eptameron,' and the _Contes
et Joyeux Devis_ of her servant Bonaventure des Periers. Neither of
these books was published till a considerable period after the death,
not merely of Rabelais, but of their authors.

[Sidenote: Bonaventure des Periers.]

There are few persons of the time of whom less is known than of
Bonaventure des Periers[183], and, by no means in consequence merely of
this mystery, there are few more interesting. He must have been born
somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and his friend
Dolet calls him _Aeduum poetam_, which would seem to fix his birth
somewhere in the neighbourhood at least of Autun. He was undoubtedly one
of the literary courtiers of Marguerite d'Angouleme. Finally, it seems
that in the persecution which, during the later years of Francis I.'s
reign, came upon the Protestants and freethinkers, and which the
influence of Marguerite was powerless to prevent, he committed suicide
to escape the clutches of the law. Henri Estienne, however, attributes
the act to insanity or delirium. However this may be, there is no doubt
that Des Periers was a remarkable example of a humanist. He was
certainly a good scholar, and he was also a decided freethinker. He has
left poems of some merit, but not great perhaps, some translations and
minor prose pieces, but certainly two works of the highest interest, the
_Cymbalum Mundi_ (1537) and the _Nouvelles Recreations et Joyeux Devis_
(1558). The _Cymbalum Mundi_ betrays the influence of Lucian, which was
also very strong on Rabelais. It is a work in dialogue, satirising the
superstitions of antiquity with a hardly dubious reference to the
religious beliefs of Des Periers' own day. The _Nouvelles Recreations et
Joyeux Devis_ are compact of less perilous stuff, while they exhibit
equal and perhaps greater literary skill. They consist of a hundred and
twenty-nine short tales, similar in general character to those of the
_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ and other collections. Although, however, a
great licence of subject is still allowed, the language is far less
coarse than in the work of Antoine de la Salle, while the literary
merits of the style are very much greater. Des Periers was beyond all
doubt a great master of half-serious and half-joyous French prose. Nor
is his matter much less remarkable than his style. Like Rabelais, but
with the difference that his was a more poetical temperament than that
of his greater contemporary, he has sudden