John Gutenberg, First Master Printer

On one of the last evenings of the autumn of this same year, Beildech and the young Frenchman sat by Gutenberg’s couch watching his restless and feverish sleep. Outside, the night was dark and gloomy; the waters of the Rhine, swollen by the rain, beat against the walls of the hut, and a sharp wind which blew down in squalls from the hills shook the framework of the miserable dwelling. The sick man had been suffering all day; he complained of a burning heat in his head, especially in his eyes, and Beildech had observed with uneasiness his uncertain and hesitating hold of the porringer when put into his hand. Claude sat silent at the foot of the bed, and every time that Gutenberg moved or moaned the shepherd began muttering unintelligible prayers. Beildech stood at the window listening to the noise of the river and the wailing of the wind.

The hut when Gutenberg awoke was in profound darkness. In a faint voice he asked for a light. Beildech went out and lighted a resinous torch, which he placed in an iron ring in the wall, fastened there for the purpose, and close to Gutenberg’s bed. The latter hearing the door creak on its hinges lifted himself up. “A light – light!” said he; then again, after a short pause, he added in an impatient tone, “Is there then no one here who will condescend to grant the favour of a light to an old man, to while away the tedious hours of darkness?”

Beildech, trembling from head to foot, drew the young Frenchman quickly to the other side of the bed. “Beloved Master,” he said, “be so good as to turn and to open your eyes, the torch is in its usual place.”

“I tell thee thou liest,” said Gutenberg angrily, “is not everything here as dark as in a tomb? Claude, my son, answer me – where art thou?”

He whom he called was close to his master’s head, he shuddered as he bent down towards him. “Here I am,” he said, in a low voice, taking hold affectionately of his master’s hand; but the latter pushed him away, and stretching out his arm towards the torch he laid hold of it, and brought it close to his eyes. He could no longer see it!

With a cry of despair, and burying in his hands those eyes from which the light was for ever shut out, Gutenberg threw himself back on his pallet. “I understand you,” he said to his two companions, who were sobbing aloud, “but I cannot see you. I smell the odour of the resin, but its flame no longer penetrates the darkness which envelopes me. O miserable man that I am! Alas, I am afflicted like Tobias, but Tobias without a son!”

After the first burst of despair, silence once more reigned in the hut. The shepherd, who, in this respect, much resembled the doctors of our own days, when he was at a loss what more to do, slunk noiselessly away. The young Frenchman, quite overcome with grief, was on his knees by the side of the bed, while Beildech, the torch in his hand, held it close to the eyes of the old man, as if he sought by this means to restore the light which was quenched for ever.

Such was the picture presented by the interior of the hut, when the sound of an approaching horse came suddenly to relieve the solitude of our poor sufferers. Beildech was just opening the window to listen, when the fisherman ushered in a horseman wet to the skin, and covered with mud. “Here,” said the boatman, “behold him of whom you are in search.”

The horseman bent his tall figure as he entered the low door of the dwelling. “He whom I seek,” said he to Beildech, who advanced gloomily, “is called John Gutenberg, and he is from Maïence.”

The old man, hearing his name pronounced by a stranger, sat up to listen, and motioned to his attendant to be silent. His pride revolted at the idea of being discovered in such an abode; turning towards the door from whence the voice proceeded, he said rather roughly to the horseman, “And who told you to come and seek that noble gentleman here in this wretched hut? Pass on, my friend, and leave honest people to rest in peace.”

“That is a pity,” said the cavalier, casting a doubtful look at the sick man, “yes, it is a great pity that such good news should meet with so rude a reception. He to whom my message is addressed will doubtless receive me with more politeness.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“I think so at least,” said he, drawing from under his doublet a roll of parchment. “Here is what I bring from our worthy Lord Archbishop – a letter which could not fail to rejoice the old gentleman if I could only put it into his hands. I have been for weeks on his track, and only yesterday the reverend fathers of Erbach sent me here.”

At these words Lawrence and Claude, in whose face a sanguine curiosity was clearly legible, approached the cavalier. “If you could make up your mind,” said Lawrence, pointing silently to his master, “to leave your message with us, I will answer for it, on my head, that it could not fall into better hands, for the retreat of the noble John Gutenberg is perfectly well known to us.” “Well then,” replied the horseman, who was not slow to understand, “I agree to that readily,” and he placed the scroll in the old man’s hands. “For my part I am glad to be at last released from my troublesome commission, and if the boatman will take me across the river to-night, I can at any rate reach Eltvil, where my most gracious master, the Archbishop Adolfe, whom God preserve, has fixed his residence.”

