He did cast the dart, throw the bar, put the stone, practise the javelin, the boar-spear or partizan, and the halbert. He broke the strongest bows in drawing, bended against his breast the greatest cross-bows of steel, took his aim by the eye with the hand-gun, traversed the cannon; shot at the butts, at the pape-gay, before him, sidewise, and behind him, like the Parthians. They tied a cable-rope to the top of a high tower, by one end whereof hanging near the ground he wrought himself with his hands to the very top; then came down again so sturdily and firmly that you could not on a plain meadow have run with more assurance. They set up a great pole fixt upon two trees. There would he hang by his hands, and with them alone, his feet touching at nothing, would go back and fore along the aforesaid rope with so great swiftness, that hardly could one overtake him with running.
There was left only the monk to provide for; whom Gargantua would have made Abbot of Seuillé, but he refused it. He would have given him the Abbey of Bourgueil, or of Sanct Florent, which was better, or both if it pleased him; but the monk gave him a very peremptory answer, that he would never take upon him the charge nor government of monks. "For how shall I be able," said he, "to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself? If you think I have done you, or may hereafter do you any acceptable service, give me leave to found an abbey after my own mind and fancy." The motion pleased Gargantua very well; who thereupon offered him all the country of Thelema by the river Loire, till within two leagues of the great forest of Port-Huaut. The monk then requested Gargantua to institute his religious order contrary to all others.
[Footnote 15: From Book I of "The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel." The Urquhart-Motteux translation.]
"First, then," said Gargantua, "you must not build a wall about your convent, for all other abbeys are strongly walled and mured about."
Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in the world whereof the custom is, if any women come in--I mean honorable and honest women--they immediately sweep the ground which they have trod upon; therefore was it ordained that if any man or woman, entered into religious orders, should by chance come within this new abbey, all the rooms should be thoroughly washed and cleansed through which they had passed.