Three Good Giants / Whose Ancient Deeds are recorded in the Ancient Chronicles

Gargantua, who was a good-hearted Giant, little knew what mischief he had done. After he had emptied all the tanks, and thrown them away, he ceased to think about the people. He had only gone on the roof to rid himself of the buzzing and nudging of the crowd; and, not hearing any more from them, he set about amusing himself. When he caught sight of the great bells of Nôtre Dâme, a happy idea struck him. He would set them to ringing and pealing! Ah, how he was charmed! their notes were so soft, so rich, so mellow, so tender, so golden! He wanted to have the bells about him all the time. Just then he thought: "These Parisians deserve a lesson for their bad manners, and I am going to revenge myself." So he at once began to pick up the bells, one after the other, as if they were so many buckets. When he had gathered them all, he leaped down from the roof and strode across the city in the direction of his hotel. Once there, a merry thought came to him, which made him drop the bells and clap his thighs with a sound that brought all the good wives of Paris—or those that remained after the affair of the tanks—to their windows.

Gargantua went straight to the stable where his Mare had already found her fodder, and, with great care, while Gymnaste, his squire, held the candle, placed the bells of Nôtre Dâme, one by one, around her neck. The city was greatly excited at the loss of the bells; and, the next day, there came a long line of grave, black-robed men who proved to him in learned speeches that the holy church of Nôtre Dâme had a right to her own bells. Gargantua, now that all the excitement had passed, felt that he had done a very silly thing, and could only say that the bells were not lost; but that if their worships would go to the stable, they would find them still hanging from the neck of his great Mare. After further talk, and much good drinking, the grave, black-robed men—who, if the whole truth were to be told, were not a little afraid of the Giant—picked up heart to say: "Give us back our bells, and we shall bind ourselves to give your Mare free grazing in the forest of Bière, so long as Your Highness honors us with your presence."

Gargantua was very willing to accept this offer. The bells were taken back in great state to Nôtre Dâme, where—God bless them!—they may be seen, and heard too, when the sun shines and when the rain falls, to this very day.

Being now dressed, Gargantua went through a series of performances which—considering that they came from a Giant—must have been very startling, indeed. He gaped, stretched, coughed, spit, groaned, sneezed, hiccoughed, and then, with a broad smile, declared himself ready to breakfast on fried tripe, grilled steaks, colossal hams, magnificent roast, and a noble soup. All this feast was made hot with mustard, shovelled down his throat by four of his servants.

Master Ponocrates, one day, thought it his duty, as the teacher charged with the education of his royal pupil, to suggest that it was hardly right for him to eat so heavy a breakfast without having already taken some exercise. Gargantua was ready with his answer.

Ponocrates must have been satisfied with this little speech of his pupil; for, after grumbling a bit under his breath, all that he did was to stroke his long beard in deep thought, while he asked himself in wonder: "How did the Prince ever happen to hear about Pope Alexander?" and let the young Giant continue his course, while he himself continued to wonder.

After breakfast Gargantua went to church,—you may be sure he kept away from Nôtre Dâme! Behind him, on his way to church, went nine of the stoutest lackeys, who bore, as if they would have liked to be doing anything rather than that, a big basket, which contained a breviary worthy of a Giant, since it was so heavy that, by actual weight, it was found to weigh just eleven hundred and six pounds. With that breviary, the devout young Prince entered the church and heard the Holy Mass from beginning to end. On leaving the church, he always thought it the proper thing for his breviary to be carried by oxen to his hotel. Once there, Gargantua began to study during a short half hour, with his eyes like good Saint Anthony's in the story,

"firmly fixed upon his book;"

The dinner came soon enough after his return home to satisfy even Gargantua, who was a great glutton. He used to smile as he saw the table at his new lodging-house laden with a dozen rich hams, with the best of smoked tongues, with puddings, with; fine chitterlings; and his great throat took them all down one after the other. Every day, after the meals, it was his practice to wash his hands with fresh wine, and to pick his teeth with a dry pig-bone.

After that he declared himself ready for his games.

