If lizards were basking in the sunshine, he stopped to admire their gliding motions, and prismatic changes of color. If he found a half-covered snail among the wet mosses, he lingered till he ascertained that it was gradually making a new shell from its own saliva. If a stone was curious in form or shape, he picked it up and put it in his wallet; and oftentimes he would crack them, to discover their interior structure. Every new flower and seed attracted his attention, and excited wonder at the marvellous varieties of Nature. These things are hinted at all through his writings. He says: “In walking under the fruit-trees, I received a great contentment and many joyous pleasures; for I saw the squirrels gathering the fruits, and leaping from branch to branch, with many pretty looks and gestures. I saw nuts gathered by the rooks, who rejoiced in taking their repast, dining on the said nuts. Under the apple-trees, I found hedgehogs, that rolled themselves into a round form, and, thrusting out their sharp quills, they rolled over the apples, which stuck on the points, and so they went burdened. These things have made me such a lover of the fields, that it seems to me there are no treasures in the world so precious as the little branches of trees and plants. I hold them in more esteem than mines of gold and silver.” This loving communion with Nature was not mere idle dreaming. Always he was drawing inferences from what he saw, and curiously inquiring into the causes of things.
He supported himself by painting glass, and sketching portraits. He says, in his modest way, “They thought me a better painter than I was.” If he arrived in a town where a cathedral or an abbey was being built, he sometimes tarried long to make a variety of rich patterns for the windows. In other places, he would find only a few repairs required in the windows of castles or churches, and so would quickly pass on. To arrange mosaic patterns of different-colored glass required constant use of rule and compass, and this suggested the study of geometry, which he pursued with characteristic eagerness. The knowledge thus acquired made him a skilful surveyor, and he was much employed in mapping out boundaries, and making plans for houses and gardens, a business which he found more profitable than glass-work or portraits. These various occupations brought him occasionally into contact with men who were learned in the arts and sciences, according to the standard of learning at that time, and his active mind never failed to glean something from such interviews. A French translation of the Scriptures had been published in 1498. He seems to have had a copy with him during his travels, and to have studied it with reverential attention. Thus constantly observing and acquiring, the young man traversed France, from Spain to the Netherlands, and roamed through a portion of Germany. Ten years were spent in this way, during which he obtained the best portion of that education which he afterward turned to good account.
He is supposed to have been about twenty-nine years old, when he married, and settled in the town of Saintes, in the western part of France. He supported his family by glass-work, portraits, and surveying. A few years after his marriage, some one showed him an enamelled cup, brought from Italy. It seemed a slight incident; but it woke the artistic spirit slumbering in his soul, and was destined to effect a complete revolution in his life. He says: “It was an earthen cup, turned and enamelled with so much beauty, that from that time I entered into controversy with my own thoughts. I began to think that if I should discover how to make enamels, I could make earthen vessels very prettily; because God had gifted me with some knowledge of drawing. So, regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for the enamel, as a man gropes in the dark.”
In order to begin to comprehend the difficulties he had to encounter, we must know that only the rudest kind of common pottery had then been made in France, and even with the manufacture of that he was entirely unacquainted. If he had been unmarried, he might have travelled among the potters of Europe, as he had among the glass-makers, and have obtained useful hints from them; but his family increased fast, and needed his protection and support. Tea was not introduced into Europe till a hundred years later; and there were no specimens of porcelain from China, except here and there a costly article imported by the rich. He was obliged to test the qualities of various kinds of clays; what chemical agents would produce enamel; what other agents would produce colors; and the action of heat on all of them. He bought quantities of earthen jars, broke them into fragments, applied to each piece some particular chemical substance, and tried them all in a furnace. He says: “I pounded all the substances I could suppose likely to make anything. Having blundered several times, at great expense, and through much labor, I was every day pounding and grinding new materials, and constructing new furnaces, which cost much money and consumed my wood and my time.” While these expenses were going on, his former occupations were necessarily suspended; thus “the candle was burning out at both ends.” His wife began to complain. Still he went on, trying new compounds, as he says, “always with great cost, loss of time, confusion and sorrow.” The privations of his family and the anxiety of his wife gave him so much pain, that he relinquished his experiments for a while. He says: “Seeing I could not in this way come at my intention, I occupied myself in my art of painting and glass-working, and comported myself as if I were not zealous to dive any more into the secret of enamels.” The king ordered extensive surveys, and he found that employment so profitable, that his family were soon at ease again. But that Italian cup was always in his mind. He says: “When I found myself with a little money, I resumed my affection for pursuing in the track of the enamels.” For two years he kept up a series of experiments, under all manner of difficulties, and always without success. His wife scolded, and even his own courage began to fail. At last he applied more than three hundred kinds of mixtures to more than three hundred fragments, and put them all in the furnace; resolved that if this experiment proved a failure, he would try no more. He tells us: “One of the pieces came out white and polished, in a way that caused me such joy, as made me think I was become a new creature.” He was then thirty-seven years old.