The spurs of the horseman were still resounding on the threshold when Claude seized the scroll out of Gutenberg’s hands, and hastily approaching the resinous torch, he took a rapid survey of the missive from which hung, in a case, the great seal of wax of the Archbishop.

“Master,” cried he, falling on his knees, with a joyous exclamation, “it is when our distress is at its height that our Lord is nearest to us!” And his tears, which were no longer of sorrow but of joy, and his kisses, covered the old man’s hands.

“Peace, peace, young scatter-brain!” said Gutenberg, who could, however, with difficulty control his own emotion. “What can this missive contain capable of thus exciting our little Frenchman?”

“Deliverance for you, O my Master!” repeated Claude, in a tone of jubilee, and he gave the parchment back to Gutenberg, whose trembling fingers wandered over the ribbon and the seal. Claude had forgotten that the old man was no longer able to read it; Beildech was obliged to recall the fact to him. Claude then retook the scroll, and began deciphering with some difficulty, and many interruptions from the sobs of Lawrence, this document, a precious relic, which we here re-produce in the simple language of those times.

“We Adolphe the elected Lord and installed Archbishop of Maïence, do recognize by this present, that we have accepted, as useful and agreeable to our person, the services rendered to us by our dear and faithful John Gutenberg, that is why, excited to this act by the especial grace of God, we have chosen and elected him for our servant, worthy of forming one of our court. Not permitting ourselves, nor wishing for the term of his life, to deny him our good offices; hoping that for our service he may recover himself, we grant him each year, when we clothe our community, vestments after the fashion of our gentlemen; and shall cause to be given to him the dress of our court, and every year twenty bushels of wheat, and two tuns of wine, for the use of his household; and for that the said Gutenberg shall have no temptation to sell or to give these away, the aforesaid bushels of wheat and tuns of wine shall have free entrance, and exemption from duty, in this our city of Maïence, for as many years as the said Gutenberg shall live, and so long as he shall remain our servant. In testimony whereof we despatch him this present.”

The scroll of parchment fell from the hands of the reader, and it was a touching sight to see the old Lawrence pressing the right hand of his beloved master, while, with uplifted face towards heaven, he murmured, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!”

As for Gutenberg, pale and motionless on his pallet, a few stray tears wandered down his cheeks on to his grizzled beard, but not a muscle of his face, or a movement of his body, denoted that life still existed within him; but when his two faithful companions tried each to lay hold of one of his hands, he put them gently aside, sobs escaped him, and he said, shaking his head, “It is too late, these eyes can no longer see anything, they can only weep!”

We who have come into the world four centuries later, and who, according to a pompous inscription, aere per totam Europam collato, which signifies, by means of subscriptions raised throughout all Europe, let monuments be erected upon monuments, at Maïence, at Strasburg, at Gernsheim, at Haarlem, and Heaven knows where else, in honour of the art and its inventor, why do we not rather enclose in the pedestal of the statue a fragment of the parchment bearing the old document? And thou, fair Reader, whose only thought is rapture at the intellect diffused throughout the album of Gutenberg, and you, successors and disciples of the great Master, who build palaces for your printing-works, and lastly, you spectators who think that 10,000 crowns spent upon a festival ought not to weigh too heavily in the budget of a town, recollect him who was the originator, and is still the hero; he owed it to the bounty of a generous prince that he received annually twenty bushels of wheat and two tuns of wine!

But here let us be silent, for, Reader, you doubtless recollect a certain old proverb which says, “Vieille chanson vieille histoire!”

Chapter VI

Death of John Gutenberg. Reader, pray for the repose of his soul: his poor remains sleep in an unknown tomb

History, in transmitting to us the decree of Adolfe of Nassau, has provided us with a proof of the liberality of this Prince of the Church, but she remains silent when we inquire by what services Gutenberg could have drawn upon himself such favours. Some authors pretend that the old man, being a secret partisan of Nassau, had assisted in the surprise of his native town; the solitude in which Gutenberg lived, and his distaste for all political affairs, do not allow us, for a moment, to entertain such a supposition. For our part we would rather conclude that the Archbishop, after having taken violent possession of the capital, bethought him of this one of its children. Accident had doubtless brought back to the memory of the prince the poor houseless inventor of an art which at that time was making much noise. Why should we seek an explanation for that which unaccounted for appears to me far nobler and more humane?

