Gargantua visits Paris.

Gargantua is a Falstaffian figure of gross appetites, larger than life. Falstaff (i.e. Shakespeare) also has Rabelais' verbal virtuosity and excess. In As You Like It, Rosalind asks Celia to reply to all her questions in one word, to which Celia replies: "You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size." (III.ii.224-6) Illustration for Gargantua by François Rabelais, published in Oeuvres de Rabelais (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1873), Book I, ch. XXII, opposite page 69.Picture courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia).