At the time when his effigy was being
burnt, the Parisian printer was in the snowy mountains of the Auvergne,
and declared that he never felt so cold in his life.
The printers seem ever to have been on the side of the Protestants. In
Germany they produced all the works of the Reformation authors with great
accuracy and skill, and often at their own expense; whereas the Roman
Catholics could only get their books printed at great cost, and even then
the printing was done carelessly and in a slovenly manner, so as to seem
the production of illiterate men. And if any printer, more conscientious
than the rest, did them more justice, he was jeered at in the market-
places and at the fairs of Frankfort for a Papist and a slave of the
priests.
This Robert Stephanus (Estienne or Stephens, as the name is usually
called) was a member of one of the most illustrious families of learned
printers the world has ever seen. The founder of the family was Henry
Stephens, born at Paris in 1470, and the last of the race died there in
1674. Thus for nearly two centuries did they confer the greatest
advantages on literature, which they enriched quite as much by their
learning as by their skill. Their biographies have frequently been
written; so there is no occasion to record them. This Robert Stephens, who
was exiled on account of his books, was one of the most illustrious
scholars of his age.
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