Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/47

RABELAIS 31 Domino" ( " Blessed are they who die in the Lord, or in a domino." ) He is said to have dictated the magnificent and munificent will : " I have nothing, I owe much ; the rest I give to the poor." Whatever doubt there may be as to the genuineness of the pre- ceding, I think there can be little or none as to that of the two following ; they are so eminently charac- teristic. A page was introduced, sent by his friend Cardinal du Bellay, or Cardinal de Chastillon, to inquire as to his state. He beckoned the youth to his bedside, and murmured faintly : " Tell mon- seigneur in what gallant humour you find me ; I go to seek a great Perhaps." Finally, before expiring, he gathered all his strength to exclaim, with a laugh : " Draw the curtain : the farce is over." What adds to the presumption of the essential truth of these stories is the fact that the priest who confessed him and administered to him the sacrament spread the report that he died drunk, proving the priestly dis- gust at his end ; while we may assume that the absolution and sacrament would have been withheld had the same priest at the time not considered him to be in a fit state to receive them. All the poets of the time made epitaphs on him in French or Latin verse, most of them celebrating less his marvellous genius than his inexhaustible jollity. Thus his friend Baif, one of the Pleiad, writes : " Oh Pluto, receive Rabelais, that thou, who art the king of those who never laugh, mayst henceforth have a laugher ! " — "O ! Pluton, Rabelais re9oi, Afin que toi qui es le roi Dc ceux qui ne rient jamais, Tu aies un rieur desormais ! "