the great ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the French
court, which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis XI.
Rabelais' pleasantry about the woman folle a la messe is exactly in the
style of the Adevineaux.

A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept in
mind--for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated into
French--as also the Dames Galantes of Brantome. Read the Journal of
Heroard, that honest doctor, who day by day wrote down the details
concerning the health of Louis XIII. from his birth, and you will
understand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV. The jokes at a
country wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness. Le Moyen
de Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the too
celebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII., could be
written, printed, and read. The collection of songs formed by Clairambault
shows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no purer than the
sixteenth. Some of the most ribald songs are actually the work of
Princesses of the royal House.

It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, to
charge him alone with the sins of everybody else. He spoke as those of his
time used to speak; when amusing them he used their language to make
himself understood, and to slip in his asides, which without this sauce
would never have been accepted, would have found neither eyes nor ears.
Let us blame not him, therefore, but the manners of his time.

Besides, his gaiety, however coarse it may appear to us--and how rare a
thing is gaiety!--has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it; and this is
too often overlooked. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty? Where,
even indirectly, does he give pernicious advice? Whom has he led to evil