He was merely at the beginning of what he aimed to accomplish. He had discovered how to make the enamel, but he still knew nothing of pottery, or of the effect which various degrees of heat would produce on colors. A new furnace was necessary, and he proceeded to build it, with prodigious labor. Being too poor to hire help, he brought bricks on his own back from a distant kiln; he made his own mortar, and drew the water with which it was tempered. He fashioned vessels of clay, to which his enamel could be applied. For more than a month he kept up an incessant fire night and day, and was continually grinding materials in a hand-mill, which it usually required two men to turn. He believed himself to be very near complete success, and everything depended upon not letting the heat of the furnaces go down. In the desperation of his poverty and the excitement of his sanguine hopes, he burned the garden-fence, and even some of the tables, doors, and floors of his house. His wife became frantic, and gave him no peace. She was to be pitied, poor woman! Not being acquainted with chemical experiments, she did not know, as he did, that he was really on the point of making a great and lucrative discovery. She had heard it so long that she didn’t believe it. They had a large family of children, and while their father was trying expensive experiments, several of them were dying of a disease prevalent at that time. It was a gloomy and trying period for all of them. He says: “I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak. I was quite exhausted and dried up by the heat of the furnace. It was more than a month since my shirt had been dry upon me. I was the object of mockery. Even those from whom solace was due ran crying through the town that I was burning my floors. In this way I came to be regarded as a madman. I was in debt in several places. I had two children at nurse, and was unable to pay the nurses. Men jested at me as I passed through the streets, and said it was right for me to die of hunger, since I had left following my trade. Some hope still remained to sustain me, for my last experiments had turned out tolerably well, and I thought I knew enough to get my living; but I found I was far enough from that yet.”
The want of means to build sheds to cover his clay vessels was another great difficulty. After working all day, and late into the night, sometimes a heavy rain would spoil all his work, just as he had it ready to bake. He describes himself, on such occasions, as utterly weak and exhausted, so that walking home he “reeled like a man drunk with wine.” He says: “Filled with a great sorrow, inasmuch as having labored long I saw my labor wasted, I would retire soiled and drenched, to find in my chamber a second persecution worse than the first; which now causes me to marvel that I was not consumed by suffering.”
In the midst of all this tribulation, the struggling artist had one source of consolation. Jean Cauvin, better known to us as John Calvin, had been preaching Protestant doctrines in France, and had given rise to the sect called Huguenots. The extravagance and licentiousness of society at that period, and the abuses practised by a powerful and wealthy priesthood, naturally inclined this pure and simple-minded man to the doctrines of the Reformers. He became acquainted with an artisan of the same turn of mind, whom he describes as “simple, unlearned, and marvellously poor.” His delight was to hear Palissy read the Scriptures. Gradually his listeners increased to ten, and they formed a little society, which took turns in exhortation and prayer. One of them is supposed to have been an innkeeper, who, from religious sympathy, allowed poor Palissy to take meals at his house on credit.
He still continued his experiments, and met with successive disappointments of one kind or another. At last, he thought he had learned how to adjust everything just right; and confident of success, he one day put into the oven a batch of vessels, beautifully formed and painted. But a new misfortune awaited him. The materials of his furnace contained flints. These expanded and burst with the great heat, and struck into the vessels while they were soft, injuring the enamel, and covering the surface with irregular sharp points. This blow almost prostrated him; for he had expected this beautiful batch would bring a considerable sum of money for the support of his family, and put to silence those that jeered at him. But he was a man of wonderful endurance. He says: “Having remained some time upon the bed, I reflected that if a man should fall into a pit, it would be his duty to try to get out again.” So the brave soul roused himself, and set to work diligently to earn money, by his old trades of painting and surveying.
Having supplied the necessities of his family, he again returned to his pottery; fully believing that his losses and hazards were over, and that he could now make articles that would bring good prices. But new disappointments awaited him. The green with which he painted his lizards burnt before the brown of the serpents melted; a strong current of air in the furnace blew ashes all over his beautiful vessels and spoiled the enamel. He says: “Before I could render my different enamels fusible at the same degree of heat, I thought I should be at the door of my sepulchre. I was so wasted in my person that there was no form nor prominence in the muscles of my arms or legs; also the said legs were throughout of one size; so that when I walked, garters and stockings were at once down upon my heels. I often roamed about the fields, considering my miseries and weariness, and above all things, that in my own house I could have no peace, nor do anything that was considered good. I was despised and mocked by all. Nevertheless, I had a hope, which caused me to work so like a man, that I often did my best to laugh and amuse people who came to see me, though within me all was very sad.”
At the end of ten years from the commencement of his experiments, he succeeded in making a kind of ware, of mixed enamels, resembling jasper. It was not what he had been aiming to accomplish, but it was considered pretty, and sold well enough to support his family comfortably. While he was making continual improvements in his pottery, the Huguenots were increasing to a degree that provoked persecution. A schoolmaster in a neighboring town, who “preached on Sundays, and was much beloved by the people,” was brought to Saintes and publicly burnt. But Palissy and his little band were not intimidated. They continued to meet for exhortation and prayer. At first it was done mostly at midnight; but the pure and pious lives of these men and women formed such a contrast to the licentiousness and blasphemy prevailing round them, that they gradually gained respect; insomuch that they influenced the magistrates of the town to pass laws restraining gambling and dissipation. So great a change was produced, that, when Palissy was fifty-one years old, he says: “On Sundays you might see tradesmen rambling through the fields, groves, and other places, in bands, singing psalms, canticles, and spiritual songs, or reading and instructing each other. You might see young women seated in gardens and other places, who in like way delighted themselves with singing all holy things. The very children were so well instructed that they had no longer a puerility of manner, but a look of manly fortitude. These things had so well prospered that people had changed their old manners, even to their very countenances.”