"Hold on," said Habermann, "I will go part way with you. Good-bye for so long, Jochen."

too much to heart; for your dear sister not give his consent, and allowed no marhas a good temper and a joyous heart. ried inspectors. And next thing it was She soon gets over it, and the old terma- too late, for young Jochen had spoken for gant must give in at last, for they can do her, and your mother was on his side. No, nothing without her. The young woman it was not to be," said the honest old felis the mainspring of the house. "But " low, looking pensively along his nose, "but here he drew out from his pocket an im- when I see her little rogues of twins, and mense double-cased watch, such a thing as think to myself that they ought rightly to one calls a warming-pan "really, it is be mine, listen to me, Karl, then I feel as close upon seven! I must hurry, for my if I could trample the old woman and old people need looking after.' Jochen and young Jochen into the ground together. But it is a real blessing to the old Jesuits that your sister has came into the house, with her kind heart and cheer"Good-bye, also, brother-in-law," said ful disposition; for if they had had a Jochen, and remained sitting in his corner. daughter-in-law of a different sort, they As they came out of doors, Habermann would long since have been dead and said, “But, Bräsig, how can you speak buried." so of the old people, in their son's With these words, they had come out of presence?" the hamlet, and as they turned by the "He is used to it, Karl. No devil farm-garden Habermann exclaimed, "Good could endure those two old dogs-in-the- heavens, can it be that the two old people manger. They have embroiled them- are standing on that hill?" selves with the whole neighborhood, and as for the servants, they run miles to get out of their way."

"Good heavens," said Habermann, “my poor sister! She was such a joyous child, and now in such a house, and with such a lout of a man!"

"There you are right, Karl, he is an old lout (Nüss), and Nüssler is his name; but he does not treat your sister badly, and, although he is an old blockhead and has no sort of smartness about him, he is not yet so dull that he cannot see how your sister manages the whole concern."

"The poor girl! On my account, that she might not be a burden on me, as she said, and that our old mother might see one of her children settled before her death, she took the man.

"Yes," said Brasig, with a scornful laugh, "there is the old pack of Jesuits again at their place of retirement."

"Retirement!" exclaimed Habermann. "On a hill-top!"

"It is even so, Karl. The old reptile trusts nobody, not her own children, and if she has something to say which her ordinary gestures and pantomime will not suffice for, then they always come here to this steep hill, where they can see all around if any one is within hearing, and then they shout their secrets in each other's ears. Yes, now they are in full conclave, the old woman has laid a dragon's egg, and they are setting on it together."

"She is so hasty and passionate," said Habermann. "Just see how the old woman gesticulates! What would she have?"

"I know right well what they are deliberating and ruminating upon. I can understand a hundred paces off, for I know her of old. And Karl," he added, after a little thought, raising his eyebrows, "it is best you should know all, that you may hold yourself ready; they are talking of you and your little one."

"I know all about it, Karl, I know it from my own experience. Don't you remember? It was in rye-harvest, and you said to me, Zachary,' said you, 'your activity is a disadvantage to you, you are carrying in your rye still damp.' And I said, How so?' For on Sunday we had already had Streichelber, and your sister was there also, and with such weather why shouldn't I get in my rye? And then I told you, unless I am mistaken, that of my three partners I would marry no other than your sister. Then you laughed again, so "Yes, Karl. You see if you had come mischievously, and said, she was still too with a great bag of money, they would young. What has her youth to do with have welcomed you with open arms, for it?' said I. Then you said again my money is the one thing which they hold in other two partners had the first chance, respect; but in your temporary embarrassand laughed, not believing I was in ear- ment they look upon you and your little nest; and so the matter dawdled along for | girl as nothing better than a couple of inawhile, for my gracious Herr Count would truders, who will take the bread from their

"Of me, and my little girl?" asked Habermann, in astonishment.

mouths, and from their old blockhead of a | are too sparing for that, and the old folks Jochen." will not allow us to make any changes or "God bless me!" cried Habermann, improvements. We come out right, and "why didn't I leave the child with the RasSows? What shall I do with the poor little thing? Do you know any expedient? I cannot leave her here, not even with my own sister can I leave her here."

