Geoffroy Tory

“ The world is very old, and it changes little. If Tory were living in our day, it may be that he would use even darker colours; for, after all, he was appreciated in his own time, and perhaps he would die of hunger to-day. As we see, he was not fond of cooling his heels in the antechambers of the great, and lived peacefully in his own house; but honour came there to seek him. ”

“ Pour te imiter, ce bourgeon ne meprise,
Raisin sera, sil a temps de meurer [mûrir] .
[34]
In London, Leonard Coxe, alluding to the grammar published shortly after by his compatriot Palsgrave, exclaims: 'Learned Geofroy, he has fulfilled the wish so often expressed in thy "Champ fleury," for here we have the French language taught thoroughly, by virtue of rules duly authorized.' [132]
Tory probably received the title of king's printer in 1530, but I do not find that he assumed it earlier than 1531, and, failing documentary evidence, I cannot accredit him with it at an earlier date. ”

“ We know how little was thought of family names in the old days. As late as the sixteenth century it was no uncommon thing to see [143] persons designated by their baptismal names alone, or, at most, with the name of their native place added. We have seen [276] that the famous painter Jean Perreal, Tory's master and friend, was little known except by the name of Jean de Paris. Tory himself is called Godefroy the Berrichon (Godofredus Biturix) in some verses which his friend Gérard de Vercel composed in his praise in 1512. ”

“ I write these two names as our artist himself wrote them; but it is a well-known fact that the orthography of proper names in the sixteenth century was very uncertain. As to the family name especially, Geofroy's ancestors and descendants wrote it indifferently Toury, Tory, and Thory; but Geofroy never varied: he always wrote Tory in French, Torinus in Latin (which should, strictly speaking, be translated Torin) . See further, on this subject, Appendix A.
[10] Champ fleury, fol. 1 verso: 'Combiem [sic] que ie soye de petitz & humbles parēs, & aussi que ie soye pouure de biens caduques.' ”

“ Thus Tory, at his death, was able to flatter himself that he had contributed materially to the improvement of his mother tongue, which he loved so well. He died, as I have said, in 1533, and not in 1550, as is erroneously stated in a poetical epitaph composed nearly a century after our printer's death, by his compatriot, Nicolas Catherinot, at the request and from the notes of Jean Toubeau, himself a printer of Bourges, and a descendant of Tory, through his mother. ”

“ See also, 'Ædiloquium,' Antoninus, Berosus Babilonensis, Cebes, 'Champ fleury,' 'Economic Xenophon,' Egnasio, Eleonora of Austria, Hours of 1524-25, 1527, 1529, 1531, Leo Baptista Albertus, Louise de Savoie, Lucian, Marot (Clement) , Pope Pius II, Plutarch ('Politics') , Pomponius Mela, Pot Cassé, Quintilian, Guillaume de Ricke, Valerius Probus, Volaterran. Tory, Jean, father of Geofroy, 289, 290. Tory, Madame Geofroy. See Le Hullin, Perrette. Tory, Philippe, mother of Geofroy, 289, 290. Toubeau, Jean, 43, 44, 290-291. Tournes, Jean de, 211, 258, 259, 260, 261 and note 4. ”

“ Give your [66] attention to them, I beg, good reader, so that I may not, as Plautus enigmatically observes in the 'Miles,' throw dust in your eyes. Farewell.
In addition to the pieces which Tory here mentions, there are many others in this volume of miscellanies. [208] It contains also several pieces of verse by Tory himself. Here is one which will give an idea of his literary tastes:—
Dialogue by Geofroy Tory, in which the City of Bourges is described in the rôle of a speaking character. ”

“ In both respects the honour is due to Geofroy Tory. In truth, in his 'Champ fleury,'—which was not published until 1529, it is true, although begun in 1523, the license to print being dated September 5, 1526,—Tory proposed to introduce the accent, the apostrophe, and the cedilla into the French language; he did more than that; for, having become a printer, he was the first to introduce those signs into typography. They appeared for the first time in the last of the four editions of the 'Adolescence Clementine' (by Clement Marot) , all four of which he published. ”

