272 COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 



with its neatly slated spire and cushioned pews, stands near the center 

 of the town to mark the foothold of a new faith. 



In the municipal library of St. Die there is preserved as its most 

 precious possession a magnificent illuminated volume the Graduel or 

 Lectern, containing the plain song of the various offices and ceremo 

 nials of the Chapitre for the entire year. It is enriched with hundreds 

 of miniatures, illuminated initials, painted margins, and colophons, 

 which illustrate many interesting phases of the history of St. Die, as 

 well as its industries, political vicissitudes, and the social conditions 

 which prevailed in that community during the period of the Vosgien 

 Gymnase. 



Gautrin Lud, the founder and controlling spirit of the Gymnase, was 

 born at St. Die about the year 1448. He came from wealthy and dis 

 tinguished stock, his mother, Jeannette d Ainveau, being a daughter of 

 one of the noblest families of Lorraine, and his father a soldier of dis 

 tinction in the service of the king. 



The art of printing with movable types was hardly fifty years old, 

 printing facilities were everywhere limited, and in order to carry out 

 its plans the Gymnase needed a press and type of its own. Here the 

 wealth and enterprise of Gautrin Lud came to the rescue. In 1494 that 

 liberal prelate had set up in his own house in the principal street of 

 St. Die a rude printing machine, with a font of large, round-faced type. 



Modern St. Die is a thriving town of nearly 12,000 people, who are 

 engaged mainly in weaving, spinning, tanning, and various industries 

 connected with the manufacture and consumption of pine lumber, which 

 grows abundantly in that picturesque region. It is the terminus of a 

 railway which was originally laid out from Luneville to Markirch in 

 Alsace, but which stopped abruptly at St. Die, where the events of 

 1870 drew the new frontier of Germany across its path. 



The house of Jean Basin was partially destroyed by fire in 1554, but 

 the walls remain intact, so that the structure was rebuilt, or rather 

 restored, with exactly its original form and dimensions 5 and in that 

 condition it exists to-day, the most perfectly preserved domicile that 

 remains from the Gymnase Vosgien. 



Eingman was, from all accounts, a man of extraordinary zeal and ver 

 satility. Of his family nothing is known, but his parents must have 

 been in comfortable circumstances to afford him the thorough educa 

 tion he received. He was born in 1482, near the monastery of Paeris, 

 in the valley of the Vosges. About the year 1500, when the discov 

 eries of Columbus, Cabot, and Alonzo de Ojeda had set the educated 

 world aflame, Eingman shared in the enthusiasm and took up a thor 

 ough course in mathematics and cosmography. He studied at Paris 

 until 1503, when, at the age of 21, he returned to Strassburg, bringing 

 with him a copy of the memorable letter which Americus Yespucius 

 had written from Cape Verde in June, 1501, to his patron, Lorenzo de 

 Medici, at Florence, giving a somewhat superficial account of his third 



