A History of the French Novel (Vol. 1&2). Saintsbury George
The birth, and what we may call the two educations, of Gargantua; the repetition, with sufficient differences, of the same plan in the opening of Pantagruel; the appearance of Panurge and the campaign against the Dipsodes; the great marriage debate; and the voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle, are connected merely in "chronicle" fashion. The character-links are hardly stronger, for though Friar John does play a more or less important part from almost the beginning to quite the end, Panurge, the most important and remarkable single figure, does not appear for a considerable time, and the rest are shadows. The scene is only in one or two chapters nominally placed in Nowhere; but as a whole it is Nowhere Else, or rather a bewildering mixture of topical assignments in a very small part of France, and allegorical or fantastic descriptions of a multitude of Utopias. And yet, once more, it is a whole story. As you read it you almost forget what lies behind, you quite forget the breaches of continuity, and press on to what is before, almost as eagerly, if not quite in the same fashion, as if the incidents and the figures were not less exciting than those of Vingt Ans Après. Let us hope it may not be excessive to expend a few pages on a sketch of this strange story that is no story, with, it may be, some fragments of translation or paraphrase (for, as even his greatest translator, Urquhart, found, a certain amount of his own Fay ce que voudras is necessary with Rabelais) here and there.
Gargantua.
Master Francis does not exactly plunge into the middle of things; but he spends comparatively little time on the preliminaries of the ironical Prologue to the "very illustrious drinkers," on the traditionally necessary but equally ironical genealogy of the hero, on the elaborate verse amphigouri of the Fanfreluches Antidotées, and on the mock scientific discussion of extraordinarily prolonged periods of pregnancy. Without these, however, he will not come to the stupendous banquet of tripe (properly washed down, and followed by pleasant revel on the "echoing green") which determined the advent of Gargantua into the world, which enabled Grandgousier, more fortunate than his son on a future occasion, to display his amiability as a husband and a father unchecked by any great sorrow, and which was, as it were, crowned and sealed by that son's first utterance—no miserable and ordinary infant's wail, but the stentorian barytone "A boire!" which rings through the book till it passes in the sharper, but not less delectable treble of "Trinq!" And then comes a brief piece, not narrative, but as characteristic perhaps of what we may call the ironical moral of the narrative as any—a grave remonstrance with those who will not believe in ceste estrange nativité.
The birth and education.
I doubt me ye believe not this strange birth assuredly. If ye disbelieve, I care not; but a respectable man—a man of good sense—always believes what people tell him and what he finds written. Does not Solomon say (Prov. xiv.), "The innocent [simple] believeth every word" etc.? And St. Paul (1 Cor. xiii.), "Charity believeth all things"? Why should you not believe it? "Because," says you, "there is no probability[91] in it." I tell you that for this very and only reason you ought to believe with a perfect faith. For the Sorbonists say that faith is the evidence of things of no probability.[92] Is it against our law or our faith? against reason? against the Sacred Scriptures?[93] For my part I can find nothing written in the Holy Bible which is contrary thereto. But if the Will of God had been so, would you say that He could not have done it? Oh for grace' sake do not make a mess of your wits in such vain thoughts. For I tell you that nothing is impossible with God.
And Divinity being done with, the Classics and pure fantasy are drawn upon; the incredulous being finally knocked down by a citation from Pliny, and a polite request not to bother any more.
This is, of course, the kind of passage which has been brought against Rabelais, as similar ones have been brought against Swift, to justify charges of impiety. But, again, it is not necessary to bother (tabuster) about that. Any one who cannot see that it is the foolish use of reverend things and not the things themselves that the satire hits, is hardly worth argument. But there is no doubt that this sort of mortar, framework, menstruum, canvas, or whatever way it may be best metaphored, helps the apparent continuity of the work marvellously, leaving, as it were, no rough edges or ill-mended joints. It is, to use an admirable phrase of Mr. Balfour's about a greater matter, "the logical glue which holds together and makes intelligible the multiplicity" of the narrative units, or perhaps instead of "intelligible" one should here say "appreciable."
Sometimes the "glue" of ironic comment rather saturates these units of narrative than surrounds or interjoins them, and this is the case with what follows. The infantine peculiarities of Gargantua; his dress and the mystery of its blue and white colours (the blue of heaven and the white of the joy of earth); how his governesses and he played together; what smart answers he made; how he became early both a poet and an experimental philosopher—all this is recounted with a marvellous mixture of wisdom and burlesque, though sometimes, no doubt, with rather too much of haut goût seasoning. Then comes the, in Renaissance books, inevitable "Education" section, and it has been already noted briefly how different this is from most of its group (the corresponding part of Euphues may be suggested for comparison). Even Rabelais does not escape the main danger—he neglects a little to listen to the wisest voice, "Can't you let him alone?" But the contrasts in the case of Gargantua, the general tenor (that good prince profiting by his own experience for his son's benefit) in that of Pantagruel, are not too "improving," and are made by their historian's "own sauce" exceedingly piquant. Much as has been written on the subject, it is not easy to be quite certain how far the "Old" Learning was fairly treated by the "New." Rabelais and Erasmus and the authors of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum are such a tremendous overmatch for any one on the other side, that the most judicial as well as judicious of critics must be rather puzzled as to the real merits of the case. But luckily there is no need to decide. Enjoyment, not decision, is the point, and there is no difficulty in that. How Gargantua was transferred from the learned but somewhat, as the vulgar would say, "stick-in-the-mud" tutorship of Master Thubal Holofernes, who spent eighteen years in reading De Modis Significandi with his pupil, and Master Jobelin Bridé, who has "become a name"—not exactly of honour; how he was transferred to the less antiquated guidance of Ponocrates, and set out for Paris on the famous dappled mare, whose exploits in field and town were so alarming, and who had the bells of Notre Dame hung round her neck, till they were replaced rather after than because of the remonstrance of Master Janotus de Bragmardo; how for a time, and under Sorbonic direction, he wasted that time in short and useless study, with long intervals of card-playing, sleeping, etc. etc., and of course a great deal of eating and drinking, "not as he ought and as he ought not"—all this leads up to the moment when the sage Ponocrates takes him again in hand, and institutes a strenuous drill in manners, studies, manly exercises, and the like, ending with one of those extraordinary flashes of perfect style and noble meaning which it pleases Rabelais to emit from what some call his "dunghill" and others his "marine-store."
Also they prayed to God the Creator, adoring Him, and solemnly repledging to Him their faith, and glorifying Him for His boundless goodness; while, giving Him thanks for all time past, they commended themselves to His divine mercy for all the future. This done, they turned to their rest.
The war.
It is only after this serious training that the first important division of what may be called the action begins—the "War of the Cakes," in which certain outrageous bakers, subjects of King Picrochole of Lerné, first refuse the custom of the good Grandgousier's shepherds, and then violently assault them, the incident being turned by the choleric monarch into a casus belli against the peaceful one. Invasion, the early triumph of the aggressor, the triumphant appearance of the invincible Friar John, and the complete turning of the tables by the advent of Gargantua and his terrible mare, follow each other in rapid and brilliant telling, and perhaps no parts of the book are better known. The extraordinary felicity with which Rabelaisian irony—here kept in quieter but intenser activity than almost anywhere else—seizes and renders the common causes, excuses, manners, etc., of war can never have escaped competent readers; but it must have struck more persons of late than perhaps at any former