of good store of money to the lawyers,
and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon which subject
we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.
and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon which subject
we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
--that when he had smelt, heard, and fully
understood--ut ff. si quando paup. fec. l. Agaso. gloss. in verb. olfecit,
id est, nasum ad culum posuit--and found that there was anywhere in the
country a debatable matter at law, he would incontinently thrust in his
advice, and so forwardly intrude his opinion in the business, that he made
no bones of making offer, and taking upon him to decide it, how difficult
soever it might happen to be, to the full contentment and satisfaction of
both parties. It is written, Qui non laborat non manducat; and the said
gl. ff. de damn. infect. l. quamvis, and Currere plus que le pas vetulam
compellit egestas. gloss. ff. de lib. agnosc. l. si quis. pro qua facit. l.
si plures. c. de cond. incert. But so hugely great was his misfortune in
this his undertaking, that he never composed any difference, how little
soever you may imagine it might have been, but that, instead of reconciling
the parties at odds, he did incense, irritate, and exasperate them to a
higher point of dissension and enmity than ever they were at before. Your
worships know, I doubt not, that,
Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis.
Gl. ff. de alien. jud. mut. caus. fa. lib. 2. This administered unto the
tavern-keepers, wine-drawers, and vintners of Semerve an occasion to say,
that under him they had not in the space of a whole year so much
reconciliation-wine, for so were they pleased to call the good wine of
Leguge, as under his father they had done in one half-hour's time. It
happened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret thereof
to his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in pacificatory
enterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross, and backward
inclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly, and irreverently
upbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world had been so
wayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of all square, frame,
and order as it was then, his father had never attained to and acquired the
honour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably, inviolably, and
irrevocably as he had done. In doing whereof Tenot did heinously
transgress against the law which prohibiteth children to reproach the
actions of their parents; per gl. et Bart. l. 3. paragr. si quis. ff. de
cond. ob caus. et authent. de nupt. par. sed quod sancitum. col. 4. To
this the honest old father answered thus: My son Dandin, when Don Oportet
taketh place, this is the course which we must trace, gl. c. de appell. l.
eos etiam. For the road that you went upon was not the way to the fuller's
mill, nor in any part thereof was the form to be found wherein the hare did
sit. Thou hast not the skill and dexterity of settling and composing
differences. Why? Because thou takest them at the beginning, in the very
infancy and bud as it were, when they are green, raw, and indigestible.
Yet I know handsomely and featly how to compose and settle them all. Why?
Because I take them at their decadence, in their weaning, and when they are
pretty well digested. So saith Gloss:
Dulcior est fructus post multa pericula ductus.
L. non moriturus. c. de contrahend. et committ. stip. Didst thou ever hear
the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at the
declension of a disease? For the sickness being come to a crisis is then
upon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end, although the
physician should not repair thither for the cure thereof; whereby, though
nature wholly do the work, he bears away the palm and praise thereof. My
pleaders, after the same manner, before I did interpose my judgment in the
reconciling of them, were waxing faint in their contestations. Their
altercation heat was much abated, and, in declining from their former
strife, they of themselves inclined to a firm accommodation of their
differences; because there wanted fuel to that fire of burning rancour and
despiteful wrangling whereof the lower sort of lawyers were the kindlers.
That is to say, their purses were emptied of coin, they had not a win in
their fob, nor penny in their bag, wherewith to solicit and present their
actions.
Deficiente pecu, deficit omne, nia.
There wanted then nothing but some brother to supply the place of a
paranymph, brawl-broker, proxenete, or mediator, who, acting his part
dexterously, should be the first broacher of the motion of an agreement,
for saving both the one and the other party from that hurtful and
pernicious shame whereof he could not have avoided the imputation when it
should have been said that he was the first who yielded and spoke of a
reconcilement, and that therefore, his cause not being good, and being
sensible where his shoe did pinch him, he was willing to break the ice, and
make the greater haste to prepare the way for a condescendment to an
amicable and friendly treaty. Then was it that I came in pudding time,
Dandin, my son, nor is the fat of bacon more relishing to boiled peas than
was my verdict then agreeable to them. This was my luck, my profit, and
good fortune. I tell thee, my jolly son Dandin, that by this rule and
method I could settle a firm peace, or at least clap up a cessation of arms
and truce for many years to come, betwixt the Great King and the Venetian
State, the Emperor and the Cantons of Switzerland, the English and the
Scots, and betwixt the Pope and the Ferrarians. Shall I go yet further?
Yea, as I would have God to help me, betwixt the Turk and the Sophy, the
Tartars and the Muscoviters. Remark well what I am to say unto thee. I
would take them at that very instant nick of time when both those of the
one and the other side should be weary and tired of making war, when they
had voided and emptied their own cashes and coffers of all treasure and
coin, drained and exhausted the purses and bags of their subjects, sold and
mortgaged their domains and proper inheritances, and totally wasted, spent,
and consumed the munition, furniture, provision, and victuals that were
necessary for the continuance of a military expedition. There I am sure,
by God, or by his Mother, that, would they, would they not, in spite of all
their teeths, they should be forced to have a little respite and breathing
time to moderate the fury and cruel rage of their ambitious aims. This is
the doctrine in Gl. 37. d. c. si quando.
Odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.
Chapter 3. XLII.
How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to their
perfect growth.
For this cause, quoth Bridlegoose, going on in his discourse, I temporize
and apply myself to the times, as your other worships use to do, waiting
patiently for the maturity of the process, full growth and perfection
thereof in all its members, to wit, the writings and the bags. Arg. in l.
si major. c. commun. divid. et de cons. di. 1. c. solemnitates, et ibi gl.
A suit in law at its production, birth, and first beginning, seemeth to me,
as unto your other worships, shapeless, without form or fashion,
incomplete, ugly and imperfect, even as a bear at his first coming into the
world hath neither hands, skin, hair, nor head, but is merely an inform,
rude, and ill-favoured piece and lump of flesh, and would remain still so,
if his dam, out of the abundance of her affection to her hopeful cub, did
not with much licking put his members into that figure and shape which
nature had provided for those of an arctic and ursinal kind; ut not. Doct.
ff. ad l. Aquil. l. 3. in fin. Just so do I see, as your other worships
do, processes and suits in law, at their first bringing forth, to be
numberless, without shape, deformed, and disfigured, for that then they
consist only of one or two writings, or copies of instruments, through
which defect they appear unto me, as to your other worships, foul,
loathsome, filthy, and misshapen beasts. But when there are heaps of these
legiformal papers packed, piled, laid up together, impoked, insatchelled,
and put up in bags, then is it that with a good reason we may term that
suit, to which, as pieces, parcels, parts, portions, and members thereof,
they do pertain and belong, well-formed and fashioned, big-limbed,
strong-set, and in all and each of its dimensions most completely membered.
