Rabelais, FRANÇOIS. According to the statements of those who wrote while his tomb was still standing with his name and age Copyright 1891 in U.S. upon it, who had access to the by J. B. Lippincott church register of Meudon, and Company. who visited the place of his birth while his memory yet lingered, in order to collect every fact that could be found concerning him, this great humorist was born in the year 1483. His father, proprietor of a vineyard called La Devinière, was an apothecary in the town of Chinon, where his house, which afterwards became a cabaret, is still shown. François was the youngest of five sons. Of his elder brothers nothing whatever is known. Bishop Huet, annotator of Rabelais, found an old woman of the name in a village near Chinon, and gathered a local tradition that the last male representative of the family, an apothecary, had died at Chinon in great poverty.
At the age of nine the boy was sent to the convent of Seully, near his father's estate. 'There are some mothers,' he wrote years afterwards, 'who cannot bear to keep their children about the house more than nine, or, still oftener, seven years. By only putting a shirt over their frocks and cutting off a little hair from the crown of their heads, and saying certain magical words, they transpose them into birds—i.e. put them into monasteries and make monks of them.' He was, in fact, made a monk at the age of nine, and remained a monk all the best years of his life. One result was that, when he came out again into the world and began to write, he wrote of the world as he remembered it—of Touraine and the Tourangeaux, the stories and songs of the drinkers, the gossip of the women, the merriment and happiness—the wild, the careless happiness—of the whole.
After some time at Seully, the boy was transferred to the convent of La Baumette, near Angers. Here was a school founded by King René of Anjou in the year 1464, for providing an education on more liberal principles than those of the old method. At this school he founded a life-long friendship with the three illustrious Du Bellay brothers. Nothing is known about the range of his scholarship while at La Baumette. We may, however, very well understand, from the continued protection which Jean du Bellay (afterwards Cardinal) extended to him, that as a young man he had shown promise and proved his abilities. At the close of his course he took the step for which, no doubt, he had been long prepared—i.e. he became a novice of the Franciscan order. It has been asked why he took a step for which he was eminently unfit; why he became a Franciscan, one of the order which professed to despise learning, and why he exchanged his own smiling country for the barren heaths of La Vendée. The answer seems obvious: for a poor lad the church offered in some form or other, either as priest, monk, or servant of the cathedral or monastery, a livelihood that was certain although humble. It is manifest that the youngest son of the Chinon apothecary could not expect a certain livelihood, with the power of continuing his studies, in any other occupation. He became a monk and entered the Franciscan convent of Fontenay le Comte simply because this was the convent where some kindly interest found him a place. It must not be supposed that the monas- teries were at that or at any period willing to accept any lad who wanted to exchange a life of servitude and hard labour for one of ease. Not at all. Interest was required for the admission of a boy: in some houses he must be of good birth, in others he must have shown abilities beyond the common. Rabelais, in fact, had no choice at all but to become a monk if he could get into some convent, and he entered the house of Fontenay le Comte because it was the only convent which offered to receive him.
By this time the Franciscan contempt of learning had undergone some modification. It does not appear that Rabelais was hindered by the brethren in his studies. On the contrary, he had access to a large and well-furnished library, whether outside the House or in it is not known, and he read all the books that he could get; acquiring Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic; studying all the Latin authors within his reach, French of the 13th and 14th centuries, books of medicine, astronomy, botany, mathematics—everything in the omnivorous fashion of his time, when every scholar with a good memory wished to become a Doctor Universalis. He had companions in his ardour for learning, especially one Pierre Amy, a brother-monk. Also, the rules of the Franciscans, far less severe than those of the Cistercians, permitted the monks to go outside the house, and in the little town of Fontenay Rabelais found a friend, André Tiraqueau, lieutenant-general of the bailiwick, lawyer, scholar, and writer. Also his early and life-long friend, Geoffroy d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, lived chiefly in his chateau of Ermenaud, close to Fontenay.
Many silly stories have been attributed to Rabelais in these years. They all tend to show him in the light of a monkey, mischievous and impish. We may dismiss them as childish; not, however, that we are to regard him—now a priest—as a person grave and serious, charged with the sense of his sacred responsibilities and his vows: to be a priest in the 16th century is not quite the same thing as to be a clergyman in the 19th. Rabelais was at all times a wirthful man, more given to laughter than to tears, and if he did not play silly tricks upon the brethren he certainly laughed at them. We find him corresponding with the great Budé, as one scholar with another. He is on terms of intimacy with Tiraqueau and his brethren learned in the law. He is on terms of friendship with Bishop D'Estissac. Evidently a monk of repute and distinction, he is far above the heads of his nameless and obscure brethren of the monastery. Then we hear of trouble and persecution. The Franciscan jealousy of the old learning has been transformed into jealousy of the new learning. The brothers take their books away from Rabelais and Amy—perhaps lay the pair by the heels in the convent prison.
