Of the character of the audience whom Palissy attracted around him in his museum (as he called his cabinet of natural history), on this occasion, we are fully informed. He has given a list of more than thirty of them, including many skilful physicians, celebrated surgeons, grand seigneurs, gentlemen, and titled ecclesiastics, also some of the legal profession, and others, who were drawn together by a common love of scientific research. These were no idlers, but an assemblage of the choicest students—a sort of Royal Society, instituted for the occasion—who sat listening to the self-taught philosopher, the wise and vigorous old man, who, illustrating his cases as he went on, by specimens of the things about which he spoke, turned his cabinet into a lecture-room, where he delivered the first course of lectures upon natural history ever given in the French metropolis, held in the first natural history museum ever thrown open to the public there. Supported by the favourable opinion of such judges—than whom he could not have “more faithful witnesses, nor men more assured in knowledge,” Bernard “took courage to discourse” of various matters concerning which he had attained a surprising degree of knowledge.
The science taught by the self-educated potter was such as has entitled him, in the present day, to the admiration of men like Buffon, Haller, and Cuvier.
CHAPTER XVI.
“Be thou faithful unto death.”—Revelation ii. 10.
“The number of my years hath given me courage to tell you that, a short time since, I was considering the colour of my beard, which caused me to reflect on the few days which remain to me before my course shall end: and that has led me to admire the lilies and the corn, and many kinds of plants, whose green colours are changed into white when they are ready to yield their fruits. Thus, also, certain trees become hoary when they feel their natural vegetative power is about to cease. A like consideration has reminded me that it is written, ‘Better is the fool who hides his folly, than the wise man who conceals his wisdom.’” We are peeping over Palissy’s shoulder as he bends his silvery locks over his writing-desk, and commences the dedication of his last volume of “Admirable Discourses.” Its superscription is as follows:—“To the very high and very powerful lord, the sire Antoine de Pons, knight of the order of the king, captain of a hundred gentlemen, and his majesty’s very faithful counsellor.” It is to his ancient patron he pays this tribute of loving respect. The good old sire was probably still more aged than himself, but his friendship had stood the test of years, and their intercourse had been renewed “in these later days,” with mutual pleasure and edification; their conversation having often turned on “divers sciences; to wit, philosophy, astrology, and other arts drawn from mathematics,” in which, “without any flattery,” Bernard declares himself convinced of the venerable knight’s marvellous ability, which “length of years had but augmented, instead of diminishing therefrom.”
It is pleasant to find Bernard thus steadfastly retaining the friendship of earlier years, but far more satisfactory to perceive that he had preserved his religion pure, and that the source whence his activity in the pursuit of knowledge was derived remained the same. At the close of a pious and laborious life, he remembered there was still something left which he might do. He had learned the wonderful secrets of nature to the glory of Him who had given him the hearing ear, and the seeing and observing eye; and now, recurring to the ruling motive of his life—that solemn idea of responsibility—he says, “It is a just and reasonable thing that the talents a man has received from God, he should endeavour to multiply, following his commandment. For which reason I have studied to bring unto the light the things of which it has pleased God to give me understanding. Having seen how many pernicious errors have been set abroad, I have betaken me to scratch in the earth for the space of forty years, and search into the entrails of the same, in order to understand the things which she produces in herself; and by such means I have found grace before God, who has caused me to understand secrets which have hitherto been unknown even to the learned.”
The book, thus dedicated and prefaced, contained the mature fruit of his studies as a naturalist. It is a collection of short treatises upon waters and fountains, metals, salts, stones, and earths, fire, enamels, and many other things, besides a treatise on marl, “very useful and necessary for those concerned in agriculture.” It was published at Paris in the year 1580, when its author was more than seventy years of age.
Four years later he was still lecturing in his museum, wandering out, now and then, to the river side and elsewhere to find an illustration of some lesson he was teaching. Thus, one winter’s day, he was seen standing beside the Seine, opposite the Tuileries, surrounded by a throng of listeners and objectors, among whom were several of the boatmen, who persisted in maintaining what Palissy was combatting: namely, that the floating masses of ice upon the river came from the bottom of the water. Among those who listened with interest and discernment to his instruction was the Sieur de la Croix Dumaine, who afterwards, in a volume published in 1584, described Palissy as “a natural philosopher, and a man of remarkably acute and ready wit, flourishing in Paris, and giving lessons in his science and profession.”
His was a vigorous old age, and he looked so much younger than he really was, that the Sieur supposed him little more than sixty. He might, in all probability, have continued thus to lecture and discourse about the wonders of the earth and waters some years longer; yet, even a few months later we should have vainly sought him in his beloved museum, or on his pleasant rambles around the environs of Paris. He was no longer there, but immured within the walls of yon grim fortress—
“That shame to manhood, and opprobrious more
To France, than all her losses and defeats
Old, or of later date; by sea or land;
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old
Which God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastile.”