Because forma dat esse. rei. l. si is qui. ff. ad leg. Falcid. in c. cum
dilecta. de rescript. Barbat. consil. 12. lib. 2, and before him, Baldus,
in c. ult. extra. de consuet. et l. Julianus ad exhib. ff. et l. quaesitum.
ff. de leg. 3. The manner is such as is set down in gl. p. quaest. 1. c.
Paulus.
Debile principium melior fortuna sequetur.
Like your other worships, also the sergeants, catchpoles, pursuivants,
messengers, summoners, apparitors, ushers, door-keepers, pettifoggers,
attorneys, proctors, commissioners, justices of the peace, judge delegates,
arbitrators, overseers, sequestrators, advocates, inquisitors, jurors,
searchers, examiners, notaries, tabellions, scribes, scriveners, clerks,
pregnotaries, secondaries, and expedanean judges, de quibus tit. est. l. 3.
c. , by sucking very much, and that exceeding forcibly, and licking at the
purses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already begot and
engendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws, talons, beaks,
bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles, humours, and so
forth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of the whole; which
parts, particles, pendicles, and appurtenances are the law pokes and bags,
gl. de cons. d. 4. c. accepisti. Qualis vestis erit, talia corda gerit.
Hic notandum est, that in this respect the pleaders, litigants, and
law-suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and administrators of
justice. For beatius est dare quam accipere. ff. commun. l. 3. extra. de
celebr. Miss. c. cum Marthae. et 24. quaest. 1. cap. Od. gl.
Affectum dantis pensat censura tonantis.
Thus becometh the action or process by their care and industry to be of a
complete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and fashioned
according to the canonical gloss.
Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae.
Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in verbo
Roma.
Roma manus rodit, quas rodere non valet, odit.
Dantes custodit, non dantes spernit, et odit.
The reason whereof is thought to be this:
Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora.
ut est gl. in l. quum hi. ff. de transact. Nor is this all; for the
inconvenience of the contrary is set down in gloss. c. de allu. l. fin.
Quum labor in damno est, crescit mortalis egestas.
In confirmation whereof we find that the true etymology and exposition of
the word process is purchase, viz.
of good store of money to the lawyers,
and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon which subject
we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.
Ligitando jura crescunt; litigando jus acquiritur.
Item gl. in cap. illud extrem. de praesumpt. et c. de prob. l. instrum. l.
non epistolis. l. non nudis.
Et si non prosunt singula, multa juvant.
Yea but, asked Trinquamelle, how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal
causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante
crimine? Even as your other worships use to do, answered Bridlegoose.
First, I permit the plaintiff to depart from the court, enjoining him not
to presume to return thither till he preallably should have taken a good
sound and profound sleep, which is to serve for the prime entry and
introduction to the legal carrying on of the business. In the next place,
a formal report is to be made to me of his having slept. Thirdly, I issue
forth a warrant to convene him before me. Fourthly, he is to produce a
sufficient and authentic attestation of his having thoroughly and entirely
slept, conform to the Gloss. 37. Quest. 7. c. Si quis cum.
Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.
Being thus far advanced in the formality of the process, I find that this
consopiating act engendereth another act, whence ariseth the articulating
of a member. That again produceth a third act, fashionative of another
member; which third bringing forth a fourth, procreative of another act.
New members in a no fewer number are shapen and framed, one still breeding
and begetting another--as, link after link, the coat of mail at length is
made--till thus, piece after piece, by little and little, by information
upon information, the process be completely well formed and perfect in all
his members. Finally, having proceeded this length, I have recourse to my
dice, nor is it to be thought that this interruption, respite, or
interpellation is by me occasioned without very good reason inducing me
thereunto, and a notable experience of a most convincing and irrefragable
force.
I remember, on a time, that in the camp at Stockholm there was a certain
Gascon named Gratianauld, native of the town of Saint Sever, who having
lost all his money at play, and consecutively being very angry thereat--as
you know, Pecunia est alter sanguis, ut ait Anto. de Burtio, in c.
accedens. 2. extra ut lit. non contest. et Bald. in l. si tuis. c. de opt.
leg. per tot. in l. advocati. c. de advoc. div. jud. Pecunia est vita
hominis et optimus fide-jussor in necessitatibus--did, at his coming forth
of the gaming-house, in the presence of the whole company that was there,
with a very loud voice speak in his own language these following words:
Pao cap de bious hillots, que maux de pipes bous tresbire: ares que de
pergudes sont les mires bingt, et quouatre bagnelles, ta pla donnerien
pics, trucs, et patacts, Sey degun de bous aulx, qui boille truquar ambe
iou a bels embis. Finding that none would make him any answer, he passed
from thence to that part of the leaguer where the huff-snuff, honder
sponder, swashbuckling High Germans were, to whom he renewed these very
terms, provoking them to fight with him; but all the return he had from
them to his stout challenge was only, Der Gasconner thut sich ausz mit ein
iedem zu schlagen, aber er ist geneigter zu stehlen, darum, liebe frawen,
habt sorg zu euerm hauszrath. Finding also that none of that band of
Teutonic soldiers offered himself to the combat, he passed to that quarter
of the leaguer where the French freebooting adventurers were encamped, and
reiterating unto them what he had before repeated to the Dutch warriors,
challenged them likewise to fight with him, and therewithal made some
pretty little Gasconado frisking gambols to oblige them the more cheerfully
and gallantly to cope with him in the lists of a duellizing engagement; but
no answer at all was made unto him. Whereupon the Gascon, despairing of
meeting with any antagonists, departed from thence, and laying himself down
not far from the pavilions of the grand Christian cavalier Crissie, fell
fast asleep. When he had thoroughly slept an hour or two, another
adventurous and all-hazarding blade of the forlorn hope of the lavishingly
wasting gamesters, having also lost all his moneys, sallied forth with
sword in his hand, of a firm resolution to fight with the aforesaid Gascon,
seeing he had lost as well as he.
Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris,
saith the Gl. de poenitent. distinct. 3. c. sunt plures. To this effect
having made inquiry and search for him throughout the whole camp, and in
sequel thereof found him asleep, he said unto him, Up, ho, good fellow, in
the name of all the devils of hell, rise up, rise up, get up! I have lost
my money as well as thou hast done; let us therefore go fight lustily
together, grapple and scuffle it to some purpose. Thou mayest look and see
that my tuck is no longer than thy rapier. The Gascon, altogether
astonished at his unexpected provocation, without altering his former
dialect spoke thus: Cap de Saint Arnault, quau seys to you, qui me
rebeillez? Que mau de taberne te gire. Ho Saint Siobe, cap de Gascoigne,
ta pla dormy jou, quand aquoest taquain me bingut estee. The venturous
roister inviteth him again to the duel, but the Gascon, without
condescending to his desire, said only this: He paovret jou tesquinerie
ares, que son pla reposat. Vayne un pauque te pausar com jou, peusse
truqueren. Thus, in forgetting his loss, he forgot the eagerness which he
had to fight. In conclusion, after that the other had likewise slept a
little, they, instead of fighting, and possibly killing one another, went
jointly to a sutler's tent, where they drank together very amicably, each
upon the pawn of his sword. Thus by a little sleep was pacified the ardent
fury of two warlike champions. There, gossip, comes the golden word of
John Andr. in cap. ult. de sent. et re. judic. l. sexto.
