shovelled down his throat by four of his servants.

  Master Ponocrates, one day, thought it his duty, as the teacher charged with the education of his royal pupil, to suggest that it was hardly right for him to eat so heavy a breakfast without having already taken some exercise. Gargantua was ready with his answer.

  "How can you say so, Master?" he asked ; "have I not exercised

  GARGANTUA GETS UP.

  enough ? Have I not stretched myself on the bed in all sorts of ways until my muscles are sore ? Isn't that enough? Pope Alexander the V. used to do the same, by the advice of his Jewish doctor, and he lived, as you know, until he died. I feel very well from my break-fast, and am already

  GARGANTUA BREAKFASTS.

  beginning to think of my dinner."

  - Ponocrates must have been satisfied with this little speech of his pupil; for, after grumbling a bit under his breath, all that he did was to stroke his long beard in deep thought, while he asked himself in wonder: "How did the Prince ever happen to hear about Pope Alexander?" and let the young Giant continue his course, while he himself continued to wonder.

  After breakfast Gargantua went to church,—you may be sure he kept away from Notre Dame! Behind him, on his way to church, went nine of the stoutest lackeys, who bore, as if they would have liked to be doing anything rather than that, a big basket, which contained a breviary worthy of a Giant, since it was so heavy that, by actual weight, it was found to weigh just eleven hundred and six pounds. With that breviary, the devout young Prince entered the church and heard the Holy Mass from beginning to end. On leaving the church, he always thought it the proper thing for his breviary to be carried by oxen to his hotel. Once there, Gargantua began to study during a short half hour, with his eyes like good Saint Anthony's in the story,

  "Firmly fixed upon his book;" while all the time, "his soul," as the clown of Paris, in his day, used to say, "was down in the kitchen."

  The dinner came soon enough after his return home to satisfy even Gargantua, who was a great glutton. He used to smile as he saw the table at his new lodging-house laden with a dozen rich hams, with the best of smoked tongues, with puddings, with fine chitterlings ; and his great throat took them all down one after the other. Every day, after the meals, it

  Was ms practice to wash his hands with fresh wine, and to pick his teeth with a dry pig-bone. After that he declared himself ready for his games.

  GARGANTUA GOES TO CHURCH.

  CHAPTER XI.

  THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN GAMES OF CARDS GARGANTUA KNEW HOW TO PLAY. WHAT IT WAS HE SAID AFTER HE HAD GONE THROUGH THE LIST, AND WHAT IT WAS PONOCRATES REMARKED.

  first thing Gargantua did, on rising from the dinner table, would be to call out in a cheery voice : — " SPREAD THE CARPET !"

  The servants understood what that meant very well. Gaily they would unroll a large carpet, stretch it free from wrinkles, and then, in a twinkling, lay a pack of cards in the very middle of it. Then the Giant and his friends would sit down on the carpet, and begin playing cards. There were just two hundred and fifteen of these games which Gargantua knew how to play. Their names would sound odd to the card-players of this day, and I give some of the oddest on the list, so that you may know what queer games were then the fashion with the Giant and his friends : —

  The Bamboozler. The Potatoes. Scotch Hoppens. The Cows. The Tables. To Steal Mustard. Skin the Fox. Sow the Hay. Sell the Hay. The Monkey.

  The Combs. The Coat-brush. Nine Hands. Partridges. The Keys. The Birch Tree. Ninepins.

  I pinch thee without laughing. Figs of Marseilles. Draw the Spit.

  Each of these games took a whole day, lasting between dinner and the time to enjoy a nap. Gargantua always thought it necessary to prepare for his afternoon sleep by taking a little drink. His companions must have been heavy drinkers, — regular old topers of the jolly order,

  — because the allowance every day called for eleven pots of wine for each man. After drinking such a quantity they would naturally feel drowsy. They would then stretch themselves on the carpet, and snore away, each snorer playing a different tune through his nose, in the midst of the cards lying loosely around, and the emptied pots, — all except Gargantua, whose breathing on such occasions was always of the hurricane fashion, whether awake or asleep. He would sleep for two or three hours like a good Christian, without thinking of any evil thing, and without muttering a single bad word in his dreams. On waking, he had a trick of giving his great ears a half-dozen shakes,

  — why, I don't know, — and then bawling out for fresh wine, which he drank down in one great gulp. Then came the only study for the day, which was rather a mystery for all parties. Nobody could say exactly what it was, and Master Ponocrates only smiled when asked about it. It lasted for a few minutes only, after which Gargantua would mount, in high state, an old mule which had already served nine kings, and briskly ride away to see where the good people of Paris caught their rabbits.

  On his return, he had a habit of running in and out of the kitchen, with his broad nostrils swollen out like balloons, to find out what particular roast was on the spit, until the cook, already in a stew, was ready to tear his hair in despair. But cooks may be ever so vexed, the meat will roast on the spit all the same, and at last get done to a turn. All things being ready, Gargantua would sit down at table. He always managed to have a large company of gentlemen present, who were only too willing, for the honor of being invited to dinner by a Prince, to serve as his attendants, should he ever need their services. Among those of high birth who usually dined with him at this time were the Lords De Fou, De Gourville, De Grignaut, and De Marigny.

  After supper, Gargantua—being in the liveliest humor, and disposed to look on the world w
ith a broad laugh, showing the largest

  GARGANTUA LOOKS INTO THE KITCHEN.

  and whitest of teeth—would play a little, or else pay an open-air visit to some of the many pretty young ladies living in the neighborhood, — their houses being too small for him to enter, — and, on such nights, he would not get home until midnight. Sometimes, when he did not go out, he would take another little supper about eight o'clock, and still another before midnight. Then he would sleep without snoring until eight o'clock next morning.

  It was a great day for Gargantua when he reached the end of his two hundred and fifteen games ; or, rather, he intended that it should be a great day. He had said nothing to any one ; but, when he woke that particular morning, he was noticed to be in a gayer mood than usual while he was dressing himself, and after he had gamboled and rolled around his bed, and stretched his limbs on it, and made his own great tent with one leg and the sheet, and given a neat turn to his long locks with his German comb, and gone through his usual gaping, coughing, spitting, groaning, sneezing, and hiccoughing. But, being in some things a very simple Giant, indeed, he had not noticed that his teacher, Ponocrates, had very keen eyes, and could use them too. Why, Ponocrates knew when the last game was to be played just as well as Gargantua himself did, and he had made up his mind to be somewhere in the room when it closed. Sure enough, listening in a corner of the big chamber, he heard some one say : " Here we are on our last game!" To which Gargantua shouted in reply : " Ho ! ho ! The last game ! Don't be too sure of that. Gentlemen, to-morrow we shall play just as well as to-day."