The first thing Gargantua did, on rising from the dinner table, would be to call out in a cheery voice:—

"Spread the Carpet!"

The servants understood what that meant very well. Gaily they would unroll a large carpet, stretch it free from wrinkles, and then, in a twinkling, lay a pack of cards in the very middle of it. Then the Giant and his friends would sit down on the carpet, and begin playing cards. There were just two hundred and fifteen of these games which Gargantua knew how to play. Their names would sound odd to the card-players of this day, and I give some of the oddest on the list, so that you may know what queer games were then the fashion with the Giant and his friends:—

The Bamboozler.
The Potatoes.
Scotch Hoppens.
The Cows.
The Tables.
To Steal Mustard.
Skin the Fox.
Sow the Hay.
Sell the Hay.
The Monkey.
The Combs.
The Coat-brush.
Nine Hands.
Partridges.
The Keys.
The Birch Tree.
Ninepins.
I pinch thee without laughing.
Figs of Marseilles.
Draw the Spit.

Each of these games took a whole day, lasting between dinner and the time to enjoy a nap. Gargantua always thought it necessary to prepare for his afternoon sleep by taking a little drink. His companions must have been heavy drinkers,—regular old topers of the jolly order,—because the allowance every day called for eleven pots of wine for each man. After drinking such a quantity they would naturally feel drowsy. They would then stretch themselves on the carpet, and snore away, each snorer playing a different tune through his nose, in the midst of the cards lying loosely around, and the emptied pots,—all except Gargantua, whose breathing on such occasions was always of the hurricane fashion, whether awake or asleep. He would sleep for two or three hours like a good Christian, without thinking of any evil thing, and without muttering a single bad word in his dreams. On waking, he had a trick of giving his great ears a half-dozen shakes,—why, I don't know,—and then bawling out for fresh wine, which he drank down in one great gulp. Then came the only study for the day, which was rather a mystery for all parties. Nobody could say exactly what it was, and Master Ponocrates only smiled when asked about it. It lasted for a few minutes only, after which Gargantua would mount, in high state, an old mule which had already served nine kings, and briskly ride away to see where the good people of Paris caught their rabbits.

After supper, Gargantua—being in the liveliest humor, and disposed to look on the world with a broad laugh, showing the largest and whitest of teeth—would play a little, or else pay an open-air visit to some of the many pretty young ladies living in the neighborhood,—their houses being too small for him to enter,—and, on such nights, he would not get home until midnight. Sometimes, when he did not go out, he would take another little supper about eight o'clock, and still another before midnight. Then he would sleep without snoring until eight o'clock next morning.

It was a great day for Gargantua when he reached the end of his two hundred and fifteen games; or, rather, he intended that it should be a great day. He had said nothing to any one; but, when he woke that particular morning, he was noticed to be in a gayer mood than usual while he was dressing himself, and after he had gamboled and rolled around his bed, and stretched his limbs on it, and made his own great tent with one leg and the sheet, and given a neat turn to his long locks with his German comb, and gone through his usual gaping, coughing, spitting, groaning, sneezing, and hiccoughing. But, being in some things a very simple Giant, indeed, he had not noticed that his teacher, Ponocrates, had very keen eyes, and could use them too. Why, Ponocrates knew when the last game was to be played just as well as Gargantua himself did, and he had made up his mind to be somewhere in the room when it closed. Sure enough, listening in a corner of the big chamber, he heard some one say: "Here we are on our last game!" To which Gargantua shouted in reply: "Ho! ho! The last game! Don't be too sure of that. Gentlemen, to-morrow we shall play just as well as to-day."

"How, Prince?" asked Ponocrates, softly, coming out of his corner.

"How, good Master? Why, by beginning our games over again."

"Not so fast; not so fast, Prince. To-morrow Your Highness will begin with Me!"

While the two hundred and fifteen games, taking up just that number of days, were being played, Master Ponocrates had not been at all idle. He had already consulted with Master Theodore—a wise physician of that time—and knew just what he was going to do when he had said:—

"To-morrow Your Highness will begin with Me."