Sedendo, et dormiendo fit anima prudens.
Chapter 3. XLIII.
How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing actions at
law by the chance of the dice.
With this Bridlegoose held his peace. Whereupon Trinquamelle bid him
withdraw from the court--which accordingly was done--and then directed his
discourse to Pantagruel after this manner: It is fitting, most illustrious
prince, not only by reason of the deep obligations wherein this present
parliament, together with the whole marquisate of Mirelingues, stand bound
to your royal highness for the innumerable benefits which, as effects of
mere grace, they have received from your incomparable bounty, but for that
excellent wit also, prime judgment, and admirable learning wherewith
Almighty God, the giver of all good things, hath most richly qualified and
endowed you, we tender and present unto you the decision of this new,
strange, and paradoxical case of Bridlegoose; who, in your presence, to
your both hearing and seeing, hath plainly confessed his final judging and
determinating of suits of law by the mere chance and fortune of the dice.
Therefore do we beseech you that you may be pleased to give sentence
therein as unto you shall seem most just and equitable. To this Pantagruel
answered: Gentlemen, it is not unknown to you how my condition is somewhat
remote from the profession of deciding law controversies; yet, seeing you
are pleased to do me the honour to put that task upon me, instead of
undergoing the office of a judge I will become your humble supplicant. I
observe, gentlemen, in this Bridlegoose several things which induce me to
represent before you that it is my opinion he should be pardoned. In the
first place, his old age; secondly, his simplicity; to both which qualities
our statute and common laws, civil and municipal together, allow many
excuses for any slips or escapes which, through the invincible imperfection
of either, have been inconsiderately stumbled upon by a person so
qualified. Thirdly, gentlemen, I must needs display before you another
case, which in equity and justice maketh much for the advantage of
Bridlegoose, to wit, that this one, sole, and single fault of his ought to
be quite forgotten, abolished, and swallowed up by that immense and vast
ocean of just dooms and sentences which heretofore he hath given and
pronounced; his demeanours, for these forty years and upwards that he hath
been a judge, having been so evenly balanced in the scales of uprightness,
that envy itself till now could not have been so impudent as to accuse and
twit him with any act worthy of a check or reprehension; as, if a drop of
the sea were thrown into the Loire, none could perceive or say that by this
single drop the whole river should be salt and brackish.
Truly, it seemeth unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose's
juridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinary
savouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his preceding
sentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and approved of by
yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court. For it is
usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifest
his own ineffable glory in blunting the perspicacy of the eyes of the wise,
in weakening the strength of potent oppressors, in depressing the pride of
rich extortioners, and in erecting, comforting, protecting, supporting,
upholding, and shoring up the poor, feeble, humble, silly, and foolish ones
of the earth. But, waiving all these matters, I shall only beseech you,
not by the obligations which you pretend to owe to my family, for which I
thank you, but for that constant and unfeigned love and affection which you
have always found in me, both on this and on the other side of Loire, for
the maintenance and establishment of your places, offices, and dignities,
that for this one time you would pardon and forgive him upon these two
conditions. First, that he satisfy, or put a sufficient surety for the
satisfaction of the party wronged by the injustice of the sentence in
question. For the fulfilment of this article I will provide sufficiently.
And, secondly, that for his subsidiary aid in the weighty charge of
administrating justice you would be pleased to appoint and assign unto him
some pretty little virtuous counsellor, younger, learneder, and wiser than
he, by the square and rule of whose advice he may regulate, guide, temper,
and moderate in times coming all his judiciary procedures; or otherwise, if
you intend totally to depose him from his office, and to deprive him
altogether of the state and dignity of a judge, I shall cordially entreat
you to make a present and free gift of him to me, who shall find in my
kingdoms charges and employments enough wherewith to embusy him, for the
bettering of his own fortunes and furtherance of my service. In the
meantime, I implore the Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier of all good
things, in his grace, mercy, and kindness, to preserve you all now and
evermore, world without end.
These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg with
such a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree and
eminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and master-speaker of that
Mirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the whole court, and went out
of the chamber; at the door whereof finding Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John,
and others, he forthwith, attended by them, walked to the outer gate, where
all of them immediately took horse to return towards Gargantua. Pantagruel
by the way related to them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose's
sententiating differences at law. Friar John said that he had seen Peter
Dandin, and was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in the
monastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon. Gymnast
likewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand Christian cavalier
De Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made answer to the
adventurer. Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the matter of believing
that it was morally possible Bridlegoose should have been for such a long
space of time so continually fortunate in that aleatory way of deciding law
debates. Epistemon said to Pantagruel, Such another story, not much unlike
to that in all the circumstances thereof, is vulgarly reported of the
provost of Montlehery. In good sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is to
be wondered at. To have hit right twice or thrice in a judgment so given
by haphazard might have fallen out well enough, especially in controversies
that were ambiguous, intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure.
Chapter 3. XLIV.
How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human
judgment.
Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty
debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella,
proconsul in Asia. The case was this.
A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece. He dying,
she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to her second
husband bore a boy called Effege. A pretty long time thereafter it
happened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and stepdams is very
rare towards the children of the first fathers and mothers deceased, that
this husband, with the help of his son Effege, secretly, wittingly,
willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece. The woman came no sooner to
get information of the fact, but, that it might not go unpunished, she
caused kill them both, to revenge the death of her first son. She was
apprehended and carried before Cneius Dolabella, in whose presence she,
without dissembling anything, confessed all that was laid to her charge;
yet alleged that she had both right and reason on her side for the killing
of them. Thus was the state of the question. He found the business so
dubious and intricate, that he knew not what to determine therein, nor
which of the parties to incline to. On the one hand, it was an execrable
crime to cut off at once both her second husband and her son. On the other
hand, the cause of the murder seemed to be so natural, as to be grounded
upon the law of nations and the rational instinct of all the people of the
world, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyed
her first son; not that they had been in any manner of way wronged,
outraged, or injured by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his
inheritance. In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon,
he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their
advice and judgment. That judicious senate, very sagely perpending the
reasons of his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally to
compear before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to some
interrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in the
verbal defence. Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in their
opinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what to
say or judge therein. Who had decided that plea by the chance and fortune
of the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which side soever he
had passed his casting and condemnatory sentence. If against the woman,
she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign authority by taking that
vengeance at her own hand, the inflicting whereof was only competent to the
supreme power to administer justice in criminal cases. If for her, the
just resentment of a so atrocious injury done unto her, in murdering her
innocent son, did fully excuse and vindicate her of any trespass or offence
about that particular committed by her. But this continuation of
Bridlegoose for so many years still hitting the nail on the head, never
missing the mark, and always judging aright, by the mere throwing of the
dice and chance thereof, is that which most astonisheth and amazeth me.
