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_First Master Printer,_ His Acts, and most remarkable Discourses, and his Death.
_First Master Printer,_ His Acts, and most remarkable Discourses, and his Death.
LONDON: TRÜBNER AND CO. 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
Page CHAPTER I. As how John Fust, master printer in the city of Maïence, gave his daughter Christine to wife to Peter Schoeffer his partner, and what came of it 3
CHAPTER II. What John Gutenberg, master printer, said, and what he did, while Peter Schoeffer was taking to wife the demoiselle Christine; all which should interest the reader 27
CHAPTER III. Who John Gutenberg found in his dwelling when he came back to it, and what conversation he there held with the little Parisian 49
CHAPTER IV. How two Crosiers being engaged in a quarrel, the poor people of Maïence were the sufferers, and Master John Gutenberg in particular 69
CHAPTER V. The Lord Archbishop Adolfe of Nassau having bethought him of John Gutenberg, the printer, causes a search to be made for him by one of his horsemen, who finds him in a fisherman’s hut 88
CHAPTER VI. Death of John Gutenberg. Reader, pray for the repose of his soul: his poor remains sleep in an unknown tomb 108
_As how John Fust, master printer in the city of Maïence, gave his daughter Christine to wife to Peter Schoeffer his partner, and what came of it._
A wedding! how much joy is contained in that word! but even more in the thing itself! You, however, who live in these days, can hardly form an idea of what a wedding was in the good old times, for you possess only the shadow, and even that is of the palest hue. Guests, among whom the husband and the minister appear dressed in black from head to foot, a large room furnished in the modern style, a very prosaic square table, on which, after the marriage contract is signed, the repast is served up, the whole accompanied with the stalest and most common-place compliments, the coldest ceremonies.... No, no! a fig for your modern weddings!
Reader, you ought to have found yourself at the appointed hour at the great St. Humbert at Maïence, in the street now called La Rue des Savetiers, and which then bore the name of St. Quentin, for that which I relate to you happened in the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and sixty-one, before Maïence became a federal fortress. That was indeed a wedding in the true sense of the word! A grand, a noble wedding! At the moment when the clock struck twelve, the procession, attired in most superb garments, came out of the church of St. Quentin, and, having turned the corner of the Rue des Savetiers, took the road to the house of the great St. Humbert. All along the route it was accompanied by the joyous acclamations of the crowd; citizens, their wives and daughters, opened their small casements, and put out their heads to gaze, and the little boys in the street maliciously ran behind the wedding guests, trying to jeer and to mock at the bridegroom, as is still the custom in these days--one, indeed, of the only customs left us of olden times.