RABELAIS, FRANC rs, a celebrated French satirist, was born, according in some, about the year 1483, and, according to others m 1490, at Chinon in Touraine. He entered early among the Cordeliers, and acquired con siderable popularity as a preacher ; but in consequence of some scandal in the monastery, he was imprisoned in his cloister. He is said, however, to have obtained his liberation from his wit and facetiousness, and to have been permitted by the Pope to remove to the Order of St. Benedict. His habits of life induced him to lay aside his religious character in 1530, and to repair to Montpellier, for the purpose of studying physic. When the Chancellor Du Pratt abolished the privileges of the faculty of medicine at Montpellier, by a decree of par liament, Rabelais is said to have had the address to make him get the decree revoked ; and in commemora tion of this event, bachelors in the medical school of Montpellier are invested with a scarlet robe, which is said to be the very robe worn by Rabelais.
After continuing some time at Montpellier, he went to Lyons, where he published a collection of some pieces of Hippocrates and Galen, and likewise several other works, among which were some of the books of his History of Gargantua and Pantagruel, which gave him such a high rank among the writers of burlesque. Having resided in the same convent with Cardinal John du Bellay, now archbishop of Paris, Rabelais waited upon hint in Paris in 1535 ; and such was the im pression which his talents and wit made upon the prelate, that he took him into his family as physician, librarian, and steward. In 1536, Du Bellay went to
Rome as ambassador from the French court ; and Rabe lais made himself so agreeable to the Pope and the car dinals, that he not only received absolution for the crime of apostacy, but obtained a privilege to enable him to hold ecclesiastical benefices. Having taken his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Montpellier in 1539, he soon after returned to Paris, and by the interest of the arch bishop, he was received as a secular canon in the abbey of St. Maur near Paris. He was afterwards appointed to the curacy of Meudon, the duties of which he dis charged from 1545 till the time of his death, which took place in 1553, in the 70th or 63d year of his age.
The principal work of Rabelais is his History of Gargantua and Pantagruel, already mentioned. It is a general satire upon popes, priests, and monks, and upon follies and knaveries of various kinds, which it would not have been prudent to expose gravely. This work brought down upon him the hostility of the monks, who procured its condemnation by the Sorbonne and the parliament ; but this event only added to the popularity of Rabelais, and make his company much more courted by the wits of Paris. This work is characterized by wit, learning obscenity, and ribaldry.
A complete edition of his works was published in Holland in 5 vols. 8 vo. in 1715, with notes by Duchut ; and another at Amsterdam in 3 vols. 4to. in 1741, with plates by Picart.