To answer, quoth Pantagruel (Epistemon, says the English edition of 1694,
following the reading of the modern French editions. Le Duchat has pointed
out the mistake. --M. ), categorically to that which you wonder at, I must
ingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet, conjecturally to guess at
the reason of it, I would refer the cause of that marvellously
long-continued happy success in the judiciary results of his definitive
sentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and benignity of the
intelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after having
contemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of Judge
Bridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did regulate that for
him by chance which by the profoundest act of his maturest deliberation he
was not able to reach unto. That, likewise, which possibly made him to
diffide in his own skill and capacity, notwithstanding his being an expert
and understanding lawyer, for anything that I know to the contrary, was the
knowledge and experience which he had of the antinomies, contrarieties,
antilogies, contradictions, traversings, and thwartings of laws, customs,
edicts, statutes, orders, and ordinances, in which dangerous opposition,
equity and justice being structured and founded on either of the opposite
terms, and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice and
iniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, being
assuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequently
transformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light,
maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and pens of
his ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing judges,
law-monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-like
law-wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black to
white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply. For the more
expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleading
parties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is well
known that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find an
advocate to patrocinate and defend it,--else would there be no process in
the world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at the bar. He did in these
extremities, as I conceive, most humbly recommend the direction of his
judicial proceedings to the upright judge of judges, God Almighty; did
submit himself to the conduct and guideship of the blessed Spirit in the
hazard and perplexity of the definitive sentence, and, by this aleatory
lot, did as it were implore and explore the divine decree of his goodwill
and pleasure, instead of that which we call the final judgment of a court.
To this effect, to the better attaining to his purpose, which was to judge
righteously, he did, in my opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the end
that by the providence aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whose
action was uprightest, and backed with greatest reason. In doing whereof
he did not stray from the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is so
little harm in that manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety and
perplexedness of human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasure
of his divine will.
Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that the
unstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those of
the parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose was
arraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worse
practice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance and
hazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have it
remitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are full
of blood and hearts of wry affections. Besides that, their principal
direction in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, a
wicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, so
pernicious, unjust, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was his
ordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, and
ordinances, as at an outroop or putsale, to him who offered most for them.
Thus did he shape measures for the pleaders, and cut their morsels to them
by and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits, scantlings, and shreds
of the law now in use, altogether concealing, suppressing, disannulling,
and abolishing the remainder, which did make for the total law; fearing
that, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge of
such as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctors
of the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts,
his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the
public notice of the world. Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that
is to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical
case should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination
of what is their right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees;
as Cato in his time wished and advised that every judiciary court should be
paved with caltrops.
Chapter 3. XLV.
How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.
On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very same
hour that Triboulet was by water come from Blois. Panurge, at his arrival,
gave him a hog's bladder puffed up with wind, and resounding because of the
hard peas that were within it. Moreover he did present him with a gilt
wooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell, an osier-wattled
wicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty apples of the
orchard of Blandureau.
If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is no
more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage. Triboulet
girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, ate
some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge very wistly and
heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seen
ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drink
heartily, and by good long draughts. When Triboulet had done with his
drinking, Panurge laid out before him and exposed the sum of the business
wherein he was to require his advice, in eloquent and choicely-sorted
terms, adorned with flourishes of rhetoric. But, before he had altogether
done, Triboulet with his fist gave him a bouncing whirret between the
shoulders, rendered back into his hand again the empty bottle, fillipped
and flirted him in the nose with the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a final
resolution, shaking and wagging his head strongly and disorderly, he
answered nothing else but this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk,
Buzansay hornpipe! These words thus finished, he slipped himself out of
the company, went aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight in
the melody of the rickling crackling noise of the peas. After which time
it lay not in the power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate
sound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about to
interrogate him further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would have
stuck him therewith. I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought my
pigs to a fine market. Have I not got a brave determination of all my
doubts, and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it?
He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who
brought him hither to me,--That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at
me,--but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of
my thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny.
Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quoth
Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the gestures
and speech which he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably, quoth he,
have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable mysteries; yea, of
such important worth and weight, that I shall never henceforth be
astonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal of worship
and reverence honour and respect natural fools equally with their primest
doctors, muftis, divines, and prophets. Did not you take heed, quoth he, a
little before he opened his mouth to speak, what a shogging, shaking, and
wagging his head did keep? By the approved doctrine of the ancient
philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most expert magicians, and
the received opinions of the learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitation
and moving should by us all be judged to proceed from, and be quickened and
suscitated by the coming and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical
spirit, which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacle
of a debile substance (for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, a
little head containeth not much brains), was the cause of that commotion.
This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, when
they affirm that shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a human
body, partly because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden
and load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness and
imbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ. A manifest example
whereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to their
head a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in the
hand that holds it. This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mystical
pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always, before the
uttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of her domestic
laurel. Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to
acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holy
days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the
head of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake.
Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoever
he walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furious
lolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that he commonly affrighted those
who casually met with him in his way. The said author in another place,
showing a reason why Charmides shook and brangled his head, assevered that
he was transported and in an ecstasy. Catullus after the same manner
maketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the
Menades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented
prophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads.
As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were
wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according
to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination,
for kubistan signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and
play the part of one that is wry-necked.
Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the
Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize and
vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shrugging
of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used then
most punctually. For the common voice of the philosophers, together with
the opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth that
vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without the
concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the said
presaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspired
declareth and manifesteth it unto others. The learned lawyer Julian, being
asked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful and
in a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, and
enraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without a
noddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging
at the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent
enough. Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and
instructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do
a pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication,
stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the
sage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them
up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of
theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strange
and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly by
disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of a
wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All which Virgil
acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo Cynthius.
Chapter 3. XLVI.
How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in your
old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your
pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his
codpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk. Upon mine honour, it
gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk. Nay, I will
engage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in my
possession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe,
Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the horned
brotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute to
the wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles and
responses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, without
descending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitch
upon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess who
is to be the copesmate of your wife and hornifier of your proper self.
Thus noble Triboulet tells it us plainly, from whose words we may gather
with all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much
the more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously
contaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he says
that you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned,
hornified, and cornuted. And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the
Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes
of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for
another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet,
and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud,
obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay
hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder,
and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the
back. This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, and
fillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, as
you stole the hog's bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton.
Flat contrary, quoth Panurge;--not that I would impudently exempt myself
from being a vassal in the territory of folly. I hold of that
jurisdiction, and am subject thereto, I confess it. And why should I not?
