On his head he wears the square cap of the doctors and the clerks, and his dominant expression, somewhat rigid and severe, is that of a physician and a scholar.

And this is the only portrait to which we need attach any importance.
This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaustive study.

At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to fix a few certain dates, to hang some general observations.

The date of Rabelais' birth is very doubtful.

For long it was placed as far back as 1483: now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495.