“ The Adoration of the Shepherds, signed with the letter G in a gothic shield; (II) The Adoration of the Magi; (III) The Circumcision; the last two signed with this monogram: . The G is still inclined to the gothic, but the second letter is altogether roman. In my judgement, this monogram should be translated by the words, 'Godofredus faciebat,' or 'fecit.' It is true that the ascription of these engravings to Tory has been contested; but Jules Renouvier, whose taste was so unerring, and who cannot be accused of infatuation for Tory, did not hesitate to adopt my hypothesis. ”

“ There is no one to whom you can appeal for assistance—none that can help you. I alone possess that power, and should you disdain to avail yourself of it, then you are irretrievably lost!” and with a demoniac laugh, the Tory rushed from the place.
Imogene gazed for a moment with a wild stare after the retreating form of her late visitor, then reeled, and sunk swooning to the floor.
The morning succeeding the arrest of Captain Sherwood dawned clear and beautiful. The bright sunbeams struggled through the narrow, grated window of Edgar’s cell, and brilliantly illuminated the apartment. ”

“ None: he was hooted, pelted at; all men stopped the nose at his approach. He was voted a nuisance, and turned forth into the world, with all his vices, like ulcers, upon him. Well, Tory adopts the inevitable policy of Wiggins; he changes his name! He comes forth, curled and sweetened, and with a smile upon his mealy face, and placing his felon hand above the vacuum on the left side of his bosom—declares, whilst the tears he weeps would make a crocodile blush—that he is by no means the Tory his wicked, heartless enemies would call him. Certainly not. His name is—Conservative! ”

“ For instance, they repeat that c has two sounds, one hard, as in 'coquin,' etc., the other soft, as in 'françois,' etc. But by adding the cedilla in the last word they destroy the sense of the criticism made by Tory in 1529. [165]
It does not appear by whom the book was printed; we learn only on the last leaf that it was finished August 26, 1549, 'pour Vivant Gualtherot, libraire juré en l'Université de Paris, en la rue Saint-Jacques, à l'enseigne de Saint Martin.'
In order to adjust Tory's woodcuts to the smaller format, they were somewhat mutilated ”

“ One of the first who employed him was Simon de Colines. Colines, who became a printer in 1520, as a result of his marriage to Henri Estienne's widow, commissioned Tory to design marks, floriated letters, and borders for the books that he published in his own name; he also entrusted him, I think, with the engraving of his italic type, which he soon began to use in conjunction with the roman type that he had from his predecessor.
But Tory's active mind could not be content with a single occupation. He was a patriot first of all, as his device proves. ”

“ What better reason does a Marylander want than a pair of blue eyes? And if Mistress Jean should so much as demand it by the merest glance of those eyes, I would tell her so. Aye, but she is a Tory and wears the red cockade. True, but the fairer the enemy the more difficult the prize, the greater the glory and effort to win.
And so, having justified my invasion of the stronghold of the Tory, I pricked Toby with the spur and rode on more rapidly, when, on turning a bend in the road where it is intersected by one from the east, whom should I come face to face with but Master Richard? ”

“ Once master of the first rudiments of grammar, Tory perfected himself by following the curriculum of the university, where, as we learn from himself, he had for his teacher a Fleming named Guillaume de [2] Ricke, otherwise called 'le Riche' in French and 'Dives' in Latin; and for a fellow disciple under this Ghent-born master, a certain Herverus de Berna, from Saint-Amand, who afterward wrote a panegyric of the Comtes de Nevers. [11]
Tory then went, to finish his literary education, to Italy, whither he betook himself early in the sixteenth century. ”

“ A single one of these eight is signed; but they are all by the same artist. They bear the dates of 1536, 1537, 1539, in little scrolls of the sort to which Tory was so much addicted. These dates preclude our attributing these engravings to himself, but they evidently [211] came from his establishment which was then conducted by his widow. One of these borders appears in a book published in 1542: 'Rodolphi Agricolæ ... de inventione dialectica, libri III,' etc. 4to, Paris, Simon de Colines. ”

“ These publications did not prevent our artist from giving his attention to literature. While he was overlooking the impression of his Hours and his 'Champ fleury,' he was preparing various works to which we shall have occasion to refer hereafter. Generally speaking, they are translations intended to enrich the French tongue; for Tory did not lose sight of his patriotic purpose. ”