When they were released a loathing of the convent fell upon these two scholars. What to do? They opened the Book of Oracles—Virgil—and chanced upon the following line:
Heu ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum !
What could this mean but a direct injunction to escape? They obeyed the oracle and fled—they ran away. Rabelais, returning to the world, was past forty years of age. He seems to have sought the protection of his friend Bishop D'Estissac, by whom he was received. Through him, or perhaps through the kind offices of Cardinal Du Bellay, he obtained the pope's permission to pass from the Franciscan to the Benedictine order. But he was in no hurry to enter another cloister. He remained at Ligugé with the bishop for six years. It is said that during this period he took a small country living, but this is doubtful. Most likely he passed the whole time in study. Perhaps he paid visits to Paris and Bourges. He made the acquaintance of Marot, who wrote a sonnet for him. His reading had now ceased to be encyclopaedic: its special aims may be inferred from the fact that on the 17th day of September 1530 he entered the university of Montpellier as a student. That he was already known as a scholar is also proved by the fact that two months afterwards he was excused the undergraduate course of three years, was admitted to the Bachelor's degree, and allowed to lecture on Hippocrates and Galen. He dissected publicly before the students, and left the university in the year 1532, returning in 1537 to take the Doctor's degree.
In 1532 Rabelais went to Lyons to get his first book, Hippocratis et Galeni libri aliquot, published. He remained there as physician to the hospital. At this time Lyons was as great an intellectual centre as Edinburgh about the beginning of the 19th century. Here the great printer Gryphe had his workshop, and issued no fewer than three hundred books, including the Latin Bible of 1550, remarkable for its correctness and for the beauty of its type, and the commentaries of the unfortunate scholar Dolet, in two folios of 1800 columns each, and only eight errata for the whole work. Round this printer was gathered a company of scholars and poets called the Société Angélique, a company of broad thought and advanced opinions. As regards religious opinions, it must be remembered that to the scholars of that period the Christian religion meant little more than the Roman ritual and the Roman discipline. They had no idea of Christianity apart from the superstitions they derided. It is not fair to call them atheists: they had adopted the vague but hopeful agnosticism of Cicero: they would not, being scholars, wholly die: they would, after death, be allowed still to watch the advance of learning. Men, for example, who were physicists, like Rabelais, would worship the Creator of the vast and wonderful cosmos. Dolet represents the scholars of Lyons, Desperiers the poets, Rabelais the men of science. All three despised and hated the Church of Rome. Two of them felt the heavy hand of the church in life, the third after death. Dolet was strangled and burned at the stake; Desperiers, starving and despairing, fell upon his sword; Rabelais, dying peacefully, has been assailed ever since as a buffoon and a reveller in foulness and filth.
It was at Lyons that Rabelais began the famous book, or series of books, by which he will for ever be remembered. In the year 1532 he brought out The Great and Inestimable Chronicles of the Grand and Enormous Giant Gargantua. Every Tourangean knew this good giant. Rabelais had heard about him while a child. It was he who set up the dolmen at Poitiers and the pierré couverte of Saumur. When he scraped the mud from his shoes he made hills, which may still be seen. He drank at a ford and swallowed six bullocks, a loaded cart, and the driver. Once he swallowed a ship laden with gunpowder. In fact, Rabelais, who never invented anything, but embellished and adorned everything, did not invent Gargantua. In the sequel or second book, Pantagruel, the author departed from his first plan: he no longer wrote pure burlesque: serious ideas are set forth side by side with overwhelming nonsense, and the reader steps from unbridled fancy into regions of sense and wisdom. In order to make the first book correspond with the second, Rabelais wrote it all over again, with the result that it is fuller of sense and wisdom than the second. Both books had a prodigious success. They were published under the anagram of Alcofribas Nasier.
At the same time he began his almanac, which he continued for eighteen years. These are all lost except a few fragments.
In 1534 he accompanied his old friend and patron, Cardinal Du Bellay, to Rome. He promised himself great things on this expedition. He would visit the Italian scholars; he would find new plants; he would dig and discover great things; he would study the topography of Rome. In the end he returned with Marliani's book on Rome, which he translated and published with notes of his own.
