Their flattering’s truly their sweetest incense,
Yet the parasites fawn for your treasures;
Ah! church love for war was ever intense,
And their doctrines mar all earthly pleasures.”
The World is so impressed by the doctor’s remarks that he immediately weds Folly. Ever since, it is needless to remark, the World has enjoyed pleasure without as much dread of fire. It is an easy matter to seize the apologue sought by the author.
Here we see, as early as the sixteenth century, the social reforms begun by medicine and continued up to the eighteenth century. The abbots, priors and other gentry of the Church, who lived in idleness and luxury, holding sinecures for which the masses were taxed; the flatterers of bastard princes, the agents of the rich and aristocratic, ruled the country and made wars costing thousands of lives for the glory of the Church—i.e., themselves. These are the parasites that epidemically attack the World.
GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL.
Among the famous galaxy of philological stars of the sixteenth century, the men who honored their age, we may enumerate Montaigne, Amyot, Calvin, Marot, Michel de l’Hospital, Etienne Dolet,[101] and the one great genius who eclipsed them all, the immortal Rabelais, who was at once physician, philosopher, politician, philanthropist and litterateur; in other words, he illustrated science and letters by his erudition, and merits a place in the ranks of glorious Frenchmen and among the list of benefactors of humanity.
Son of a wine-house keeper, the owner of the “Lamprey Tavern,” at Chinon, he took orders in the Church, following the custom of the epoch, because he wished to devote his life to study. During some years he led the life of a monk, and was a close student of Latin and Greek literature; to the latter especially he owes his concise, nervous, but virile style, resembling that of Aristophanes. But soon fatigued with religious hypocrisy, whose victim he refused to become, he left the Cordelier and Benedictine Orders and sought refuge in the charming village of Leguge, that his intimate friend, the Bishop of Maillezais, had placed at his disposal.
Here, Rabelais gave himself up with ardor to the study of belle lettres and science, only meeting socially the freethinkers, with whom he discussed those great philosophic questions that had just commenced to occupy the minds of the really thoughtful. Such superior men as Estissic, Bonaventure Desperriers, Clement Marot, Jean Bouchet, Guillaume, Bude, and Louis Berquin were the friends of Rabelais.