tre, those by their art they did renew by tendering them to cocks to be eaten, as they used to give casting unto hawks.

All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did constrain them to eat, drink, nor do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed:

FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS

Because men that are free, well born, well bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions and withdraws them. from vice, which is called honor. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break the bond of servitude; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied.

By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation: to do all of them what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants or ladies should say, "Let us drink," they would all drink. If any one of them said, "Let us play," they all played. If one said, "Let us go for our delight into the fields," they went all. If it were to go a-hawking or a-hunting, the ladies, mounted upon well-paced nags, carried on their lovely fists (miniardly begloved every one of them) either a sparrow-hawk, or a laneret, or a merlin, and the gallants carried the other kinds of birds. So nobly were they taught, that there was not one amongst them but could read, write, sing, play upon musical instruments, speak five or six several languages, and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never were seen knights so valiant, so noble and worthy, so dexterous and skillful both on foot and a-horseback, more active, more nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of weapons, than were there. Never were seen ladies so proper, so miniard, less forward, or more ready with hand and needle in every honest and free action belonging to that sex, than were there.

For this reason, when the time came that any man of the said abbey, either at the request of his parents or for some other cause, had a mind to go out of it, he carried along with him one of the ladies,-namely, her whom he had before that chosen for his mistress,- and they were married together. And if they had formerly in Thelema lived in devotion and amity, much more did they continue therein in the state of matrimony; and did entertain that mutual love till the very last day of their life, in no less vigor and fervency than at the very day of their wedding.

All the foregoing citations are made from Readings from Rabelais,' by Walter Besant