It would surely have succeeded had not the correspondent of the Fabers
failed in business after bringing suit, owing to which the matter got
into another lawyer's hands. This man immediately adopted a new strange
course. Instead of demanding a fulfillment of the contract, he sued for
twelve thousand gulden damages for their loss of time. Of course I had
to fight for my skin now; and as he refused to content himself with my
agreement to fulfill the contract, I was forced at last to defend myself
by falling back on the royal rescript. Thus I escaped by merely repaying
the money already advanced; but I lost the considerable sum that would
have been assured to me had I been permitted to spend only two months in
St. Polten.
Thus none of the good prospects that opened themselves through my
connection with Freiherr von Aretin proved so good as I had been
justified in hoping: nay, it seemed as if I had only labored day and
night to give others the benefits accruing from my painful labors, while
I barely supported existence.
Freiherr von Aretin wished that the management of the business be in the
hands of a man who possessed his own fullest confidence, but whom I did
not consider at all suitable, as he was a royal official and as such
could not do business in a public shop. Consequently the trade was
carried on in his own residence, which was known to only few people and
where nobody looked for the manifold things that we could have produced
to good profit. This at last lowered our establishment to a mere job
printery, which finally could not maintain itself, because more and more
similar establishments were started in Munich, and the prices for work
became lower and lower through their hungry competition.
It may not be uninteresting to tell briefly how so many printeries
happened to be undertaken.
The first was established by Gleissner and myself, and was continued
afterward in my name by my brothers Theobald and George, until 1805.
They sold the secret to the Feyertag School, where an excellent art
institute developed gradually under Herr Mitterer.
Strohhofer learned the elements of the process from my brother Karl, and
associated himself, in 1806, with Herr Sidler, royal court musician, who
had studied first with my brothers, then with Madame Gleissner, and then
in the Aretin printery. When Strohhofer left Munich, Sidler erected a
stone-printery for the Government, and after he had obtained an official
permit before the expiration of my franchise, he established his own
institution, producing very good work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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