[9]"J'ai pris plaisir de publier en plusieurs lieux l'espérance que j'ai de Marie de Gournay le Jars, ma fille d'alliance, et certes aimée de moi beaucoup plus que paternellement, et envellopée en ma retraite et solitude comme l'une des meilleures parties de mon propre estre: je ne regarde plus qu'elle au monde. Si l'adolescence peut donner présage, cette alme sera quelque jour capable des plus belles choses, et entre autre de la perfection de cette très sainte amitié, ou nous ne lisons point que son sexe ayt peu monter encores: la sincérité et la solidité de ses mœurs y sont déjà bastantes; son affection vers moi, plus que surrabondante, et telle, en somme, qu'il n'y a rien a souhaiter, sinon que l'appréhension qu'elle a de ma fin par les cinquante et cinq ans auxquels elle ma rencontré, la travaillant moins cruellement. Le jugement qu'elle fait de mes premiers Essais, et femme, et si jeune, et seule en son quartier, et la véhémence fameuse dont elle m'aima et me désira longtemps, sur la seule estime qu'elle eu prins de moi, longtemps avant m'avoir vue, sont des accidents de très digne considération."
[10]Eleonore de Montaigne married twice. She had no children by her first marriage. Her second husband was the viscount de Gamache. From this marriage the counts of Segur are descended in the female line.
[RABELAIS]
1483-1553
Francis Rabelais,—"the great jester of France," as he is designated by Lord Bacon; a learned scholar, physician, and philosopher, as he appears from other and eminent testimonies,—was one of the most remarkable persons who figured in the revival of letters. It is his fortune, like the ancient Hercules, to be noted with posterity for many feats to which he was a stranger,—but which are always to his disadvantage. The gross buffooneries amassed by him in his nondescript romance have made his name a common mark for any extravagance or impertinence of unknown or doubtful parentage. The purveyors of anecdotes have even fixed upon him some of the lazzi, as they are called, which may be found in the stage directions of old Italian farce. Those events and circumstances of his life which are really known, or deserving of belief, may be given within a narrow compass. We, of course, reject, in this notice, all that would offend the decencies of modern and better taste.
Rabelais was born at Chinon, a small town of Touraine. The date of his birth is not ascertained; but the generally received opinion of his death, at the age of 70, in 1553, would place his birth in 1483. There is the same uncertainty respecting the condition of his father; whether that of an innkeeper or apothecary. His predilection for the study of medicine favours the latter supposition, whilst the imputed habits of his life countenance the former. If, however, he was really abandoned to intemperance, as he is represented by his adversaries, who were many and unscrupulous, it may, with equal propriety, be charged to his monastic education, at a time when cloisters were the chosen seats of debauchery and ignorance.
He received his first rudiments at the convent of Seville, near his native town, where his progress was so slow that he was removed to another in Angiers. Here also his career seemed unpromising; and the only advantage he derived was that of becoming known to the brothers Du Bellay, one of whom, afterwards bishop of Paris and cardinal, was his patron and friend through life.
From Angiers he passed to a convent of cordeliers at Fontenaye-le-Compte, in Poitou. He now applied himself, for the first time, to the cultivation of his talents, but under circumstances the most unfavourable. The cordeliers of Fontenaye-le-Compte had no library, or notion of its use. Rabelais assumed the habit of St. Francis, distinguished himself by his preaching, and employed what he received for his sermons and masses in providing himself with books. The animosity of his brother monks was excited against him: they envied and hated him, for his success as a preacher, and for his superior attainments;—but his great and crying sin in their eyes was his knowledge of Greek, the study of which they denounced as an unholy and forbidden art. This was perfectly consistent: they were content with Latin enough to give them an imposing air with the multitude; some did not know even so much, and, instead of a breviary, carried a wine flask exactly resembling it in exterior form.
His brother monks annoyed and harassed Rabelais by all the modes which malice, ignorance, and numbers can employ against an individual, and in a convent. The learned Budeus[11], alluding to the persecutions which he was suffering, says, in one of his letters, "I understand that Rabelais is grievously annoyed and persecuted, by those enemies of all that is elegant and graceful, for his ardour in the study of Greek literature. Oh! evil infatuation of men whose minds are so dull and stupid!" They at last condemned him to live in pace; that is to linger out the remainder of his life, on bread and water, in the prison cell of the convent.
The cause, or the pretence, of Rabelais's being thus buried alive, is described as "a scandalous adventure:" but differently related. According to some the scandal consisted in his disfiguring, by way of frolic, in concert with another young cordelier, the image of their patron saint. Others state, that on the festival of St. Francis he removed the image of the saint, and took its place. Having taken precautions to hear out the imposture, he escaped detection, until the grotesque devotions of the multitude, and the rogueries of the monks, overcame his gravity, and he laughed. The simple people, seeing the image of the saint, as they supposed it, move, exclaimed, "A miracle!" but the monks, who knew better, dismissed the laity, made their false brother descend from his niche, and gave him the discipline, with their hempen cords, until his blood appeared. We will not decide which, or whether either, of these versions be true; but it is certain that he was condemned, as we have said, to solitary confinement for life in the prison cell.