THE WONDERFUL WINDING STAIRWAY.
And so Gargantua built for his friend Friar John a Monastery greater than the Convent at Bonnivet, and the Convent at Chambourg, and the Convent at Chantilly; for his had nine thousand, three hundred and thirty-two chambers. But its greatest beauty, after all, was a wonderful winding stairway, up which six men-at-arms might ride abreast, with their six lances at rest, to the very top of the Abbey.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
GRANDGOUSIER'S DEATH.—GARGANTUA'S MARRIAGE.—PANTAGRUEL IS BORN.
After the war of the Bunmakers, all the kings and princes and nobles, for hundreds of miles around, came to congratulate the two mighty Giants. It was a time of royal feasting, and the Palace smelt more strongly of old, rich, dead dinners and suppers than ever before. For a whole year, its walls rang with laughter and joyous shouts, and then the kings and princes, nobles and friends, took to horse and returned to their homes, leaving Grandgousier and Gargantua in peace, with the love of all their subjects and the respect of their neighbors, for many happy years, over which there was but one cloud, the death of the kind old Queen Gargamelle. During all these years, more than I can now tell, Grandgousier was, of course, getting old, and at last grew so weak that he was forced to take to his bed.
"Gargantua, my boy, thou art already getting on in years," the old man said one day, after a fit of weakness, when he felt that he could not long live. "Why dost thou not marry, my son?"
"To tell the truth, Father, I have never once thought of marrying. Thou hast been so good to me that thou hast driven all thoughts of women away from me. Yet, if thou sayest the word, then shall I seek a wife."