“_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!