For the whole world is foolish. In the old Lorraine language, fou for tou,
all and fool, were the same thing. Besides, it is avouched by Solomon that
infinite is the number of fools. From an infinity nothing can be deducted
or abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything thereto be
added or subjoined. Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I should
not hold myself a fool. After the same manner of speaking, we may aver the
number of the mad and enraged folks to be infinite. Avicenna maketh no
bones to assert that the several kinds of madness are infinite. Though
this much of Triboulet's words tend little to my advantage, howbeit the
prejudice which I sustain thereby be common with me to all other men, yet
the rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me.
understood--ut ff. si quando paup. fec. l. Agaso. gloss. in verb. olfecit,
id est, nasum ad culum posuit--and found that there was anywhere in the
country a debatable matter at law, he would incontinently thrust in his
advice, and so forwardly intrude his opinion in the business, that he made
no bones of making offer, and taking upon him to decide it, how difficult
soever it might happen to be, to the full contentment and satisfaction of
both parties. It is written, Qui non laborat non manducat; and the said
gl. ff. de damn. infect. l. quamvis, and Currere plus que le pas vetulam
compellit egestas. gloss. ff. de lib. agnosc. l. si quis. pro qua facit. l.
si plures. c. de cond. incert. But so hugely great was his misfortune in
this his undertaking, that he never composed any difference, how little
soever you may imagine it might have been, but that, instead of reconciling
the parties at odds, he did incense, irritate, and exasperate them to a
higher point of dissension and enmity than ever they were at before. Your
worships know, I doubt not, that,
Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis.
Gl. ff. de alien. jud. mut. caus. fa. lib. 2. This administered unto the
tavern-keepers, wine-drawers, and vintners of Semerve an occasion to say,
that under him they had not in the space of a whole year so much
reconciliation-wine, for so were they pleased to call the good wine of
Leguge, as under his father they had done in one half-hour's time. It
happened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret thereof
to his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in pacificatory
enterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross, and backward
inclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly, and irreverently
upbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world had been so
wayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of all square, frame,
and order as it was then, his father had never attained to and acquired the
honour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably, inviolably, and
irrevocably as he had done. In doing whereof Tenot did heinously
transgress against the law which prohibiteth children to reproach the
actions of their parents; per gl. et Bart. l. 3. paragr. si quis. ff. de
cond. ob caus. et authent. de nupt. par. sed quod sancitum. col. 4. To
this the honest old father answered thus: My son Dandin, when Don Oportet
taketh place, this is the course which we must trace, gl. c. de appell. l.
eos etiam. For the road that you went upon was not the way to the fuller's
mill, nor in any part thereof was the form to be found wherein the hare did
sit. Thou hast not the skill and dexterity of settling and composing
differences. Why? Because thou takest them at the beginning, in the very
infancy and bud as it were, when they are green, raw, and indigestible.
Yet I know handsomely and featly how to compose and settle them all. Why?
Because I take them at their decadence, in their weaning, and when they are
pretty well digested. So saith Gloss:
Dulcior est fructus post multa pericula ductus.
L. non moriturus. c. de contrahend. et committ. stip. Didst thou ever hear
the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at the
declension of a disease? For the sickness being come to a crisis is then
upon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end, although the
physician should not repair thither for the cure thereof; whereby, though
nature wholly do the work, he bears away the palm and praise thereof. My
pleaders, after the same manner, before I did interpose my judgment in the
reconciling of them, were waxing faint in their contestations. Their
altercation heat was much abated, and, in declining from their former
strife, they of themselves inclined to a firm accommodation of their
differences; because there wanted fuel to that fire of burning rancour and
despiteful wrangling whereof the lower sort of lawyers were the kindlers.
That is to say, their purses were emptied of coin, they had not a win in
their fob, nor penny in their bag, wherewith to solicit and present their
actions.
Deficiente pecu, deficit omne, nia.
There wanted then nothing but some brother to supply the place of a
paranymph, brawl-broker, proxenete, or mediator, who, acting his part
dexterously, should be the first broacher of the motion of an agreement,
for saving both the one and the other party from that hurtful and
pernicious shame whereof he could not have avoided the imputation when it
should have been said that he was the first who yielded and spoke of a
reconcilement, and that therefore, his cause not being good, and being
sensible where his shoe did pinch him, he was willing to break the ice, and
make the greater haste to prepare the way for a condescendment to an
amicable and friendly treaty. Then was it that I came in pudding time,
Dandin, my son, nor is the fat of bacon more relishing to boiled peas than
was my verdict then agreeable to them. This was my luck, my profit, and
good fortune. I tell thee, my jolly son Dandin, that by this rule and
method I could settle a firm peace, or at least clap up a cessation of arms
and truce for many years to come, betwixt the Great King and the Venetian
State, the Emperor and the Cantons of Switzerland, the English and the
Scots, and betwixt the Pope and the Ferrarians. Shall I go yet further?
Yea, as I would have God to help me, betwixt the Turk and the Sophy, the
Tartars and the Muscoviters. Remark well what I am to say unto thee. I
would take them at that very instant nick of time when both those of the
one and the other side should be weary and tired of making war, when they
had voided and emptied their own cashes and coffers of all treasure and
coin, drained and exhausted the purses and bags of their subjects, sold and
mortgaged their domains and proper inheritances, and totally wasted, spent,
and consumed the munition, furniture, provision, and victuals that were
necessary for the continuance of a military expedition. There I am sure,
by God, or by his Mother, that, would they, would they not, in spite of all
their teeths, they should be forced to have a little respite and breathing
time to moderate the fury and cruel rage of their ambitious aims. This is
the doctrine in Gl. 37. d. c. si quando.
Odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.
Chapter 3. XLII.
How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to their
perfect growth.
For this cause, quoth Bridlegoose, going on in his discourse, I temporize
and apply myself to the times, as your other worships use to do, waiting
patiently for the maturity of the process, full growth and perfection
thereof in all its members, to wit, the writings and the bags. Arg. in l.
si major. c. commun. divid. et de cons. di. 1. c. solemnitates, et ibi gl.
A suit in law at its production, birth, and first beginning, seemeth to me,
as unto your other worships, shapeless, without form or fashion,
incomplete, ugly and imperfect, even as a bear at his first coming into the
world hath neither hands, skin, hair, nor head, but is merely an inform,
rude, and ill-favoured piece and lump of flesh, and would remain still so,
if his dam, out of the abundance of her affection to her hopeful cub, did
not with much licking put his members into that figure and shape which
nature had provided for those of an arctic and ursinal kind; ut not. Doct.
ff. ad l. Aquil. l. 3. in fin. Just so do I see, as your other worships
do, processes and suits in law, at their first bringing forth, to be
numberless, without shape, deformed, and disfigured, for that then they
consist only of one or two writings, or copies of instruments, through
which defect they appear unto me, as to your other worships, foul,
loathsome, filthy, and misshapen beasts. But when there are heaps of these
legiformal papers packed, piled, laid up together, impoked, insatchelled,
and put up in bags, then is it that with a good reason we may term that
suit, to which, as pieces, parcels, parts, portions, and members thereof,
they do pertain and belong, well-formed and fashioned, big-limbed,
strong-set, and in all and each of its dimensions most completely membered.
Because forma dat esse. rei. l. si is qui. ff. ad leg. Falcid. in c. cum
dilecta. de rescript. Barbat. consil. 12. lib. 2, and before him, Baldus,
in c. ult. extra. de consuet. et l. Julianus ad exhib. ff. et l. quaesitum.
ff. de leg. 3. The manner is such as is set down in gl. p. quaest. 1. c.
