The work made a great noise; the Sorbonne
resolved to attack it, in spite of the king's approbation; but Francis I.
died on the 31st of March, 1547. Rabelais relapsed into his life of
embarrassment and vagabondage; on leaving France he had recourse, first
at Metz and afterwards in Italy, to the assistance of his old and ever
well-disposed patron, Cardinal John Du Bellay. On returning to France he
obtained from the new king, Henry II., a fresh faculty for the printing
of his books "in Greek, Latin, and Tuscan;" and, almost at the same time,
on the 18th of January, 1551, Cardinal Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris,
conferred upon him the cure of St. Martin at Meudon, "which he
discharged," says his biographer Colletet, "with all the sincerity, all
the uprightness, and all the charity that can be expected of a man who
wishes to do his duty, and to the satisfaction of his flock."
Nevertheless, when the new holder of the cure at Meudon, shortly after
his installation, made up his mind to publish the fourth book of the
_Faits et Dicts heroiques du bon Pantagruel,_ the work was censured by
the Sorbonne and interdicted by decree of Parliament, and authority to
offer it for sale was not granted until, on the 9th of February, 1552,
Rabelais had given in his resignation of his cure at Meudon, and of
another cure which he possessed, under the title of benefice, in the
diocese of Le Mans. He retired in bad health to Paris, where he died
shortly afterwards, in 1553, "in Rue des Jardins, parish of St. Paul, in
the cemetery whereof he was interred," says Colletet, "close to a large
tree which was still to be seen a few years ago."

Such a life, this constant change of position, profession, career, taste,
patron, and residence, bore a strong resemblance to what we should
nowadays call a Bohemian life; and everything shows that Rabelais'
habits, without being scandalous, were not more regular or more dignified
than his condition in the world. Had we no precise and personal
information about him in this respect, still his literary work,
_Gargantua and Pantagruel,_ would not leave us in any doubt: there is no
printed book, sketch, conversation, or story, which is more coarse and
cynical, and which testifies, whether as regards the author or the public
for whom the work is intended, to a more complete and habitual
dissoluteness in thought, morals, and language. There is certainly no
ground for wondering that the Sorbonne, in proceeding against