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The next year, 1530, while still a scholar himself, he was appointed procurator of the scholars–a post which brought him in a small fee on each matriculation–and that year he took a fee, among others, from one of the most remarkable men of that or of any age, Francois Rabelais himself.

And what shall I say of him?–who stands alone, like Shakespeare, in his generation; possessed of colossal learning–of all science which could be gathered in his days–of practical and statesmanlike wisdom–of knowledge of languages, ancient and modern, beyond all his compeers–of eloquence, which when he speaks of pure and noble things becomes heroic, and, as it were, inspired–of scorn for meanness, hypocrisy, ignorance–of esteem, genuine and earnest, for the Holy Scriptures, and for the more moderate of the Reformers who were spreading the Scriptures in Europe,–and all this great light wilfully hidden, not under a bushel, but under a dunghill. He is somewhat like Socrates in face, and in character likewise; in him, as in Socrates, the demigod and the satyr, the man and the ape, are struggling for the mastery. In Socrates, the true man conquers, and comes forth high and pure; in Rabelais, alas! the victor is the ape, while the man himself sinks down in cynicism, sensuality, practical jokes, foul talk. He returns to Paris, to live an idle, luxurious life; to die–says the legend–saying, “I go to seek a great perhaps,” and to leave behind him little save a school of Pantagruelists–careless young gentlemen, whose ideal was to laugh at everything, to believe in nothing, and to gratify their five senses like the brutes which perish. There are those who read his books to make them laugh; the wise man, when he reads them, will be far more inclined to weep. Let any young man who may see these words remember, that in him, as in Rabelais, the ape and the man are struggling for the mastery. Let him take warning by the fate of one who was to him as a giant to a pigmy; and think of Tennyson’s words:–

“Arise, and fly
The reeling faun, the sensual feast;
Strive upwards, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.”

But to return. Down among them there at Montpellier, like a brilliant meteor, flashed this wonderful Rabelais, in the year 1530. He had fled, some say, for his life. Like Erasmus, he had no mind to be a martyr, and he had been terrified at the execution of poor Louis de Berquin, his friend, and the friend of Erasmus likewise. This Louis de Berquin, a man well known in those days, was a gallant young gentleman and scholar, holding a place in the court of Francis I., who had translated into French the works of Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, and had asserted that it was heretical to invoke the Virgin Mary instead of the Holy Spirit, or to call her our Hope and our Life, which titles–Berquin averred–belonged alone to God. Twice had the doctors of the Sorbonne, with that terrible persecutor, Noel Beda, at their head, seized poor Berquin, and tried to burn his books and him; twice had that angel in human form, Marguerite d’Angouleme, sister of Francis I., saved him from their clutches; but when Francis–taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia–at last returned from his captivity in Spain, the suppression of heresy and the burning of heretics seemed to him and to his mother, Louise of Savoy, a thank-offering so acceptable to God, that Louis Berquin–who would not, in spite of the entreaties of Erasmus, purchase his life by silence–was burnt at last on the Place de Greve, being first strangled, because he was of gentle blood.

Montpellier received its famous guest joyfully. Rabelais was now forty- two years old, and a distinguished savant; so they excused him his three years’ undergraduate’s career, and invested him at once with the red gown of the bachelors. That red gown–or, rather, the ragged phantom of it–is still shown at Montpellier, and must be worn by each bachelor when he takes his degree. Unfortunately, antiquarians assure us that the precious garment has been renewed again and again–the students having clipped bits of it away for relics, and clipped as earnestly from the new gowns as their predecessors had done from the authentic original.