Paulus.
Debile principium melior fortuna sequetur.
Like your other worships, also the sergeants, catchpoles, pursuivants,
messengers, summoners, apparitors, ushers, door-keepers, pettifoggers,
attorneys, proctors, commissioners, justices of the peace, judge delegates,
arbitrators, overseers, sequestrators, advocates, inquisitors, jurors,
searchers, examiners, notaries, tabellions, scribes, scriveners, clerks,
pregnotaries, secondaries, and expedanean judges, de quibus tit. est. l. 3.
c. , by sucking very much, and that exceeding forcibly, and licking at the
purses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already begot and
engendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws, talons, beaks,
bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles, humours, and so
forth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of the whole; which
parts, particles, pendicles, and appurtenances are the law pokes and bags,
gl. de cons. d. 4. c. accepisti. Qualis vestis erit, talia corda gerit.
Hic notandum est, that in this respect the pleaders, litigants, and
law-suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and administrators of
justice. For beatius est dare quam accipere. ff. commun. l. 3. extra. de
celebr. Miss. c. cum Marthae. et 24. quaest. 1. cap. Od. gl.
Affectum dantis pensat censura tonantis.
Thus becometh the action or process by their care and industry to be of a
complete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and fashioned
according to the canonical gloss.
Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae.
Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in verbo
Roma.
Roma manus rodit, quas rodere non valet, odit.
Dantes custodit, non dantes spernit, et odit.
The reason whereof is thought to be this:
Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora.
ut est gl. in l. quum hi. ff. de transact. Nor is this all; for the
inconvenience of the contrary is set down in gloss. c. de allu. l. fin.
Quum labor in damno est, crescit mortalis egestas.
In confirmation whereof we find that the true etymology and exposition of
the word process is purchase, viz.
of good store of money to the lawyers,
and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon which subject
we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.
Ligitando jura crescunt; litigando jus acquiritur.
Item gl. in cap. illud extrem. de praesumpt. et c. de prob. l. instrum. l.
non epistolis. l. non nudis.
Et si non prosunt singula, multa juvant.
Yea but, asked Trinquamelle, how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal
causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante
crimine? Even as your other worships use to do, answered Bridlegoose.
First, I permit the plaintiff to depart from the court, enjoining him not
to presume to return thither till he preallably should have taken a good
sound and profound sleep, which is to serve for the prime entry and
introduction to the legal carrying on of the business. In the next place,
a formal report is to be made to me of his having slept. Thirdly, I issue
forth a warrant to convene him before me. Fourthly, he is to produce a
sufficient and authentic attestation of his having thoroughly and entirely
slept, conform to the Gloss. 37. Quest. 7. c. Si quis cum.
Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.
Being thus far advanced in the formality of the process, I find that this
consopiating act engendereth another act, whence ariseth the articulating
of a member. That again produceth a third act, fashionative of another
member; which third bringing forth a fourth, procreative of another act.
New members in a no fewer number are shapen and framed, one still breeding
and begetting another--as, link after link, the coat of mail at length is
made--till thus, piece after piece, by little and little, by information
upon information, the process be completely well formed and perfect in all
his members. Finally, having proceeded this length, I have recourse to my
dice, nor is it to be thought that this interruption, respite, or
interpellation is by me occasioned without very good reason inducing me
thereunto, and a notable experience of a most convincing and irrefragable
force.
I remember, on a time, that in the camp at Stockholm there was a certain
Gascon named Gratianauld, native of the town of Saint Sever, who having
lost all his money at play, and consecutively being very angry thereat--as
you know, Pecunia est alter sanguis, ut ait Anto. de Burtio, in c.
accedens. 2. extra ut lit. non contest. et Bald. in l. si tuis. c. de opt.
leg. per tot. in l. advocati. c. de advoc. div. jud. Pecunia est vita
hominis et optimus fide-jussor in necessitatibus--did, at his coming forth
of the gaming-house, in the presence of the whole company that was there,
with a very loud voice speak in his own language these following words:
Pao cap de bious hillots, que maux de pipes bous tresbire: ares que de
pergudes sont les mires bingt, et quouatre bagnelles, ta pla donnerien
pics, trucs, et patacts, Sey degun de bous aulx, qui boille truquar ambe
iou a bels embis. Finding that none would make him any answer, he passed
from thence to that part of the leaguer where the huff-snuff, honder
sponder, swashbuckling High Germans were, to whom he renewed these very
terms, provoking them to fight with him; but all the return he had from
them to his stout challenge was only, Der Gasconner thut sich ausz mit ein
iedem zu schlagen, aber er ist geneigter zu stehlen, darum, liebe frawen,
habt sorg zu euerm hauszrath. Finding also that none of that band of
Teutonic soldiers offered himself to the combat, he passed to that quarter
of the leaguer where the French freebooting adventurers were encamped, and
reiterating unto them what he had before repeated to the Dutch warriors,
challenged them likewise to fight with him, and therewithal made some
pretty little Gasconado frisking gambols to oblige them the more cheerfully
and gallantly to cope with him in the lists of a duellizing engagement; but
no answer at all was made unto him. Whereupon the Gascon, despairing of
meeting with any antagonists, departed from thence, and laying himself down
not far from the pavilions of the grand Christian cavalier Crissie, fell
fast asleep. When he had thoroughly slept an hour or two, another
adventurous and all-hazarding blade of the forlorn hope of the lavishingly
wasting gamesters, having also lost all his moneys, sallied forth with
sword in his hand, of a firm resolution to fight with the aforesaid Gascon,
seeing he had lost as well as he.
Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris,
saith the Gl. de poenitent. distinct. 3. c. sunt plures. To this effect
having made inquiry and search for him throughout the whole camp, and in
sequel thereof found him asleep, he said unto him, Up, ho, good fellow, in
the name of all the devils of hell, rise up, rise up, get up! I have lost
my money as well as thou hast done; let us therefore go fight lustily
together, grapple and scuffle it to some purpose. Thou mayest look and see
that my tuck is no longer than thy rapier. The Gascon, altogether
astonished at his unexpected provocation, without altering his former
dialect spoke thus: Cap de Saint Arnault, quau seys to you, qui me
rebeillez? Que mau de taberne te gire. Ho Saint Siobe, cap de Gascoigne,
ta pla dormy jou, quand aquoest taquain me bingut estee. The venturous
roister inviteth him again to the duel, but the Gascon, without
condescending to his desire, said only this: He paovret jou tesquinerie
ares, que son pla reposat. Vayne un pauque te pausar com jou, peusse
truqueren. Thus, in forgetting his loss, he forgot the eagerness which he
had to fight. In conclusion, after that the other had likewise slept a
little, they, instead of fighting, and possibly killing one another, went
jointly to a sutler's tent, where they drank together very amicably, each
upon the pawn of his sword. Thus by a little sleep was pacified the ardent
fury of two warlike champions. There, gossip, comes the golden word of
John Andr. in cap. ult. de sent. et re. judic. l. sexto.
