E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Renault of Montauban.
In the last chapter of the romance of Aymon’s Four Sons, Renault, as an act of penance, carries the hods of mortar for the building of St. Peter’s, at Cologne.
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“Since I cannot improve our architecture, … I am resolved to do like Renault of Montauban, and I will wait on the masons… . As it was not in my good luck to be cut out for one of them, I will live and die the admirer of their divine writings.”—Rabelais: Prologue to Book V. of Pantagruel.
