| Summary: | In the memorable encounter between Panurge and the haughty lady of Paris, numerous textual details touch directly upon the religious controversies between Reformers and Catholics and allow us to formulate the following hypothesis: Panurge could be the incarnation of the Reform and its aggressive strategies, while the haughty lady could stand for the Church or even Marguerite of Navarre and her hesitations. Attending, among other elements, to the pun on meaningless prayers, this reading aims to show that Rabelais does not ultimately condemn Panurge's ideas, as much as the violence of his strategies. Indeed, Panurge's dissidence and violence is framed in a discourse of unattainable desire and Rabelais denounces in particular the unjust punishment he inflicts upon the lady. Panurge's violence can be read as a sign of what becomes from now on an unbridgeable gap between Reformers and Catholics whom humanists as well as evangelists in France hoped to align to a mutual cause.
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