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Page 11
intimacy with Cartier, with whom he says he spent five months at his
house in St. Malo (Cos. Univ., fol. 1014, B.), and from whom he
received much information, it is quite as clear that Cartier knew
nothing of the Verrazzano discovery, or he would have mentioned it
to Thevet.] It must, therefore, as regarded as confessed by them,
that no original authority for the discovery has never existed in
France.
If any voyage had taken place, such as this is alleged to have been,
it is morally impossible, in the state of learning and art at that
time in France, and with the interest which must necessarily have
attached to the discovery, that no notice should have been taken of
it in any of the chronicles or histories of the country, and that
the memory of it should not have been preserved in some of the
productions of its press. According to the letter itself, it was one
of the grandest achievements in the annals of discovery, and
promised the most important results to France. It was an enterprise
of her king, which had been successfully accomplished. There had
been discovered a heathen land, nearly three thousand miles in
extent, before unknown to the civilized world, and, therefore, open
to subjugation and settlement; healthy, populous, fertile and
apparently rich in gold and aromatics, and, therefore, an
acquisition as great and valuable as any discovery made by the
Spaniards or Portuguese, except that of Columbus. Silence and
indifference in regard to such an event were impossible. Printing
introduced long previously into the principal cities in France, had
early in this reign reached its highest state of perfection, as the
works issued from the presses of Henri Estienne and others attest.
In 1521 twenty-four persons practiced the art in Paris alone.
[Footnote: Didot in Harrisse Bib. Am. Vet., 189.] The discoveries in
the new world by other nations excited as much attention in France
as they did in the other countries of Europe. The letters of
Columbus and Vespucci, describing their voyages and the countries
they had found, were no sooner published abroad than they were
translated into French and printed in Paris. From 1515 to 1529
several editions of the Italian collection of voyages, known as the
Paesi novamente ritrovati, containing accounts of the discoveries of
Columbus, Cortereal, Cabral and Vespucci in America, and in 1532 the
Decades of Peter Martyr, were translated and published in Paris, in
the French language. Cartier's account of his voyage in 1535-6,
undertaken by order of Francis, in which he discovered Canada, was
printed in the same city in 1545, during the reign of that monarch.
These publications abundantly prove the interest which was taken in
France in the discoveries in the new world, and the disposition and
efforts of the printers in the country at that time to supply the
people with information on the subject; and also, that the policy of
the crown allowed publicity to be given to its own maritime
enterprises. Of the enlightened interest on the part of the crown in
the new discoveries, a memorable instance is recorded, having a
direct and important bearing upon this question. A few months only
after the alleged return of Verrazzano, and at the darkest hour in
the reign of Francis, when he was a captive of the emperor in Spain,
Pigafetta, who had accompanied the expedition of Magellan and kept a
journal of the voyage, presented himself at the court of France.
Louise was then exercising the powers and prerogatives of her son,
and guarding his interests and honor with maternal zeal. Pigafetta
came to offer her a copy of the manuscript which he had prepared,
and which told of the discovery of the newly discovered route to the
Moluccas and Cathay. It was written in Italian; and the queen mother
caused it to be translated into French by Antoine Fabre, and printed
by Simon de Colines, the successor of Estienne. The book bears no
date, but bibliographers assign it that of 1525, the year of the
regency. Certain it is, it was printed in Paris during the life of
Francis, as Colines, whose imprint it bears, died before the king.
Thus by the instrumentality of the crown of France was the account
of the discovery of Magellan, written by one who belonged to the
expedition, first given to the world. It is not probable that the
queen mother, exercising the regal power immediately after the
alleged return of Verrazzano, would have left entirely unnoticed and
unpublished an account of his discovery, so interesting to the
subjects of the king and so glorious to France, and yet have caused
to be put forth within his realm in its stead, the history of a like
enterprise, redounding to the glory of the great rival and enemy of
her son. [Footnote: The little book of Pigafetta, a copy of which,
by the kindness of Mrs. John Carter Brown, of Providence, is now in
our hands, bears the title of Le voyage et navigation faict par les
Espaignols es Isles de Molucques, &c. It is fully described by M.
Harrisse in his Bib. Vet. Am. The concluding paragraph contains the
statement that this manuscript was presented to the queen regent.
Ramusio (vol. I, 346), mentions the fact that it was given by her to
Fabre to be translated. The particulars are detailed by Amoretti
Primo Viaggio, Introd. XXXVII. Premier Voyage, XLIV.]
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