Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
When at last the king took to his bed, his physician, Jacques Cottier,
told him that most surely his hour was come. Louis made his confession,
gave much political counsel and some orders to be observed by _le Roi_,
as he now called his son, and spoke, says De Comines, "as dryly as if he
had never been ill. And after so many fears and suspicions Our Lord
wrought a miracle and took him from this miserable world in great health
of mind and understanding. Having received all the sacraments and
suffering no pain and always speaking to within a paternoster of his
death, he gave orders for his sepulture. May the Lord have his soul and
receive him in the realm of Paradise!"
It was in Louis' reign that the art of printing was introduced into
Paris. As early as 1458 the master of the mint had been sent to Mainz to
learn something of the new art, but without success. In 1463, Fust and
his partner, Schöffer, had brought some printed books to Paris, but the
books were confiscated and the partners were driven out of the city,
owing to the jealousy of the powerful corporation of the scribes and
booksellers, who enjoyed a monopoly from the Sorbonne of the sale of
books in Paris; and in 1474 Louis paid an indemnity of 2500 crowns to
Schöffer for the confiscation of his books and for the trouble he had
taken to introduce printed books into his capital. In 1470, at the
invitation of two doctors of the Sorbonne, Guillaume Fichet and Jean de
la Puin, Ulmer Gering of Constance and two other Swiss printers set up a
press near Fichet's rooms in the Sorbonne. In 1473 a press was at work
at the sign of the Soleil d'Or (Golden Sun), in the Rue St. Jacques,
under the management of two Germans, Peter Kayser, Master of Arts, and
John Stohl, assisted by Ulmer Gering. In 1483 the last-named removed to
the Rue de la Sorbonne, where the doctors granted to him and his new
partner, Berthold Rumbolt of Strassburg, a lease for the term of their
lives. They retained their sign of the Soleil d'Or, which long endured
as a guarantee of fine printing. The earliest works had been printed in
beautiful Roman type, but unable to resist the favourite Gothic
introduced from Germany, Gering was led to adopt it towards the year
1480, and the Roman was soon superseded. From 1480 to 1500 we meet with
many French printers' names: Antoine Vérard, Du Pré, Cailleau,
Martineau, Pigouchet--clearly proving that the art had then been
successfully transplanted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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