The Archbishop held his court at Eltvil. That town must have been more thickly inhabited, and of more importance then than it is at present. The great castle of Eltvil had not yet been the victim of the flames of France, and the Archbishop Adolfe, not placing as yet entire confidence in the hearts and fidelity of the sheep of his flock, had hesitated to establish his residence in Maïence itself. It was then towards Eltvil that John Gutenberg directed his steps, supported by his faithful Claude, and accompanied by Lawrence Beildech. He was no longer a wandering Belisarius; but he was not the less a poor blind old man, whom the liberality of his prince had sought out too late, and whose existence could not be re-animated by the tardy favours of a court. Reader, spare me the recital of that scene where the sightless old man entered the archiepiscopal residence to render his thanks in person to his powerful patron. At the sight of that tall figure, so cruelly bent with age and infirmities, the prelates, full to repletion and florid with health, asked each other in low tones, “Is that then the man who teaches the art of printing?” We do not consider that these words convey any very lively or deep sympathy with the great discoverer of so immense a work on the part of the wearers of stoles and of armour. After so many trials and misfortunes, Heaven only granted a few short years to the old man, wherein to enjoy his modest competency. He appeared – forgive me, Reader, for the comparison, I allow it is somewhat stale – like the setting sun bursting through a veil of clouds before him, in order to disappear, a moment afterwards, in solitary grandeur and majesty behind the distant hills. Gutenberg could no longer see this fine sun rising and setting on the Rheingau, but now and then, nevertheless, he wandered, guided by his two faithful companions, to the banks of the great river, and sat down to listen to its gentle undulation as it flowed. Few words now escaped his lips; those lips, alas! which had been so steeped in bitterness that they could scarcely taste the honey of his latter days, and under the impression of great sorrow remained incessantly sealed.

It was thus that the year 1466 passed away to our three friends, who still remained faithful to their retreat; the season of Spring had begun to revive the earth with its first warm breath. Gutenberg, then seventy years of age, was standing one morning at the window of the hut while his young companion trained the vine-branches which covered the wall of the humble abode like tapestry. Scraps of songs and ballads followed each other merrily from the lips of the lively Parisian. Gutenberg, probably, understood them but little; Claude’s clear voice, however, pleased him.

At this juncture the young man heard himself called violently by his master. He hastily put down his pruning-knife, and ran to the door of the hut, where he found Gutenberg, who, by the help of his stick, was trying to come to him. “Thy song,” said he, in a trembling voice, “thy last song, repeat it to me.” Claude looked at his master with surprise, and began to sing afresh —

“Soir et matin, filles, n’allez follettes“Quierre és gazons derraines violettes.”

Gutenberg hardly gave the singer time to pronounce these few words when he drew him violently towards him, and pressed him to his heart. “Young man,” said he, “from whom hast thou learnt that song?” “My mother taught it to me,” replied Claude, “in my childhood, while I played with small quoits on the Place de Grève.” Here the old man remained for a moment in deep thought; presently he said, “Seest thou, Claude, thou art an honest lad, and by thy fidelity thou hast merited my confidence. This song touched my heart, because it brought back to me the last word, the last sound of the voice of one whom I loved, dearly loved; since then how many years have passed away! I shall never hear that voice again, alas! never as in days gone by!”

Gutenberg, overcome by his emotion, was silent, and it was as well, perhaps, that he did not see the agitation in which his words had thrown the young man. “Now, Claude,” said he, after a pause, “go, return to thy vine, but thou must sing that song to me once every evening, dost thou hear? Give me thy hand, child.” Claude held it out. “Thou tremblest; tell me, what ails thee?” asked Gutenberg, in a tone of mistrust, not uncommon to the blind. “Nothing, Master.” “But I will know the reason of thy agitation; thy hand burns.” “Well, because you tell me that you have confidence in me, and at the same time you hide from me the cause of your grief!”

