Fig. 72.—Bernard Palissy.
That story is briefly this: He was born poor, but he had patience, industry, and an aspiring nature. He studied, he learned, he sought; he became something of a draughtsman, a painter, a surveyor, a writer. Glass-painting may be said to have been his occupation, or one of them; and, in following this, he came quickly into sympathy with cognate arts. We can well believe, therefore, that when he saw a beautifully-enameled cup—whether one of those now so famous as the Henri-Deux ware, or whether one of those already made at Nuremberg by Hirschvogel (probably the latter)—we can well believe that it inspired his soul with enthusiasm, and held him with the tenacity we know to have marked his character.
From that day he was possessed; he had a mastering thought: it was to discover the secrets of this art, and to apply them to the production of like ware in France, where it was not known. With little or no knowledge of chemistry, with none of pottery, he set himself to the task. He worked persistently, indefatigably, but darkly, ignorantly, wastefully, and at last only reached a half-success. He did this, too, by sacrificing largely of his own life for sixteen years, and, more than that, as he has himself told the story, by the hard and almost cruel sacrifice of the decent comforts of life of his wife and family. He borrowed the money of his friends and neighbors to conduct his experiments; he burned his tables and chairs to heat his furnaces; he could not pay his assistants; he could bear the tears and reproaches of his wife and his friends, and did so for years; and all this for what some persons call the “glorious result” of discovering a glaze for pottery—which had already been known and was in full practice at Nuremberg, only a hundred miles from him! If, as is stated by Demmin, he did himself visit Nuremberg to see and learn what was there being done, his course becomes still more inexplicable and unpraiseworthy. And what makes the matter still more curious is that, after all, he did not succeed in discovering or applying the stanniferous enamel; for M. Demmin states positively that his glaze was the plumbiferous glaze, and not the stanniferous. Quoting his words, he says: “On ne rencontre pas la moindre parcelle d’émail stannifère, blanc ou autres, sur les poteries attribuées à ce maître. Le blanc est une terre blanchâtre qui, couverte d’un vernis incolore, conserve sa blancheur.”
If, therefore, it may be questioned whether the object of discovering a stanniferous glaze was worthy the sacrifice of sixteen years of his own life, as well as of the peace and comfort of his friends and family; and if, after all, he did not discover it; and if, besides that, he might have obtained it from Hirschvogel without all this tribulation, and did not—we may well be at a loss to understand the high praise which in some quarters has been lavished on Palissy; and for myself I am not willing to continue it. Martyrdom is usually a very poor business, and the cause of good pottery certainly does not demand it.