'' Ho ! ho ! ho ! I have it now ! I shall keep my beautiful bells to please my father, and pay the Parisians, all at the same time. I send my mare home to-morrow. Every little donkey nowadays wears a collar with jingling bells. My Mare shall carry at her neck the bells of Notre Dame ! "
Gargantua went straight to the stable where his Mare had already found her fodder, and, with great care, while Gymnaste, his squire, held the candle, placed the bells of Notre Dame, one by one, around her neck. The city was greatly excited at the loss of the bells ; and, the next day, there came a long line of grave, black-robed men who proved to him in learned speeches that the holy church of Notre Dame had a right to her own bells. Gargantua, now that all the excitement had passed, felt that he had done a very silly thing, and could only say that the bells were not lost; but that if their worships would go to the stable, they would find them still hanging from the neck of his great Mare. After further talk, and much good drinking, the grave, black-robed men — who, if the whole truth were to be told, were not a little afraid of the Giant—picked up heart to say : " Give us back our bells, and we shall bind ourselves to give your Mare free grazing in the forest of Biere, so long as Your Highness honors us with your presence."
Gargantua was very willing to accept this offer. The bells were taken back in great state to Notre Dame, where — God bless them ! — they may be seen, and heard too, when the sun shines and when the rain falls, to this very day.
CHAPTER X.
PONOCRATES, THE NEW TEACHER, DESIRES GARGANTUA TO SHOW HIM HOW HE USED TO STUDY WITH OLD MASTER HOLOFERNES.
GARGANTUA was a good son, as we have already seen. He knew that he had been sent to Paris to learn Latin. So, after a few days of pleasure, he dutifully offered to begin a course of study with his new teacher, Po-nocrates. But Ponocrates himself was just a little curious to know how old Master Holofernes had managed to teach his big pupil so as to leave him, after fifty-three years, ten months, and ten days, just as much a booby as he had found him. "Let Your Highness," Ponocrates said, " do precisely as you used to do with your old master." And Gargantua, greatly relieved, as you may imagine, began to live in Paris the very life he used to live at home. And this is the way he lived. He woke up between eight and nine o'clock every morning, whether it was light or not. The first thing he did after waking was to make a tent of the sheets of the bed, raising one of his tall legs as the centre-pole and watching how the big sheet fell on either side. After the tent was brought down, Gargantua would begin to gambol and roll around in his bed, to stand on his head, to twist his huge limbs in every sort of twirl, and to turn any number of somersaults, single, double, treble, and quadruple, in a way that would make one of our modern acrobats turn green with envy. After that he would rise and dress himself according to the season. But, in the old home days, he generally wore a large robe of rough cloth, lined with fox-skins, and so he brought out of his trunk the very garment itself, looking rather worn and shabby. The next thing was to comb his head with a " German comb," which was the name given in those days to the easiest way of combing, since it meant a comb made by the four fingers and the thumb. For old Master Holofernes had always enjoined this habit on him, saying that it _._. was a waste of time for him to smooth his hair in any other way, and with any better co
Being now dressed, Gargantua went through a series of performances which — considering that they came from a Giant — must have been very startling, indeed. He gaped, stretched, coughed, spit, groaned, sneezed, hiccoughed, and then, with a broad smile, declared himself ready to breakfast on fried tripe, grilled steaks, colossal hams, magnificent roast, and a noble soup. All this feast was made hot with mustard, shovelled down his throat by four of his servants.
Master Ponocrates, one day, thought it his duty, as the teacher charged with the education of his royal pupil, to suggest that it was hardly right for him to eat so heavy a breakfast without having already taken some exercise. Gargantua was ready with his answer.
"How can you say so, Master?" he asked ; "have I not exercised
GARGANTUA GETS UP.
enough ? Have I not stretched myself on the bed in all sorts of ways until my muscles are sore ? Isn't that enough? Pope Alexander the V. used to do the same, by the advice of his Jewish doctor, and he lived, as you know, until he died. I feel very well from my break-fast, and am already
GARGANTUA BREAKFASTS.
beginning to think of my dinner."
- Ponocrates must have been satisfied with this little speech of his pupil; for, after grumbling a bit under his breath, all that he did was to stroke his long beard in deep thought, while he asked himself in wonder: "How did the Prince ever happen to hear about Pope Alexander?" and let the young Giant continue his course, while he himself continued to wonder.
After breakfast Gargantua went to church,—you may be sure he kept away from Notre Dame! Behind him, on his way to church, went nine of the stoutest lackeys, who bore, as if they would have liked to be doing anything rather than that, a big basket, which contained a breviary worthy of a Giant, since it was so heavy that, by actual weight, it was found to weigh just eleven hundred and six pounds. With that breviary, the devout young Prince entered the church and heard the Holy Mass from beginning to end. On leaving the church, he always thought it the proper thing for his breviary to be carried by oxen to his hotel. Once there, Gargantua began to study during a short half hour, with his eyes like good Saint Anthony's in the story,
"Firmly fixed upon his book;" while all the time, "his soul," as the clown of Paris, in his day, used to say, "was down in the kitchen."
The dinner came soon enough after his return home to satisfy even Gargantua, who was a great glutton. He used to smile as he saw the table at his new lodging-house laden with a dozen rich hams, with the best of smoked tongues, with puddings, with fine chitterlings ; and his great throat took them all down one after the other. Every day, after the meals, it
Was ms practice to wash his hands with fresh wine, and to pick his teeth with a dry pig-bone. After that he declared himself ready for his games.
GARGANTUA GOES TO CHURCH.
CHAPTER XI.
THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN GAMES OF CARDS GARGANTUA KNEW HOW TO PLAY. WHAT IT WAS HE SAID AFTER HE HAD GONE THROUGH THE LIST, AND WHAT IT WAS PONOCRATES REMARKED.
first thing Gargantua did, on rising from the dinner table, would be to call out in a cheery voice : — " SPREAD THE CARPET !"
The servants understood what that meant very well. Gaily they would unroll a large carpet, stretch it free from wrinkles, and then, in a twinkling, lay a pack of cards in the very middle of it. Then the Giant and his friends would sit down on the carpet, and begin playing cards. There were just two hundred and fifteen of these games which Gargantua knew how to play. Their names would sound odd to the card-players of this day, and I give some of the oddest on the list, so that you may know what queer games were then the fashion with the Giant and his friends : —
The Bamboozler. The Potatoes. Scotch Hoppens. The Cows. The Tables. To Steal Mustard. Skin the Fox. Sow the Hay. Sell the Hay. The Monkey.
The Combs. The Coat-brush. Nine Hands. Partridges. The Keys. The Birch Tree. Ninepins.
I pinch thee without laughing. Figs of Marseilles. Draw the Spit.