The fear had arisen that iron cylinders might affect the handsome reds and other fine colors. Herr Thornton, who had become my friend, promised to make for me cast copper cylinders with iron cores: and his preparations for this work were almost completed when again fate ruined all my hopes.
Napoleon had just completed the Continental blockade; and the English cotton stuffs were not to be had anywhere. This forced all the weavers and manufacturers of the inland to buy from the Pottendorfer Works, and the sale of their output became so great that the formerly overcrowded storehouses were emptied in a short time. "Why should we erect a new, different factory? Rather let us enlarge the present one." This was the general and entirely sensible decision of the company. Herr von Hartl would not interest himself further in the process, because our hope of an exclusive franchise had been ruined through the treachery of a foreman in the spinnery, who had made drawings of our machine and sold them to various cotton-making establishments, who were already imitating the process. So there was nothing left for me except to seek my fortune elsewhere.
In my pain over my oft-ruined hopes I complained to a good friend, Herr Madlener, a tinner in Pottendorf, and this noble man was ready at once to seek another opportunity for me. The very next day he told me that a cotton-printer in Vienna, Herr Blumauer, would pay me five hundred gulden for a small model press for cylinder printing on cotton. This turned out true. Fourteen days later he made me acquainted with the brothers Faber, who had a cotton-works in St. Polten, and who, on Madlener's recommendation, made an extremely satisfactory contract with me for the erection of a complete cylinder printery.
I thought myself happy to come into relations with this firm at whose head were two of the noblest of men, and was just ready to go to St. Polten, when my destinies received a new direction through a strange chain of circumstances, that opened for me an excellent prospect again of making great advances in improving my lithographic invention.
My brothers had written to me several times while I was in Vienna, complaining about scarcity of work and their resultant poverty. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that I did not exactly long to return to Munich, despite the fact that my hopes in Vienna had become steadily less. Probably I should have returned again to Herr Andre in Offenbach, as Gleissner and his family were pretty well placed with Steiner and Grasnitzky, had not Madame Gleissner conceived the idea of making personal inquiries about the conditions in Munich.
Shortly before, a Bavarian court musician had visited Vienna and had visited his friend Gleissner. From him we learned that my brothers were doing very well. They had good positions with the Feyertag School and had sold their franchise for stone-printing to the Royal Government. It was even reported that they had formed a company with Herr von Hazzi to establish a press and publishing house, and that they expected to get a comfortable building from the Government.
Madame Gleissner went to Munich at once and ascertained that the report was true. She also met our old apprentice, Grünewald, who had left Vienna in 1804 with one of our note-writers, Held, to erect a stone-printing establishment for Breitkopf and Härtl in Leipsic. He had just returned to Munich, and he induced Madame Gleissner to join him in erecting a small printing-house, which she did all the more willingly, since she hoped that it would earn her expenses for her in Munich. This occasion led to her acquaintance with Abt Vogler, who gave her several pieces of music to print.
Stone-printing pleased Abt Vogler so much that he proposed to Freiherr Christoph von Aretin, Royal Court and Central Library Director, to establish a printery and take into partnership the inventor as well as Herr Gleissner. Freiherr von Aretin was willing, and they made a provisional contract with Madame Gleissner, under which I and her husband were to go to Munich and establish a stone-press, for which Freiherr von Aretin and Abt Vogler would furnish the money.
I was pleasantly surprised when Madame Gleissner returned to Vienna with this news. Freiherr von Aretin was one of my old schoolmates in the Munich Gymnasium; and as he always used to gain the first prize in everything from the lowest class to the highest, I had entertained the greatest respect for him since youth. I would have thought myself fortunate even then to make his nearer acquaintance, because I ever have had a decided admiration for remarkable persons.
In later days it happened once that my mother dwelled in his house and could not pay her rent, owing to certain misfortunes, and when she asked him to excuse the delay he made her a present of the entire sum. This proof of a noble soul was not calculated to lessen my regard for him. Therefore I snatched at the proposal with joy.