“ That so much has come to hand in so haphazard a way is but an additional proof of Tory's industry and versatility. There seems to be almost no limit to the work which may fairly be credited to him, and M. Bernard hardly exaggerated when he said that there was scarcely an illustrated volume of any importance issued in Paris during the first half of the XVI th century in which the artist of the Lorraine cross did not have a hand. ”

“ I believe that we should also attribute to him the admirable miniatures [275] that have come down to us of the painter known by the name of 'Godefroy.' If, indeed, we compare the engravings in Tory's books with the designs of that painter, we readily recognize a similarity of execution which seems to establish the identity of the two men. ”

“ At a time which I am unable to fix with precision, but not earlier than the month of September, 1531, Tory printed another book, in octavo, with borders made up of plants, animals, insects, birds, etc., like those in the quarto Hours of 1527, but, naturally, on a smaller scale. I have never seen this book, but its existence is established to my satisfaction by the publication of a book of Hours, at a later date, by Olivier Mallard, with the same borders and vignettes. I can give with certainty neither the title nor the date of printing of Tory's book ”

“ He loved the Tory people and used to plan many times to go back and visit them. Tory has a sort of fascination about it, it looks so remote and unreal, "like an opal jewel in a pale blue sea," he described it once in a letter. ”

“ It would be difficult to carry further the love of artistic harmony. Neither the borders nor the illustrations bear Tory's mark, and I doubt whether they are his. Perhaps the design was Perreal's and the engraving by one of the artists employed by Tory, who must then have had an organized workshop, if we may judge from the number of works which he produced about that time.
Dibdin speaks enthusiastically of this edition of the Hours, in his 'Bibliographical Decameron'; he even reproduces four of the large cuts by which it is illustrated. ”

“ As we know, the sixteenth century did not lack great geniuses, [15] who set the French language in order and brought it to a great degree of perfection. Indeed, some most expressive words, the disuse of which Tory deplored, [63] reappeared. For instance, 'affaissé' and 'tourbillonner,' which in his time had been replaced by periphrases, returned into use; many others deserve the same honour and perhaps will receive it some day.
The second book of 'Champ fleury' is, I apprehend, only a paradox; but that paradox is maintained by arguments so ingenious, that one lacks courage to condemn it. ”

“ The honour of revivifying the art of engraving in France belongs to Tory alone, bestriding two centuries, the fifteenth and sixteenth; indeed, some of his productions are pure gothic. This I propose to demonstrate in the third part of my book, after I have, in the first part, narrated the general facts of our artist's life, in which we may observe also the development of a revolution in the matter of philology; for Tory was a devoted partisan of the classic tongues before he became one of the sturdiest champions of the French language. ”

“ Failing family papers, I made fruitless efforts to fix the relationship between the Toubeaus and Tory. Finding it impossible to reach any certain result, I have abandoned this search, which has no bearing upon the history of our illustrious typographer. The Toubeaus alone are interested in the solution of the question; I leave to them the task of proving their kinship. ”

“ After this, and knowing as we do the relations between Geofroy Tory and the Estienne family, it will not be deemed extraordinary that I attribute to our artist the italic letters of Simon de Colines, engraved about 1525, and the roman and italic letters of Robert Estienne, engraved a little later.
But Tory not only engraved letters, that is to say, punches on steel, as some authors have stated: he signalized himself above all by his engravings on wood, and he illustrated almost all the books of his time, which fact is almost wholly unknown. ”

“ The only item that interests us in this extract from the proceedings of the Faculty of Medicine is the passage relating to Tory. We see that [295] in 1533 he was made the twenty-fifth bookseller to the University, by command of King François I. Up to that time there had been only twenty-four (see M. Didot's 'Essai,' col. 744) , and they undoubtedly went back to that consecrated number after the death of Tory, in whose behalf an exception had been made.
IV
NOTE CONCERNING TORY'S VARIOUS DOMICILES IN PARIS.
The dedicatory epistle of Tory's edition of Pomponius Mela is dated Paris, December, 1507 ”