The reason for this was as follows: My two brothers, Theobald and George, who could not earn enough in Munich, had been engaged as lithographers by Herr Andre in Offenbach on my request. In a confidential mood I told them that I hoped to go to Vienna and open a great printing establishment and art publication house with assistance of Herr Andre, and that this establishment should make my fortune as well as that of my family.
Probably they did not believe my promise, or they did not care to depend on my fraternal feeling for something which they believed they could get for themselves: enough, they wrote to my mother that it was unfair to let Herr Andre become exclusive proprietor of the new process everywhere, and as I was well established in London anyway, she would better travel to Vienna and ask for a franchise. They sent her several good proofs from the Andre press.
Would to Heaven this plan of theirs had succeeded! I should have been spared many a succeeding sorrow, and I would have been glad for their sakes. The world was large enough for me, and certainly it was not thoroughly fair that they, the nearest relatives of the inventor, should be shut out by the far-reaching plans of Herr Andre to obtain exclusive franchises everywhere. To be sure, I had told them that I would give them the Bavarian franchise; but as they had enjoyed it for several months with little profit, this did not seem to them a tempting equivalent.
The news of my mother's journey to Vienna had been brought to Madame Gleissner quite accidentally, and it made her almost frantic.
When she used to charge me with depending so completely on Herr Andre's promises, without possessing anything in writing, I used to comfort her by pointing out his righteous character, and also by reminding her that it was all agreed that I and Herr Gleissner should undertake the printery in Vienna as part of the general enterprise, and that we were to obtain the necessary advance funds as soon as I returned from England. The repeated complaints that she made, many of them in the presence of my brothers, possibly helped to give them the idea of trying themselves for a franchise in Austria. They may have thought, "If our brother is careless enough to depend on empty words, we will be wise enough to obtain a certainty. It remains open to us always to share our fortune with the inventor."
Madame Gleissner had entertained great hopes about living in splendid Vienna and having means enough to take part in its brilliant life. This made the news about my mother's errand all the more irritating. She did not consider that an Imperial franchise is not easily obtained by women who are not even well informed on the case at issue. She succeeded in imparting her fears to Herr Andre, and as he himself was prevented from going, he entered into her fool's counsel to send her to Vienna at once. She had strong hopes of success, because as a matter of fact the Bavarian franchise had been obtained entirely through her efforts, and she also calculated that the Austrian Government would pay more heed to the inventor himself than to his brothers, who could not equal his attainments.
Herr Andre had kept it all, even to the journey of Madame Gleissner, a secret from me, presumably because he wanted to save me annoyance and also to prevent my hasty return from England.
Unfortunately I had conceived some suspicions in England, and these were increased when I received this unexpected news on my arrival in Offenbach. What was worse, Herr Gleissner gave me a letter from his wife, in which she adjured me to hurry to Vienna with all speed, as Andre was planning to deceive me and set me aside as a mere tool as soon as I had founded his own fortune.
This letter, which contained no evidence but only lamentations, was accompanied by another from her landlord in Vienna, a very reputable merchant. It seemed to bear her out, for he warned me in it to be cautious in my relations with Andre and to hurry to Vienna if I wished to obtain the franchise, which could not escape me as a most influential man had come to our support and it depended merely on the evidence to be furnished by me.
Greatly as my suspicions were increased by this, I hoped that everything was due merely to misunderstanding, and I proposed to Herr Andre to let me go to Vienna, where I would inform myself thoroughly and make strong efforts to obtain the franchise. He denied my request, saying that there was nothing more to do in Vienna, as the Government had turned both women away, and the whole plan was spoiled as the whole art and copper-etching trade had become apprehensive and was united in opposition to the new process. He said that I should rather go quickly to work to transfer his music from zinc plates to the stone, because he had an excellent opportunity to sell his entire stock of zincs, which would give us a new capital of forty thousand gulden for the greater enterprises.