In 1535 new editions appeared of the Gargantua and Pantagruel. In 1536 Rabelais again went to Rome. Some of his letters from Italy to his friend Bishop d'Estissac have been preserved. He obtained absolution from the pope for having forgotten to go into a Benedictine house, for neglecting his Hours, and for practising medicine. He also received permission to go into any Benedictine house which would receive him—time being of course taken to find one. He was enabled to hold ecclesiastical offices, to practise medicine without fees, without the knife, and without fire. He now had nothing to fear from his old enemies of Fontenay le Comte. He amused himself in Italy with collecting curious plants—to Rabelais France first, and England next, owes the melon, artichoke, and carnation: he sent seeds to the bishop and bought curiosities for him.
In 1537 he is found in Paris at the great literary banquet held in honour of Dolet's escape from a charge of murder rising out of accidental homicide. From 1537 to 1539 he resided and taught at Montpellier. In the latter year he went to Lyons, where he stayed a short time only, removing to Paris in 1540. Once more he made things right with the church, obtaining absolution for not having found a Benedictine house, and permission to enter the Collegiate Chapter of St Maur des Fossés instead of a convent, and to hold any benefices which might be conferred upon him. In 1543 he was at Symphorien near Lyons—where he witnessed the death of Guillaume du Bellay—at Clignon, Ligugé, and Augers.
During this time he was writing his third book. It was a dangerous time for heretics. A whisper of heresy at the outset might not only ruin the book, but also bring the author to the stake. He caused the first two books to be read to the king, who was so pleased with them that he gave permission for a new edition, and granted a license for the publication of the third. Rabelais did not avail himself of the permission for a new edition. Already many impieties had been pointed out which he declared were due to the printers, interpolations, misreadings, and so forth. Best not to bring out a new edition. But he printed his third book. This was in 1546.
In 1547 the old king died, and a reaction against liberty of thought immediately began. They attacked Rabelais. Not content with finding impieties in the first three books, they printed a thing which they called his fourth book. Rabelais fled: he went to Metz, where he practised medicine. Cardinal Du Bellay, himself suspected of liberal tendencies, withdrew to Rome, whither he called Rabelais. On the birth of King Henry's eldest son great rejoicings were held in Rome. Rabelais wrote an account of these, and sent the little book to the Cardinal De Lorraine, a stroke of policy which enabled him to return, and gave him the living of Meudon.
From both sides, Catholic and Protestant, cries came that his book should be suppressed and the author burned. Nothing, however, was done. But Rabelais did not dare to proceed further with the fourth book than the eleventh chapter. There it broke short off. This was in 1549. The author, now growing old, lived quietly at his living, preached, catechised the children, and led an exemplary life.
Early in 1553, a fortnight before the parliament allowed the sale of the book, he resigned his living and went to Paris. Here, two months afterwards, he died. It was in the Rue des Jardins, parish of St Paul. They buried him at the foot of a tree, on which his name was carved. The tree was cut down a hundred years afterwards. Ten years after his death appeared the fifth and last book, which had been left in MS., unfinished and without the author's corrections.
These are the facts which have been gleaned concerning the life of this great humorist. The riotous license of his mirth, which is restrained neither by decency nor by reverence, has made him as many enemies as his wisdom has made him friends. This fault, which Rabelais shares with many writers of his age—our own dramatists were quite as bad—has been made the most of by the former, his enemies. We may grant the blot: yet it is not inherent in the book; it is not woven in the web: and when it is removed there remains the most astonishing treasury of wit, wisdom, common-sense, and satire that the world has ever seen. All, however, assumes the form of allegory: those who have no taste for allegory cannot appreciate Rabelais.
Among the many modern editions of Rabelais may be named those of Lacour and A. de Montaiglon (3 vols. 1868-73), that in the 'Collection Jannet' (7 vols. 1867-74), the Jouast edition (4 vols. 1885), and especially that in the 'Collection Lemere,' by Ch. Marty-Laveaux (in 6 vols., i. to iv., 1868-81). See Delécluze, Rabelais (Paris, 1841); Lacroix, Rabelais, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres (Paris, 1859); Fleury, Rabelais (2 vols. Paris, 1874); Urquhart and Motteux's English translation (1653-94, suppressed); the present writer's Rabelais (Blackwood's Foreign series, 1879), and his Readings in Rabelais (1881); Stapfer, Rabelais (1889); Heulhard, Rabelais: ses Voyages en Italie, son Exil à Metz (1891); René Millet, Rabelais ('Grands Écrivains,' 1893).