When he had been dosed enough to forget his old studies, and even to look up with a mild surprise when his dearly-loved Master Holofernes was mentioned, Gargantua was put through a course of study, in which he did not lose a single hour of the day. Only think how much he must have learned each day! First, he was roused up, whether he wanted or not, at four o'clock every morning, when he said his prayers. While the attendants were rubbing his body down, a young page would read, in a loud voice, so as to be heard above the scrubbing, some extracts from a book of good doctrine. After this, being not more than half-dressed yet, his practice was to visit each of his companions in his room, and with a gentle "Get thee up, my boy! get thee up!" awake the lazy fellow from his slumbers. Then he returned to his room, where he found Ponocrates always ready to explain what was doubtful in the chapters that had been read to him, and to ask him whether he had noted, as he should, what signs the sun was entering that morning, and what aspect he thought the moon would have that night.

They would once more take up in an easy talk the lessons read during the morning, and, after finishing their dinner with some well-made marmalade of quinces, would clean their teeth with a twig of the mastic tree, and wash their hands and eyes with fresh water. Which being done, cards were brought, not to play with, but to teach a thousand fresh tricks and inventions which sprang directly, not only from Architecture, but from Geometry, Astronomy, and Music. After that, with a word from the good Master, Gargantua would make himself merry in singing with his comrades some songs selected by himself, accompanied by such instruments as the lute, the spinet, the harp, the German nine-holed flute, the viol, and the sackbut, when would come three hours given to exercises in writing antique and Roman letters, and, lastly, to the main study, which would have made old Father Grandgousier's heart swell with gladness if he could only have known it.

Everybody knows that Giants are very queer people and require a great deal of care, even when they are the mildest, and Gargantua was such a Giant that the measures of all the Tailors of Paris at that time couldn't have told him how tall he was, and all the weights known in his day couldn't possibly have balanced his big body.

Master Ponocrates, who had no idea of making the Prince's mind strong at the expense of his body,—being too good a teacher for that,—arranged it in such a way that, every day after the Latin lesson, Gargantua was allowed, after changing his clothes, to leave his hotel with his Squire Gymnaste, who had been chosen specially to teach him the noble art of horsemanship. Once on horseback, Gargantua would first give his steed full rein; then make him leap high in air; then jump a ditch; then scale a fence; then turn quickly in one half of a circle, and back again around the other half, before one could count thirty seconds. Then calling for a lance—the keenest, the sharpest, and the strongest that could be had—he would ride full-tilt against the heaviest door or the stoutest oak, piercing the one through and through, or uprooting the other by sheer force with as much ease as a common man would tear up a sapling. As for the flourishes on horseback, no one could compete with Gargantua. The great acrobat of Ferrara was only a monkey in comparison with him. Gargantua was taught to leap from one horse to another while both were at full gallop, without touching the ground, or, with lance at rest, mounting each horse without stirrup or bridle, and guiding it as he pleased. As Ponocrates said, "all these things help to make a good soldier."

Yet this was only a trifle. Every fine day the Prince would go hunting. He would shine as brightly there as he had done in horsemanship. He would always be the first when the chasing the deer, the doe, the boar, the partridge, the pheasant, and the bustard.

Next to hunting came swimming. Gargantua, being so bulky, never would strike a stroke unless he was in deep waters. He would play such tricks in the water as only good swimmers know—swimming on his back, or sideways, or with all his body, or sometimes with his feet only. He laughed at the idea of crossing the Seine. It was his daily pastime, holding a book with one hand high above the water, to reach the other side without wetting a single page of it. One day, Gargantua, being praised for all this, was asked if he had any model. All he said was:—

But there was something more. Every day after these feats were over, they would drop a big cable from some high tower to the ground. Gargantua would go hand over hand up this chain, and descend it with so sure a grip that, among the active men of Paris, there could not be found his equal. Then came what Ponocrates called strengthening his nerves. For this purpose, two great weights of lead had been specially made—each one weighing eight hundred and seventy thousand pounds—which Gargantua would take up, one in each hand, raise them above his head, and keep them there, without moving, three quarters of an hour and more. All who saw this great feat wondered, and swore that the like of it had not been seen in the world. Being still out in the open air, he would exercise his throat and his lungs by shouting like a wild man. Why, he was one day heard calling Eudemon from the Gate of Saint Victor, by a man who was standing in the street at Montmartre,—any map of Paris will show you how far that is. Everybody has heard about Stentor and his great voice. Well, Stentor never had such a voice at the siege of Troy as Gargantua had at the gate of St. Victor.

