THE STRANGE THINGS PANTAGRUEL DID AS A BABY.
[Illustration: Initial G.]
Gargantua hardly knew whether he ought to cry because his beloved Queen
Badebec was dead, or laugh because his son Pantagruel was alive.
"My good wife is dead, who was the most _this_ and the most _that_,
which ever was in the world," he would blubber at one time. "Ha!
Badebec, my wife, I shall never see thee again! Thou hast left me, my
pet, forever! Ah! my poor Pantagruel, thou hast lost thy good Mother,
thy sweet nurse. _Holos!_"
The poor Giant burst into tears, which flowed down his cheeks as large
as ostrich-eggs, and he cried like a cow. Then his humor would change,
and he fell to laughing like a calf.
"Ho! ho! my little son, how pretty thou art, and how grateful I should
be to God that he has given me such a son. Ho! ho! ho! how glad I am!
Let us drink! Throw melancholy out of the window; bring here the best
wines; rinse the glasses; lay the cloth; drive away the dogs; blow up
that fire; light the candles; shut the door; skim the soup; call in the
beggars, and give them what they want! I ought to be happy,--I _am_
happy. Ho! ho! ho!"
Poor old Giant! He was very proud, but he was very wretched all the
same.
[Illustration: THE FUNERAL OF QUEEN BADEBEC.]
It would be a wonderful thing to tell how quickly Pantagruel grew in
body and in strength. All the old-world talk about "Hercules in his
cradle killing the two serpents" was nothing to boast of, because _his_
snakes happened to be both small and weak. But Pantagruel, in his
cradle, did things much more astonishing. Just think of his needing,
as a baby, at every meal, the milk of four thousand six hundred cows!
When it became necessary to order a kettle for him in which to boil his
milk it took all the braziers of Saumure, in Anjou; of Villedieu, in
Normandy; of Bramart, in Lorraine, to make it. They used to give him
soup in a great bell, which was long to be seen at Bruges, in Berry,
near the Palace, with a hole in it. How did that hole ever get there?
Why, in the easiest way possible! Baby Pantagruel's teeth were already
so big, and sharp, and strong, that, in his eagerness to get at the
broth, he made a quick snap at the metal and broke through it, as
though it were as flimsy as an egg-shell.
[Illustration: PANTAGRUEL'S PORRINGER.]
Another morning, at daybreak, when one of the four thousand six hundred
cows, which gave him his principal food, was brought in to give him his
breakfast, Pantagruel burst the bands which bound his arms, and caught
hold of that poor cow to eat her alive; and he would have, without
doubt, eaten her all up if she hadn't bellowed as loudly as though a
pack of wolves were just at that moment striking their teeth in her
legs. At the poor cow's cries, everybody ran up and released her from
the Giant baby's awful teeth. Such an offence as trying to eat alive
an innocent cow, which had done her best, among her four thousand five
hundred and ninety-nine companions, to give him milk, could not pass
unnoticed. Gargantua, although, away down in his own heart, he was
proud of his little son's strength, grew very much afraid that, in some
of his antics, he might hurt himself. He at once ordered Pantagruel
to be bound to the cradle with great cables, and directed that, on no
account, he should be allowed to get free from them. Here, then, was
our poor Pantagruel in a bad fix! Baby as he was, he often felt very
wretched; but never more wretched than when a great, shaggy bear, which
was a special pet of his father, made it a point of politeness to drop
in every day and, with his dirty tongue, to lick his face, which, on
the other hand, the Wise Women made a point never to touch. That bear
came once too often. Pantagruel, being in a bad humor one particular
day, and feeling the rough, furred tongue licking all over and over
his face, gave one tremendous jerk, and broke his chains as easily as
Samson had broken those of the Philistines. Then he stretched out his
hairy hands, and caught Master Bear, and tore him into pieces with as
much ease as he might have done a chicken.
This new exploit made Gargantua still prouder of his son; but it was
high time that something should be done with him. So he ordered to
be made four great iron chains to hold him fast. One day a feast was
given by King Gargantua in honor of the princes and nobles of his
Court. It is pretty clear that all the great people, not to speak of
the servants, had their time so well taken with the feast, that nobody
ever thought it his business to bother himself about the little Prince,
away upstairs in the nursery. If Pantagruel hated any one thing above
another, that one thing was to be left by himself. What made it all the
worse this time was that there he was in his cradle, closely chained,
and obliged to listen to the gay sounds that swelled up, every now
and then, from the dining-room. The poor child felt lonely. He tried
to burst the chains which bound his arms to his cradle; but that he
couldn't do, because they had been forged too strong and stout by the
Royal Blacksmith. Then he began such a stamping with his feet that he
broke the foot-board of his cradle, which was made of a great beam
seven feet square. The moment he had succeeded in getting his feet
quite out of the broken end, he slid forward as far as the chains would
let him, until at last his feet touched the floor. Then, with a great
wrench, he raised himself on his feet, bearing his cradle triumphantly
on his back, which made him look for all the world like a turtle, with
his shell, trying to climb a wall.
Such was the strange sight which, on presenting itself in the
Banqueting Hall, startled the gay company. Pantagruel walked straight
to the table, where he at first thought he would need no assistance;
but he soon found himself obliged--not being, of course, able to use
his hands--to lean forward, and lick up with his tongue any tidbit
that he could find near the edge of the table. When his father saw how
hungry he was, he knew well enough that his baby never would have
broken through his cradle, and tramped down the stairs with it on his
back, unless he had been left alone by his nurses. Turning to the
princes and lords present, he asked them if it was not better that his
boy should be freed from those heavy chains.
The guests, with one voice, declared that the chains were an insult to
the young Prince; and even the First Physician gave it as his opinion
that, if Pantagruel were to be kept any longer fastened in such a way
to his cradle, he would all his life be a cripple.
[Illustration: PANTAGRUEL CARRIES HIS CRADLE.]
The moment he was unchained Pantagruel sat down at the table, and was
made much of by every guest. Such a welcome soon made him feel quite
at home, and he showed it by breaking, with one blow of his fist, that
ugly cradle into more than five hundred thousand pieces, vowing to
himself--he couldn't well say the words--that he would never be found
in it again--never! never! never!