-made, foolish, humpbacked, or corrupt; nor
put any men into monasteries save those that were sickly, ill-born,
simple-witted, and a burden to their family. Therefore, it was ordained
that into this abbey of Thelema should be admitted no women that were
not beautiful and of a sweet disposition, and no men that were not
handsome, well-made, and well-conditioned. And because both men and
women that are received into religious orders are constrained to stay
there all the days of their lives, it was therefore laid down that all
men and women admitted to Thelema should have leave to depart whenever
it seemed good to them. And because monks and nuns made three vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience, it was appointed that those who
entered into the new order might be rich and honourably married and live
at liberty.

For the building of the abbey Gargantua gave twenty-seven hundred
thousand eight hundred and thirty-one long-wooled sheep; and for the
maintenance thereof he gave an annual fee-farm rent of twenty-three
hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hundred and fourteen rose nobles.
In the building were nine thousand three hundred and thirty-two
apartments, each furnished with an inner chamber, a cabinet, a wardrobe,
a chapel, and an opening into a great hall. The abbey also contained
fine great libraries and spacious picture galleries.

All the life of the Thelemites was laid out, not by laws and rules, but
according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose from their beds
when it seemed good to them; they drank, worked, ate, slept, when the
wish came upon them. No one constrained them in anything, for so had
Gargantua established it. Their rule consisted of this one clause:

DO WHAT THOU WILT

Because men are free, well-born, well-bred, conversant in honest
company, have by nature an instinct and a spur that always prompt them
to virtuous actions and withdraw them from vice; and this they style
honour. When the time was come that any man wished to leave the abbey,
he carried with him one of the ladies who had taken him for her faithful
servant, and they were married together; and if they had formerly lived
together in Thelema in devotion and friendship, still more did they so
continue in wedlock; insomuch that they loved one another to the end of
their lives, as on the first day of their marriage.

_IV.--Pantagruel and Panurge_

At the age of four hundred four score and forty-four years, Gargantua
ha