Gargantua and Pantagruel | Page 9

to one point--the misunderstanding of the
atmosphere in which the book was created, and the ignoring of the
examples of a similar tendency furnished by literature as well as by the
popular taste. Was it not the Ancients that began it? Aristophanes,
Catullus, Petronius, Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas
as well as in the words they used, and they dragged after them in this
direction not a few of the Latin poets of the Renaissance, who believed
themselves bound to imitate them. Is Italy without fault in this respect?
Her story-tellers in prose lie open to easy accusation. Her Capitoli in
verse go to incredible lengths; and the astonishing success of Aretino
must not be forgotten, nor the licence of the whole Italian comic theatre
of the sixteenth century. The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards
a Cardinal, and the Mandragola of Machiavelli, are evidence enough,
and these were played before Popes, who were not a whit embarrassed.
Even in England the drama went very far for a time, and the comic
authors of the reign of Charles II., evidently from a reaction, and to
shake off the excess and the wearisomeness of Puritan prudery and
affectation, which sent them to the opposite extreme, are not exactly
noted for their reserve. But we need not go beyond France. Slight
indications, very easily verified, are all that may be set down here; a
formal and detailed proof would be altogether too dangerous.
Thus, for instance, the old Fabliaux--the Farces of the fifteenth century,
the story-tellers of the sixteenth--reveal one of the sides, one of the
veins, so to speak, of our literature. The art that addresses itself to the
eye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptures on
the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of
certain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was,
without any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet

she used to go up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes
were not offended at seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent
carving of a monk and a nun. Neither did she tear out of her book of
Hours the large miniature of the winter month, in which, careless of her
neighbours' eyes, the mistress of the house, sitting before her great
fireplace, warms herself in a fashion which it is not advisable that
dames of our age should imitate. The statue of Cybele by the Tribolo,
executed for Francis I., and placed, not against a wall, but in the middle
of Queen Claude's chamber at Fontainebleau, has behind it an attribute
which would have been more in place on a statue of Priapus, and which
was the symbol of generativeness. The tone of the conversations was
ordinarily of a surprising coarseness, and the Precieuses, in spite of
their absurdities, did a very good work in setting themselves in
opposition to it. The worthy Chevalier de La-Tour- Landry, in his
Instructions to his own daughters, without a thought of harm, gives
examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's translation these
are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed at Bruges by
Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers that they
were the little society diversions of the Duchesses of Burgundy and of
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