Master Eudemon, his page.
'Your Majesty sees this child ? ' he asked. ' He is not yet twelve years old; yet I dare promise that he will prove to Your Majesty, if it be your pleasure, what difference there really is between the old dreamers of the past and the lads of the present.'
' So be it,' cried the old Giant, gaily, as he put on his glasses, to see the better.
When his eyes first fell on the young page, he swore under his breath — which sounded for all the world like stifled thunder — that he resembled rather 'a little angel than a human child.' As soon as Eudemon was called to show what he knew, he rose with youthful modesty, and bowed with charming grace to the King, then to his master, and then to Gargantua, who was frowning at him, and wondering within himself what all those pretty ways meant. Then the young page opened in a Latin so good, so pure, and so musical that what he said sounded rather like a speech made by a Gracchus, or a Cicero, or an Emilius, in the old days of Roman glory, than one made by a youth of that day. After a little, Eudemon — cunning rogue that he was ! — began to praise Gargantua to the skies. He spoke first of his young Prince's virtue and good manners; secondly, of his knowledge; thirdly, of his noble birth; fourthly, of his personal beauty ; and fifthly, the little fellow exhorted him so movingly to revere his great father in all things that Gar-gautua was so ashamed at not understanding a word of what he was saying, and at not being able to Latin away as he did, forgetting that a dwarf had no business whatever to criticise a young Giant, that he began to moo-moo like a cow, and to hide his face in his cap without having ever a word to say for himself.
Here it was that Father Grandgousier grew really angry. He praised Eudemon and scolded Gargantua by turns, until at last he fell asleep among all the big bottles that had been emptied during the pretty tale of the learned little angel, which nobody around the table understood but Don Philip of the Marshes and the pretty little angel
himself. It is a bold thing at all times to awake a King without his own orders ; but when that King is a Giant, it is a bolder thing to do than ever. No one dares, for his head, disturb him, and yet, he has to be waked, or else the next morning his sneezes will make all the houses around tumble down, as Giant's colds in the head are just about as big as their bodies. Now, Gargantua being a young Giant himself, was the only one who could venture upon the liberty of waking his Father, and I have already said what he got for his pains : —
'What ! not know thy Latin ! After forty-eight years, seven months, and two days, too ! Then, my little rogue, it is to Paris thou shalt go.'
CHAPTER VIII.
GARGANTUA GOES TO PARIS, AND THE BIG MARE THAT TAKES HIM THERE.
THE trip to Paris being settled, the first thing to be agreed on was a horse large enough to carry Gargantua at his ease. There was no trouble here ; for, by good luck, it happened that there had arrived, only a few days before, the most gigantic Mare that had ever eaten hay in the Royal Stables. She had come all the way from Africa, a present from Fay-olles, the fourth king of Numidia. When Father Grandgousier went to look at the Mare, he found her a marvellous animal, indeed. She was as big as six elephants, with her hoofs split into toes. Her ears hung downward like the great ears of the goats of Languedoc. The mare was not alone in her split toes, because history tells us that the steed of Julius Csesar had the self-same toes if he hadn't the ears. But she was alone in her tail! Oh, how mighty that tail was ! It was as big as the Pillar of Saint-Mars near Langes, and just as square. If the boys and girls who are reading this are surprised, they will only have to think of what they have already read of the tails of those Scythian rams which weighed more than thirty pounds each; and of the sheep of Syria, the tails of which were so long and so heavy that they had to be rested on a cart to be carried in comfort. The Mare, in short, was so extraordinary a creature that, on seeing her for the first time, Father Grandgousier could only whistle beneath his breath.
'' That's the very beast to carry my son to Paris ! With her, all things will go well.
He will be a great scholar one of these days.'
The next day, after breakfast, the party started on their journey. First, there was Gargantua on his gigantic mare, and Avearing boots which his father had just given him, made out of the skin of the red deer; then his new teacher, Ponocrates; then his servants, among whom was the young page, Eudemon party. In the and laughing
There never was a gayer highest spirits, loudly, they jogged on, day after day, until they reached a point just above the City of Orleans. At this point, they found a
GARGANTUA'S MARE
great forest thirty-five leagues long and seventeen wide, or thereabout. The forest was very fertile in some ugly insects, known as gadflies and hornets. These flies were so large and so fierce, and so sharp-tongued and so poisonous besides, that they were the terror of all the poor horses and asses which had to pass through the forest. But Gargantua's Mare was equal to both flies and hornets. She resolved to avenge all her kindred, even though they were mere dwarfs, which had ever suffered from gadflies and hornets, and which, if she did not help them, would continue to suffer from them. The moment she got well into the forest, and the gadflies began to plague her, she first shook her tail slowly and lazily to see whether or not it was in good working order. This did not in the least frighten the insects, which kept on plaguing and stinging her more than ever. Then it was that she loosed that tail of hers to the right and the left. So well did she do this, whisking it wildly here and there, far up in the air and low down on the ground, that she whipped down the bisfffest trees, one after the other, with a crash that made the hearts of the others tremble within their very bark, with all the ease that a mower cuts down the grass. So well did she do her work that, since she passed through that forest, there never has been seen in it a single tree or a single gadfly, or a single hornet, for the whole wood on that day became the open country, and has been open country ever since.
When Gargantua, who hadn't noticed what his Mare had been doing, saw this, he only laughed, while he said to Ponocrates in his old-time French : — ' Je trouve beau-ce I ' which, translated freely into English, would mean : — 'I find this fine.'
And, from that day to this, the country above the City of Orleans, in France, has been called La Beauce.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PARISIANS LAUGH AT GARGANTUA. HE TAKES HIS REVENGE BY STEALING THE GREAT BELLS OF NOTRE-DAME.
THE first thing Gargantua did, on reaching Paris, was to make a resolve that he and his people should have a gay time. Some days after, when they had all rested well and had feasted until they were full of good eating and drinking, Gargantua started on a stroll through the town to find what was to be seen. The Paris Gargantua saw was not the Paris of to-day, — not nearly so mighty a city as it has since become. But its people then were every bit as fond of merry-making and of seeing shows as they are now. One who lived in those days, and who boasted that he knew the Parisians better than they did themselves, says that they were so silly and so stupid by nature that it only took a rope-dancer, dancing on his rope, or a Merry-Andrew playing at his tricks, or a bawler of old scraps, or a blind fiddler, or a hurdy-gurdy in the market-place, to appear, to draw a bigger crowd than the holiest and most eloquent preacher. Now, a Giant like Gargantua was himself such a show as the people of Paris had never before set their silly eyes on. Of course they swarmed around him with staring eyes and open mouths, pushing against him here, and knocking against him there, in their strong desire to see as much of him as they could. They troubled him almost as much as the flies and hornets of La Beauce had troubled his mare. Some, bolder than the rest, even ran
