Palissy the Huguenot Potter: A True Tale

by C. L. Brightwell

He knew that his errand admitted not of delay. There was but one chance that Palissy might be saved. It was an intercession with the king; and possibly the Sire de Pons, on receiving immediate information of the secret Victor had thus learned, might take timely measures to frustrate the deadly designs of Barnard’s enemies.

CHAPTER XII.

“A good man shall be satisfied from himself.”—Proverbs xiv. 14.

Palissy was now immured within the walls of the Bordeaux prison. While he lies there, bereft of the consolation he had hitherto enjoyed in the society of Victor, we must betake ourselves to a very different scene.

In consequence of the information he received from the Sire de Pons, the constable Montmorency determined, as the only means of averting the fate which threatened his ingenious workman, to apply himself, in person, to the queen mother, through whose influence the court might be induced to protect him. In fact, Catherine was herself virtually monarch, and a word from her would suffice. The sole redeeming quality of this woman of evil renown was, an enlightened taste for literature and the fine arts, a taste which seems to have been hereditary in her family. She enriched the royal library with many precious manuscripts of Greece and Italy, and presented to it half the volumes which her great ancestor Lorenzo de Medici had purchased of the Turks, after the taking of Constantinople. Especially she excelled in her love of the fine arts, and her taste and genius were displayed in the erection of many châteaux in various provinces, remarkable for the exactness of their proportions and their style, at a period when the French had scarcely a notion of the principles of architecture. At the present time she had just conceived the purpose of constructing a new residence for herself; and Montmorency found her, in one of the apartments assigned to her use, in the palace of the Louvre, busily engaged in looking over some manuscript plans. As the constable was announced, she raised her eyes from the table on which these designs were placed, and after receiving his salutations, begged him to be seated beside her, and pointing with her hand (the most beautiful one ever beheld, according to a contemporary historian), she smilingly requested his assistance in her choice. “Allow me, monsieur,” she said, “to appeal to your judgment, for in the matter now under consideration, I could not have an adviser whose opinion I should more highly value. You are aware that the château des Tournelles has been destined to demolition, and I have, therefore, determined to build me a new palace, the site of which I am anxious to fix upon. The plan now before his majesty”—and she glanced at her son, the poor young boy king, who sat opposite her—“appears to me to present no small advantages.” The paper to which the queen referred was the plan of a plot of ground close to the trenches of the Louvre, situated, at that time, out of Paris, and which had been purchased, some half century before, by king Francis I., as a present to his mother, Marie Louise, of Savoy. It had been originally occupied by tuileries (i.e., tile-kilns), and in the old drawings which Catherine was inspecting, the spots where formerly stood the wood-yards and baking-houses used in making the bricks and tiles, were marked out. “Its situation by the river, and the large space suitable for garden ground attached to it, seem much in its favour, madame,” said the constable. “And its neighbourhood to the royal dwelling also,” said the queen, at the same time she unrolled another map, which she proceeded to examine, with the assistance of Montmorency.

Whilst they are thus engaged we will take the opportunity to say something of the two royal personages present. Charles IX. was not yet fourteen years old, tall in stature, strongly but not gracefully built, and with a countenance of energetic expression, but fierce and unrefined. The poor lad, invested at so early an age with unbounded authority, appears to have been naturally of a violent temper, with high animal spirits. His great passion was the chase, and he also showed considerable taste for letters. But, kept in subjection to the will of his mother, and tutored by her to suspect and dissimulate, his natural character was vitiated, and he suffered himself to continue, to the time of his death, the passive instrument of her ambition and cruelty. A remarkable anecdote is told of him, which seems to prove that better things might have been expected of him, had his education been in different hands. When but a youth, having perceived that after drinking wine he was no longer master of himself, he swore never to use it again; and he kept his oath. What might not have been expected from a prince gifted with such powers of self-control, had he been judiciously trained?

At the time of which we are speaking, the queen mother was in the decline of her beauty, though she still retained some remnants of those charms which adorned her in youth. She was clad in the black robes of her widowhood, which it was her fancy to persist in wearing long after the usual period; her hair was completely hidden beneath the angular white cap we see in the pictures of that day, and her strongly marked features were softened by the shade of a grey gauze veil. Her eyebrows were dark, and her eyes, large and brilliant, had a restless severity in their expression which inspired fear and distrust. Her complexion was olive, and her figure tall and large, her movements full of grace and majesty, while an air of command was visible in every gesture.

As she spoke now, the tones of her voice were soft and musical, for it was her wish to please; but, when angry passions agitated her bosom, they became dissonant, harsh, and startling.

“I think,” she said, in answer to an observation made by Montmorency, “the balance of advantages lies much in the favour of the first design, to which I shall, therefore, give the preference, and will immediately give directions for digging the foundations of the new palace, and it shall be named, from the site on which it is built, the Palace of the Tuileries.” “Well, madam,” said the constable, “your majesty has admirably chosen, and skilfully selected, an appropriate name for the intended royal abode.” “It occurred to my recollection,” said Catherine, “that one of the finest quarters of ancient Athens was called the Ceramic, because it occupied ground once held by extra-mural potteries.” “Speaking of potteries reminds me, madam,” said Montmorency, “of the principal object I had in seeking an interview with your majesty. Among the workmen I have employed at Écouen, there is a mechanic who evinces a surprising genius in the art of painting on glass, and who has invented an enamelled earthenware of great beauty. I know of none equal to him in skill, and, in fact, I cannot supply his place should he be sacrificed.” “You should not allow so great a treasure to slip through your hands. What danger threatens him?” “He is a Huguenot, madam,” was the reply. “No matter,” said the queen, laughing, “his heresy won’t alter the hues of his glass or pottery-ware.” “Nay; but he has fallen into the hands of Nogeret, one of the royalist leaders in Saintonge, and will infallibly be hanged or burned, and serve him right, as I should say, for a heretic knave, but that my work is incomplete, and that Master Palissy is a rare workman. Such skill, too, as he shows in designing, and in the adorning of gardens! In short, he is precisely the man whom your majesty would find invaluable in the works you have now in prospect.”