Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their Friends

by Edward Everett Hale

Palissy now hastened to undertake a whole vase. For many and large pieces there was not room enough at his disposition in the ovens of the glass-works. He did not worry about that, for he was quite sure he could construct one of his own. He decided, too, at once to model and fashion his own vases; for those which he bought of the potters, made of coarse and heavy forms, no longer suited his ambition. He now designed forms, turned and modelled them himself. Thus passed seven or eight months. At last his vases were done, and he admired with pride the pure forms given to the clay by his hands. But his money was giving out again, and his furnace was not yet built. As he had nothing to pay for the work, he did all the work himself,—went after bricks and brought them himself on his back, and then built and plastered with his own hands. The neighbors looked on in pity and ridicule. "Look," they said, "at Master Bernard! He might live at his ease, and yet he makes a beast of burden of himself!"

Palissy minded their sarcasms not at all. His furnace was finished in good time, and the first baking of the clay succeeded perfectly. Now the pottery was to be covered with his new enamel. Time pressed, for in a few days there would be no more bread in the house for his children. For a long time he had been living on credit, but now the butcher and baker refused to furnish anything more. All about him he saw only unfriendly faces; every one treated him as a fool. "Let him die of hunger," they said, "since he will not listen to reason."

His wife was the worst of all. She failed to see any heroism in the obstinacy or perseverance of her husband,—no wonder, perhaps, with the sight of her suffering children before her eyes. She went about reciting her misfortunes to all the neighborhood, very unwisely, as she thus ruined the credit of her husband, his last and only resource.

Palissy was already worn out by so much manual labor, to which he was little accustomed; nevertheless, he worked by night, and all night long, to pound up and prepare the materials for his white enamel, and to spread it upon his vases. A report went abroad, caused by the sight of his lamp constantly burning, that he was trying to coin counterfeit money. He was suspected, despised, and avoided, and went about the streets hanging his head because he had no answer to make to his accusers.

The moment which was to decide his life arrived. The vases were placed in the furnace, and for six continuous days and nights he plied the glowing fire with fuel. The heat was intolerable; but the enamel resisted, nothing would melt, and he was forced to recognize that there was too little of the glazing substance in the combination to vitrify the others. He set to work to mix another compound, but his vases were spoiled; he borrowed a few common ones from the pottery. During all this delay he did not dare to let the fire go out, it would take so much wood to start it again. Once more the newly covered pots were placed in the intense furnace; in three or four hours the test would be completed. Palissy perceived with terror that his fuel was giving out. He ran to his garden, tore up fences, and cut down trees which he had planted himself, and threw all these into the two yawning mouths of the furnace. Not enough! He went into the house, and seized tables, chairs, and bureaus; but the house was but poorly furnished, and contained but little to feed the flames. Palissy returned. The rooms were empty, there was absolutely nothing more to take; then he fell to pulling up the planks of the floor. His wife, frightened to death, stood still and let him go on. The neighbors ran in, at the sound of the axe, and said, "He must be a fool!"

But soon pity changed to admiration. When Palissy took the vases from the furnace, the common pots which all had seen before dull and coarse, were of a clear pearly white, covered with brilliant polish.

So much emotion and fatigue had told upon the robust constitution of Palissy. "I was," he says, "all used up and dried up on account of such toil, and the heat of the furnace. It was more than a month since I had had a dry shirt on my body, and I felt as if I had reached the door of the sepulchre."

In spite of the success which he had now attained, our potter had by no means reached the end of his misfortunes. He sold his vases, but could not get much for them, as there were but a few, of poor shapes; for those which he had modelled himself had all failed to take the enamel, and the successful ones were only common things, bought on credit. The small sum which he got by selling them was not enough by any means to cover his expenses, pay his debts, and restore order to the house from which pretty much everything was burned up for firewood in his furnace.

However, he was supported and happy in the thought of his success. He said to himself: "Why be sad, when you have found what you were seeking for? Go on working, and you will put your enemies to shame."

Once more he succeeded in borrowing a little money. He hired a man to help him; and for want of funds, he paid this man by giving him all his own good clothes, while he went himself in rags. The furnace he had made was coming to pieces on account of the intense heat he had maintained in it for six days and nights during his last experiment. He pulled it to pieces with his own hands, working with fingers bleeding and bound up in bandages. Then he fetched water, sand, lime, and stone, and built by himself a new furnace, "without any help or any repose. A feverish resolution doubled my strength, and made me capable of doing things which I should have imagined impossible."