." On grounds of prudence or
necessity Rabelais then quitted Lyons and set out for Rome as physician
attached to the household of Cardinal John Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris and
envoy from France to the Holy See; the which bishop "having relished the
profound learning and competence of Rabelais, and having, besides,
discovered in him fine humor and a conversation capable of diverting the
blackest melancholy, retained him near his person in the capacity of
physician in ordinary to himself and all his family, and held him ever
afterwards in high esteem." After two years passed at Rome, and after
rendering all sorts of service in his patron's household, Rabelais,
"feeling that the uproarious life he was leading and his licentious deeds
were unworthy of a man of religion and a priest," asked Pope Paul III.
for absolution, and at the same time permission to resume the habit of
St. Benedict, and to practise "for piety's sake, without hope of gain and
in any and every place," the art of medicine, wherein he had taken, he
said, the degrees of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor. A brief of Pope
Paul III.'s, dated January 17, 1536, granted his request. Seventeen
months afterwards, on the 22d of May, 1537, Rabelais reappears at
Montpellier, and there receives, it is said, the degree of doctor, which
he had already taken upon himself to assume. He pursues his life of
mingled science and adventure, gives lessons, and gads about so much that
"his doctor's gown and cap are preserved at Montpellier, according to
tradition, all dirty and torn, but objects of respectful reminiscence."
In 1538 Rabelais leaves Montpellier, and goes to practise medicine at
Narbonne, Castres, and Lyons. In 1540 he tires of it, resumes, as he had
authority to do, the habit of a canon of St. Maur, and settles in that
residence, "a paradise," as he himself says, "of salubrity, amenity,
serenity, convenience, and all the chaste pleasures of agriculture and
country-life." Between 1540 and 1551 he is, nevertheless, found once
more wandering, far away from this paradise, in France, Italy, and,
perhaps, England; he completes and publishes, under his own name, the
_Faits et Dicts heroiques de Pantagruel,_ and obtains from Francis I. a
faculty for the publication of "these two volumes not less useful than
delightful, which the printers had corrupted and perverted in many
passages, to the great displeasure and detriment of the author, and to
the prejudice of readers."