by the said bishop most earnestly
solicited to leave him some few for the exercise of his mind. I had rather
give them all my revenue of the periwinkles, together with the other
incomes of the locusts, albeit I should not thereby have any parcel abated
from off the principal sums which I owe. Let us waive this matter, quoth
Pantagruel, I have told it you over again.

Chapter 3.VI.

Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars.

But, in the interim, asked Panurge, by what law was it constituted,
ordained, and established, that such as should plant a new vineyard, those
that should build a new house, and the new married men, should be exempted
and discharged from the duty of warfare for the first year? By the law,
answered Pantagruel, of Moses. Why, replied Panurge, the lately married?
As for the vine-planters, I am now too old to reflect on them; my
condition, at this present, induceth me to remain satisfied with the care
of vintage, finishing and turning the grapes into wine. Nor are these
pretty new builders of dead stones written or pricked down in my Book of
Life. It is all with live stones that I set up and erect the fabrics of my
architecture, to wit, men. It was, according to my opinion, quoth
Pantagruel, to the end, first, that the fresh married folks should for the
first year reap a full and complete fruition of their pleasures in their
mutual exercise of the act of love, in such sort, that in waiting more at
leisure on the production of posterity and propagating of their progeny,
they might the better increase their race and make provision of new heirs.
That if, in the years thereafter, the men should, upon their undergoing of
some military adventure, happen to be killed, their names and coats-of-arms
might continue with their children in the same families. And next, that,
the wives thereby coming to know whether they were barren or fruitful--for
one year's trial, in regard of the maturity of age wherein of old they
married, was held sufficient for the discovery--they might pitch the more
suitably, in case of their first husband's decease, upon a second match.
The fertile women to be wedded to those who desire to multiply their issue;
and the sterile ones to such other mates, as, misregarding the storing of
their own lineage, choose them only for their virtues, learning, genteel
behaviour, domestic consolation, management of the house, and matrimonial
conveniences and comforts, and su