https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/59126/dalrev_vol46_iss4_pp457_465.pdf?sequence=1 : Rabelais gives perhaps the earliest literary example: "II n'y a point
d'enchantement. Chascun de vous l'a veu. Je y suis maistre passé. A brum,
a brum, je suis prestre Macé." Rabelais, instead of repeating "maître passé"
(past master), wrote "prêtre Macé" (priest Mace), the name of the historian
René Macé, a monk whose name was synonymous with simple or foolish.
