s 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towards the year 1480, and the Roman was soon superseded.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 Verard, Du Pre,
Cailleau, Martineau, Pigouchet--clearly proving that the art had then
been successfully transplanted.

The re-introduction of Roman characters about 1500 was due to the
famous house of the Estiennes, whose admirable editions of the Latin
and Greek classics are the delight of bibliophiles. Robert Estienne
was wont to hang proof sheets of his Greek and Latin classics outside
his shop, offering a reward to any passer-by who pointed out a
misprint or corrupt reading. Their famous house was the meeting-place
of scholars and patrons of literature. Francis I. and his sister
Margaret of Angouleme, authoress of the Heptameron, were seen there,
and legend says that the king was once kept waiting by the
scholar-printer while he finished correcting a proof. All the
Estienne household, even the children, conversed in Latin, and the
very servants are said to have grown used to it. In 1563 Francis I.
remitted 30,000 livres of taxes to the printers of Paris, as an act of
grace to the professors of an art that seemed rather divine than
human. But in spite of royal favour printing was a poor career. The
second Henry Estienne, who composed a Greek-Latin lexicon, died in
poverty at a hospital in Lyons; the last of the family, the third
Robert Estienne, met a similar miserable end at the Hotel Dieu in
Paris. So great was the reaction in the university against the
violence of the Lutherans and the daring of the printers, that in 1534
all the presses were ordered to be closed. In 1537 no book was allowed
to be printed without permission of the Sorbonne, and in 1556 an order
was made, it is said at the instance of Diane de Poitiers, that a copy
in vellum of