Claude had uttered these last words with anguish, almost in the tone of a suppliant who hastens to seize the favourable moment. Gutenberg turned away, and after a somewhat prolonged silence, he said, in a low voice, to the young Frenchman – “Claude, a countrywoman of thine once sang that song to me in bidding me adieu – a good girl, who had a noble heart – her name was the same as thy mother’s; thou sayest thy mother’s name is Gisquette.” The old man hid his face in his hands, while Claude, falling at Gutenberg’s feet, embraced his knees, murmuring, “My father, my father! Do you not guess? She who sang that song was my mother!”

A cry escaped from Gutenberg; his stick fell from his hand; the sightless eyes seemed to seek the face of the young man at his knees. “It is false,” he said; “have pity on me – O tell me not an untruth!”

“By the quenched light of those eyes, which I love, by the heart of Gisquette, I speak the truth. I am thy son, and she was my mother!” Claude uttered these words with all the vivacity of a Frenchman. Gutenberg answered not, his bosom heaved painfully – one could see the struggle between mistrust and the wish to believe. “But why – ” asked he. “Father,” replied Claude, who perceived at once what was passing in Gutenberg’s mind, “dost thou not yet understand the nature of my mission, why I presented myself to thee, why I followed thee, how it is that I have ended by loving thee as I do, even to adoration? And dost thou not guess how I was bound by my mother, by a solemn oath, never to utter a single word that could recall her to thy memory, until thou thyself hadst in some manner named her? – ‘Be, if it must be so, his most humble attendant, for he is thy father; and if thou findest Gutenberg in prosperity, which I pray Heaven he may be, and he has forgotten the days at Aix-la-Chapelle, oh, do not invoke the shade of poor Gisquette to place it between him and happiness! But if he is in trouble he will of himself think of me; then fall at his feet, kiss the ground he treads on, and say to him, Be comforted, it is she who sends thy son to thee!’”

“Enough, enough, by the Holy Saviour, enough!” cried Gutenberg, straining in his arms the young man who still knelt before him. “Yes, it is she herself! I recognize her in those words, my son! my child!”

A thunderbolt would not have separated those two men clasped together. The old man, although unable to look upon the son who had been given to him, uttered no complaint; his lips, his hands, his arms, were as so many eyes to him. “Before I knew,” said Gutenberg, “the treasure I possessed in thee, I recollect tracing in the frank and amiable expression of thy face something of my Gisquette.”

When they had recovered themselves a little from their first emotion, Gutenberg became sufficiently calm to speak to Claude of his mother. He could not see the eyes of the young man raised to heaven, but, in the outburst of grief with which he threw himself into his father’s arms – “I understand,” he said; “she awaits me there – above!”

Lawrence Beildech, on his return from the fields, found the old man and Claude still sitting happily side by side. “Lawrence,” cried Gutenberg, whose step he had recognized, “Lawrence, I have found a son!”

Beildech received this information with much surprise, and Claude, less to justify his allegations than to furnish a tangible proof to the old servant, drew from his trunk a little polished metal mirror, ornamented on one side with a figure sculptured on the border. “Tell the master, Beildech, what figure it is you see behind this mirror.” “A Holy Virgin, her heart pierced with three swords, carrying in her arms the infant Jesus, crucified.” “And is there not engraved underneath,” said Gutenberg, eagerly, “Ecce mulier filium tuum? O give, give me that mirror, it was my gift to Gisquette the first time I saw her, in the square of the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle,” and Gutenberg, seizing this relic of happier days, pressed it to his lips.

The very hour when he placed this mirror in a beloved hand, the whole of that period of his life came before Gutenberg at this moment; it was a ray of sunshine lighting up for an instant the snow of the glacier. A little later the old man related to his newly found son as follows: – “It was in the year 1440, at the time when all Christian Europe made a pilgrimage to the ancient and celebrated city of Aix-la-Chapelle, a holy visit as it was called which was paid every seven years to the wonderful relics of the cathedral, that I lived at Strasburg in the Rue St. Arbogaste, my mind fully occupied with my art, but not having yet succeeded in accomplishing anything worth speaking of. At that time thou knowest, Lawrence, I lived somewhat poorly. For a long while I had received no help from Maïence, and the heritage of my forefathers was all exhausted in the various experiments which I had made, and which I had hoped would turn to good account and place me in a position to carry out my one idea. I was just in the meridian of life, and it became necessary that I should follow a more lucrative trade. I began polishing mirrors and stones; I engraved images and ornaments on wood; and I associated myself with those Strasburgers who afterwards treated me so ill, André Dritzehn, Heilmann, and others.

