“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”

Eccles. ix. 10.

For a considerable time after he had settled at Saintes, Palissy went on surveying, painting, and designing, working industriously, and earning a competent, though slender, income for the support of his household—an increasing one—for he had now another baby to kiss, as well as a child upon his arms. Conscious of his own strength, and dissatisfied with labour which produced only food, he naturally felt eager to accomplish something better than he had yet done.

There is often a long period, during which a man of genius is occupied in gathering together materials, unconscious what use they shall eventually serve; but the turning-point of his history comes, and suddenly, perhaps through a passing and merely accidental circumstance, he receives an impetus which directs him on to the fulfilment of his career. It was thus in the case of Palissy. Some two years after the events related in the preceding chapter, Bernard had received a little commission from one of the great seigneurs who lived in the neighbourhood of Saintes. He was a man of much taste in the fine arts, and had in his possession some choice specimens of ancient Moorish pottery. After showing these to Palissy (who had come to the chÂteau for directions), the nobleman, going to the cabinet from which they had been taken, drew out an earthen cup, turned and enamelled with so much beauty, that, at the sight of it, our artist was struck dumb with admiration. He knew nothing of pottery, he had no knowledge of clays, and he was aware of the fact that there was no man in all France who could make enamels.

This last thought acted, perchance, as a stimulus to his ambition. However that might be, the idea instantly took possession of his mind that he would make enamels. They could be made, for here was a specimen. To be the only man in the land who could produce these beautiful vases would be not only to secure an abundant supply for the wants of his family, but it would be a triumph of art—a riddle of deep interest to solve, and an occupation after his heart.

That evening he called his wife to him, and told her what he had seen, and how his heart was set upon learning to make enamels. The poor woman saw by his beaming countenance that he was pleased; she knew that he loved her and their children, and she said not a word to discourage him, although he plainly told her, with that truthfulness which was as the very breath of his nostrils, that his first experiments must be made at great cost. “There will be the loss of my time from my wonted occupation; besides that, I must purchase drugs and make me furnaces, and all, at first, a clear outlay, without fruit. I shall have many drawbacks, and it may be a weary while before I master this art. I shall be as a man that gropes his way in the dark, for I have no knowledge of clays, nor have I ever seen earth baked, nor do I know of what materials enamels are composed.” His wife urged that he had better rest content with diligence in his own calling, and on her pale face came a blush of pleasure and pride as she looked up at him, who was already, in her esteem, a perfect artist. But he heeded not her words, save that he tenderly bade her be of good cheer. Poverty and pain would have mattered little to him personally; and had he been free from household cares, he would, in all likelihood, have wandered forth among the potters, and learned all that could be gathered of their work from them. But he was bound to home and its cares and duties, and so, alone, unaided, and without sympathy, must he work. Nothing daunted, however, by these drawbacks, his resolve was taken—to complete his invention, or perish in the attempt.

Palissy devoutly opened the sacred volume

Before retiring to rest that night, Palissy, as his custom was, devoutly opened the sacred volume; and turning to the thirty-fifth chapter of Exodus, he read how God called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, and filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, and to devise curious works, in gold, in silver, in brass, and in cutting of stones, and in carving of wood, in all manner of cunning work. “Then I reflected,” said he, “that God had gifted me with some knowledge of drawing, and I took courage in my heart, and besought him to give me wisdom and skill.”

Palissy lost no time in setting to work. He began by making a furnace which he thought most likely to suit his purpose, and having bought a quantity of earthen pots, and broken them into fragments, he covered these with various chemical compounds which he had pounded and ground, and which he proposed to melt at furnace heat. His hope was, that of all these mixtures, some one or other might run over the pottery in such a way as to afford him at least a hint towards the composition of white enamel, which he had been told was the basis of all others. Alas! his first experiment was but the beginning of an endless series of disappointments and losses, while, for many long months and years he wrought with fruitless labor. But we must not anticipate. Happily the ardent spirit of our artist suffered him not easily to succumb under difficulties; nay, it even seemed to gather new energy from the struggle, as, with all the fire of love and all the strength of will, he, every day, renewed his experiments, and blundered on with cheerful hope. It has well been said, “Ideas become passions in the breasts of poets and artists.”

