Free The Salt Smugglers by Gérard de Nerval

leave, fearing that her father might burst in on them. But even asleep in each other’s arms, their caresses remained pure ...
    Such chastity was in the air, — the vogue for Italian poets had ushered a Platonism worthy of Petrarch into fashion, especially in the provinces. The traces of this particular outlook can been observed in the style of the lovely penitent who is the author of these confessions.
    The following morning, La Corbinière left the large hall somewhat late. The count, who had gotten up early, noticed him leaving; although he couldn’t be sure whether he had just left his daughter’s quarters or not, he had his suspicions.
    Â« This is why, the young lady adds, my sweet father fell into such a deep melancholy that day and spent all his time talking with my mother; nothing, however, was said to me. »
    Three days later the count had to go attend the funeral of his brother-in-law Manicamp. He asked La Corbinière to come along with him, — joined by one of his sons, a groom, and two lackeys. When they had gotten to the middle of the forest of Compiègne, the count went up to the young lover, disarmed him by pulling his sword out of its hilt and placed his pistol to his throat, saying to one of the lackeys: « Take this traitor’s spurs off and frisk him ... »
    I don’t know whether this simple story of a young lady and a pork butcher’s son will prove to be entertaining for my readers. It at least has one thing going for it: it is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, entirely true.
Everything that I have summarized for you today can be verified in the National Archives. — I have in my possession other documents, no less authentic, that will flesh out this tale.
    I am at this very moment traveling through the region where all this took place; you can therefore not cast my exactitude into doubt ...

INTERRUPTION. — RESPONSE TO M. AUGUSTE BERNARD, OF THE NATIONAL PRINTING HOUSE, MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRENCH ANTIQUARIANS. — A FABLE. — COMPIÈGNE SENLIS. — CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT AUNT OF THE ABBÉ DE BUCQUOY
    In La Presse I come across another well-meaning attack on me to which I am happy to be able to reply en passant , — to use one of the phrases of its author.
    I have been accused, in an article of mine deemed quite witty (not much of consolation, this: here in France, everybody is a wit), accused, I say, of having told some tall tales some two months ago, — while discussing the invention of printing. The article is signed by someone whom I must consider my master, — having myself once been, for a while, an apprentice typesetter. But clearly I am still navigating through dangerous waters. — I stand accused of turning vague hearsay into history, of indulging in fables or, worse, of perpetrating novels! — Well, why not just go all the way! Go ahead, denounce me to the commissioners whose business it is, — faithful to the stipulations of the Riancey amendment, — to read through our feuilletons in order to sift the true from the false. This would not be kind on the part of a typographer who is my superior by two hierarchical degrees; — and indeed, perhaps you are unaware of the pickle these sorts of allegations could get me into.
    You speak of Gutenberg, Faust, and Schoeffer, making of the first an inventor, of the second a simple capitalist, and of the third the assistant of the second, — who supposedly discovered the idea of movable type all on his own. Let me try to explain to you, historically, that is, what exactly movable type is.
    At Upsala there exists a Bible in Latin from the fourth century, entirely printed in movable type. Here is how:
    Punches were fabricated to represent all the letters of the alphabet. One would heat them up until they were red-hot and then stamp them one by one in painstaking succession onto sheets of parchment so that they would leave black imprints.