From Macmillan's Magazine.

RABELAIS.

THE ordinary notions of Rabelais are derived partly from Pope's famous, but not very wise line, and partly from the fact of his being generally called the "curé of Meudon," an appointment which he held for less than two years, out of a life of seventy.

instance, the fact of his father having kept
an inn, and waited, looking to see him sub-
side, which he unaccountably refused to
do. In later years M. Jean Baptiste Po-
quelin, and later still, M. François Marie
Arouet, suffered a good deal from similar
taunts; while, before either of them was
born, poor Théophile Viaud, when his ene-
mies contemptuously called him Viaut,
an insult which deprived him of all claim
to territorial gentility, -was reduced to
mere dregs of despair and rage.

We picture him to ourselves as a jovial priest, with a reputation by no means doubtful; a heathen in his worship of two at least of the Latin deities: one who Rabelais, then, was of the middle class. mumbled a mass and bawled a drinking- In an evil hour, while yet a boy, he ensong; who spent the briefest time possible tered the convent of Fontenay-le-Comte, over vespers, and the longest possible over and became a Franciscan monk, one of supper; who laughed and mocked at all that order to whom all study was a crimithings human and divine; who was a hognal waste of time, and the study of Greek, for appetite, and a monkey for tricks. in particular, a deadly sin. There he reHe has been described, by men profess-mained for fifteen years, becoming a priest ing to write about him, as a Lutheran, a about the year 1511. Very fortunately Catholic, a Calvinist; as a great moral for himself, he had made, before putting teacher, a mere buffoon, and a notorious on the monastic robe, some friends who infidel. Partizans look on this many-sided never deserted him, especially André Timan from their own side only. For, in a raqueau, who helped him in his sorest way, he was most of these things. He was need; Geoffroi d'Estissac, afterwards, Bisha Catholic, inasmuch as he never left the op of Maillezais; and the brothers Du Church in which he was born; he was a Bellay, all of whom became eminent men. Protestant, so far as he devoted his best energies to pour contempt on abuses which were the main causes of Protestantism; and he was an infidel to the extent of refusing to accept the teaching either of Rome or of Geneva, of Luther or the Sorbonne. To paint him as a moral teacher alone is to ignore the overwhelming drollery of his character; while to set him up as a mere merry-andrew is to forget the earnestness not much like that of the nineteenth century, but something as real, if not so feverish — which underlies his writings, and makes itself felt whenever he is not laughing with you and for you.

Let us get at the real story of his life. The facts are not many, so far as they can be ascertained, and will not take long telling.

He was born about the year 1483,* at Chinon, in Touraine, where his father appears to have had a hostelry and a small farm. A good deal of discussion has been raised as to the quality and condition of his family, but after four hundred years we can afford to be careless about the question. In those days, and indeed long afterwards, lowness of birth furnished a tremendous weapon of offence in literary controversy. They hurled at Rabelais, for

This date is disputed, some putting his birth in the year 1495. There does not seem suflicient reason for departing from the received tradition.

Perhaps by the help of these friends, perhaps by his own ingenuity, he found means to carry on his studies, and even to keep up a correspondence in Greek with Budæus. It was somewhere about 1520 that the Chapter of the convent who, one would think, must have had for some time suspicions of the abominable thing going on within their walls - made a sudden raid on the cells of Rabelais and his friend Pierre Lamy, and found there, not without horror, Greek books. Then a mysterious event occurred, for which no reasons, save vague and incredible reasons, have ever been assigned. Rabelais was condemned to the punishment called "in pace; that is, to imprisonment in the dungeons of the convent for the whole term of his natural life, on bread and water. How long he remained in this seclusion we do not know. His friends, and especially Tiraqueau, now Governor of Touraine, getting some inkling of his misfortune, managed, by force, it is said, to get him out. He appears to have then gone into hiding for some time, until, by the special permission of the Pope, in 1524, he passed over to the Benedictine Order, into the Abbey of Maillezais. Here he was further permitted to hold whatever benefices might be given him, in spite of his Franciscan vow of poverty.