Many months have now passed in this way; and the little family gathering around Palissy’s humble hearth begin to show symptoms that all is not so flourishing as when we first saw them. Lisette looks thin and worn, and there is a shadow upon her brow. As she goes down the garden walk to call her husband to his mid-day meal, you see her garments are poor and scanty, and she has no longer the trim look of conscious comeliness about her. By her side, and clinging to her gown, is a delicate creature, whose pale face tells a sorrowful tale of childish suffering, and the infant she is carrying looks sallow and feeble. The furnace and shed where Palissy is at work are built at the end of the garden, as far as possible from the house. Close by, is the road, and beyond it the fields and waste lands; there was no sheltering wall or enclosure near, and when the storm and winds of winter blew, nothing could be more bleak and comfortless. Palissy has drawn a doleful picture of this scene of his labors. “I was every night,” he says, “at the mercy of the rains and winds, without help or companionship, except from the owls that screeched on one side, and the dogs that howled upon the other; and oftentimes I had nothing dry upon me, because of the rains that fell.” At the present time, however, it is looking cozy and picturesque, for the season is spring, and a bright sun is shining overhead. There is a glad sound, too, proceeding from the shed, over which its owner has trained a cluster-rose, whose tendrils have interwoven themselves among the reeds, and are putting forth their blossoms. It is the voice of Palissy, chanting in clear sonorous tones, the Psalm which Luther loved so well, and which we sing in the tuneful strains of our unequalled psalmodist—

“God is the refuge of his saints,
When storms of sharp distress invade.”

And the little Nicole, who is busily occupied in mimic pottery-work at the door of the shed, chimes in with his small voice, and beats the time with his wooden spade. Lisette’s face brightened as she listened, and with cheerful tones, she summoned Bernard indoors, and bade the little boy lead his sister back.

Notwithstanding Palissy’s psalmody and the cheerful face he wore, matters were far from satisfactory at this peculiar juncture. In fact, he had just undergone a heavy disappointment, and was secretly making up his mind to a step which it cost him a grievous heartache to have recourse to. Seeing that all his experiments with his own furnace had proved failures, he determined to adopt a new scheme, and send the compositions to be tested in the kiln of some potter. For this purpose he bought a large stock of crockery, which according to custom, he broke into small fragments; three or four hundreds of which he covered with various mixtures, and sent to a pottery some league and a half off, requesting the workmen to bake this strange batch with their own vessels. They consented readily to let the amateur potter try his experiments; but alas! when the operation was complete, and the trial pieces were drawn out, they proved absolutely worthless. Not the smallest appearance of the longed-for enamel was to be seen on any of them. The cause of the failure was a secret, at the time, to the grievously disappointed Bernard, and he returned home heavily discouraged, for he knew that his wife and children were deprived of many comforts they might have enjoyed, had he continued steadily at his occupation of glass-working and surveying. What was to be done? “Begin afresh.” And so, again he fell to work, compounding and grinding, and sending more batches to the same potters to be baked as before. This he had continued to do time after time, “with great cost, loss of time, confusion, and sorrow.”

. . the trial pieces were . . absolutely worthless

At length a more than usually trying failure had occurred, and many things combined to warn our artist that he must desist for a season and procure some remunerative work. His home resources were completely exhausted; while the home wants had greatly multiplied, and he could not be blind to the sorrowful looks of the woman he loved, nor indifferent to the necessities of his babes.

Three years had been spent about this work, and, for the present, he was no wiser than when he began, and he resolved now to try his hand at the old trades. His poor wife urged that food and medicine must be thought of, and she lowered her voice as she added that the doctor had yet to be paid for her confinement, and for physicking their lost darling, whom he said he would soon cure, notwithstanding, she pined and languished like a frost-nipped flower, that fades away and dies. Poor mother! the tears trickled down her cheeks at the thought; and for all there were still three hungry little mouths to feed, she could not be reconciled to the loss of one of her treasures. But Palissy would not let her dwell upon this sorrow; he wiped away the tears, and smilingly said, he had good news for her. Yesterday, there had arrived in the town the commissioners deputed by the king to establish the salt-tax in the district of Saintonge; and it seems they had judged no man in the diocese more competent than Bernard Palissy for the task of mapping the islands and the countries surrounding all the salt marshes in that part of the world. It was a profitable job, and would occupy him many months.

This was, indeed, glad tidings for Lisette; and that night she slept sweetly, and dreamed of her girlhood; for when the heart is happy it suns itself in the memories of early days. Her husband’s rest was broken and perturbed, for it pained him deeply to give up the struggle which had cost him so much, before he had justified his pertinacious efforts by success.Perhaps it was in reality advantageous to him, and tended to his eventual success, that he was thus perforce constrained to taste an interval of repose. When a man has been repeatedly foiled it is well to cease from effort awhile, and to dismiss, if possible, the subject which has occupied his thoughts too long and too unremittingly.

Revolving in his mind such considerations, Palissy determined wholly to cease from his labours in pursuit of the discovery on which his heart was set, and “to comport himself as if he were not desirous to dive any more into the secrets of enamels.”