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—

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.

“I did not understand much about commerce, so at least said my comrades; at night when we shared our profits it often appeared to me that they had taken a tithe out of mine. I mentioned my suspicions, for in fact it was necessary that I should get something out of the purse, to enable me to live, and I had plenty of time to meditate on my prospects, and to give myself up to work.

“I had been three days at Aix-la-Chapelle. As I stood one morning at the booth where AndrÉ Dritzehn exposed his mirrors”—(here, Reader, as he stretched out his hands to touch Claude’s head, you might have seen a faint colour reddening the cheeks of the old man,)—“among the curious who surrounded us, admiring our mirrors polished like steel, was a young girl, who, being suddenly pushed back rudely by the crowd, had only time to cast one rapid glance at our treasures. Her eyes pleased me so much that I said, ‘Try to come forward, little one.’ She did not seem to know that I was addressing her. I repeated my invitation; she did not yet understand me; I tried to take her hand; she drew it quickly away. ‘I am not a German,’ said she, blushing, ‘I am French, from the Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris; if you happen ever to have been there.’ I was obliged to confess, laughing, that I had not. Although I did not understand much of the language spoken by the young girl, I gathered sufficient to be able to answer her. ‘Pretty child,’ I said, ‘wilt thou not buy one of our mirrors?’ ‘Alas! no, sir.’ ‘Thou art in the wrong there, when one has a pretty face like thine, one ought to possess such a piece of furniture.’ Talking in this manner, I placed my hand under her chin, and obliged her to lift up her exquisite face, which till now had been held downwards. She looked at me with her large eyes half supplicating, half reproachfully, then she tried to disengage herself. I held her fast, and placing one of our best mirrors before her, that very one now in your hand—‘Well,’ I said, ‘look then at yourself, little unbeliever.’ A cry of surprise escaped her finely-cut mouth when she saw her blushing face reflected in the polished metal; never before probably had the view been so complete; her beauty seemed to strike her for the first time. I pressed her to buy the mirror, she hesitated; one saw how much she wished to possess it; but all at once she put it quickly down on the bench, ‘I will not,’ she said, and suddenly disappeared in the crowd. I followed her. Our stall was in the square of the Cathedral; I rejoined the fugitive close to the church. ‘Why wilt thou not have it?’ ‘Sir—’ ‘Speak to me without fear.’ ‘Because I have no money to pay for your mirror. Look! here is a denier, the only one left; it is destined for the purchase of two ivory hands, which my mother presents to the Virgin full of grace, as a thank-offering for her cure.’

“The filial love of the young girl, which spoke even more eloquently in her eyes than in her words, touched me deeply. I questioned her about her mother, her country, and her name. She told me with simplicity that her name was Gisquette, and that she came from the Faubourg St. Antoine, in the great city of Paris, where I should certainly not have gone in search of this little pure unspotted flower. She added that a vow taken by her mother had brought them to Aix-la-Chapelle, with her brother James, in order to present an offering to the Virgin, in acknowledgment of her old mother’s wonderful cure.

“‘How dost thou expect to reach home?’ I then asked her; ‘how wilt thou make the long journey, thou who art only a poor girl without means, for in that denier which thou hast shown me consists thy whole fortune?’ ‘Sir,’ replied she, with the careless gaiety of her nation, ‘I shall go back as I came. Brother James is very clever; he can relate stories on the road, he will sing tales of the TrouvÈres, and I shall accompany him on my lute. In this manner we enter the convents, and the houses of hospitality, of which, thank God and his saints, there is no want. Brother James,’ said she, with a sister’s pride, ‘has already sung here in Aix-la-Chapelle before great lords and princes, at home he is well known in all the neighbourhood. Once when a grand mystery was performed in the large Hall he acted the part of Mercury, and had on his shoulders two large wings of gauze, which I made for him myself. I assure you he looked very handsome, and recited his fine verses beautifully.’

“Need I tell you, O my dear companions, how immediately my heart felt attracted towards this young girl? I led her back to our booth, and giving her the mirror which a moment before she had so coveted.—‘Take it, my child,’ I said, ‘and keep it in remembrance of this hour, as well as of the friend thou hast gained by thy filial piety.’ For some time she refused to accept it, and as AndrÉ, who kept the stall that day, began reproaching me for giving away our goods, instead of selling them, she returned me the mirror, saying, ‘Thank you, my kind sir! it shall never be said that you were brought into trouble by the vanity of a poor girl.’