Sedendo, et dormiendo fit anima prudens.
Chapter 3. XLIII.
How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing actions at
law by the chance of the dice.
With this Bridlegoose held his peace. Whereupon Trinquamelle bid him
withdraw from the court--which accordingly was done--and then directed his
discourse to Pantagruel after this manner: It is fitting, most illustrious
prince, not only by reason of the deep obligations wherein this present
parliament, together with the whole marquisate of Mirelingues, stand bound
to your royal highness for the innumerable benefits which, as effects of
mere grace, they have received from your incomparable bounty, but for that
excellent wit also, prime judgment, and admirable learning wherewith
Almighty God, the giver of all good things, hath most richly qualified and
endowed you, we tender and present unto you the decision of this new,
strange, and paradoxical case of Bridlegoose; who, in your presence, to
your both hearing and seeing, hath plainly confessed his final judging and
determinating of suits of law by the mere chance and fortune of the dice.
Therefore do we beseech you that you may be pleased to give sentence
therein as unto you shall seem most just and equitable. To this Pantagruel
answered: Gentlemen, it is not unknown to you how my condition is somewhat
remote from the profession of deciding law controversies; yet, seeing you
are pleased to do me the honour to put that task upon me, instead of
undergoing the office of a judge I will become your humble supplicant. I
observe, gentlemen, in this Bridlegoose several things which induce me to
represent before you that it is my opinion he should be pardoned. In the
first place, his old age; secondly, his simplicity; to both which qualities
our statute and common laws, civil and municipal together, allow many
excuses for any slips or escapes which, through the invincible imperfection
of either, have been inconsiderately stumbled upon by a person so
qualified. Thirdly, gentlemen, I must needs display before you another
case, which in equity and justice maketh much for the advantage of
Bridlegoose, to wit, that this one, sole, and single fault of his ought to
be quite forgotten, abolished, and swallowed up by that immense and vast
ocean of just dooms and sentences which heretofore he hath given and
pronounced; his demeanours, for these forty years and upwards that he hath
been a judge, having been so evenly balanced in the scales of uprightness,
that envy itself till now could not have been so impudent as to accuse and
twit him with any act worthy of a check or reprehension; as, if a drop of
the sea were thrown into the Loire, none could perceive or say that by this
single drop the whole river should be salt and brackish.
Truly, it seemeth unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose's
juridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinary
savouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his preceding
sentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and approved of by
yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court. For it is
usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifest
his own ineffable glory in blunting the perspicacy of the eyes of the wise,
in weakening the strength of potent oppressors, in depressing the pride of
rich extortioners, and in erecting, comforting, protecting, supporting,
upholding, and shoring up the poor, feeble, humble, silly, and foolish ones
of the earth. But, waiving all these matters, I shall only beseech you,
not by the obligations which you pretend to owe to my family, for which I
thank you, but for that constant and unfeigned love and affection which you
have always found in me, both on this and on the other side of Loire, for
the maintenance and establishment of your places, offices, and dignities,
that for this one time you would pardon and forgive him upon these two
conditions. First, that he satisfy, or put a sufficient surety for the
satisfaction of the party wronged by the injustice of the sentence in
question. For the fulfilment of this article I will provide sufficiently.
And, secondly, that for his subsidiary aid in the weighty charge of
administrating justice you would be pleased to appoint and assign unto him
some pretty little virtuous counsellor, younger, learneder, and wiser than
he, by the square and rule of whose advice he may regulate, guide, temper,
and moderate in times coming all his judiciary procedures; or otherwise, if
you intend totally to depose him from his office, and to deprive him
altogether of the state and dignity of a judge, I shall cordially entreat
you to make a present and free gift of him to me, who shall find in my
kingdoms charges and employments enough wherewith to embusy him, for the
bettering of his own fortunes and furtherance of my service. In the
meantime, I implore the Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier of all good
things, in his grace, mercy, and kindness, to preserve you all now and
evermore, world without end.
These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg with
such a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree and
eminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and master-speaker of that
Mirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the whole court, and went out
of the chamber; at the door whereof finding Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John,
and others, he forthwith, attended by them, walked to the outer gate, where
all of them immediately took horse to return towards Gargantua. Pantagruel
by the way related to them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose's
sententiating differences at law. Friar John said that he had seen Peter
Dandin, and was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in the
monastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon. Gymnast
likewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand Christian cavalier
De Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made answer to the
adventurer. Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the matter of believing
that it was morally possible Bridlegoose should have been for such a long
space of time so continually fortunate in that aleatory way of deciding law
debates. Epistemon said to Pantagruel, Such another story, not much unlike
to that in all the circumstances thereof, is vulgarly reported of the
provost of Montlehery. In good sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is to
be wondered at. To have hit right twice or thrice in a judgment so given
by haphazard might have fallen out well enough, especially in controversies
that were ambiguous, intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure.
Chapter 3. XLIV.
How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human
judgment.
Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty
debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella,
proconsul in Asia. The case was this.
A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece. He dying,
she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to her second
husband bore a boy called Effege. A pretty long time thereafter it
happened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and stepdams is very
rare towards the children of the first fathers and mothers deceased, that
this husband, with the help of his son Effege, secretly, wittingly,
willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece. The woman came no sooner to
get information of the fact, but, that it might not go unpunished, she
caused kill them both, to revenge the death of her first son. She was
apprehended and carried before Cneius Dolabella, in whose presence she,
without dissembling anything, confessed all that was laid to her charge;
yet alleged that she had both right and reason on her side for the killing
of them. Thus was the state of the question. He found the business so
dubious and intricate, that he knew not what to determine therein, nor
which of the parties to incline to. On the one hand, it was an execrable
crime to cut off at once both her second husband and her son. On the other
hand, the cause of the murder seemed to be so natural, as to be grounded
upon the law of nations and the rational instinct of all the people of the
world, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyed
her first son; not that they had been in any manner of way wronged,
outraged, or injured by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his
inheritance. In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon,
he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their
advice and judgment. That judicious senate, very sagely perpending the
reasons of his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally to
compear before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to some
interrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in the
verbal defence. Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in their
opinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what to
say or judge therein. Who had decided that plea by the chance and fortune
of the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which side soever he
had passed his casting and condemnatory sentence. If against the woman,
she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign authority by taking that
vengeance at her own hand, the inflicting whereof was only competent to the
supreme power to administer justice in criminal cases. If for her, the
just resentment of a so atrocious injury done unto her, in murdering her
innocent son, did fully excuse and vindicate her of any trespass or offence
about that particular committed by her. But this continuation of
Bridlegoose for so many years still hitting the nail on the head, never
missing the mark, and always judging aright, by the mere throwing of the
dice and chance thereof, is that which most astonisheth and amazeth me.
