My wife is dead, well, by G--! (da jurandi) I shall not raise her again by my crying: she is well, she is in paradise at least, if she be no higher: she prayeth to God for us, she is happy, she is above the sense of our miseries, nor can our calamities reach her.

What though she be dead, must not we also die?
The same debt which she hath paid hangs over our heads; nature will require it of us, and we must all of us some day taste of the same sauce.

Let her pass then, and the Lord preserve the survivors; for I must now cast about how to get another wife.
But I will tell you what you shall do, said he to the midwives, in France called wise women (where be they, good folks?
I cannot see them): Go you to my wife's interment, and I will the while rock my son; for I find myself somewhat altered and distempered, and should otherwise be in danger of falling sick; but drink one good draught first, you will be the better for it.

And believe me, upon mine honour, they at his request went to her burial and funeral obsequies.

In the meanwhile, poor Gargantua staying at home, and willing to have somewhat in remembrance of her to be engraven upon her tomb, made this epitaph in the manner as followeth.
Dead is the noble Badebec, Who had a face like a rebeck; A Spanish body, and a belly Of Switzerland; she died, I tell ye, In childbirth.