“If the avaricious speech and sentiment of Heilmann had sent the colour to my cheeks, this sad refusal on the part of Gisquette put the climax to my irritation. Unloosing my purse angrily from my waistband, I threw down on the bench the value of the mirror, which I laid hold of with one hand, while with the other I forced my way through the crowd with the young girl, and drew her to some distance from the place.

“Claude, we spent seven days together, Gisquette and I, in Aix-la-Chapelle, seven whole days, days of happiness, which will never be effaced from my memory. I followed Gisquette like her shadow; she, poor child, out of her pure simple heart vowed to me, unworthy as I was, her first love. At the end of that time we parted ... never to meet again ... and to-day....”

John Gutenberg was silent. Again he pressed to his heart the son of Gisquette, that son whom he had just found. Claude had but little to add to complete his father’s story. He told him of the sorrowful life led by Gisquette, of her unbroken faith to him, and how on her death-bed it had been her consolation to bequeath Claude as a last pledge of affection to her absent friend.

When the young man had ceased speaking, there was a solemn silence in the hut. The faithful Beildech feasted his looks on them both. The old man, his eyes struck with blindness, his hair falling in white curls, his long venerable beard resting on that bosom, oppressed by the memory of the past, and agitated by the emotion of the present.... Ah! whoever had seen Gutenberg at this moment could not have failed to liken him to Œdipus in the arms of Antigone; he was bent, infirm, and weakened by age; it was, nevertheless, the head of a king and the heart of a father.

“I tell you in truth,” it was thus that Gutenberg spoke, with trembling lips, “yes, I tell you truly, death, which is now approaching, will be for me a haven full of blessedness. Love is guiding me here below, it will also receive me on the other side; it is of the best works that it is written, they shall not forsake the just, but shall follow them. The arts and sciences which we pursue without relaxation, the fame and glory which shall carry our names to posterity, are but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals in comparison with the words of love, pure, divine, and human love. Yes, I think that my life will not have been entirely useless to others, that the seed which I have sown will bear fruit and become a tree, under whose branches the generations to come may find rest and shelter. My endeavour has been to give freedom to thought, to give wings to words; the one and the other, thanks to my discovery, will one day overrun the metamorphosed earth; full of independence and of liberty they will immortalize my name. But, nevertheless, I should have gone down to the tomb without consolation, and without peace, if I had possessed only the light of reason to enlighten my darkened way.* A son has been given to me, and I shall no more wander through desert paths solitary and alone. Man will ever remain man. His heart cannot feed eternally on glory and on hope. Love will always be the best part of his being, and that is why I would have given the labour of my whole life in exchange for thee, Claude, who art even more to me than my invention; thou art my son, the messenger sent by Gisquette, who speaks to me from eternal blessedness!”

Gutenberg died neglected and in destitution. His death excited no interest among his careless and ungrateful contemporaries. It is only on the faith of a dusty old parchment, which does not even make direct mention of the inventor of printing, that we learn that John Gutenberg must have been gathered to his fathers about the 24th of February, 1468. In what place? That remains uncertain, and even to this day we should be ignorant on that point had not an inscription written in his honour by Adam Gelthuss, a relation of the printer, fallen accidentally into our hands. It is in Latin, and says that the bones of Gutenberg repose in the Church of St. FranÇois at MaÏence.

So much for history. As for us, it is with a sensation of pain, and a blush on our forehead, that we close this page of our book, in which we have narrated the acts and discourses worthy of admiration, and the death of him who discovered the most remarkable, the most wonderful of all the arts, that which is destined to re-model the world.

Poetry in composing a picture, of which the plot has been gathered thread by thread from the dark abyss of archives, has taken upon herself to throw a ray of light on the last days of the great inventor, to cast on his tomb a palm-branch of peace and of hope. Was that not her right? And has she any occasion to justify herself? In our opinion the noblest duty of intelligence, as well as its most glorious appanage, is to enlighten, to reconcile, to restore to light, especially when life has only left behind it a few vague shadows, and an unknown tomb!

Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation and the “long s” have been modernised; spelling has been retained as it appears in the original publication.