[501] Another document which M. Boyer has kindly made known to me, dated in 1489, informs us that this Jean Thory lived on rue aux Vaches, in Faubourg Saint-Privé; so that it was on that street that Geofroy was born. 'Now,' M. Boyer writes me, 'as that street contains only two houses, I am inclined to select as the house in question the one designated by the name of maison du perron, because of a stoop (perron) with a wooden roof which is still preserved, and which is accounted for by the proximity of the river.' I saw the house in 1856; it still belongs to the Toubeau family, which tends to confirm M. Boyer's opinion.
[502] Archives of the Department of the Cher, Series C, Notarial Records; minutes of Jean Dujat, notary, 1507.
[504] On the first page of both books are the words: 'Biturigis, apud Bonaventuram Thorinum, sub signo Anchoræ, vico Maiore, 1595'; and at the end: 'Excusus fuit hic liber typis viduæ Nicolai Levez, Avarici Biturigum, juxta scholas utriusque juris.' (Bibliothèque Nationale.) The first alone contains a license to print (dated August 29, 1595). Therein the publisher is called, in French, 'Thorin,' the natural rendering of the Latin name that we find in the 'note to the reader,' where the form 'Torinus' occurs four times, and 'Thorinus' once only; which confirms my hypothesis relative to the descent of this bookseller of Bourges. For we have seen that Tory wrote his name Torinus in Latin. I must not omit to mention one objection suggested by a friend of mine at Bourges,—that our man is called Bonaventure Thorin, in a book of imposts for the year 1588. But every one knows how irregular the spelling of names was in the old days.
[505] May not Tory's son have had for his godfather Bonaventure des Périers, who committed suicide in 1544, in order to avoid a prosecution on account of his religion?
[506] This book, which bears a French title, Lesclaircissement de la langue françoise, although written in English and for the English, was printed at London shortly after the publication of Tory's Champ fleury. M. Génin issued a second edition in 1852, quarto, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale.
[507] Read 'Tory'; letters transposed.
[508] Read 'Bourges.' The error is due to the fact that the London printers were much more familiar with Bruges, where Caxton, their first master, lived a long while before he introduced printing in England, than with Bourges in Berry. (See my book on the Origin of Printing, vol. ii, pp. 347 ff.)
[509] See what I have myself said on this subject, supra, p. [17].
[510] In order to be fair to everybody I am bound to say that M. Génin's reckoning is at fault. Henry VIII having succeeded to the throne on April 22, 1509, the twenty-second year of his reign extends from April 22, 1530, to April 21, 1531, and consequently the license cited here must have been dated September 2, 1530, that is to say, a month and a half after the printing of Palsgrave's book was finished.