Literature 
in 
and Art. 
331 
fome time, and then fettled at Montpellier, wher'e he took a degree as 
doftor in medicine, and praeiifed for fome time with credit. There he 
publilhed in 1532 a tranflation of fome Works of Hippocrates and Galen, 
which he dedicated to his friend the bifhop of Maillezais. The circum- 
Pcances under which he left Montpellier are not known, but he is fup- 
pofed to have gone to Paris upon fome bulinefs of the univerfity, and to 
have remained there. He found there a fiaunch friend in Jean de 
Bellay, bifhop of Paris, who foon afterwards was railed to the rank of 
cardinal. When the cardinal de Bellay went as ambaH'ador to Rome 
from the court of France, Rabelais accompanied him, it is faid in the 
character of his private medical advifer, but during his flay in the 
metropolis of Chriftendom, as Chriitendom was underftood in thofe days 
by the Romilh church, Rabelais obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536, 
the papal abfolution for all his tranfgrellions, and licence to return to 
M aillezais, and practife medicine there and elfewhere as an act of charity. 
Thus he became again a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed 
again, and became a fecular canon, and finally fettled down as the cure 
of Meudon, near Paris, with which he alfo held a fair number of ecclefi- 
aitical benefices. Rabelais died in 1553, according to fome in a very 
religious manner, but others have given ltrange accounts of his laft 
moments, reprefentiug that, even when dying, he converfed in the lame 
fpirit of mockery, not only of Romilh forms and ceremonies, but of all 
religions whatever, which was afcribed to him during his life, and which 
are but too openly manifeited in the extraordinary fatirical romance 
which has given fo much celebrity to his name. 
During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was expofed to troubles 
and perfecutions. He was faved from the intrigues of the monks by the 
friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two fucceflive 
kings, Frangois I. and Henri II., protected him againft the [till more 
dangerous holtility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of Paris. This 
high protection has been advanced as a reafon for rejecting the anecdotes 
and accounts which have been commonly received relating to the per- 
fonal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may pOHll)l_)' have been 
exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon hirnfelf by his 
writings.