Over ten years were to pass before Rabelais was persuaded to publish his Third Book (1546). It is dedicated to the enraptured ‘spirit’ (or ‘mind’) of Queen Marguerite de Navarre, who was a deeply religious woman, both mystical and evangelical. (Rabelais treats her as a contemplative whose mind, caught away to Heaven in rapture, has to be tempted back to earth in order to witness the joyous deeds of his new book.)
