After six years more of successive improvements, making sixteen years in the whole, this persevering man at last accomplished the object for which he had toiled and suffered so much. He produced a very beautiful kind of china, which became celebrated under the name of Palissy Ware. These articles were elaborately adorned with vines, flowers, butterflies, lizards, serpents, and other animals. He had always been such a loving observer of nature that we cannot wonder at being told “he copied these, in form and color, with the minute exactness of a naturalist, so that the species of each could be determined accurately.” These beautiful articles sold at high prices. Orders flowed in from kings and nobles. The Constable Montmorenci, a nobleman of immense wealth, employed Palissy to decorate his magnificent Chateau d’Ecouen, about twelve miles from Paris. There he made richly painted windows, covered with Scripture scenes, some of his own designing, others copied from Raphael and Albert Durer. Vases and statuettes of his beautiful china were deposited in various places; and the floors of chapel and galleries were inlaid with china tiles of his painting. Among the groves he formed a very curious grotto of china. He modelled rugged rocks, “sloping, tortuous, and lumpy,” which he painted with imitations of such herbs and mosses as grow in moist places. Brilliant lizards appeared to glide over its surface, “in many pleasant gestures and agreeable contortions.” In the trenches of water were some living frogs and fishes, and other china ones, which so closely resembled them as not to be easily distinguished. At the foot of the rocks, branches of coral, of his manufacture, appeared to grow in the water. A poet of that period, praising this work, says: “The real lizard on the moss has not more lustre than the lizards in that house made famous by your new work. The plants look not sweeter in the fields, and green meadows are not more preciously enamelled, than those which grow under your hand.” The Constable Montmorenci built a convenient shop for him, where he worked with two of his sons. A large china dog at the door was so natural, that the dogs often barked at it and challenged it to fight.
Meanwhile, a terrible storm was gathering over the heads of the Huguenots. Civil war broke out between the Catholics and Protestants. Old men were burnt for quoting Scripture, and young girls stabbed for singing psalms. But worldly prosperity and the flattery of the great could not tempt Palissy to renounce or conceal his faith. He pursued his artistic labors, though he says, “For two months I was greatly terrified, hearing nothing every day but reports of horrible murders.” He would have fallen among the first victims, had it not been for written protections from powerful nobles, who wanted ornamental work done which no other man could do. The horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew occurred when he was sixty-three years old, but he escaped by aid of his powerful patrons. The officers appointed to hunt out Huguenots longed to arrest him, but did not dare to do it in the daytime. At last they came tramping about his house at midnight, and carried him off to a prison in Bordeaux. The judges would gladly have put him to death, but their proceedings were stopped by orders from the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medicis. Montmorenci, Montpensier, and other influential Catholic nobles, who had works uncompleted, and who doubtless felt kindly toward the old artist, interceded with her, and she protected him; not because he was a good man, but because the art he practised was unique and valuable. The enamelled Italian cup, which had troubled so many years of his life, proved the cause of its being saved.
The last ten years of Palissy’s mortal existence were spent in Paris. He had an establishment in the grounds of the Tuileries, where he manufactured vases, cups, plates, and curious garden-basins and baskets, ornamented with figures in relief. His high reputation drew toward him many men of taste and learning, who, knowing his interest in all the productions of Nature, presented him with many curious specimens of shells, minerals, fossils, &c. He formed these into a Museum, where scholars met to discuss the laws and operations of Nature. This is said to have been the first society established in Paris for the pure advancement of science. When he was sixty-six years old, he began a course of public lectures, which he continued to deliver annually for ten years. These were the first lectures on Natural History ever delivered in Paris. The best men of the Capital went there to discuss with him, and to hear him state, in his simple, earnest fashion, the variety of curious things he had observed in travels by mountain and seashore, through field and forest, and in his experiments on glass and china. Some pedants were disposed to undervalue his teachings, because he had never learned Greek or Latin. Undisturbed by this, he cordially invited them to come and disprove his statements if they could, saying: “I want to ascertain whether the Latins know more upon these subjects than I do. I am indeed a simple artisan, poorly enough trained in letters; but the things themselves have not less value than if they were uttered by a man more eloquent. I had rather speak truth in my rustic tongue, than lie in rhetoric.”
He published several books on Agriculture, Volcanoes, the Formation of Rocks, the Laws of Water, &c. His last book was written when he was seventy-one years old. Scientific knowledge was then in its infancy, but adequate judges consider his ideas far in advance of his time. A modern French scholar calls him, “So great a naturalist as only Nature could produce.” There is a refreshing simplicity about his style of writing, and his communications with the world were obviously not the result of vanity, but of general benevolence and religious reverence. He felt that all he had was from God, and that it was a duty to impart it freely. He says: “I had employed much time in the study of earths, stones, waters, and metals; and old age pressed me to multiply the talents God had given me. For that reason, I thought it would be good to bring to the light those excellent secrets, in order to bequeath them to posterity.”
He continued vigorous in mind and body, and was remarked for acuteness and ready wit. He abstained from theological discussions in his teachings, but made no secret of the fact that his opinions remained unchanged. Amid the frivolity, dissipation, and horrid scenes of violence that were going on in Paris, he quietly busied himself making artistic designs, and imparting his knowledge of natural history; recreating himself frequently with the old pleasure of rambling in field and forest, taking loving observation of all God’s little creatures.
He was seventy-six years old, when the king, Henry III., issued a decree forbidding Protestants to exercise their worship, on pain of death, and banishing all who had previously practised it. Angry bigots clamored for the death of the brave old potter. The powerful patrons of his art again prevented his execution; but the tide was so strong against the Reformers, that he was sent to the Bastile. Two Huguenot girls were in prison with him, and they mutually sustained each other with prayer and psalms. The king, in his fashionable frills and curls, occasionally visited the prisons, and he naturally felt a great desire that the distinguished old Bernard Palissy should make a recantation of his faith. One day he said to him: “My good man, you have been forty-five years in the service of the queen, my mother, or in mine; and in the midst of all the executions and massacres, we have allowed you to live in your religion. But now I am so hardly pressed by the Guise party, and by my people, that I am compelled, in spite of myself, to order the execution of these two poor young women, and of yourself also, unless you recant.” “Sire,” replied the old man, “that is not spoken like a king. You have often said you pitied me; but now I pity you; because you have said, ‘I am compelled.’ These girls and I, who have our part in the kingdom of Heaven, will teach you to talk more royally. Neither the Guises, nor all your people, nor yourself, can compel the old potter to bow down to your images of clay. I can die.”
The two girls were burnt a few months afterward. Palissy remained in prison four years, and there he died at eighty years of age. The secrets of the Bastile were well kept, and we have no record of those years. We only know that, like John Bunyan, he wrote a good deal in prison. The thick, dark walls must have been dismal to one who
so loved the free air, and who valued
trees and shrubs “beyond silver
and gold.” But the martyr was
not alone. He had with him
the God whom he trusted,
and the memories of
an honest, useful,
and religious
life.
