Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/42

26 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES about, he replied : ' Gentlemen, I carry out your prescription, for nothing can be more aperitive than keys ; and, if you are not content, I will send to the arsenal for some pieces of cannon to make the last opening.'" Besides being physician, he seems to have been astrologer, great as was his contempt for the judicial astrology. Catherine de Medicis had introduced this pretended science into France, and it had become the fashion for every one who could afford it to have his horoscope drawn, and every great personage had an astrologer in his suite. It is certain that he published, though no exemplar is known to exist, an "Almanack and Ephemerides for the Year of Our Lord 1550, composed and calculated for all Europe, by Master Frangois Rabelais, physician- in-ordinary to Monseigneur the Most Reverend Car- dinal du Bellay. Here are found, at the end of each month, the planets of infants, both male and female, and to which they are subject." It is evident from this title that he treated the matter with apparent seriousness, however ironically. The cardinal and the French ambassador gave a grand mimic siege, followed by a Gargantuan banquet, in honour of the birth of a son to their king, and also of his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, very appro- priately represented by the chaste goddess after whom she was named. Rabelais took part in this, probably assisting in its invention, and wrote an account of it, which was sent to Charles de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise, the favourite minister of Diane, who had it printed. She was grateful for the flattery, but the one cardinal feared the other too much to permit his return. Rabelais, however, reaped his reward in a