In this edict, Louis speaks with great appreciation and admiration of the printing art, “the discovery of which appears to be rather divine than human.” He congratulates his kingdom that in the development of this art “France takes precedence of all other realms.” A year later, the King put on record his opinion that dramatic productions and representations should be left free from any restrictions. In 1512, the King writes to the University requesting the Faculty to examine a book which the Council of Pisa had condemned as heretical. In place, however, of demanding or suggesting that measures of severity should be taken against the writer of the book, the King proposed that the professors should have the book gone over chapter by chapter and should put into form a refutation of any of its conclusions which seemed to them to be contrary to the truth. It was hardly possible that so wide a spirit of toleration should long continue. Francis I. prided himself on his taste for literature and was disposed to favour men of letters, but his fancies for toleration were easily overcome by the persecuting earnestness which actuated the clergy and the Parliament, and when his anger or his suspicions had once been aroused, he showed himself to be fiercer in the infliction of penalties than those whom he had at first restrained. The spirit of the time was stronger than any one king, and it would be absurd to suppose that in the sixteenth century the Church and the State could be depended upon to permit the free development and the unrestricted expression of thought. The first book printed in Paris by Gering and his associates was a collection of the _Letters_ of Gasparino of Bergamo. The volume was in Latin, and the Roman form of type was used, notwithstanding the German control of the office. Humphreys is of opinion that specimens of the beautiful volumes which had been printed in Venice by Jenson had been forwarded to Paris, and that these served as models for the earlier issues of the Paris Press. The _Gasparino_ was followed by an edition of Sallust’s _Catiline Conspiracy_ and by an epitome of _Livy_ compiled by Florus. A little later, appeared a work on Rhetoric by Fichet himself, one of the earliest printed volumes which was the production of a contemporary writer. The second Press established in Paris was that of Cæsaris and Stoll, who began work for themselves in 1473. They were both students of the University but they found it desirable to carry on their business outside of the University limits. The demand in Paris, both within and without the University, for printed books, increased very rapidly, and before the close of the century the trade in books far exceeded that of any city in Europe. For a number of years, however, a very large proportion of this demand was supplied from the presses of Mayence, Strasburg, Venice, Milan, Cologne, and Bruges.