New-York tribune., 1921-11-20

dozen times in the Cargantua and the Parta-
Cruel. They show how studiously Rabelais
utilized his life at Montpelier. 1t was in this
city, also, that he and his joyous companions
played "the right moral farce of the man who
married dumb wife I never laughed
so much,,' said Rabeais.
And now that he has been fully accepted in
academic circles, they are trying to canonize
him. He really wasn't, they say, such an i'm
moderate drinker. They explain away his
pranks, and where they can't explain them
they deny them They claim that his love of
the flesh was symbolic Rabelais should be
known, according to them, as a scholar con-
scientious priest and as the finest physician of
his time. Pretty soon we shall hear of new
archange ST. Francis Of Montpelier.
But Rabelais himself would be the last 70
desire this celestial whitewashing Better than
the formal exercises attended by the President
of the French Republic, he would like the gay,
informal professions through the streets in his
honor. There the Monome, that peculiar
snake dance Of French students. Rabelais in
his time must have taken part in one. There
were torchlight parades remember that under
the influence of the hot skies and heady wines
Of Montpelier these functions are not so Gis-
pirited as they might be elsewhere). The
afternoon of the inauguration there was fes-
tival in the manner of Languedoc and in the
spirit Of Rabelais, with much good cheer, both
mental and bodily, wet and dry. There was a
gala at the municipal theater afterward
But the function that charmed me most was
the one which was least premeditated. After
the theater group of students met together
in the square before the prefecture. 1t was
there that RabeIais lived during his first year
in Montpelier, eking out his resources by tu-
toring Like his own Panurge, he was suffering
that year from the disease of an empty pocket
AS he says of Panurge, he had found sixty
three manners of filing it, all equally vain, "of
which the most honorable and the most COM
mon was by fashion of larceny, committed fur
lively" On the site of his old lodging, then,
the procession gathered.
1t was led by Gargantua and Pantagruel, In
medieval costume, mounted on high stills Fol-
. lowing them were their faithful companions
-Panurge, Epistemon, Carpalim. Friar John,
carrying bottles and punches of grapes. The
rest of US followed with the torches.
In this fashion we progressed mot silently
between Caligarsets of the Street of the
Needlemakers, following the path of Rabelsis
to his classes. On the site of his college we
drank two toasts Cor was it five?) and intoned
q chorus.
The procession then became pilgrimage,
like that of Pantagruel's, in quest of the
Oracle of Bacbuc the Oracle of the Divine
Bottle. The Oracle was situated we decided,
up the Street of the Well of the Palace, in the
former inn At the Sign of the Stump. We
wound onward, while windows were opened and
oaths shouted at in the purest Languedoc.
We found the Oracle. Instead of bottle, it
turned out to be cask, and not an empty one
at that.
Gargantua and Pantagruel tumbled down
from their stiits and we pressed after them
toward the cask. The Oracle was made TO
speak, and it spoke continually all that night
It's conversation was in seven languages and
nine vintage, and ceased only when the suR
climbed up the hill.
Afterward, through the cool morning. va
made last pilgrimage to the statue. Th>
bones of Rabelafs are lost in some obscure
churchyard in Paris, but certainly his spirit
could find no better rest than here. The city
prides itself on its gayety, its learning and its
good wine--the three things which he loved
best in life. They have put his statue in the
middle of one of the wori5's greatest and old
est botanical gardens. That also is a service
he would have appreciated, for Rabeiais was
Of the greatest hotanists of his time and
loved flowers and trees. And he would have
liked no homage better than that of the party
of bedraggled students who came, after a
sleepless night, to pour out last bottle al
wine before his statue.