made
a professor. He delivered medical lectures, and a volume of his--an
edition of Hippocrates--was long held in high estimation by the medical
faculty of France.

A medical college of Montpellier had been deprived for some reason of
its privileges, and Rabelais was deputed to Chancellor Duprat to solicit
a restoration of them. The story is told--to illustrate his
learning--that when he knocked at the chancellor's house he addressed
the person who came to the door in Latin, who could not understand that
language; a man shortly presented himself who could, and Rabelais
addressed him in Greek. Another map was sent for, and he was addressed
in Hebrew, and so on. The singularity of the circumstance arrested the
attention of the chancellor, and Rabelais was at once invited to his
presence. He succeeded in restoring the lost honors to the college, and
such was the enthusiasm of the students that ever after, when taking
degrees, they wore Rabelais scarlet gowns. This usage continued till the
revolution.

Rabelais now went to Lyons, and still later to Rome as the physician to
Du Ballay, who was ambassador at that court. Some writers claim that he
went as buffoon instead of physician, but this is unsupported by
evidence. Many stories are told of his buffooneries at the court of
Rome, but unquestionably the majority were entirely untrue. One story
told, however, is good enough to be true. The pope expressed his
willingness to grant Rabelais a favor. The wit replied that if such was
the fact, he begged his holiness to excommunicate him. The pope wished
to know the reason. The wit replied that some very honest gentlemen of
his acquaintance in Touraine had been burned, and finding it a common
saying in Italy when a fagot would not burn "that it had been
excommunicated by the pope's own mouth," he wished to be rendered
incombustible by the same process. It is asserted that Rabelais offended
the pope by his buffooneries, but the assertion can scarcely be
believed. When he had resided for a time in Rome, Rabelais went to
Lyons, then returned to the holy city, and after a second visit went to
Paris, where he entered the family of Cardinal du Bellay, who had also
returned from Rome. He confided to Rabelais the government of his
household, and persuaded the pope to secularize the abbey of St.
Maurdes-Fosses, and conferred it upon the wit. He next bestowed upon him
the cure of Meudon, which he retained while he lived.

One of the fir