“A year or so might have elapsed since we commenced business together; they furnished the funds, I supplied the implements, and taught the trade to my partners to the best of my power. We promised ourselves a rich harvest from our pilgrimage to Aix-la-Chapelle, where people were arriving from all parts of the world.

“The French braggart with his page behind him smartly equipped, the proud Spaniard, the beautiful veiled Venetian women, and others from all parts of Italy. We naturally hoped to make much profit by our merchandize. Another reason contributed to detach me from Strasburg. I had been for some time betrothed to a young Alsatian named Enel of the iron gate. I thought seriously of carrying her with me to my native town, enamoured as I was of her black eyes and fine elastic figure; Providence and the parents of Enel decided otherwise. I like to suppose that she was innocent of the transaction, for she was an honest girl, who loved me with all her heart, only, said malicious tongues, she was somewhat frivolous in character, and more attached to the things of this world than was quite consistent in a Christian, especially in a German. Enel’s parents had nothing to say against my mode of life, except that they could have wished my energies to be bestowed upon some profession more worthy in their eyes, and they could not console themselves when they saw me incessantly tied to my beloved workshop, bending over my books, and only thinking of my experiments. The father considered my tastes very vulgar, and said that, unless I altered for the better, he, for his part, should not have much pleasure in giving his daughter to an idle fellow, a dreamer like me. He was a rich man, well-born, and much respected in Strasburg. It may easily be supposed that from that day I never crossed his threshold. I had attained my fortieth year in all honour and respectability, and I had no wish to exchange my profession for that of a clerk, scratching for ever, like a cat, with a pen in my hand. No, no, let others who like it undertake that sort of trade!

“I felt some regret in renouncing the young girl, although time very soon taught me that in fact she had never possessed a deep hold on my affections; so this journey to Aix-la-Chapelle during the pilgrimage seemed to me to happen very à propos. In the month of June, Dritzehn, Heilmann, Voigt, Niffe, and I, started, accompanied with two strong beasts of burden laden with our stones, our mirrors, and our images of the saints. We were full of joyful anticipation and had only one fear, that our horses were not in sufficient condition to carry back the large stock of money which we calculated upon making at Aix-la-Chapelle; we declined taking the route by water as we hoped to exhibit a good deal of our merchandize along the road.

“Do not ask me to describe the crowd, the floating masses which we found extending even beyond the walls of the holy city. My memory cannot recall the scenes, which my eyes, now closed to the light, witnessed in those days. Every street, every square, was crammed with pilgrims, natives of the country or foreigners, nobles, and plebeians, the healthy and the infirm. At night they encamped before the gates, in little wooden huts, or under canvas ornamented with branches of pine, from which gleamed thousands of lighted tapers. Early in the morning, as soon as the saintly processions began to move, you should have seen them pressing towards the doors of the Cathedral, to touch with quivering lips the revered shrine, or to offer to the Virgin Mother of God, the one a taper, the other a chalice, others only their tears, and their silent prayers. When the bells had ceased ringing the shops and the booths opened on all sides, then Jews and Christians vied with each other in their cries. Quacks, ballad singers, foot-soldiers, might be seen elbowing silken doublets, Cardinals’ hats, and the cloaks of princes; the sick plunged their aching limbs into the hot springs; those who thought themselves cured offered a silver heart, or a leg of wax to the Virgin; fops walked in the crowd with their mistresses, soldiers played with dice on their drums, monks, carrying the crucifix and the banner, accompanied funeral processions, and here and there might be seen an occasional mask. My head becomes bewildered even in thinking of those things, and I seem to have again in my ears the incessant uproar of that immense crowd. I was then in the full vigour of my manhood, nothing discomposed me; on the contrary, I was ever seeking fresh excitement. In the same manner in which a fish swims in sparkling running water, so I rushed into the middle of this human stream, looking into everything, shouting with those who shouted, and those who obliged me to take my rapier in my hand were soon convinced that the descendant of the nobles of Maïence was not making his first essay in arms.