[1] Children must remember that times have changed for the better since the wild days of these old giants. To drink so hard and long that a man, from too much wine, would fall under the table and lie there because not able to move, was looked upon as a virtue then. Now, in our happier days, we know it to be a virtue for a man to keep himself sober, and a shame for him to be seen drunk.
THE KING AND QUEEN LOVE TRIPES.
King Grandgousier had a fair and stately wife named Gargamelle. She was a daughter of the King of the Parpaillons, and was herself a giantess, but not quite so tall as her husband. Grandgousier and Gargamelle dearly loved one another, and all that they wanted in this world was a son to bear the father's name, and be King after him. Queen Gargamelle liked to be in the open air, and see games of ninepins and ball and leap-frog played by nimble men and women. And Grandgousier, at such games, was always found seated at her side, like a good husband, seeming to enjoy them as much as she did.
At last, one fine day, a little boy was born to them.
He must have been a wonderful baby; because just as soon as he was born, instead of crying "Mie! mie! mie!" as any other baby would have done, he shouted out at the top of his lungs, "Drink! drink! drink!" There never were such lungs as his, everybody said. The old Doctor himself, and the Three Wise Old Women who were there, all declared that he had the biggest throat ever known,—not even excepting his father's. Now it happened that, of all the days of the year, the very day the Royal Herald had proclaimed, with flourish of trumpets, for the famous Feast of Tripes, was the very day on which the baby Prince was born. When the great news was carried to King Grandgousier, who was drinking and making merry with his friends, that he had a son, and that the young Prince was already bawling for his drink, his joy almost choked him, and he could only find breath to say in French:—
"Que grand tu as!"—meaning "What a big throat thou hast!"
Everybody, including Queen Gargamelle, when she heard of it, the family Doctor, and the Three Old Wise Women, laughed at this joke of the King, and declared that it was the very best name that could be given to the royal babe. From that moment, they began, when talking to him or speaking of him, to call him little Prince Que-grand-tu-as! Although they ran these four words trippingly together, and nobody not in the secret would have thought it more than a very strange name, yet, somehow, it was too long; and so, little by little, they kept changing till the very oldest of the Three Old Wise Women, who had been, one hot day, half-dozing over the cradle, started up suddenly, crying:—
"I have it!"
"Well, what have you?" called the second oldest, who was wide awake, sharply.