ir_[191] of Beroalde de
Verville. This eccentric work is perhaps the most perfect example of a
_fatrasie_ in existence. In the guise of guests at a banquet the author
brings in many celebrated persons of the day and of antiquity, and
makes them talk from pillar to post in the strangest possible fashion.
The licence of language and anecdote which Rabelais had permitted
himself is equalled and exceeded; but many of the tales are told with
consummate art, and, in the midst of the ribaldry and buffoonery,
remarks of no small shrewdness are constantly dropped as if by accident.
There seems to have been at the time something not unlike a serious idea
that the book was made up from unpublished papers of Rabelais himself.
All external considerations make this in the highest degree unlikely,
and the resemblances are obviously those of imitation rather than of
identical authorship. But undoubtedly nothing else of the kind comes so
near to the excellences of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_.

FOOTNOTES:

[178] Among these may be mentioned the charming story of _Jehan de
Paris_ (ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1874), which M. de Montaiglon has clearly
proved to be of the end of the fifteenth century. It is a cross between
a Roman d'aventures and a nursery tale, telling how the King of France
as 'John of Paris' outwitted the King of England in the suit for the
hand of the Infanta of Spain.

[179] Ed. Jannet and Moland. 7 vols. (2nd ed.) Paris, 1873. Also ed.
Marty-Laveaux, vols. 1-4. Paris, 1870-81.

[180] The question has been again discussed since the text was written
by M. Paul Lacroix (Paris, 1881), whose facts and arguments fully bear
out the view taken here. The other side is taken, though not very
decidedly, in the fourth volume of M. Marty-Laveaux' edition. The two
contain a tolerably complete survey of the question.

[181] The best general commentary on Rabelais is that of M. J. Fleury. 2
vols. St. Petersburg, 1876-7.

[182] For an excellent account of Folengo, see Symonds' _Renaissance in
Italy_, vol. v. chap. 14.

[183] Ed. Lacour. 2 vols. Paris, 1866.

[184] Ed. Leroux de Lincy. 3 vols. Paris, 1855.

[185] She was born in 1492, and was thus two years older than her
brother Francis I. She married first the Duke d'Alencon, then Henri
d'Albert King of Navarre. Her private character has been most unjustly
attacked. She died in 1549. Marguerite is spoken of by four surnames; de
Valois from her family; d'Angouleme from her fathe