peace and the Abbey of Thelema.]

The conclusion of _Gargantua_--after the victor has addressed a _concio_
to the vanquished, has mildly punished the originators of the trouble or
those he could catch (Spadassin and Merdaille having run away "six hours
before the battle") by setting them to work at his newly established
printing-press, and has distributed gifts and estates to his
followers--may be one of the best known parts of the whole book, but is
not of the most strictly novel character, though it has suggested at
least one whole novel and parts or passages of others. The "Abbey of
Thelema"--the home of the order of _Fay ce que vouldras_--is, if not a
devout, a grandiose imagination, and it gives occasion for some
admirable writing. But it is one of the purest exercises of "purpose,"
and one of the least furnished with incident or character, to be found
in Rabelais. In order to introduce it, he may even be thought guilty of
what is extremely rare with him, a fault of "keeping." He avoids this
fault surprisingly in the contrasted burlesque and serious chronicles of
Grandgousier and Gargantua himself, as well as in the expanded contrast
of Pantagruel and Panurge. Yet the heartiest admirer of "Friar John of
the Funnels" (or "Collops," for there is a schism on this point) may
fail to see in him a suitable or even a possible Head for an assemblage
of gallant gentlemen and stately ladies (both groups being also
accomplished scholars) like the Thelemites. But Rabelais, like
Shakespeare, had small care for small objections. He wanted to sketch a
Paradise of Anti-Monkery, and for this he wanted an Anti-Abbot. Friar
John was the handiest person, and he took him. But it is worth noting
that the Abbot of Thelema never afterwards appears as such, or in the
slightest relation to this miniature but most curious and interesting
example of the Renaissance fancy for imaginary countries, cities,
institutions, with its splendours of architecture and decoration, its
luxurious but not loose living, its gallantry and its learning, its
gorgeous dress, its polished manners (the Abbot must have had some
trouble to learn them), and its "inscriptions and enigmas" in verse
which is not quite so happy as the prose. One would not cut it out of
the book for anything, and parallels to it (not merely of the kind above
referred to) have found and may find place in other books of fiction.
But it is only a sort of chantry, in the Court of the Gentiles