When the weather was bright, he would play a game in which he would imitate Milo, the famous strong man, by standing on his feet, and daring any number of the strongest men to make him move. This was the last of the hard work for the day. He would be allowed to rest time enough to be bathed, rubbed down, and given clean clothes. He and his companions would return very slowly home, stopping on the way by certain fields or grassy plains, where they examined the trees and plants, consulting over them with the books of old-time greybeards who had written about them, their arms full of specimens which they would throw to the page Rhizotome, who was charged to take good care of them, together with the pickaxes, hoes, spades, scrapers, pruning-knives, and other implements which his master had used in the work.

When bed-time came, Gargantua used to walk with Ponocrates as far as the lodge, looking upon the open street, whence they could better see the face of the sky. There he watched the comet—there happened to be one then—and the figure, situation and aspect, opposition and conjunction of the stars. Then, with his good teacher, he would briefly sum up in the way of the Pythagoreans all that he had read, seen, known, thought, and done in the course of the day.

Then the tired young Giant, tucking his bedclothes lazily around him, would commend himself to Heaven, and stretch his big limbs out on a bed that I am afraid was rather short for him.

While Gargantua, studying day after day, was finding out that the tasks he had at first thought to be so hard were so easy that they became more a pastime than anything else, and while he was growing to be a skilful soldier and a most learned gentleman, his old father, King Grandgousier, without his knowing it, had got into a terrible muss with certain Bunmakers of Lerne.

This is how it happened.

It was vintage-time, when the great purple grapes, bursting with their ripeness, were to be gathered, and when the Shepherds of Grandgousier's kingdom used to watch the vines like hawks to prevent the starlings from pecking at the juicy clusters. This vintage-time always made business for the Bunmakers of Lerne. Even when in the best of humor, however, they were always a peppery-touch-me-if-you-dare sort of fellows. They brought their buns to market along the great highway, in ten or eleven big carts, which filled the air around them with the sweetest odors. Of course, trudging along through the white dust of the road, they were sure to meet King Grandgousier's Shepherds watching their vines, who always made it a rule to step out politely to the edge of the highway, hats in hand, to beg the Bunmakers to give them some of their fine, smoking buns in exchange for their money.

I dare say the Shepherds knew what they were doing. Never were there such buns as the Bunmakers of Lerne had the fame, all around that region, of making. Taken at breakfast with ripe grapes they were a dish fit for a King's table!

"Friends, this is not acting like neighbors. Haven't you always come by the highway? Haven't you always found us ready to give you good silver and copper for your buns? And haven't you always had from us in return our fine cheeses, which give their richness to your buns?"

It is an old saying that oil will make troubled waters still. But old sayings are not always true. This particular saying proved false, for, when the Bunmakers received Forgier's oil, it only set their water on fire. "Come here, sirrah!" shouted Marquet, the chief Bunmaker, to Forgier, "and I will give you your buns."

Forgier, being a very worthy, unsuspecting fellow, came near with his money in his hand, like an honest man, thinking all the time that Marquet really would let him have the buns, in spite of his rough voice and sneering tones. What did Marquet do but, with his long whip, cut the good Forgier about his body and legs so as to make him dance more nimbly than he had ever danced before! After that, Marquet got a little frightened and wanted to slip away; but Forgier, while he was bawling for everybody to come to his rescue, took from under his arm a big cudgel, with which he hit the bad Bunmaker such a blow on his head as to make him fall from his horse more like a dead man than a living one.

