His contemporaries, who approved of his borrowing from antiquity, could not detect this one, because the book was not printed till much later.

But Rabelais lived in Maine.

In Anjou, which often figures among the localities he names, he must have met with and read the Chronicles of the Counts in manuscript, probably in some monastery library, whether at Fontenay-le-Comte or elsewhere it matters little.

There is not only a likeness in the ideas and tone, but in the words too, which cannot be a mere matter of chance.

He must have known the Chronicles of the Counts of Anjou, and they inspired one of his finest pages.