Once having got his protection from the Franciscans, Rabelais seems to have cared

very little about conciliating the Benedic-| practise medicine gratuitously, and as tines. On the contrary, he threw aside soon as possible he got back to France. the monastic garb altogether, put on that He was now getting old. Peace and of a secular priest, and became secretary tranquillity came to him at last. He got to the Bishop of Maillezais. Perhaps the permission of the Pope to quit the BeneBenedictines were content to see him go. dictine Order, the habit of which he had His presence among them would be cer- previously laid aside. The powerful famtainly considered as a gêne, and probably ily Du Bellay protected and loved him. an insult. It was as if among the magic The Cardinal gave him a Canonry; Marcircle of the Senior Fellows-say, of tin du Bellay (the roi d'Yvetot) enterTrinity- were intruded one whose chief tained him in Normandy, Réné du Bellay article of belief was that all fellowships at Maur; and Guillaume du Bellay, should be abolished, and who was known Seigneur de Langey, had the author of to secretly advocate the sale of college "Pantagruel" with him as much as he livings and the abolition of college feasts. could. It is uncertain how long he remained In 1546 appeared the "third book," with the Bishop. Somewhere about 1530 protected by royal privilege. The aphe went to the University of Montpellier. pearance of this, and the failure of the His feats at that school of learning are too Sorbonne either to prevent its appearance long to narrate; how he was received or to prosecute the author, caused 'a long among them by acclamation; how he series of vexatious attempts to attack pleaded the privileges of the university in him through numerous imitations of his -let us say, n different languages, the work. These all fell to the ground, and number varying according to the imagina- leaving his enemies to do their worst, he tion of the narrator; how he wrote and went once more to Rome, in 1548, with acted farces; how he lectured, and how he Cardinal du Bellay. laughed. After two years at Montpellier he went to Lyons, on the invitation of his friend, Etienne Dolet. Here he published the second volume of the medical letters of Manardi, "Hippocratis et Galeni libri aliquot;" and a forgery, of which he was the dupe, of a Latin will. Finding that the demand for these works was but small, he revenged himself, as tradition says, with considerable air of probability, by writing the " Chronique Gargantuine."

This had an enormous and immediate success, and was followed, in 1533, by the first book of "Pantagruel," of which three editions were sold the same year; and in 1534 by "Gargantua," a revised and much altered edition of the "Chronique." In 1534 he accompanied Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, in his journey to Rome, whither he went to effect a reconciliation, if possible, between Henry the Eighth and the Pope. Returning to Lyons, he did good service to literature by publishing Marliani's "Topography of Ancient Rome," and at the same time an Almanack for 1535. The affair of the placards at Paris happened about this time, and Rabelais, as deeply inimical to the Sorbonne as any, thought it prudent, with all the band of novateurs and free-thinkers, to take refuge in Italy till the storm blew over. He seems to have chosen the safest place in Europe for a man of heretical opinions Rome; here he obtained permission to lay aside the Benedictine habit and to

|

Through the influence of Diane de Poitiers, he obtained a privilege from Henry the Second for his fourth book." It was printed in 1552, but prevented from appearing till the following year.

In January 1553 he resigned his living of St. Christophe, which had been given him by Réné du Bellay. On the 9th of February he resigned the living of Meudon, which he had held for two years only. His "fourth book" appeared in March, and in April he died.

It is important to bear in mind, when reading his works, some of their dates: His birth.

1483.
1533.

1534.

1546.

1553.

Pantagruel, Book I. — commonly called
the second book.
Pantagruel, Book II. — called the third
Gargantua.

book.

Pantagruel, Book III.-called the fourth.

His death

And, in 1562, appeared the first sixteen chapters of the last book.

The "fourth book," therefore, was given to the world a few days before his death while the last did not appear till ten years afterwards.

When the first book of "Pantagruel" was written, the author was fifty years of age. It was not the work of a young man; there was no justification for its faults on the score of youth, and no inexperience to plead in modification of its