A good edition, of course, would make no attempt at amalgamating these.

That would give a false impression and end in confusion; but it should note them all, and show them all, not combined, but simply as variations.
After Le Duchat, all the editions, in their care that nothing should be lost, made the mistake of collecting and placing side by side things which had no connection with each other, which had even been substituted for each other.

The result was a fabricated text, full of contradictions naturally.
But since the edition issued by M.Jannet, the well-known publisher of the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, who was the first to get rid of this patchwork, this mosaic, Rabelais' latest text has been given, accompanied by all the earlier variations, to show the changes he made, as well as his suppressions and additions.

It would also be possible to reverse the method.

It would be interesting to take his first text as the basis, noting the later modifications.