But ’tis easy to judge your conscience is as large as the sleeve of a [42] _Cordelier_, since you began in the spirit, and ended in the flesh. Notwithstanding what I have merrily own’d in rhime, more to entertain your majesty, than express my true sentiments, there are certain hours when I could willingly follow your example; and if you would obtain from the holy father a dispensation of my vows, which now grow burthensome to me, I would break a lance in your quarrel: this I am sure of, that the world will think it less strange to see a nun renounce her convent, than a queen her crown. FRANCIS RABLAIS, _to the_ Physicians _of_ Paris. It is in vain for your flatterers to cry you up for able doctors, for you will never arrive at my knowledge; and I am asham’d every hour to hear such asses are admitted into the college. Do not believe ’tis a sensible vanity that induces me to say this, but the perfect knowledge I have of my own worth; and tho’ I was design’d for a more lazy profession, yet that does not in the least diminish my merit. You know I was born at _Chinon_, and that my parents, hoping I should one day make a precious saint, put me, in my foolish infancy, into a convent of _Cordeliers_: but that greasy habit, in a little time, seem’d to me as heavy and uneasy as the armour of a giant; so that by intercession made to Pope _Clement_ VII. I was permitted to change my grey frock for a black; so I quitted the equipage of St. _Francis_ for that of St. _Benedict_, and that I was as weary of in a short time as of the other. As I had learnt a great deal of craft, and but little religion, during my noviciate in those good schools, so I found a way to get loose from that cloyster for ever, and took to the study of _Hippocrates_. Besides that I had a subtle and clear genius; my comrades discover’d in me an acute natural raillery, which made me acceptable to the best companions, Cardinal _Bellay_, who made me his physician, took me to _Rome_ with him in that quality, where the sanctity of the triple crown, the ador’d slipper, and all-opening key, could not hinder me from jesting in the presence of his holiness. ’Twas _Paul_ III. before called _Alexander Fernese_, who then fill’d the apostolical chair, and was more remarkable for his lewdness than piety. I had the good fortune to please him with the inclination he found in me to lewdness; and he gave me a bull of absolution for my apostacy, free from all fee and duties, which I think was a gracious reward for a foreign, atheistical buffoon. After I had compil’d a catalogue of his vices, to make use of as I should find an opportunity, the cardinal, my patron, return’d to _Paris_, and I with him, where he immediately gratify’d me with a canonship of St. _Maur_, and the benefice of _Meudon_. Hiving all I could desire, I liv’d luxuriously; and the love of satire pleasing me much more than the service of God, after I had wrote several things without success, for