But this was not the end. The good Shepherds, hearing Forgier's cries for help, rushed from their grape-vines to the white, dusty road, holding their poles in their hands ready to avenge their comrade. The Bunmakers, peppery as they might be, were just then trying to get off as fast as their horses could carry their carts away; but they were not fast enough to prevent the Shepherds from taking from them four or five dozen delicious buns, for which they offered, like honest men, to pay the usual price. But the Bunmakers were in too great a hurry for that. They laughed angrily at all these offers, and bore Marquet's body, in a dead faint, away with them.

And this was how the great and bloody war between the Bunmakers of Lerne and Gargantua's country began.

The first thing the Bunmakers did, on getting safe home at Lerne, even before taking a bit of food or a sup of wine, was to hasten to the palace, where, bowing low before their King Picrochole, they spread out their broken baskets, torn robes, crushed buns, and, at last, with a grand flourish, displayed Marquet himself all covered with dry blood, and groaning dreadfully.

"The Shepherds and vine-watchers of that old Giant Grandgousier, may it please Your Majesty," answered the Bunmakers.

"Oh! oh! oh!" roared Picrochole furiously.

Of course, the poor monks were not fighting men. And when they found their convent walls broken through and their fields at the mercy of the Bunmakers, all they could think of doing was to go to their Chapel, from which they intended to come forth in a solemn procession to entreat the wicked men to leave them alone. While the monks, headed by their Prior himself, were singing psalms and getting ready to leave the Chapel, in rushed a young monk, with flaming eyes, who had seen what was going on in the vineyard.

"That's very well sung, brethren!" he shouted; "very well sung, indeed! But why don't you sing, 'Good-by, basket, the vintage is over'? Don't you know that those fellows are breaking down our vines, and that we shall have no good wine this year?"

Then it was that Friar John—holding his staff high in the air—swept down upon the scattered Bunmakers like a hurricane! It was "first come, first served" with Friar John. The first thwack crashed through the crown of a big-headed bun-man, and brought him down. Then the staff, with just a little blood on it now, went spinning around to the right and left—up and down, first on one, then another—in fact, everywhere. It broke the legs of this one, the arms of that one, and the neck of still another. It gouged the eyes, drove teeth down throats, smashed in ribs, and made jaws crack. If any one wanted to hide between the thick vines, Friar John was sure to spy him out and bring him to the ground with a broken back. If any one wanted to run away, the terrible staff would reach him, and he would fall, shouting: "I surrender!" When the slaughter had gone on for some time, Friar John stopped, and for good reason; for, looking around him, he could no longer see a single Bunmaker standing on his feet, and he was only giving wild blows in the air. Then he rested, and it was found that he had, with his single arm, killed the whole army which had remained behind in the vineyards of the convent, numbering thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-two men. But Friar John had struck down some other things besides the army, and these were the purple vines loaded with the rich and juicy grapes, which made the delicious convent wine famous throughout all the land.

While Friar John was cracking skulls, and breaking limbs, and flattening noses, and ramming teeth down throats, Picrochole, King of Lerne, had, with his Bunmakers and in the greatest haste, crossed the Ford of Vede and ordered the town of Roche-Clermaud to surrender, which did not make him wait long before opening its gates to him. We shall leave him there while we see how King Grandgousier had received the news of this sudden war.

One rainy evening, the fine old gentleman happened to be in a very good humor. He was, as usual after supper, seated warming his knees, which were somewhat rheumatic, before a blazing fire; and, while waiting for the chestnuts to be roasted to a turn, was passing the time by writing on the red hearth with a burnt stick and making Queen Gargamelle laugh by telling his funny stories of old times. While he was in the very midst of one of these funny old stories, and the chestnuts were smelling as if they wanted to be eaten, here comes a servant to tell King Grandgousier that one of his Shepherds was down in the court-yard begging to see him.

"What does the varlet want?" asked the old King. He didn't mean to be angry, but his surprise made his big voice sound very loud and very gruff.

"To see Your Majesty."

"And what does he want to see My Majesty for? But bring him up. I shan't know any sooner by waiting for thee to tell me."