To answer, quoth Pantagruel (Epistemon, says the English edition of 1694,
following the reading of the modern French editions. Le Duchat has pointed
out the mistake. --M. ), categorically to that which you wonder at, I must
ingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet, conjecturally to guess at
the reason of it, I would refer the cause of that marvellously
long-continued happy success in the judiciary results of his definitive
sentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and benignity of the
intelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after having
contemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of Judge
Bridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did regulate that for
him by chance which by the profoundest act of his maturest deliberation he
was not able to reach unto. That, likewise, which possibly made him to
diffide in his own skill and capacity, notwithstanding his being an expert
and understanding lawyer, for anything that I know to the contrary, was the
knowledge and experience which he had of the antinomies, contrarieties,
antilogies, contradictions, traversings, and thwartings of laws, customs,
edicts, statutes, orders, and ordinances, in which dangerous opposition,
equity and justice being structured and founded on either of the opposite
terms, and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice and
iniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, being
assuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequently
transformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light,
maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and pens of
his ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing judges,
law-monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-like
law-wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black to
white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply. For the more
expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleading
parties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is well
known that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find an
advocate to patrocinate and defend it,--else would there be no process in
the world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at the bar. He did in these
extremities, as I conceive, most humbly recommend the direction of his
judicial proceedings to the upright judge of judges, God Almighty; did
submit himself to the conduct and guideship of the blessed Spirit in the
hazard and perplexity of the definitive sentence, and, by this aleatory
lot, did as it were implore and explore the divine decree of his goodwill
and pleasure, instead of that which we call the final judgment of a court.
To this effect, to the better attaining to his purpose, which was to judge
righteously, he did, in my opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the end
that by the providence aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whose
action was uprightest, and backed with greatest reason. In doing whereof
he did not stray from the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is so
little harm in that manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety and
perplexedness of human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasure
of his divine will.
Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that the
unstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those of
the parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose was
arraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worse
practice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance and
hazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have it
remitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are full
of blood and hearts of wry affections. Besides that, their principal
direction in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, a
wicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, so
pernicious, unjust, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was his
ordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, and
ordinances, as at an outroop or putsale, to him who offered most for them.
Thus did he shape measures for the pleaders, and cut their morsels to them
by and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits, scantlings, and shreds
of the law now in use, altogether concealing, suppressing, disannulling,
and abolishing the remainder, which did make for the total law; fearing
that, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge of
such as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctors
of the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts,
his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the
public notice of the world. Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that
is to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical
case should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination
of what is their right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees;
as Cato in his time wished and advised that every judiciary court should be
paved with caltrops.
Chapter 3. XLV.
How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.
On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very same
hour that Triboulet was by water come from Blois. Panurge, at his arrival,
gave him a hog's bladder puffed up with wind, and resounding because of the
hard peas that were within it. Moreover he did present him with a gilt
wooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell, an osier-wattled
wicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty apples of the
orchard of Blandureau.
If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is no
more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage. Triboulet
girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, ate
some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge very wistly and
heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seen
ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drink
heartily, and by good long draughts. When Triboulet had done with his
drinking, Panurge laid out before him and exposed the sum of the business
wherein he was to require his advice, in eloquent and choicely-sorted
terms, adorned with flourishes of rhetoric. But, before he had altogether
done, Triboulet with his fist gave him a bouncing whirret between the
shoulders, rendered back into his hand again the empty bottle, fillipped
and flirted him in the nose with the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a final
resolution, shaking and wagging his head strongly and disorderly, he
answered nothing else but this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk,
Buzansay hornpipe! These words thus finished, he slipped himself out of
the company, went aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight in
the melody of the rickling crackling noise of the peas. After which time
it lay not in the power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate
sound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about to
interrogate him further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would have
stuck him therewith. I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought my
pigs to a fine market. Have I not got a brave determination of all my
doubts, and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it?
He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who
brought him hither to me,--That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at
me,--but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of
my thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny.
Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quoth
Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the gestures
and speech which he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably, quoth he,
have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable mysteries; yea, of
such important worth and weight, that I shall never henceforth be
astonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal of worship
and reverence honour and respect natural fools equally with their primest
doctors, muftis, divines, and prophets. Did not you take heed, quoth he, a
little before he opened his mouth to speak, what a shogging, shaking, and
wagging his head did keep? By the approved doctrine of the ancient
philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most expert magicians, and
the received opinions of the learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitation
and moving should by us all be judged to proceed from, and be quickened and
suscitated by the coming and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical
spirit, which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacle
of a debile substance (for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, a
little head containeth not much brains), was the cause of that commotion.
This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, when
they affirm that shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a human
body, partly because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden
and load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness and
imbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ. A manifest example
whereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to their
head a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in the
hand that holds it. This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mystical
pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always, before the
uttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of her domestic
laurel. Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to
acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holy
days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the
head of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake.
Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoever
he walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furious
lolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that he commonly affrighted those
who casually met with him in his way. The said author in another place,
showing a reason why Charmides shook and brangled his head, assevered that
he was transported and in an ecstasy. Catullus after the same manner
maketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the
Menades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented
prophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads.
As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were
wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according
to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination,
for kubistan signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and
play the part of one that is wry-necked.
Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the
Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize and
vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shrugging
of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used then
most punctually. For the common voice of the philosophers, together with
the opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth that
vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without the
concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the said
presaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspired
declareth and manifesteth it unto others. The learned lawyer Julian, being
asked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful and
in a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, and
enraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without a
noddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging
at the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent
enough. Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and
instructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do
a pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication,
stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the
sage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them
up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of
theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strange
and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly by
disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of a
wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All which Virgil
acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo Cynthius.
Chapter 3. XLVI.
How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in your
old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your
pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his
codpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk. Upon mine honour, it
gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk. Nay, I will
engage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in my
possession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe,
Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the horned
brotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute to
the wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles and
responses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, without
descending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitch
upon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess who
is to be the copesmate of your wife and hornifier of your proper self.
Thus noble Triboulet tells it us plainly, from whose words we may gather
with all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much
the more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously
contaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he says
that you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned,
hornified, and cornuted. And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the
Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes
of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for
another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet,
and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud,
obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay
hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder,
and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the
back. This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, and
fillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, as
you stole the hog's bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton.
Flat contrary, quoth Panurge;--not that I would impudently exempt myself
from being a vassal in the territory of folly. I hold of that
jurisdiction, and am subject thereto, I confess it. And why should I not?
For the whole world is foolish. In the old Lorraine language, fou for tou,
all and fool, were the same thing. Besides, it is avouched by Solomon that
infinite is the number of fools. From an infinity nothing can be deducted
or abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything thereto be
added or subjoined. Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I should
not hold myself a fool. After the same manner of speaking, we may aver the
number of the mad and enraged folks to be infinite. Avicenna maketh no
bones to assert that the several kinds of madness are infinite. Though
this much of Triboulet's words tend little to my advantage, howbeit the
prejudice which I sustain thereby be common with me to all other men, yet
the rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me.
